If it did heal, why would God use what appears to be a lottery system to work miracles?
2007-02-14 07:25:47 · 9 answers · asked by Calvin James Hammer 6 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
No cemya2 ... the pool did not heal ... and I can only assume that the lame man had some hope that it did. It is important to understand that the pools were for Roman worship and not associated with Judaism or worshiping God.
I have been to Israel with Biblical archaeologists and have visited the ruins of the pools of Bethesda. This story reported in verses 2-9 is that of Jesus' healing of a paralyzed man. According to the story, Jesus was passing by the Bethesda Pools when he encountered a man who had been paralyzed for 38 years. The man complained that he had no one to put him into the water after it had been "stirred." It is important to remember that it is a violation of the Jewish Law of ritual purity for a person to visit a pagan place, and the man's presence here would have been considered idolatry because the Bethesda Pools were located within a Roman temple dedicated to the god Serapis or Aesculapius, the god of healing. This temple was located just to the east of the Antonia Fortress, and so it probably functioned much like a contemporary military chapel for the soldiers stationed in Jerusalem. One of the daily rituals of a Serapis temple was as follows: In the early morning a priest of the cult would throw a snake into the pool of water located at the temple. (Throughout antiquity the snake was believed to have curative powers - ever notice the snakes entwined on our modern medical icon?) A tradition of the cult held that the first person to get into the water after the snake had been thrown in would be healed. The lame man whom Jesus met complained that he had no one to help him into the water, alluding to this custom. Jesus pronounced the man healed and told him to take his pallet and go home.
This explanation of course begs the question about the reference in verse 4 that it was an "angel of the Lord" who stirred the waters. Though the verse is striking, it is not found in the best manuscripts and its wording in Greek is unlike any of the rest of the Gospel of John. Therefore, it was probably not originally part of this Gospel.
2007-02-17 17:37:25 · answer #1 · answered by Capernaum12 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
You have the reference, read it! The pool itself did not heal, God used the pool as a tool for healing.
John 5:4 From time to time an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters. The first one into the pool after each such disturbance would be cured of whatever disease he had.
2007-02-14 07:30:29 · answer #2 · answered by cnm 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
No. It had no healing powers. It stemmed from the water not being calm one day and someone said that God's Angels were in the water and told others that it had healing powers.
You have to go through and read all that is referenced to that healing spring. The passage is just telling what others thought or said about the water.
It speaks of the legend behind the spring.
2007-02-14 07:35:55 · answer #3 · answered by Christian93 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Geologists have also confirmed that the pool in question, was in fact a geothermal pool, a hot spring, that contained certain healing properties known to cure most medical conditions of the time.
2007-02-14 07:35:57 · answer #4 · answered by Timothy J 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Says the angel came stirred the waters for healing. The cripple was healed and told to pick up his mat and walk & to sin no more.
An example for future Christions.
2007-02-14 07:36:18 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
It got adopted by a game company out of Canada that made awesome games such as Elder Scrolls and Fallout.
2016-05-23 23:10:45 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Dear Cemya:
My background is Christian Spirituality. I shall answer this as I learned it. . .
Nothing has ever existed in Absolute Reality but Spirit-Mind. So, God's Realm - wherein His Full Power is "coursing" thru His Beloved Created Beings - contains the Power of Pure Thought. Mind to Mind. Thought to Thought. God's Power is Thought coupled with His Will.
The Holy Spirit, as I was taught, resides within our Spirit-Mind - yet, is aware of all thoughts of the human Intellect or consciousness. No Thought is judged. As in the Kingdom, thoughts are simply ordered as higher or lower. But, the Holy Spirit is a "Corrective Agent." He needed one amongst us as a physical vehicle to speak His Inspired words . He needed one amongst us as a vehicle who could be "seen" in the physical - that His Words could be demonstrated to us. Jesus, answered the Call of the Holy Spirit. We can "see" him with our eyes and "hear" him with our ears. This physical Teacher was necessary.
The lame man at the Pool of Bethesda was lame due to the tyranny of his own mind - which can, and does often, punishing things to the body. In the deepest workings of Mind lie guilts. Distresses of the body are linked to those deepest innermost thoughts. We are God-like, yet NOT Him. Our thoughts have His Power flowing thru us. Our thoughts have Will (that which is His Power). That Will can, and is often, used wrongly by man. It is used most often unwittingly. Our true purposes are not always known - on our conscious level.
The Anointing of Jesus is the Holy Spirit operating within him - in full Magnitude. Jesus brings thru the Power and Might of The Voice for God (the Holy Spirit). But, this Higher Reality always operates within the context of Truth - and that can never, never be anything other than Thought traveling thru Mind. Mind to Mind.
When Jesus looks into human eyes he looks thru them - and past them - to the known source of the injustice ; the Mind that has thought the injustice of illness. He looks not upon any particular ailment. They are all the same to him. His Holy Spirit knows all ailment as one injustice to the Holy Son(s) of God, and seeks to correct it at its source - the Mind. Jesus stands before the ailing. He cares not the length nor depth of the wound. His Mind speaks to the Mind of the ailing on it's conscious level. Through the Intellect we sense and feel his Anointing. He reminds us of Who We Are. He reminds us of our inherent Power. The Holy Spirit speaks the same into the Spirit-Mind behind the Intellect. Through this joint Will - the Mind of man knows his Reality. God never Created sickness. It is unknown in His Kingdom. The Mind is released from the focus it has had -that which is not Truly a part of the holy Son of God.
We are simply brought back to our Truth. Such is the Power of God and the Law of His Kingdom.
I must address the "lottery" system in the use of Miracles :
What appears as unexplainable in the success ratio of "healings" is actually the "unknown" denominator : One heals, another does not. The cause is only known by the Holy Spirit and Jesus who are working with the deepest workings of Spirit-Mind and human Intellect. The correct denominator seems obscure to the ill who have asked for healing, yet not received such. It is this : It takes a Perfect Alignment of Soul and Intellect with the Thoughts of the Holy Spirit and Jesus. It takes Perfect Willing-ness inside the ill one. Any fear, any obscure feelings or thoughts within can prevent Perfect Alignment. Many fears attend illness. The seemly power of illness is difficult to push away. Some Minds align in healing with Jesus and the Holy Spirit perfectly. Others, try for years before achieving it ; others, are never healed. Fear takes many forms in Thought regarding illnesses that we are told are "deadly," by other humans, or simply incurable. The Spirit within and the Intellect must join with Truth in Perfect Alignment - without reservation - to achieve the dynamics of miraculous healing. When this occurs, we stand in awe.
Sincerely, Lana
2007-02-17 05:01:39 · answer #7 · answered by Lana S (1) 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
What difference did it make, as long as it made him feel good?
2007-02-14 07:29:43 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
,Wow. Do you not believe in advanced mental telepathy, telekinesis, and psycho-somatics?
2007-02-14 07:30:12 · answer #9 · answered by MrsOcultyThomas 6 · 0⤊ 3⤋