The man who believed twice, and what is faith?
John 4:45-54
As someone who’s passionate about apologetics, I’m intensely interested in what the Bible has to say about believing. Belief is important because “whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life,” (John 3:16) but what exactly does it mean to believe “in Jesus,” and what’s the basis for belief, and how does it come about that people believe…
For someone with these kinds of questions, John’s gospel is a goldmine of thought-provoking passages. The gospel is written with the express purpose that readers would believe (20:31), and those who believe live forever (3:16, 5:24, 6:47, 20:31), but oftentimes those who believe turn out not to really believe (2:23-24, 8:30-59). Some believe based on Jesus’ words (4:39-42, 17:20), others based on miracles (2:11, 2:23, 7:31, 20:29); somehow the former seems better, but the latter is acceptable (10:38, 14:11, 20:29). There’s so much to think through carefully, and so I’d like to use this space to think out-loud a bit about these intriguing texts, starting with John 4:43-54:
43 After the two days he departed for Galilee. 44 (For Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own hometown.) 45 So when he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, having seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the feast. For they too had gone to the feast. 46 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. 47 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. 48 So Jesus said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” 49 The official said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” 50 Jesus said to him, “Go; your son will live.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way. 51 As he was going down, his servants met him and told him that his son was recovering. 52 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.” 53 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. 54 This was now the second sign that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee.
Observations
This episode comes immediately after Jesus’ stay in the Samaritan village of Sychar where many Samaritans believed him, not based on miracles but on his words and prophetic insight.
The enthusiasm of the Galileans who had gone to the feast goes with 2:23-25:
Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.
The first mention of belief is Jesus’ accusation: “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” (The you is plural, Jesus is not just speaking to the official who came to him.) Obviously Jesus sees this as a fault in the people he is addressing. Strictly speaking they shouldn’t need signs to believe in Jesus; apparently his words alone are proof enough of who he is.
By healing the boy at a distance, Jesus does a couple interesting things. First of all, the miracle is performed in such a way that the miracle-loving Galilean crowd around him gets no chance to see it. There is a kind of miracle-faith, an excitement about Jesus’ power, that completely misses the essential of who Jesus is, and this kind of belief is not something Jesus is eager to encourage (cf. 6:26, 7:3-5). Secondly, the father is put in the position of taking Jesus at his word that the healing has taken place. In at least a minimal sense, he is going to have to believe before he gets to see the sign.
And believe he does! The second mention of belief is that the man believed Jesus’ word. Faith in the most basic sense is accepting something as true based on somebody else’s testimony, and this man is ready to put at least that much faith in Jesus at this point. What’s more, he apparently took sufficient comfort from Jesus’ promise that he was willing to remain in Cana overnight before going home to see for himself.
The third and final mention of belief in verse 53 concerns first of all the man who already believed in verse 50. There is a difference in that in verse 50 he believes Jesus’ word - he accepts as true what Jesus tells him about his son’s healing - while verse 53 says simply that he believed. This seems to be progress from a more limited faith in a specific promise to a more absolute and general faith. What exactly does he believe now? Perhaps that “Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God” (20:31)? Or perhaps his faith is a resting trust in Christ, like Jesus encourages his disciples to have: “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me” (14:1). In any case he (along with his family) arrived at this faith through seeing a miraculous sign, which although it seems to be something less than ideal (v. 48), it is a way that the Father uses to draws people to his Son (6:44).
And now, having read John’s account of what Jesus did, the question of belief falls to us. We don’t get to see the miracle take place (neither did John strictly speaking). Are we like the Galileans who would never believe without seeing signs and wonders (cf. 20:25)? And even if we accept that Jesus performed this incredible healing, do we just believe the miracle, or does the miracle lead us to believe in Jesus fully and absolutely? “This was now the second sign that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee.” Do we stop at the sign itself, or do we follow the sign to take hold of the one to whom it points?
He said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.
John 9:38