13 Christ’s Response to Unbelief (John 4:43–54)

After the two days He went forth from there into Galilee. For Jesus Himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country. So when He came to Galilee, the Galileans received Him, having seen all the things that He did in Jerusalem at the feast; for they themselves also went to the feast. Therefore He came again to Cana of Galilee where He had made the water wine. And there was a royal official whose son was sick at Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus had come out of Judea into Galilee, he went to Him and was imploring Him to come down and heal his son; for he was at the point of death. So Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you simply will not believe.” The royal official said to Him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” Jesus said to him, “Go; your son lives.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started off. As he was now going down, his slaves met him, saying that his son was living. So he inquired of them the hour when he began to get better. Then they said to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” So the father knew that it was at that hour in which Jesus said to him, “Your son lives”; and he himself believed and his whole household. This is again a second sign that Jesus performed when He had come out of Judea into Galilee. (4:43–54)

John’s gospel is preeminently the gospel of belief. He wrote his inspired record so that his readers “may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing [they] may have life in His name” (20:31). The verb pisteuo (“believe”) appears nearly 100 times in this gospel, and the overwhelming majority of its occurrences refer to believing savingly in the Lord Jesus Christ (e.g., 1:12; 6:29; 8:30; 12:44; 14:1; 17:20). Through believing in Him people become children of God (1:12; 12:36), obtain eternal life (3:15–16, 36; 6:40, 47), avoid judgment (3:18; 5:24), partake in the resurrection of life (11:25; cf. 5:29), possess the indwelling Holy Spirit (7:38–39), are delivered from spiritual darkness (12:46), and find empowerment for spiritual service (14:12).

Furthermore, God commands people to believe in His Son. When asked by the crowd, “What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God?” (John 6:28), Jesus replied, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent” (v. 29; cf. 3:18; 14:1). But the tragic truth is that most people refuse to believe in Jesus Christ. In the Sermon on the Mount He warned, “The gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matt. 7:13–14; cf. Luke 13:23–30). Expressing that same truth from the perspective of divine sovereignty He declared, “For many are called, but few are chosen” (Matt. 22:14; cf. John 10:26). Despite their good deeds or religious zeal, unbelievers can never please God (Rom. 8:8), since “without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him” (Heb. 11:6).

Unbelief is the damning sin. It is the sin for which people are ultimately sentenced to hell, since all other sins are forgiven for those who repent and believe in Christ. Therefore, “he who does not believe [in Christ] has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:18). In John 16:8–9 Jesus said of the Holy Spirit, “He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment; concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me.”

An “evil, unbelieving heart” (Heb. 3:12) characterizes unregenerate people—a heart that loves sin’s darkness and detests the light of the gospel (John 3:19–20). The heart’s unbelief is also compounded by Satan, “the god of this world [who] has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (2 Cor. 4:4). Sometimes God Himself hardens the hearts of unbelievers as an act of judgment for their stubborn unbelief (John 12:39–40). For example, the Old Testament records that while Pharaoh hardened his heart (Ex. 8:15, 32; 9:34; 1 Sam. 6:6), God also hardened Pharaoh’s heart (Ex. 4:21; 7:3; 9:12; 10:1, 20, 27; 11:10; 14:4, 8).

At its core, unbelief is a rejection of the saving truth from God contained in Scripture. Thus Jesus said to the unbelieving Jews, “Because I speak the truth, you do not believe Me. Which one of you convicts Me of sin? If I speak truth, why do you not believe Me?” (John 8:45–46). Unbelief is a rejection of Jesus Christ, who is the truth of God incarnate (John 14:6). “But though He had performed so many signs before them,” John noted, “yet they were not believing in Him. This was to fulfill the word of Isaiah the prophet which he spoke: ‘Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?’” (12:37–38; cf. 5:38; 16:9; Rom. 11:20; Heb. 3:12). The people of Israel rejected Jesus’ miraculous signs, just as they had similarly rejected God’s mighty works throughout their history (Ps. 78:32; cf. v. 22; Num. 14:11; Deut. 1:32; 9:23; 2 Kings 17:14; Luke 22:67; Acts 14:2; Heb. 3:18–19).

The gospel accounts describe several levels of unbelief. First, there was unbelief due to lack of exposure. This was the unbelief of the prepared and ready heart, just awaiting the revelation of the truth from God. This is the shallowest level of unbelief, requiring only knowledge of the glorious majesty of Christ’s person to be overcome. For example, when John the Baptist pointed out Christ to Andrew and John (1:35–37), they immediately followed Him—even though He had not yet even spoken to them. Their knowledge of the Old Testament and their love for God made them ready.

Second, there was unbelief due to lack of information. This type of unbelief required more than mere exposure to the person of Christ; those at this level were less prepared and had to hear His words to be persuaded. The Samaritan woman at the well was not impressed by Jesus’ appearance or exposed to any of His miracles; to her He seemed to be just another Jewish rabbi. But after she experienced His supernatural knowledge regarding her sin (4:16–19); His forthright declaration that He was the Messiah (4:26) was convincing. His words also persuaded many of her fellow villagers to believe in Him (4:41–42).

Third, there was unbelief due to a perceived lack of evidence. Those who fall into this category had heard the claims of Christ, but desired evidence that those claims were true. The Gospels describe them as those who need to see the works of Christ. Jesus Himself offered His miracles as proof that He was the Messiah (Luke 7:20–22; John 5:36; 10:25, 37–38; 14:11; cf. Acts 2:22). Although the attesting miracles Christ performed did not bring all who observed them to saving faith (2:23–25; 12:37; cf. Luke 4:23), they did convince some. They were enough to persuade Nicodemus that Jesus was sent by God (3:2), and start him down the path to saving faith (see chap. 8 of this volume).

But there was a fourth level of unbelief found in the extremely religious and self-righteous—namely unbelief due to deliberate hardheartedness. Those at this level refused to believe in Christ and the gospel of grace, and no amount of evidence would convince them otherwise. They knew who Jesus was; they understood His teachings; they were aware of the overwhelming evidence; yet they stubbornly rejected His claims. Jesus warned of the consequences of this obstinate unbelief when He said, “Unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins” (8:24). The Pharisees exemplified this ultimate level of self-righteous unbelief when they concluded of Jesus, “This man casts out demons only by Beelzebul the ruler of the demons” (Matt. 12:24). They decided, exactly opposite the truth, that Jesus was satanic. Such deliberate unbelief is the most deadly type. Because such people, who think they have achieved righteousness, continually reject all the evidence for the gospel God shows them and hate the reality that they are spiritually poor, blind, enslaved, and oppressed with sin (cf. Luke 4:16–30). Their unbelief will never give way to repentance and saving faith (cf. Matt. 12:31–32; Heb. 6:4–8).

As He began His Galilean ministry, Jesus encountered some people at the third level of unbelief. The Galileans were not impressed by His person or His words; He had grown up among them, and they thought they knew who He was (cf. Matt. 13:54–58). They demanded signs and wonders (vv. 45, 48). This passage tells the story of how Jesus moved one of the Galileans from the third level of unbelief to saving faith.

Although some view this story as a variant account of the healing of the centurion’s son (Matt. 8:5–13; Luke 7:2–10), the significant differences between the two stories rule out that possibility. For instance, the man in this story was a royal official, whereas the centurion was a soldier; the official requested healing for his son, whereas the centurion interceded on behalf of his servant; and the official’s faith was not commended by Jesus (v. 48), whereas the centurion’s faith was (Luke 7:9).

The passage itself may be divided into three sections: unbelief contemplated, unbelief confronted, and unbelief conquered.

UNBELIEF CONTEMPLATED

After staying two days in Sychar at the request of the newly converted Samaritans (4:40), Jesus resumed His journey to Galilee (4:3). The Lord’s brief ministry in Samaria was a prophetic interlude, foreshadowing the later spread of the gospel to the Samaritans and Gentiles (cf. Acts 1:8). As the Samaritan villagers correctly perceived, He is the “Savior of the world” (4:42). But the good news of the kingdom was to be offered first to Israel (cf. Luke 24:47; Acts 3:26; 13:46; Rom. 1:16). The Jewish people were the primary focus of Jesus’ ministry (Matt. 10:5–6; 15:24).

The proverbial statement a prophet has no honor in his own country (cf. Luke 4:24) contrasts Jesus’ acceptance by the Samaritans with His general rejection by the Jewish people (1:11). It also explains His motive for returning to His home region of Galilee (as the conjunction gar [for] indicates). At first glance it seems somewhat perplexing that Jesus went to Galilee because, as He Himself testified, He would receive no honor there. The point, however, is that Jesus was not taken by surprise when many in His home region rejected Him. He went there knowing that He would be given a cold reception, especially at Nazareth, where He had been raised (Luke 4:16ff.). But some in Galilee would believe and, therefore, honor Him.

John’s statement, so when He came to Galilee, the Galileans received Him, does not mean that they believed savingly in Jesus as the Messiah. Oun (so) refers back to Jesus’ statement in the preceding verse, and confirms that the Galileans did not honor Him for who He really was. On the contrary, having seen all the things that He did in Jerusalem at the feast (cf. 2:23), they welcomed Him merely as a miracle worker. They were curiosity seekers, eagerly hoping to see Jesus perform some more sensational feats. Thus the apostle John writes with a sense of irony; the Galileans’ reception of Jesus was not genuine, but superficial and shallow.

UNBELIEF CONFRONTED

Therefore He came again to Cana of Galilee where He had made the water wine. And there was a royal official whose son was sick at Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus had come out of Judea into Galilee, he went to Him and was imploring Him to come down and heal his son; for he was at the point of death. So Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you simply will not believe.” The royal official said to Him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” (4:46–49)

The fact that Jesus encountered a royal official in Cana of Galilee where He had made the water wine (cf. 2:1–11) only added to the irony of the situation. This was the very place where Jesus had performed His first miracle. Yet, instead of exhibiting true belief in Him because of His undeniable, supernatural power, the people simply displayed a desire to see more miracles. As this incident demonstrates, the reception of the Galileans, like that of most Judeans (2:23–25), was superficial, curious, thrill-seeking, non-saving, sign-based interest. The conjunction oun (therefore) introduces the story of the royal official and presents him as an example of those Galileans who viewed Jesus not as the Messiah, but only as a miracle worker (cf. the discussion of v. 48 below).

The royal official (basilikos) was most likely in the service of Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee from 4 B.C. to A.D. 39. (It is unlikely that he was in the service of the emperor, since Galilee was not part of an imperial province.) Antipas was a son of Herod the Great, who ruled Palestine at the time of Christ’s birth. After his father’s death, Antipas was made ruler of Galilee. Although Rome denied him the formal royal title, Antipas was nonetheless commonly referred to as a king (Matt. 14:9; Mark 6:14). Some have speculated that this royal official was “Chuza, Herod’s steward” (Luke 8:3), whose wife was one of the women who accompanied Jesus. Others think he might have been the “Manaen who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch,” who was one of Paul’s co-pastors at Antioch (Acts 13:1). Such identifications, however, are merely speculative.

Urgent need compelled this man to journey to Christ; his son was sick at Capernaum, some sixteen miles away. Having heard that Jesus had come out of Judea into Galilee, he went to Him. Perhaps he had heard of the miracle Jesus performed at the wedding at Cana some months earlier (2:1–11). Or he may have witnessed the signs Jesus performed at Jerusalem during Passover, or heard about them from Galilean pilgrims who had been there (2:23–25). Finding Jesus, he began frantically imploring Him to come down to Capernaum and heal his son. The imperfect tense of the verb erotao (was imploring) indicates that he repeatedly begged Jesus to cure his son’s disease. Swallowing his pride, this respected member of Herod’s court begged for help from a carpenter’s son (cf. Matt. 13:55; Mark 6:3).

At this point, the official’s faith was little more than a desperate hope that led him to ask for Jesus’ intervention. His anxiety was certainly understandable, since his son was at the point of death. But his belief in Jesus was not yet driven by a desire for salvation for his own soul, but by desperation for his son.

The feebleness of his faith in Jesus’ ability to heal is underscored by two erroneous assumptions that he made about Him. First, unlike the centurion (Luke 7:6–7) and the Syrophoenician woman (Mark 7:24–30), he assumed Jesus had to be physically present to heal his son. Second, he hoped Jesus had the power to heal his son’s illness, but had no hope that He could raise him from the dead. Those two assumptions were behind his insistance that Jesus come at once before it was too late. Unlike the rich young ruler (Mark 10:17–22), he was not seeking spiritual truth, but was instead driven by an overwhelming physical and emotional need. His goal in coming to Jesus was not to obtain eternal salvation for himself, but physical healing for his dying child.

Faced with the royal official’s fearful, feeble, imperfect faith and the unbelief of the Galileans in general, Jesus issued a stern rebuke: “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you simply will not believe.” The NASB rightly adds the italicized word people, since the verb translated see is plural. Jesus’ rebuke encompassed the royal official and all of the Galileans whose flawed faith disregarded His message and mission of salvation and focused instead on the sensational miracles He performed on their behalf.

The royal official ignored Jesus’ assessment of him and his fellow Galileans. Single-mindedly he poured out his heart, exclaiming, “Sir, come down to Capernaum before my child (a more endearing, affectionate term than “son” [vv. 46–47]) dies.” Despite His stern rebuke of the kind of faith before Him, the Lord graciously performed the miracle, consequently drawing the official’s faith to a higher level. By healing his son physically, the Great Physician moved to heal the father spiritually.

UNBELIEF CONQUERED

Jesus said to him, “Go; your son lives.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started off. As he was now going down, his slaves met him, saying that his son was living. So he inquired of them the hour when he began to get better. Then they said to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” So the father knew that it was at that hour in which Jesus said to him, “Your son lives”; and he himself believed and his whole household. This is again a second sign that Jesus performed when He had come out of Judea into Galilee. (4:50–54)

Instead of agreeing to go back to Capernaum with him as the official had begged Him to do, Jesus merely said to him, “Go; your son lives.” At that very instant (vv. 52–53), the boy was healed. Even though he had no confirmation of it, the man nevertheless believed the word that Jesus spoke to him. The Lord’s words to him had moved him from the third level of unbelief (which needs miracles) to the second (which believes Christ’s word). Without any tangible proof that his son was healed, he took Jesus at His word and started off for home.

Leaving Cana in the Galilean hill country, the official went down toward Capernaum, on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee (about seven hundred feet below sea level). On the way, his slaves met him, already having left the town to find him and tell him the good news that his son was living (i.e., that he had recovered, not merely that he had not yet died). Overjoyed, the man inquired of them the hour when he began to get better. The servants replied, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” The seventh hour would have been early afternoon, sometime between 1 and 3 P.M. in the broadest reckoning. By the time he left Cana and arrived in the vicinity of Capernaum, it was after midnight (yesterday). It is possible that Jesus’ word to him relieved his anxiety about his son, allowing him to remain in Cana, perhaps to hear and see more from the Lord and understand His message. That would have been critical, because it led him to fully believe in Jesus when his servants reported the complete healing of his son, confirming the Lord’s claims (v. 53).

It was the time of his son’s recovery that verified to the father that a miracle had taken place, because he knew that his son’s healing had happened at that very hour in which Jesus had said to him, “Your son lives.” When he heard the news, the royal official himself believed, along with each member of his whole household (cf. Acts 11:14; 16:15, 31–34; 18:8; 1 Cor. 1:16; 16:15).

John concluded this account with the footnote, This is again a second sign that Jesus performed when He had come out of Judea into Galilee. This act of healing was the second of the eight major signs that John records as proof that Jesus was the Messiah. It was also the second sign (the first having taken place at the wedding at Cana [2:1–11]) He had performed in Galilee. That it was not Jesus’ second miracle overall is made clear from 2:23. In this instance, the stunning verification of Jesus’ power lifted the royal official all the way from sign-seeking unbelief to genuine saving faith.