John 4.46-54.
While Jesus and his students were staying in Cana (where
John 4.46 KWL - 46 Jesus goes again to Cana of Galilee,
- where he made the water wine.
- A certain royal is there,
- whose son in Capharnaum is sick.
John calls him a
Both John Wycliffe and the Geneva Bible translated vasilikós as “little king.” But for some reason the King James translated it “nobleman,” and that concept has kinda stuck in translators’ heads ever since. You get “royal official” (Amplified,
Regardless, he was a big deal—and word leaked to him Jesus might be the sort of person who could do miracles. And when you’re desperate, you’ll jump all over that sort of rumor. So this royal saddled up, rode 30 kilometers across the province, and called upon some obscure Nazarene rabbi.
John 4.47 KWL - Once this royal heard
- Jesus comes from Judea to the Galilee,
- he goes to Jesus
- and asks whether Jesus might come down
- and cure his son,
- for he’s about to die.
Could Jesus cure the son? He hadn’t cured anyone yet.
Note the royal didn’t order Jesus to Capharnaum to cure his son. ’Cause this royal knew his bible. You don’t order men of God to do stuff. You should be aware they might call fire down upon you.
2 Kings 1.9-12 KWL - 9 King Akhazyá sends Elijah a captain and his unit of 50.
- The captain goes to Elijah.
- Look, Elijah sits on top of a hill.
- The captain tells him, “Man of God!
- The king said come down!”
- 10 In reply Elijah tells the captain of 50,
- “If I am a man of God,
- fire from the heavens will come down
- and devour you and your 50.”
- And fire comes down from the heavens,
- and devours him and his 50.
- 11 Again King Akhazyá sends Elijah another captain and his unit of 50.
- In reply the captain tells Elijah, “Man of God!
- The king now says come down quickly!
- 12 In reply Elijah tells him,
- “If I am a man of God,
- fire from the heavens will come down
- and devour you and your fifty.”
- And God’s fire from heaven comes down,
- and devours him and his 50.
Jesus absolutely has more patience than Elijah, and is not at all a fan of calling down fire upon people.
Nevertheless this royal knew better: You don’t approach men of God with arrogance, pride, and the presumption they oughta obey their betters. You ask for their help. Politely.
Besides, the royal didn’t know whether Jesus could. The only miracles Jesus had performed thus far in John as the water-to-wine thingy, and his prophecies—which totally count, although for some odd reason most folks don’t associate prophecy with miracles. Hey, if God empowers it, it’s a miracle.
So that’s not a lot to go on. But if God empowers a person with something so frivolous-sounding as providing wine for a wedding, why can’t he empower that person to cure some important guy’s son? It’s not flimsy reasoning.
It feels like flimsy reasoning to some Christians, who speculate Jesus had to have done more miracles than the water-to-wine and the prophecy. Maybe some of the other miracles in the other gospels, like
John 4.54 KWL - This again is the second wonder Jesus does
- as he comes out of Judea to the Galilee.
…the first wonder being the water-to-wine event.
But what various Christians do is take the statement “[as] he comes out of Judea to the Galilee,” and insist it means it’s only the second miracle he did in the Galilee—but Jesus did other miracles, not recorded, down south in Judea.
And yeah, maybe there were other tales… but if so, they were pure fictional gossip. John is relating what actually did happen, and John says nothing else did.
But y’know, if you’re desperate, you’re not really gonna care how many stories there are, and whether they’ve all been properly vetted. You’re gonna go to Jesus and ask whether he can help. If he can, awesome! If not, move on to the next rumored miracle-worker.
Challenging our faith.
Elsewhere in the gospels, when people came to Jesus with a request, often they harbored doubts about whether he could do it. So Jesus tends to challenge their faith, and snap ’em out of it. And he still does this, y’know.
You might remember the story of the guy whose son had seizures. He had his doubts, and Jesus got him to respond, “I believe, but help my unbelief!”
As he did with this royal.
John 4.48-50 KWL - 48 So Jesus tells the royal,
- “When there are no wonders or omens you people can see,
- you can’t believe.”
- 49 The royal tells Jesus, “Master,
- come down before my child is dead!”
- 50 Jesus tells the royal, “Go home.
- Your son lives.”
- The person believes the word which Jesus tells him,
- and is going.
Jesus’s response tends to be interpreted as if it’s only directly to the royal: “If you don’t see, you don’t believe.” But the you is plural: Jesus isn’t addressing this guy specifically, but everyone generally. For most people, seeing is believing.
At first glance this statement doesn’t sound very sympathetic of Jesus. The royal is understandably worried about his kid, but Jesus responds with a rhetorical statement abou belief. Since we know Jesus is kind, what’s going on here?
Simple: He’s being a teacher. (He’s doing his job!) It’s not just Jesus and the royal in this conversation; he’s surrounded by his kids, and he’s trying to show them—and us—how faith and miracles and faith-healing works. He’s also trying to teach this lesson to the royal: “If you can’t see, you don’t believe. Now I’m gonna teach you how to not be so small-minded.”
Interpreting this as a challenge to his faith—and yes, it totally was—the royal bucked up and made a decisive request of Jesus: “Master, come down.” And Jesus didn’t grant his request precisely that way, because he didn’t need to. But he did grant the royal’s wish. He cured the son immediately, and told the royal to go home.
Not that the royal knew yet his son had been cured. But that’s how quickly Jesus can respond once we stop waffling, and take those leaps of faith he wants from us. The royal threw his entire trust upon Jesus, and Jesus lived up to it.
The faithless reinterpretation.
You wanna know the messed-up thing: I grew up
And in fact they’ll twist the verses in these stories to try to discourage people away from
John 4.48 KJV - Then said Jesus unto him, Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe.
Jesus, they claim, was irritated by all the requests and demands for miracles. He didn’t wanna show signs and wonders. He’s not a carnival magician! He wants to teach the Sermon on the Mount, then die for our sins, then return to heaven and get ready for the second coming,
Yet for some reason he kept curing people anyway. Cured the son of this pesky royal. But grudgingly; Jesus did it to shut the guy up and make him go away. He didn’t do it out of love, compassion, patience, kindness, generosity, sympathy, nor to grow faith. Nor any of
- Then said Jesus unto him, Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe. But today I guess I’ll throw you a bone. Hocus pocus, your kid’s cured. Now go away.
And that was then, they continue: Don’t you ever waste Jesus’s time on such a thing. Don’t you ever ask God to heal your sick kids, and make it a condition for your faith: “God,
Problem is, this faithless, fleshly interpretation contradicts the whole purpose of John’s gospel.
John 20.30-31 KWL - 30 Indeed, Jesus did many other wonders in front of his students
- which aren’t written in this book.
- 31 These wonders were written,
- so all of you can believe Jesus is the Christ, God’s son;
- so in believing, you can have life in his name.
The bible is testimonies. It’s made up of the best testimonies. And there are many, many other testimonies. Generations of Christians who’ve seen and experienced Jesus for themselves, whose word can also be trusted. Whose experiences are consistent with the scriptures, ’cause they’re done by the same living God. A God who ceased? That’s a dead God, and it turns the bible into dead history, not a living word.
Both in context, and in common sense, this verse does not mean “Don’t ask for miracles.” Just the opposite. Jesus welcomes requests for miracles.
However, if we make these requests with a rotten, faithless attitude—kinda like we’ll find in a skeptical cessationist who smugly dismisses a faith-healer with unbelief and mockery—don’t expect Jesus to welcome that.
When acted upon, faith spreads.
True, Jesus could’ve gone with the royal to Capharnaum, cured his son, and there’d be much rejoicing, and belief. But how Jesus chose to do it worked too: Before he went home, the royal met his slaves, and they brought him good news.
John 4.51-54 KWL - 51 Now as the royal went down,
- his slaves come to meet him,
- saying that his child lives.
- 52 So the royal asked of the slaves
- the hour the son had recovered,
- so they tell him this: “Yesterday.
- The fever left him the seventh hour after sunrise.”
- 53 So the father knows this is the hour
- in which Jesus tells him, “Your son lives.”
Jn 4.50 - He believes—he and his whole house.
- 54 This again is the second wonder Jesus does
- as he comes out of Judea to the Galilee.
The royal and Jesus had spoken in “the seventh hour,” meaning seven hours after sunrise; anywhere between 12:30
I’m betting the slaves had horses, and rode as fast as they could to get him the good news. So less than two hours after meeting with Jesus—when he’d be totally aware how long ago it was, considering how far he’d traveled—the prince met up with his slaves.
Yeah, a skeptic could chalk the timing up to coincidence: Jesus fortuitously said “Your son lives” at around the same time the boy got better. The naysayers in the Galilee might’ve argued it was just a lucky break. Same as naysayers today. Coincidences happen all the time; doesn’t make ’em miracles.
But a foretold coincidence is no coincidence. Whenever a prophet says, “
So once the royal discovered the fever broke at the same time Jesus had spoken, he believed. And once he told his slaves, they believed. If any of these slaves were
We don’t know how devoted this royal and his household remained to Jesus. It may be this guy was Huzá (
