The Official's Son

The scene at Jacob’s well (John 4:26-42) was ending with the woman running into town to witness to everyone she saw. The townspeople’s curiosity was aroused by her tactful question: “could this be the Christ?” They came streaming down the hill to see for themselves who this amazing person could be. This indicates the genius of our Lord’s evangelism. His disciples, being Jews, could not evangelize the Samaritans because of their mutual resentment and distrust of each other. Racial prejudice is a crippling barrier to the sharing of God’s grace. When the Lord Himself demonstrated His deity to the woman and she believed, she, the Samaritan, was the evangelist to her own people. Jesus knew who they would hear. She was not perceived as a  threat to any of them, so they were willing to listen with an open mind to the words of the Savior Himself.

When the disciples kept on begging Jesus to eat something, He explained to them that His sustenance (“meat”) was in the completion of the work of salvation the Father had given Him to do. He used the word teleoo (finish), in verse 34. It means complete, accomplish, consummate, consecrate, fulfill, make perfect. There was nothing more satisfying to Jesus than the accomplishment of the Father’s will! The Father’s will is the salvation of the human race. Whoever will believe. That was much more important to Him than physical food. He was relishing the result of a job well done – the harvest of many souls in that Samaritan town. Jesus would move on to some individual healing miracles, but the incident at the well showed that  one soul saved is better than many bodies healed. Healed bodies will still age and die. Souls saved are alive forevermore, and will perpetuate a chain of response in others as they live and grow IN CHRIST.

So he came again to Cana in Galilee, where he had made the water wine. And at Capernaum there was an official whose son was ill. When this man heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and asked him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. So Jesus said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.”  The official said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” John 4:46-49

The official really wanted Jesus to go with him to his dying child. He wanted to witness the healing for himself. Obviously, he had heard much already about Jesus’ ability to heal, and was desperate enough to risk asking this man to help his son. Jesus’ challenging comment apparently awakened him to the truth of Jesus’ power to heal without being physically present at the bedside. What goes on in the soul of a born-again believer cannot be seen, but it is eternal spiritual healing. At that point (vs. 49) the man realized with Whom he was speaking, calling Jesus “Sir” (kurios – Lord) indicates his belief.

Jesus said to him, “Go; your son will live.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way. As he was going down, his servants met him and told him that his son was recovering. So he asked them the hour when he began to get better, and they said to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” The father knew that was the hour when Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” And he himself believed, and all his household. John 4:50-55

Wow. “Just go on about your business. This is taken care of.”  What? Don’t continue to beg and plead? Don’t do some kind of penance? Don’t sit and wait for confirmation? Go on with life?  Yes. The issue is settled. The greater miracle had already occurred in the nobleman’s soul. He could now relax and accept the lesser miracle. In verse 52, when his servants told him the boy was recovering, the description was “the fever left.” That was immediately. Instantaneously. That is the way Jesus heals. In one stroke. Unmistakably a miracle. We can walk through a lengthy recovery process with our eyes fixed on Jesus, with Bible doctrine in our souls as a stabilizing force. That is a good lesson in faith and discipline. Miraculous healing, however, happens instantaneously and completely and it calls attention to the omnipotence of our sovereign creator.  That is what happened to the boy’s fever, at exactly the time Jesus told this man “your son will live.”

Verse 53 – The nobleman believed yesterday. He told his family and “all his household” believed today.

Verse 56 -- This was now the second sign that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee. We saw the first in John 2:11, the creation of wine at the wedding.