John 04(43–54)

Introduction

Today’s passage begins with John telling us that after two days in Sychar, a Samaritan town, the Lord left for Galilee. And when he arrived in Galilee, the people welcomed him. Do you see that in verse 45? And they welcomed him because they’d seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast.

What had he done in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast? For a start, he cleared the temple. But John also told us at the end of chapter 2 that while the Lord was in Jerusalem, he performed many miraculous signs. John didn’t give us any details about those miracles; he simply stated that the Lord performed them when he was there. And now he’s telling us that many Galileans had been in Jerusalem for the Passover Feast and they saw the miracles the Lord performed. And so, when he turned up in Galilee, they were pleased to see him. Perhaps he’ll perform some more miracles for them?

I skipped over verse 44, where John says as an aside that the Lord had pointed out that a prophet has no honour in his own country. It’s not altogether clear why John has included this saying of the Lord Jesus here. But if we agree that the Lord’s home country is Judea, because he was born in Bethlehem of Judea, then John might be saying that the reason the Lord left Judea and came to Galilee is because the people in Judea did not honour him.

That makes some sense, except that, while the Lord was born in Bethlehem, he grew up in Nazareth and was known as a Nazarene. And Nazareth is in Galilee. And the people of Galilee did honour him, because they welcomed him.

So, it’s hard to make sense of verse 44. It could be that the Lord’s saying simply means that a prophet must always be on the move. A prophet can’t settle down anywhere, because wherever he settles, the people will soon want rid of him. And so, a prophet — any prophet — must keep moving. And since the Lord is a kind of prophet, then he must keep moving too. And that’s why he moved from Judea to Galilee.

In any case, the Lord has finally arrived back in Galilee. And the Galileans, who had seen his miracles in Jerusalem, welcomed him. They were glad to see him.

What the Lord did

Let’s now think about what the Lord did when he arrived in Galilee.

We read in verse 46 that he went to the town of Cana, where he had turned the water into wine. And while he was there, this royal official turned up to see him. Calling him a royal official doesn’t mean that the man himself was royalty. He’s wasn’t a king or a prince or anything like that. It means he was an official who worked for royalty. He was one of the king’s servants. He may have been a servant of the Roman Emperor or a servant of Herod Antipas, who governed Galilee on behalf of the Roman Emperor and was regarded as a kind of king.

And this royal official lived in Capernaum, which was about 25 miles away from Cana. And it was uphill all the way. So, the fact that the royal official was prepared to travel all that distance, all uphill, to see the Lord Jesus shows us just how desperate he was. And he was desperate to see the Lord Jesus because his son was sick. Do you see that in verse 46? And according to verse 47, he went to the Lord and begged him to come and heal his son. And John adds for us at the end of verse 47 that the boy was close to death. So, he wasn’t just sick. He was dying. No wonder the boy’s father was prepared to travel so far to see the Lord Jesus. No doubt he had heard stories of the things the Lord has done and he’s hoping that what the Lord did for others, he will do for him and his son.

We’ll skip over verse 48 for now, and move to verse 49 where John quotes the man’s own words. He said to the Lord: ‘Sir, come down before my child dies.’ The Greek word translated ‘Sir’ can also be translated ‘Lord’. The word can be used as a term of respect. So, it can be translated ‘Sir’. There’s nothing wrong with that. But the man’s words are truer than he knows, because the person he’s addressing — the person to whom he makes his appeal for help, the person to whom he makes his appeal for mercy — is the Lord God Almighty who has come down from heaven as one of us. And the Lord God Almighty appeared before this man, who is asking for his help.

And what does the Lord do? He commands the man to go home and he declares that his son will live. More literally, the Lord says that ‘he lives’. So, before the man came to the Lord Jesus, the boy was dying. But the boy is no longer dying. He’s now living.

And John tells us that the man took the Lord at his word and left. And while he was still on his way home, travelling those 25 miles downhill, his servants met him and told him the news that his boy, who had been dying, is now living.

And the man wanted to know what time did his son’s condition improve. John doesn’t reveal until the next verse why this mattered to him, but when we get to the next verse we discover that the time the servants gave was the exact time the Lord had said ‘Your son lives’. And so, the moment the Lord declared that his son lives was the moment his condition improved.

And the passage ends with John telling us that this was the Lord’s second miraculous sign, having come from Judea to Galilee. That is to say, changing water into wine was the first in Cana; and this was the second.

Significance of what he did

As we begin to think about the significance of what the Lord did, let’s begin by remembering who he is.

Who is he? As we’ve been learning in previous weeks from John, he’s the Eternal Son of God the Father, sent by the Father into the world as one of us. So, he is God in the flesh.

And since he’s God, then everything we read about God in the Old Testament applies to him. And therefore he’s gracious and merciful and slow to anger and he’s abounding in steadfast love and he doesn’t treat us as our sins deserve. That’s who he is. And that’s what he’s like. Like God the Father, and like God the Holy Spirit, he is God and he is gracious and merciful and abounding — overflowing — with love. And we see his abounding love in today’s passage and in his willingness to help this royal official and his son.

And God the Son came into the world as one of us to be the Christ. That is, he came to be our Spirit-Anointed and Conquering Saviour–King.

As the Christ, he received the Holy Spirit without measure to enable him to be and to do all things necessary to save us from our sin and misery in this world. And so, when he saw the royal official’s misery, our Spirit-Anointed and Conquering Saviour–King issued his word of command. And by his word of command, he conquered this boy’s illness and he restored him to full health and strength. And in this way, he took away the man’s misery, the misery which we all know and which we all suffer in different ways, because we live in a fallen, sinful world.

And the Lord Jesus did this for this man as a sign of what he will do for all his people when he comes again. At that time, he will come down from heaven as our Conquering King. And he will come with a loud command and with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet call of God to raise the dead. All those who did not believe in him in this life will be raised from the dead to be condemned and punished away from the presence of God for all that they have done wrong. But all those who believed in him in this life will be raised from the dead to live with the Lord for ever and for ever in the new and better world to come, where we’ll be perfectly holy and happy for ever. And as a sign of how his people will one day be raised from the dead to live for ever, the Lord gave the command and he raised this boy from his sick bed and restored him to health and strength.

At the beginning of the gospel, John said about the Lord Jesus that, as the divine Word, he has life in himself. He has life in himself and he gives us our life in this world. And not only does he give us our life in this world, but he gives his people eternal life in the world to come, so that though we die, and our bodies are buried in the ground, nevertheless our souls will go to be with the Lord to await the resurrection of our bodies. And so, we will live with the Lord in body and soul for ever.

The Lord Jesus Christ, the divine Word, has life in himself. And he gives eternal life to his people. And we receive that life from him through faith. And that takes me to my next point which is about faith.

Faith

Let’s turn first to verse 48. John has introduced us to the royal official and he’s told us that the official has come to the Lord to beg him to heal his son, who was close to death. And in verse 48, the Lord said: ‘Unless you people see miraculous signs and wonders … you will never believe.’

Notice that he’s not addressing the royal official in particular. He’s addressing ‘you people’. There may have been a crowd of people standing around the Lord at the time. And the Lord is referring to them as a whole. So: ‘Unless you people standing here see miraculous signs and wonders … you will never believe’. Or perhaps he’s referring to humans in general. He’s saying that all of us are the same in that unless we see signs and wonders, we’ll never believe.

Many of the commentators think that the Lord is rebuking us for being like this. And I’ve been listening to a few sermons on this passage too and most of the preachers I’ve heard have taken the Lord’s words in the same way. Many of the commentators and preachers say that the Lord is rebuking us for wanting to see signs and wonders. He’s criticising us.

The problem with interpreting the Lord’s words in that way is that the Lord was quite willing to do lots and lots of miracles while he was here on the earth. He wasn’t reluctant to do them. I’ve already reminded you of the time he was in Jerusalem and John told us that he did many miracles there for the people to see. And through his gospel, John records some of the miracles the Lord did at various times. So, there’s the time when the Lord turned water into wine. There’s this time when he healed the royal official’s son. There’s the time when he healed the lame man at the pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem. There’s the time when he fed the five thousand with only a few loaves and fish. There’s the time he walked on water. There’s the time he healed the man born blind. There’s the time he brought Lazarus back from the dead.

So, the Lord did all of these things. And near the end of the gospel, John tells us that the Lord did even more miracles than these. And then, right at the end, John says that the Lord did so many things while he was on the earth, that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written if they were all recorded.

So, the Lord was willing to perform all kinds of signs and wonders while he was on the earth. He did them because he knew that they would prove to people that he really is the Christ who had been sent into the world by God. The miracles were signs to confirm who he really is.

And so, I don’t think we’re to take it that the Lord is rebuking anyone in verse 48. I think he’s simply stating a fact. This is the way we are: we want to see before we’ll believe. Think of Thomas. We call him Doubting Thomas, because he said he would not believe in the Lord’s resurrection unless he first saw the nail marks in his hand. And we criticise him for not believing sooner. However, we forget that the Lord had appeared to the other disciples first. The other disciples saw the Lord. They saw that he was alive. And therefore they believed. Before they saw him alive, they did not believe. After they saw him, they believed. They were just like Thomas.

And that’s the way we all are: we like to see things with our own eyes before we believe. Someone reads us a story from a paper or from the internet which surprises us. And what do we do? We jump up and we read it for ourselves. We can’t accept what we’ve heard. We have to see it and read it for ourselves. That’s the way that we are.

So, I don’t think the Lord is rebuking anyone in verse 48. He’s simply stating a fact. However, at the end of John’s gospel, John records for us the words of the Lord Jesus to Thomas. The Lord said to Thomas: ‘Because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’ So, generally we’re like Thomas. Generally we want to see something before we will believe. But blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

Are there such people? Are there people who believe without seeing? Yes, there are. There are the Samaritans we read about last week, who believed in the Lord without seeing any signs and wonders. John said that many of them believed because of the woman’s word; and many of them believed because of the Lord’s own word. They believed what they heard.

And then there’s the royal official from today’s passage. He came and begged the Lord to come down to Capernaum and heal his son. But instead of going down to Capernaum, the Lord simply spoke. He told the man to go home and he declared that his son will live. And John tells us in verse 50 that the man took Jesus at his word and departed. More literally, it says that he believed the word the Lord spoke. He believed what he heard. And when he got home, he found his son alive. And what happened afterwards? Take a look at the end of verse 53. John tells us that the man believed. Well, we already know that he believed. He believed the word the Lord spoke to him back in Cana. But John also tells us that his whole household believed. And when John refers to his household, he means his wife and his children and his servants. They all believed. How did they believe? Presumably the man told them what had happened and how he asked the Lord for help and the Lord declared that his son will live and his son recovered. They believed what they heard from him about the Saviour.

And you see, none of us have seen the miracles which the Lord performed. We haven’t seen him heal the sick or give sight to the blind or raise the dead or walk on water and so on. We haven’t seen him do those things.

So, how is it that any of us believe? Generally we have to see first before we believe. But none of us have seen these things. So, how come we believe? It’s because we’ve heard. We haven’t seen these things, but we have heard these things. And as the Apostle Paul tells us in Romans, faith comes by hearing. Faith comes by hearing the word of God. And that’s why we preach God’s word, so that people will hear and believe.

But hearing is not enough. Lots of people hear, but they don’t believe. So, what else is necessary before we can believe what we hear? Well, John has already made it clear. We need the Holy Spirit. We need the Holy Spirit to implant new life in us through the new birth so that we’re able to turn from our sins in repentance and turn to Christ for salvation, believing in him for forgiveness and for peace with God and for eternal life in God’s presence.

A gardener plants a seed in the ground and the seed begins to grow and it produces a shoot and leaves and fruit. And God the Holy Spirit plants new life in us which he gives us through the new birth. And then that new life begins to grow in us and it produces the faith we need to believe what we’ve heard about Christ the Saviour and to trust in him for eternal life.

Because of what John has already taught us about the Holy Spirit, we can say that between the first half of verse 50 — where the Lord said to the man, ‘You may go. Your son will live.’ — and the second half of the verse — where John says he believed — the Holy Spirit came to that man and enabled him to believe what he heard and to trust in the Lord, not only for his son’s life here on earth, but for eternal life in the world to come.

And if you’re a believer, then you should rejoice, because the Lord loved you so much that he enabled you to believe without seeing. He enabled you to believe by sending his Spirit into your life to make you new and to enable you to believe the good news about Jesus Christ the Saviour. So, rejoice in the greatness of his love for you, because he has overcome your natural unbelief and he has given you the faith you need to trust in Christ for salvation. Rejoice in his love for you and be amazed that he’s able to love you like this despite all your sins and shortcomings.

The cross

And finally and very briefly. Notice this one thing. Because God the Father loved this royal official, he sent his only begotten Son to Cana to rescue the man’s son from death. And that’s wonderful. And it’s a lovely thing for God to do for this one man. But consider this. Because God the Father loved the world so much, he sent his only begotten Son to the cross to die for sinners. The royal official’s son was spared, whereas our Heavenly Father’s Son was not spared. He was given over to death on the cross because the only way for us to receive eternal life in the presence of God was for God the Son to die for us. There was no other way. And God the Father was prepared to give up his Son for you; and the Son was prepared to give up his life for you. This is how great his love is for us: that he did not spare his Son but gave him up for us and for our salvation.