Some of the people Jesus healed were suffering from spiritual afflictions. During one of his visits to Jerusalem, Jesus went by a pool of water where miraculous healings were taking place. The Apostle John said of this incident:

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. And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years. When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wilt Thou be made whole?

The Greek word Jesus used that is translated whole, hugies (hoog – ee – ace’) means healthy (5199). The base of this word indicates growth or enlargement (837). The way that we know that Jesus was dealing with this man’s spiritual condition rather than his physical condition is the command he gave him after he was healed. Jesus said to the man, “Behold thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.

The Hebrew term for whole, raphah (raw – faw’) means to mend(7495). Raphah is used figuratively to refer to someone being cured and is also translated as heal and physician in association with spiritual sicknesses identified in the Mosaic Law (Leviticus 13 -14). Raphah as a primitive root word means to slacken and is translated in various passages in the Old Testament as feeble, fail, weaken, and faint (7503). In Job 5:17-18 it says, “Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty: for he maketh sore, and bindeth up: he woundeth, and his hands make whole.” Psalm 119 uses the phrase “whole heart” several times in reference to a believers relationship with God and a healthy desire for his word. This might suggest that the healing that took place when Jesus made the man at the pool of Bethesda whole was a healing of his heart. Jesus made the man’s heart whole again.

One of the illustration’s the prophet Jeremiah used to convey the unrepentant attitude of God’s people was an earthen bottle or jar made of clay that was broken because of it’s hardened state. God told Jeremiah, “Then shalt thou break the bottle in the sight of the men that go with thee. And shalt say unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; even so will I break this people and this city, as one breaketh a potter’s vessel, that cannot be made whole again” (Jeremiah 19:10-11). It is possible that the man Jesus found lying by the pool called Bethesda was suffering from a broken heart that had caused him to become so weak that he was no longer able to get out of bed. Today we might say the man was suffering from depression or some other type of mental and/or emotional illness. When Jesus asked the man if he wanted to be made whole (John 5:6), he was essentially saying, Are you ready to let go and begin to live your life again? Perhaps, what this man really needed to do was forgive himself for some mistake he had made that had brought about the tragedy that happened to him 38 years earlier. When Jesus commanded the man, “Rise, take up thy bed and walk” (John 5:7). It says in John 5:9, “immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked.”