THE WORD HEALS
Study Scripture: John 4: 46 – 54
Background Scripture: John 4: 1 – 54
Lesson 6 July 9, 2022
Key Verse
So the father knew that it was at the same hour, in the which Jesus said unto him, Your son is alive: and he himself believed, and his entire household.
John 4: 53
INTRODUCTION
Troubles begin with the because of lack of money, family problems, children problems, workplace problems, problems in our neighborhood and in our country, problems of worsening health affecting us and our loved ones. Problems from many other sources will cause us to do very many things we do not enjoy. We might lose sleep, spend money that we should not have spent, lose our temper and get upset with others who might not be in the wrong or are not to blame for our problems. We might make rash mistakes in behavior that lead to disastrous consequences.
People who are not necessarily believers but certainly those that are believers know that trouble is used by God as an instrument to bring us to realize His mercy and grace in our lives. As well, in our Lesson today we will see that the troubles that came brought a man and his family to see the glory of Christ and they were changed forever.
It will be very helpful for us however as we look at how Jesus uses His word to bring mercy and grace to be reminded of the words of Charles Spurgeon as he addresses what this Text should mean for us. He states:
“This narrative illustrates the rise and progress of faith in the soul. While I try to speak of it, I pray that we may experimentally follow the track, desiring that such faith may have a rises in our hearts, may make progress in our spirits, and may become even stronger in us than it was in this nobleman.
The point, my brethren, is not to hear about these things only, but to have them repeated in your own soul. We want to come to real business, and to make the things of God matters of downright fact to ourselves: not only to hear about this nobleman from Capernaum, or anybody else, but to see in our own souls the same work of grace as was wrought in them.
This same living Christ is here, and his help we as greatly need us ever did this nobleman.
May we seek it as he sought it, and find it as he found it! Thus will the Holy Spirit, who inspired the narrative before us, be found writing it over again, not upon the pages of a book, but upon the fleshly tablets of our hearts”.
Our Lesson Study forces us to look at certain ways that we react to the events that confront us.
Is Jesus trying to tell us that faith that is based solely on signs and wonders will prove to be to us as it was to those in Judea and Galilee?
What does faith mean? What does faith in Jesus mean? Are there different kinds of faith brought about by different things? Does faith grow and strengthen and transform us?
Are you going to walk with Jesus based on His walk or like those in Galilee who walked with Jesus based on His signs and withdrew from Him when His words trouble them (John 6: 66)?
Is Jesus to have no honor because those who hear Him and His words and believe in Him and welcome Him do so in a superficial way based solely on signs and not on His words?
Are you a sign worshiper rather than a Jesus follower, and what results will it produce in you and in others around you, for if we need signs, and when signs run out then will our faith dry up too?
What then must we say, Is there a problem with words? Are we to believe in Jesus because of His Word as we will see one did in our Study Text, even though there was no immediate evidence of Jesus’ power and there certainly was not a great deal of tenderness in Jesus’ approach in this matter?
Are we to understand that the words of Jesus are not insensitive to you or to this nobleman in the Study but are always sensitive to your and his greatest needs and the greatest need of the people in Galilee and the people today?
What does believing the word of Jesus mean?
One writer in speaking of our greatest need understanding that Jesus can be harsh in His word to us notes:
“How are we to understand the words of Jesus? Far from being insensitive to the official, Jesus is sensitive to his greatest need, and to the greatest need in Galilee: the need is for faith.
If the official has faith in Jesus, if he believes that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, he has what he needs, for surely he will face more difficulties, if he needs a sign, a work of power, when encountering the next difficulty, and Jesus, wherever he is, doesn’t come through the way he wants, what then will come of his faith?
When Jesus doesn’t respond the way we want him to, we may wonder if he’s being harsh or insensitive-or if he exists at all.
Always remember, though, that Jesus knows us and our needs far better than we do. Specifically, he knows that our greatest need is our need for faith, our need to trust him. If we have faith, we can walk with Jesus through the valley of the shadow of death, fear no evil, and trust that the outcome, somehow, some way, will be for the best. Therefore for the sake of our faith, Jesus often times will not respond to us the way we think you should”.
Another writer tells us that the Bible therefore use different words for miracles or signs and these 4 words are used to describe the works of God and show why people believed in Jesus. We should note these carefully we can see why we are being led to believe what we believe.
The 1st word is Teras, which means the spectacular, staggering, amazing, dazzling, and many who were really spectators and not wanting to be participants in His life, believed in Jesus because of the spectacular signs that He did. It made them feel good, comfortable, and secure, but this word is never used by itself so we know that if a person is to have genuine faith in the Lord Jesus Christ there must be some other basis other than the spectacular sign of Teras. The parable in Luke 8 about the Sower of the Seed like illustrates this weakness.
Another word is Dunamis which means extraordinarily, effective, explosive power, and this attracted people who had the sometimes legitimate belief in Him, because of this power that led to salvation.
Ergon means distinctive works, deeds, and miracles. These might on occasion lead some to Christ.
Semeion however definitely means a sign that persons believe characterizes the person, his nature, and character and when Jesus ministered some believed in Him because they saw in His miracles exactly who He was, believing that He was the true Son of God.
This kind of faith that this sign leads to comes from a mental conviction, head knowledge, and intellectual belief about Jesus which is very different from a surface acceptance of the fact that Jesus was the Savior, says one writer.
We should understand therefore that there were situations where because of who they were, there were people who are Jesus’s own countrymen but they did not receive Him.
Then we see the strange thing where they became welcoming without really welcoming.
Then we also see people who were believing without believing.
Does that fit any of us?
It would help us to review the context in which this Study Scripture is placed.
Jesus had met a woman at the well of Samaria and because of His prophetic word she accepted that He was a prophet. She had witnessed to the people in the villages around that He was in fact the Messiah they expected.
Notice that we are not dealing with signs and miracles now but we are dealing with the Words of Jesus that impacted the Samaritan woman and which would impact the whole town of Sychar which turned to Jesus as the Messiah and the Savior of the world. This was a spectacularly successful time of ministry and Jesus spent 2 days in Samaria.
We repeat therefore that the focus here is not on Jesus’s miracle working power but on His word, and so we hear from the people in John 4: 42,
“We have heard him for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world”.
This is the kind of belief in response to the Word of Jesus that Jesus is looking for, but strangely it is found among the Samaritans and not among His own Jewish people.
Jesus now leaves Samaria and He now heads for Capernaum instead of His hometown of Nazareth. 10 miles north of Nazareth is Cana where He turned water into wine and 15 miles east from Cana is Capernaum where the nobleman that we will examine in our Study and his sick son lives.
The Apostle John tells us that Jesus now is about to do a second sign, a miracle of extraordinarily important spiritual significance. Why was that miracle so important?
This 1st sign miracle, turning water into wine, is regarded by one scholar as a revelation of something unique about Jesus and showed that He was king of nature, showing man in the dominion over God’s world as God intended at the beginning.
This miracle had revealed how God worked in combining human and divine activity for Jesus had told the servants to fill the water jars with water which they could do and they obeyed, and then without a word or any gesture He changed water into wine which was something that the servants could not do. So God worked in human life telling us what we can do and that He can do what we cannot do to accomplish the result that was outside our experience but was in line with His will.
Now the Apostle John will tell us about the 2nd sign where Jesus simply declares that the healing had been done in what seems to be an offhand way.
But first Jesus declares something important as He leaves Samaria to go to Galilee, and we are exposed to the word “For” which alerts us to the fact that something strange and powerful is about to happen, Jesus declares that a prophet has no honor in his own country.
Remember that He was now leaving non-Jewish Samaria where many people believed on Him, first because of the words of a woman, and then because of the words of Jesus Himself. So why would Jesus head for His hometown with those kind of words on His lips? One writer explains:
“Samaria is not Jewish territory, Jewish territory is in the region of Judea where Jerusalem is located. For Jesus, a Jewish prophet, his “fatherland” is Judea and Galilee.
Wait a minute. When Jesus comes to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed Him, and when he visited Jerusalem, many believed on him. So how can it be said that Jesus has no honor in his fatherland (Judea and Galilee)?
Jews in both Judea and Galilee responded to him, yes, but in each case the response was based on signs and miraculous works (John 2:23). Although Jesus was apparently able to know things about the Samaritan woman by supernatural means, the Samaritans’ faith was based on words, not signs…. In Jesus’s fatherland (Judea and Galilee), he has no honor because those who believe on him and welcome him do so superficially, solely on the basis of signs.
Although Jesus understands that he has no honor in Galilee, he goes there nevertheless”.
We know that many people have discovered that it is hard to gain acceptance and recognition in one’s hometown. But if you become successful and make a name for yourself somewhere else and then come back home, people will look at you completely differently, seeing you in a different light.
Jesus understood human nature and He understood that when He went to Jerusalem, not really wanting to gain fame or fortune in the eyes of the people for all He wanted was an hearing and acceptance for His message, He knew the impact it would have elsewhere. He knew that the people of Galilee would pay more attention to Him if He came back with a certain status and a degree of repute.
And according to verse 45, the plan of Jesus worked for when He came to Galilee the Galileans welcomed Him, something which they had never before done. As a matter of fact before this when He spoke at a synagogue in Nazareth the people had been so offended that they led Him to the brow of the hill tried to kill Him by throwing Him down headlong.
But now they welcomed Him seeing that He had done great things in Jerusalem at the Feast. What a strange thing human nature is!
So young people or even adults who might not be recognized at your hometown, don’t worry about it. Go elsewhere, do what God leads you to do, and then go back home for then they will accept you at home.
THE TEXT
Verse 46. So Jesus now comes to Galilee but specifically the king will not redo His 1st sign, turning water into wine according to John 2:1-11, and what He finds there is really interesting.
There was a royal officer, which some believe was a Jewish officer of the tetrarch. Agrippa or Herod Antipas, who lived at Capernaum about 20 to 25 miles away from Cana of Galilee where Jesus was ministering. His son was critically sick.
So if there was to be any healing Jesus would either have to travel to Capernaum or Jesus would have to speak the words of healing at Cana so that the boy was cured at Capernaum. So would the word of Jesus be sufficient even though Jesus was near Cana, many miles away from Capernaum?
This, would have to be the 2nd miracle, and it would have to be a word sign pointing to something supernatural and of spiritual significance.
Some believe and speculate that this nobleman, a high official, eventually became one of the prophets that prophesied in the early church.
Verse 46.
This nobleman heard that Jesus had come into Galilee. He had never met Jesus and had never seen Jesus but he had heard about Him. And so he went to Jesus since he was in crisis and experiencing a great deal of trouble. His son was desperately and had a fever.
This model man of authority and power went into panic for his beloved little boy was near death and he was distressed. You can imagine that all the home remedies and the medicines available and the doctors that were in the city had been called on to help but nothing helped and so when he heard that Jesus the great miracle worker was in the area he was so distressed and desperate that he took a risk seeking Jesus to come and heal his son.
Now note that this wealthy nobleman was not in the class of people who begged for anything. So seeking to find and beg this relatively little-known and itinerant preacher Jesus to save his son was something incredibly difficult for him. But because the very survival of his extremely sick son was so important, this man was deeply concerned about him and he was willing to do whatever it took to get help wherever he could get it from.
Now it was not as if this man would have any massive amount of faith and so it is considered everywhere that this story tracks the rise and progress of faith in the soul. So we see an example of faith coming by hearing, but then we know that hearing comes by the word of God.
There was a great need for the father felt grief at the near-death of his son. He did not know that his own heart needed healing or that he was blind to the beauty of Christ and that he had a deep need to be born again himself,
All he knew was terror that his son would die and so there was a little spark of faith which enabled him or move him to embark on a journey to find Jesus.
Verse 47. This nobleman could have sent some of his multiple servants who would do his bidding to find Jesus. But given his great concern about his son he went himself to plead the misery of his son’s case. He heard a word about Jesus Christ and the power of Jesus and so he went on that basis to beseech Jesus, repeating his request several times to come down and heal his son who was about to die. So this nobleman had passed the 1st test which had to do with the nature of the power of Jesus. He did not say my son is of noble birth and so he could demand the presence of Jesus. All he said was to please come down and heal his son. This was a parent’s grief, a true need, and as one writer said an earnest plea.
At this stage we should wonder whether the same thing has happened to some of us in the past where some trouble or trial wrapped around our heart and our head and you are led to do something that you’re not accustomed to doing, seeking God, crying out in desperation to God.
If you have been through that experience you should take heart for God is not unaware of your trials and is not separated from your trials. All these kinds of trials are the things that God sends to move you to seek God and bring about the great work of the grace of God in your heart.
So are you a sign Seeker or are you a Savior Seeker?
Verse 48.
Jesus responds to the plea from this desperate nobleman that Jesus come with him to heal his desperately sick son.
Some regard Jesus’s response as the beginning of the 2nd test for this man. But instead of a direct answer Jesus told the crowd using the word “Ye” saying, “Except ye see signs and wonders ye will not believe”, indicating that Jesus was not addressing the man alone but the entire crowd that was around and probably likely the entire nation of Israel.
Jesus was rebuking them saying in fact that their faith did not rest upon the word of God but on the mighty miracles that He was doing for their benefit.
The sad fact is that there are many of us that do not really believe that we can trust the Lord Jesus Christ and accept the idea miracles come first. Some believe that they have to see events of healing so that these will then create faith in them.
Jesus did not deny that signs and wonders may excite people to faith but He was really saying that faith in the word of God was much more significant than that.
Verse 49. Note that the request of the nobleman involved dictating the method by which our Lord would heal. That showed a weakness of his faith. He thinks that Jesus Christ could only heal if he comes down to Capernaum. And he seems to also think that if the child dies then Jesus could do nothing about that. That is deficient faith.
Jesus’s response to this grieving father seems to indicate that He was turning a cold shoulder to the man’s request but we know that Jesus was really speaking to the crowd as well as to him.
Note too that the father was in agony and he pleaded with Jesus. He was persistent in his cries. He knew that something would be lost if Jesus didn’t come and touch the boy but it is clear that he had a certain kind of faith, and he believes that Jesus was in touch with powers that ordinary people do not have.
We can imagine that this man, this devoted father, would keep on seeking to save his son and probably was shaking with fear with tears in his eyes and angst and anxiousness abounding in his heart, unsure as to what Jesus would do; so again he made his request.He certainly felt strongly that if Jesus came down, his child would not die.
Verse 50.
Even with this deficient faith it is important to note Jesus’s response. This is a most important section really of this Study for here we see Jesus’s response to deficient faith.
Jesus responded to the man, “Go; your son lives”. This was a simple word of straightforward power which showed Jesus’ control over life itself and everything that could happen in life.
The man was told to go his way, Go home.
Jesus accepted the man’s response and that of course is an amazingly encouraging thing to us. Jesus accepts us as we come to Him with deficient faith over and over again, even though Jesus does not like when you come seeking signs and wonders. He knows that many people are in that situation and that they will come to believe in Jesus only when He performs a mighty work. But nevertheless Jesus will take those that come to Him even with deficient faith.
Remember that this man did not know that Jesus could raise people even from the dead if need be but he exercised his faith at the level that he could.
Some people are quite pragmatic and their humanism dictates that they see the evidence first and then they think they will respond, but that is not faith; that is simply a reaction to the work of God.
God commands that we believe and this often lead to a crisis of belief. God demands that we take Him at His word and obey and evidence will come later.
So Jesus now speaks with a word of authority and power and this is a healing word and that is all that is needed. This nobleman did not even think that Jesus could heal at a distance and he did not yet realize that the power to heal lies in the person of Jesus Christ.
So Jesus spoke not a word or speech more than was necessary.
The man therefore rests his faith in Jesus alone.
He has only the word of Jesus and the man rests his faith on it.
The question for us now therefore is a very important one for we should ask what is our response when God shows us how and what He’s doing when He’s working. Do we argue with Him and we are driven by our fears, or do we make excuses and use tactics to turn the conversation somewhere else like what the Samaritan woman had started to do at the well?
But let us examine the nobleman’s response and what happened to making him change from someone who was desperate and sorrowing over the fear over his son’s fate to someone who is now trusting the Word of Christ in the very next moment?
What really happened to that man?
Should we do something similar in our crying to God for God to do something in us?
Would we seek God so persistently and earnestly so that we find the Word of Jesus as compelling as this nobleman found the word of Jesus?
How could this man believe and be forever changed, though he was deeply grieved receiving no sign, no wonder, only the Word of Christ?
We think that somehow the nobleman saw that there was a peculiar glory in Christ and when he saw His glory he was changed never to be the same again.
This was something done by the Holy Spirit of God. One writer comments:
“Sorrow, angst, and terror turned to a settled, incurred, trust in Christ and in His Word. This is the thing to notice here. This Galilean nobleman who is given to signs and wonders, didn’t see a sign or a wonder, but only received a promise. A promise that he trusted, and once trusted, a promise that changed him.
See here where true trust in Christ is placed. Not in signs, or wonders, not in being wowed, no. Our faith ought to be placed in Christ and in His Word. He took Jesus at His Word, with no other shred of evidence at that moment!…
Yet it was the Word of Christ that moved this nobleman to believe against his former certainties. It was the Word he heard, the Word he believed, and the Word that changed him”.
Verse 51-52. Believing the Word that Jesus spoke he no doubt went toward home with some haste, but being a rich man he could probably have ridden to home the 20 to 30 miles overnight to get home quickly, but instead we read that when he finally got home it was “yesterday” and he was told that yesterday his son came out of this severe fever that was going to kill him. So it seems the man did not leave Jesus immediately. We are told that when he was going down he met his servants who told him that his son lived. And when they nobleman inquired as to when the fever left him they told him that it was yesterday at the 7th hour. The time revealed by the servants made the nobleman realize that it coincided with the time of Jesus’s word to him.
The language seems to indicate that the nobleman not only believed in the word of Jesus but also in Jesus Himself. Jesus had given this man an opportunity to believe a higher level of faith, no longer believing in what Jesus could do but believing on who Jesus was.
He quickly calculated and realized that it was the 7th hour that Jesus had told him that his son lived.
Verse 53.
Most importantly we now know that the father lived spiritually. We know that those that believe in the Lord Jesus Christ has life in His name according to John 20:31.
The Nobleman had said to Jesus, Come, but instead Jesus said to the man, Go, and the man did not hesitate.
We are told that the man believed and his entire household believed, so that these noble people entered the kingdom of God in Christ. The man carried his entire house with him and this is a very striking and important example for us.
We know that this is not a peculiar thing because when we look at churches we see many times that the churches consist of family members for people in the family bring others to faith in Christ and that is a wonderful thing. We also see in the New Testament this same thing happening with the Philippian jailer who believed with his entire house and they were all baptized.
When you have a confirmed faith you have a witnessing faith. When you have faith you will tell about the experiences you have with Jesus, the Word of Jesus and the promises and instructions of Jesus.
This high official would almost certainly be facing ridicule and persecution and maybe the loss of his position. But his faith was a witnessing faith. He loved Jesus for what Jesus had done and he wanted others to know of the glory of salvation that Jesus would bring to others.
So it would not have been easy for this man to witness. But he started with his own household.
So does your own faith lead you to witnessing starting with your own household?
We know that he was a certain nobleman and in the original text it was said he was a certain King’s man and that meant he was in the service probably of Herod Antipas either as a civil employee or a military man.
We also learn in Luke’s gospel that there was a woman called Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward that came to faith and there were many others such as Susanna and they ministered to the Lord of their substance. So these are high-ranking people and it is possible that when we are told that some of the powerful believed this is a reference to them. Later on in Acts 13 we learned that there was a man called Manean who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch and maybe some speculate that this nobleman was the person mentioned as coming to faith in Christ. He was listed among the prophets in the church at Antioch later on. The apostle Paul could later tell the Corinthian church that not many in the assembly were mighty, or noble, or wellborn but it was important for them to realize that a few of the noble were saved.
But irrespective of their background and their former life style once they had been washed in the blood they were in a powerful and influential position even though they had not been born rich.
Verse 54. But this remark by the apostle John that this was the 2nd sign that Jesus did tells us that there was something very significant to this sign. Signs are there to tell us about something about Jesus that we did not know before. The 2nd sign therefore is telling us that Jesus had authority over illness, something that men do not have.
But clearly it is also telling us as was told to us in Hebrews 12 that Jesus has come to bestow faith and to nourish it so that it will grow. Believers therefore know that the One in whose hands they are does not answer their prayers the way they expect, but He will act to lift us up to a higher awareness of who He is, of His authority and power in life. The result will be that our faith will become stronger and clearer and we will be able to exercise it has a far higher level for Jesus is the Author and Perfecter of our faith.
CONCLUSION
Faith, obedience, and persistence is vitally important. It led to this man inheriting the promise.
Notice what was happening. This man had begun at first with a bare minimum of divine revelation and yet he brought his entire family into the kingdom of God in Christ.
The Word of Christ is remarkable. The man responded in the right way to the tests that was placed in front of him.
So we should ask ourselves whether we have responded to the crisis of belief that we often face.
Do you think that God can provide for you and meet you in any crisis situation in your life?
The question is, How big do you think God is!
It might be difficult for you but do you think that God is faithful to you and that He cannot fail?
Is it likely that you cannot stay where you are and follow Jesus Christ, and that you are being challenged and scolded by the Holy Spirit to get up and walk by faith, coming out of your safety zone?
Never forget that God is in fellowship with you. He might not have to perform mighty headline making miracles, but remember that He has entered into your life, stayed beside you, comforting and assuring you that His fellowship is more than you could have hoped for.
So remember that you have been transformed and are being transformed and that you are traveling on the road to meet Him.
The gift of faith that He has given you will bring you abundant life, a life so abundant and overflowing that you have to have it flow from you to bless others so that they too might believe and have life
Jesus, as He did to this nobleman does the same for us all over and over again. John is reminding us about the greatness of Christ and His ability to overcome any obstacle. So we can see the glory of Christ in the Text and we can see the glory of Christ in our experiences. There is therefore nothing that can stop us from honoring Christ as we see Jesus’ glory.
Notice that Jesus is gracious and even in this unbelieving atmosphere and false faith all around Him that abounded He gives a free gift of healing to a man He never met before, and who even worked in the court of the wicked Herod Antipas.
So John wants us to see that Jesus is not only gracious but is powerful. Distance is no hindrance. So when Jesus speaks, it was done.
So honor your household. You believe, so do everything to make your household believe, for indoing so, you are showing honor to them.
Your religion must not be empty. You are here to be a servant of God. So when you respond to God follow Him.
If you have believed in Christ entreat the Lord for the salvation of your entire home. Bring them to saving faith as you work with the Holy Spirit.
You can be sure that God has brought you to saving faith so that He wants you to see He will use you to bring your family also to saving faith. You should take them from the sentence of death which is eternal separation from the Lord.
Remember that all things work together for good to them that love God and to those who are called according to His purpose. So think on that and never forget it.
Appeal to God to help you and He will answer you with a positive Yes.