Go thy way; thy son liveth

This stunning second sign miracle testifies to the Lord’s sovereign ability to cure without attendance, without examination, without medicine, and without convalescence. Equally importantly, it records the growth of faith in a man who encountered the Saviour. John’s is particularly the Gospel of personal interviews and conversations, with the Lord Jesus ministering to the needs of various individuals.

The nobleman initially demonstrated faith in the Saviour’s ability to work wonders, vv. 46-48, a confidence focused primarily upon what He could do. This was like the miracle-based faith seen earlier in Jerusalem where ‘many believed in his name, when they saw the miracles which he did. But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man’, 2. 23-25. A faith grounded in miracles dies with the cessation of miracles. Simon the sorcerer is proof of its insufficiency. Though he is said to have ‘believed’, marvelling at Philip’s ‘miracles and signs’, Acts 8. 13, Peter’s stern language clearly disposes of any notion that he was genuine, ‘Thy money perish with thee . . . for thy heart is not right in the sight of God’, vv. 20, 21. Hankering after the supernatural and spectacular is not the same as being saved.

The noble man next rose to a confidence in the Lord’s bare word, John 4. 49, 50, a practical trust in what He said, which was demonstrated by implicit obedience to the command to ‘go thy way’. ‘The man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went his way’. How simple and yet how sturdy was this trust! He was content to rest in the divine promise, ‘Thy son liveth’, just as the faith that saves ‘cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God’, Rom. 10. 17. Yet it is only by obedience that we show outwardly we believe God’s word.

Finally, discovering the accuracy of the Lord’s announcement, he and his whole family came to rest satisfyingly upon the essential worth of the Lord Jesus, vv. 51-54. May we too attain that deep delight of soul which comes as we are more and more taken up with the greatness of His Person.