What did our Lord mean by the phrase, ‘that nothing worse may happen to you’ (John 5:14)?
Your question is based on John 5:14, where our Lord says to the man whom he had recently healed, 'See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.' What did our Lord mean by the phrase, 'that nothing worse may happen to you'? Worse than what?
If we take it in its context, I submit to you that it can only mean, worse than the thing from which he had been suffering all those thirty-eight years. He had been suffering from a physical disease and that is why he was lying at the pool of Bethesda. Our Lord had healed him from that physical disease, but warned him that he should no longer continue to sin so that nothing worse may happen to him—that is, a worse illness than the illness that he had suffered hitherto. It may well be that his first illness had been brought on by sin of some kind. While he was delivered from the consequences, he must be careful lest he repeats the sin and finds himself back in worse trouble.
