John 5:15

The man did not seem to have wanted to glorify Jesus by telling the authorities about Him. He knew that they wanted to find Jesus because they considered Him a lawbreaker. Clearly the ungrateful man wanted to save his own skin by implicating Jesus. He did not appreciate Jesus’ warning (John 5:14). It is possible that the man was simply stupid. However the evidence seems to point more convincingly to a hard heart rather than to a hard head.

"The lame man is an example of someone who responded inappropriately to Jesus’ signs. . . . Thus he ’represents those whom even the signs cannot lead to authentic faith.’" [Note: Howard, p. 72. His quotation is from R. Alan Culpepper, Anatomy of the Four Gospel: A Study in Literary Design, p. 138.]