Post by Lee on Apr 13, 2014 16:06:48 GMT
The Angel at the Pool of Bethesda
A.Q.—Jno. 5:2–4: “Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in, was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.” Do you think it was really an angel that did this or was it the people that thought so, on account of the healing qualities of the water? There is no reason for doubting the testimony that it was an angel. John wrote under the guidance of the promised Spirit which Jesus said would guide the apostles into all truth. It is not, therefore, to be supposed that he would have been allowed to confound a popular superstition with a matter of fact. There was nothing more wonderful in an angel visiting and disturbing the waters of Bethesda than there was in angels appearing to the shepherds on the plain of Bethlehem, or to the women at the sepulchre of Jesus. It was altogether an age of divine manifestation, which we hope shortly to see resumed and eclipsed by the “greater things” to be witnessed in the day of Christ on earth, when “the angels of God shall be seen ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”—(Jno. 1:51.)
1875 Christadelphian p 518
A.Q.—Jno. 5:2–4: “Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in, was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.” Do you think it was really an angel that did this or was it the people that thought so, on account of the healing qualities of the water? There is no reason for doubting the testimony that it was an angel. John wrote under the guidance of the promised Spirit which Jesus said would guide the apostles into all truth. It is not, therefore, to be supposed that he would have been allowed to confound a popular superstition with a matter of fact. There was nothing more wonderful in an angel visiting and disturbing the waters of Bethesda than there was in angels appearing to the shepherds on the plain of Bethlehem, or to the women at the sepulchre of Jesus. It was altogether an age of divine manifestation, which we hope shortly to see resumed and eclipsed by the “greater things” to be witnessed in the day of Christ on earth, when “the angels of God shall be seen ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”—(Jno. 1:51.)
1875 Christadelphian p 518