The Gospel of John

The 2nd Miracle; The Sign of Life

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels and Sermons

Lesson: 12- 70

Genre:

Track: 012

Dictation Name: RR197F12

Location/Venue:

Year:

Let us worship God. Arise, shine for Thy light has come and the glory of the Lord has risen upon Thee. Let us pray.

Almighty God our Heavenly Father we give thanks unto Thee for the year past. Thy hand has been upon us for good. Thou hast used our sins and our mistakes to bring forth good unto Thee and to us in Thee. Thou hast set Thy seal upon us and has set us apart for Thy kingdom and we praise Thee and we thank Thee. Make us joyful therefore in the opportunities of the year ahead, teach us to number our days in terms of Thy purpose and Thy calling, to know that in all things Thy hand is ever upon us for Thy purpose and for our good in Thee. Our God we thank Thee, in Christ’s name, Amen.

Our subject this morning is the 2nd Miracle; The Sign of Life. John 4:43-54 is our text.

“Now after two days he departed thence, and went into Galilee.

44 For Jesus himself testified, that a prophet hath no honour in his own country.

45 Then when he was come into Galilee, the Galilaeans received him, having seen all the things that he did at Jerusalem at the feast: for they also went unto the feast.

46 So Jesus came again into Cana of Galilee, where he made the water wine. And there was a certain nobleman, whose son was sick at Capernaum.

47 When he heard that Jesus was come out of Judaea into Galilee, he went unto him, and besought him that he would come down, and heal his son: for he was at the point of death.

48 Then said Jesus unto him, Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe.

49 The nobleman saith unto him, Sir, come down ere my child die.

50 Jesus saith unto him, Go thy way; thy son liveth. And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went his way.

51 And as he was now going down, his servants met him, and told him, saying, Thy son liveth.

52 Then enquired he of them the hour when he began to amend. And they said unto him, Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.

53 So the father knew that it was at the same hour, in the which Jesus said unto him, Thy son liveth: and himself believed, and his whole house.

54 This is again the second miracle that Jesus did, when he was come out of Judaea into Galilee.”

The response of the Samaritans was so good to our Lord that He spent two days further in Sychar before going to Cana in Galilee. The response He received in Galilee was a good one and yet He declared that a prophet hath no honor in his own country. In Mark 6:4 and Matthew 13:57 and Luke 4:24 we see our Lord making again the same comment. His reception in Galilee on this occasion was a good one, why did He make this remark? The woman at the well and the Samaritan men of Sychar had received Him at His word as the Messiah, He performed no miracles there. The peoples of Galilee were more ready for the miracles than for Him. This was the difference. In verse forty eight when the noblemen show faith without a miracle as yet performed Jesus turned to the Galileans to ask ‘will none of you believe without seeing signs and fortense?’ The contrast thus is between the royal officer, a foreigner, and the Galileans, Israelites. This story and our Lord’s question points at us. Our faith is too often lacking where action counts. Our Lord’s miracles were many but they did not in and of themselves result in faith in Him as the Messiah and the Redeemer. John selects certain miracles as signs of more than themselves, as indication of the nature of our redemption and this is certainly true in this case. Philip Schaff long ago summed up the meaning of this miracle in these words:

“Christ’s word is as good as Christ’s presence.”

Christ’s words should be for us as good as Christ’s presence. The text in verse forty six speaks of a certain nobleman or a royal official or literally in the Greek, a basilicas. [sp??]

Which can mean either someone of royal blood or a servant of such a person or someone associated with a king who has status. Such a one is called a basilicas. The men who were around him wanted miracles but this basilicas asked that Jesus come to Capernaum to heal his son who was at the point of death. So Jesus said looking at all these people who wanted to see miracles ‘except ye see signs and wonders ye will not believe’. It was the people who were impressed by His miracles at Jerusalem and they had been there, many of them, but they were not yet ready to see Him, if ever, in the office as redeemer messiah. The nobleman, the basilicas pleaded and Jesus answered go thy way, thy son liveth. The basilicas returned to be met the next day on his way home by his servants who reported his son’s miraculous recovery. This recovery had taken place when Jesus had said ‘thy son liveth’. The basilicas and his whole household believed then in Jesus. Then in verse fifty four we are told that this is our Lord’s second miracle after departing from Judea into Galilee. This can mean that He did work another miracle after leaving Judea or more likely that after leaving Judea He performed a second miracle that could be called a sign, a revelatory act, and this is the more likely meaning. The first miraculous sign changing water into wine at Cana and again the second one at Cana, healing the nobleman’s son from a distance.

And the first time our Lord had turned an ordinary natural thing, water, into another equally natural fact, wine. His presence glorifies nature. His power raises the natural to a new level. The miracle points to the glorification of this world in His new creation and to His glorification of our lives by His regenerating and transforming power. He is the life giver and the renewer of all things. In the first miracle of Cana in Galilee water is turned into wine but a greater miracle occurs in the second Cana miracle, near death is turned into life. The word sign in verse forty eight is the same Greek word translated in John 2:11 as miracles. In 1st Kings 17:23 Elijah resurrects the widow’s dead son and returns him to his mother saying ‘see, thy son liveth’. And here our Lord echoes Elijah’s words saying ‘thy son liveth’. The men of his day rejected Elijah, hunted him and jeered him and in our Lord’s day He having healed many and raised three from the dead was crucified. Men hate life because they hate death. Paul tells us the carnal mind is enmity against God because it is not subject to the law of God or neither can it be. The law is the redeemed man’s way of life and therefore those who hate God hate His law and the people of His law. Because this hatred of God was so powerful although the miracles of our Lord commended Him to many He himself was despised and rejected of men.

The two miracles of Cana therefore point us to the fullness of life in Christ. He glorifies the natural, He turns death and near death into life. The Samaritans recognized Christ as the savior of the world, these miracles speaking to us tell us that He is the savior and that although we are responded by an ocean of death there is a greater ocean of life all around us and Christ is our only way, truth and life. This nobleman and his whole house believed in Jesus as the Christ. We are again confronted with the facts set forth in John 1:11:

“He came unto his own, and his own received him not.”

Too often the church sees itself as the center and the miracle and thereby forgets Christ and His power. Living god can never be domesticated into an institution and all attempts to do so are finally fatal to the would be domesticator. In our Lord’s day there were two domesticators of absolute power or of divine power. The Roman Empire saw itself as the epitome of power, the senate could make and unmake gods. Roman power covered the Mediterranean world, half of Europe, most of North Africa and much of the near east. Eternal Rome was an apt term whereby Rome saw itself as the order of the ages, the new and the true world order that would never pass away. And how common place such arrogance has been over the centuries. When I was born the saying was ‘the sun never sets on the British flag’, look at any map and the empire was colored in red and the map was red from pole to pole, from sea to sea. Rome saw itself as eternal Rome, the order of the ages, the true world order.

And the religious and civil rulers of Judea were no less assured that they represented the divine order and to a degree they were right but they also saw themselves as the controllers of that divine order. The well-known habit of the Pharisees to define God’s law in terms alien to it made clear their arrogance. Keeping the Sabbath day holy is God’s law, the numerous rules created to tell the people how far they could walk on the Sabbath or could they eat an egg laid on the Sabbath or an egg over which the hen had labored to produce it two days later, all such rules supplanted God’s law with man’s definitions. And the law which was to be a blessing was made into a yoke. Men then kept manmade rules rather than God’s law. Now in the world of that era there were no hereditary titles of nobility. A nobleman, basilicas, was created by the ruler and made a member of his family. His title lasted only as long as he lived or at the pleasure of the king or emperor. We have therefore in the person of this basilicas a man of power, one close to the king or emperor. The basilicas was in his domain or sphere the personification of power but faced with a dying son this basilicas was impotent. Confronted with the issues of life and death the power of Rome, King Herod or the Pharisees and Sadducees, a man was helpless and impotent. What this miracle, this sign and wonder tells us is very simply this: neither church nor state nor any human power can conquer the ultimate basic and essential problems of life and death. Only the triune God who made us is sufficient under this task. But of course we live in an age where the state has all the answers and is the controller of ultimate power. In Hagel’s terms the state is God walking on earth. This is why politics is so heady a power. Reminding us of Jeremiah’s vision of the nations gathered together and drinking of this wine, this marvelous wine and all falling down drunk and impotent. What this miracle, this sign and wonder tells us is simply this: neither church nor state nor any human power can conquer the ultimate, basic and essential problems of life and death. Only the triune God who made us is sufficient unto the task.

This second sign of Cana of Galilee tells us the church and state cannot settle the problems of our life and of our world. Only the triune God who made us can ever resolve those problems. To renew life or to resurrect it is nothing to Him who made it! Our being born again is such a miracle and it tells us that we cannot bring about a rebirth in any sphere of life and thought apart from the triune God. All our efforts to do so are sin, no matter how great or good we may believe we are. The state believes that its intentions are good and all it needs is time and enough money and it’s going to solve all problems. The church feels that if men will listen to the church they will solve the problems but what the church should say instead is hear you Him. The signs and wonders in the gospel of John are a condemnation of all attempts to effect a reformation in this world apart from the regenerating power of God and the sanctifying power of His law. All attempts to do this apart from Christ shall fail and it is futile to dream so evil a dream. Let us pray.

Our Father Thy word is truth and Thou hast declared that Jesus Christ is the only way, the only truth and the only fountain of life. Wean us from our dreams of solving the world’s problems with power, the power to control or the power to kill and make us again believers in the power of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. In His name we pray, Amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes

[Question] When it says in forty eight that Jesus says to the nobleman ‘except you see signs and wonders you shall not believe’ yet in the following paragraph it does say that the man believed the word Jesus spoke and he went his way, so he did have faith, he really did…[becomes unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] What our Lord was saying there was a kind of cynical statement. You are standing around hoping I’m going to perform a miracle, or that you’re ready to walk with me all the way to Capernaum to see me perform a miracle, you want to see before you believe, for you seeing is believing. You’re not going to see and if you see you are not going to believe. So His remark there is really an expression of His disbelief, His knowledge that they will never believe. Any other questions and comments? Yes?

[Question] If the man had not believed Jesus’ word at that point you would think the miracle would have been…was it his faith that made it happen or was it the word?

[Rushdoony] Our Lord said go thy way thy son liveth and the man believed the word that Jesus spoke. Now, the miracle was not tied to the man’s faith. He healed the son because He was demonstrating His power over death and it was a sign that He who created life could remake it, heal it and resurrect it.

All the way through John is very selective about the episodes in the life of Christ that he chooses. In a single chapter of the other gospels you’ll have a whole series sometimes of miracles and incidents but John selects a few as signs, as revelations of our Lord’s purpose and therefore they are called that. They are miracles that have within them an amazing meaning that reveals the gospel and so it was in this case. And in particular John’s signs and wonders are directed against those who seek to institutionalize things as though salvation could be channeled through the state or through the church. It is always through Christ and the church is to be a witness saying ‘hear you Him’. This is why one of the favored pictures in the early centuries was of Christ often on the cross, but of Christ and of John the Baptist pointing to Him, hear you Him. You’ve probably seen pictures of that sort with a finger pointing to Christ. Usually John the Baptist but not necessarily so, he is the one, great as you may think we are, John the Baptist and the apostles¸ hear you Him. And that is what is needed again in our time. I’ve always felt that that pointing figure was a remarkable testimony to the faith of the artists who painted those pictures because they got to the heart of our faith, Christ is the one, you point to Him.

[Unintelligible Question]

[Rushdoony] How are we to understand?

[Unintelligible Question]

[Rushdoony] They still felt that they were the exclusive channel, that they had to be the vehicle, that Israel or Judea was to be the true vehicle, so it was set aside and God can set aside the churches of our time and create new ones in Asia and Africa that are ready to say ‘hear you Him’. So John you see is indicting all institutionalization whereby we can find the faith to certain channels. That’s why John has been very unpopular as I said last time with modernists and those who are not modernistic often are not all together happy with John, he’s a favorite with many of the people but John is very radical and revolutionary in His affirmation of the centrality of Christ and the fact that no one can say ‘hear us we are the true bearers of the word, we control power, god’s power’. Not so, this is why John’s gospel is a revolutionary one. Yes?

[Unintelligible Question]

[Rushdoony] They are saying God has further revelations. And of course we say Christ is the final revelation. Therefore anyone who claims to have a new revelation is saying we are institutionalizing it. They are declaring themselves to be new Caesars or new popes who are going to be the chosen vessel. Now one of the things that has marked the reformation and the true spirit of the reformation is to refuse to say we are the true church, we are not. Or that God is going to reveal Himself through the Jewish, or the English, or the German, the French or the American peoples. And there’s a lot of that. You have one heretical movement, the identity peoples or British Israelites or Anglo-Israelites who say it’s a matter of race ultimately.

So those who say there are signs and wonders apart from Jesus Christ and His final revelation of Himself are saying well, we, not Joseph Smith but us, have the up to date revelation for our age. Yes?

[Question] Your comment about John the Baptist…[Becomes unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] John makes it clear that there are vast numbers of books that could be written encompassing all that Jesus said and did in three years but he says this is it, now you’ve got it. These will reveal Him to you completely. Well if there are no further questions or comments, let us bow our heads in prayer.

Our Lord and our God we pray that Thou wouldst make us content with Thy revelation, content with Thy word, content with Thy grace, content with Thy providential care. Take away the restlessness which so often besets us. We cannot see one day ahead in our lives and yet we know that all our days yesterday, today and tomorrow, come from Thee and are filled with Thy grace and Thy providential care. Make us ever joyful in Thee and now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost, bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always, Amen.