What Does John 5:14 Mean?
Afterward Jesus found him in the temple, and said to him, Look, you have become whole. Stop missing the mark, lest something worse come to you.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple, and said unto him, Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.THE KEY
The healing is real, and so is the warning: being made whole does not make a return to what harms you harmless.
THE MEANING
You are addressed in a moment of restored wholeness: the healing is real, and the warning is also real. Continuing in the missing can bring something worse.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that once you are made whole, nothing worse can happen to you again.
THE ROOT
ἁμάρτανε
hamartane
GROWS FROM
ἁμαρτ-
hamart-
To miss or err.
“stop missing the mark” in this verse is hamartane. The Greek verb names a miss that can continue, rather than only a fixed label. The warning speaks to the consequence of continuing in that miss.
ALSO GROWS
hamartia: Missing, error
ἁμαρτία
The related noun shows that the warning and the broader idea of missing grow from the same word family.
hamartēma: A wrong act or error
ἁμάρτημα
This related noun makes the word family concrete in particular acts of missing.
ὑγιὴς
hygiēs
GROWS FROM
ὑγι-
hygi-
Sound, healthy.
“have become whole” in this verse is hygiēs. The word rendered “whole” names sound health. The verse holds that restored health and the warning about what may follow can both be true.
ALSO GROWS
hygianō: To be healthy or sound
ὑγιαίνω
The related verb shows the same language of health in a continuing state.
hygieia: Health
ὑγίεια
This noun names the condition that the word for “whole” points toward.
THE PATTERN
Restoration and escape are real, yet returning to what harms can deepen the harm.
Therefore I will judge you, house of Israel, each according to his ways, says the Lord LORD. Turn, and turn yourselves from all your rebellions; so crookedness shall not be your stumbling block.She said, No one, Lord. And Jesus said to her, Neither do I judge against you. Go, and miss the mark no more.For if they flee the stains of the world through the full knowing of the Lord and Deliverer, Jesus the Anointed One, and are again entwined in them and overcome, their last is worse than their first.THE THREAD
Who himself carried our shortcomings in his own body on the tree, that we, dead to shortcomings, might live to alignment; and by his bruises you were healed.John’s verb ἁμαρτάνω (hamartanō, “to miss”) and Peter’s noun ἁμαρτία (hamartia, “missing”) belong to the same Greek word family. Peter places that missing beside healing, opening John’s warning as a question of what a restored life no longer returns to.
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