Dr. Sproul starts this message with a discussion of alleged contradictions and how he was confronted with them by a fellow student. In spite of resolving the alleged contradictions, there remains the issue of faith. The desperate nobleman asks for Jesus to come and heal his son, but Jesus says his son lives. The nobleman believes and on meeting his servants, Dr. Sproul shows his was a confident faith.

We are reading again from the gospel according to Saint John, and this morning we are looking at John 4:43–54:

Now after the two days He departed from there and went to 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 He did in Jerusalem at the feast; for they also had gone to the feast.

So Jesus came again to Cana of Galilee where He had made the water wine. And there was a certain nobleman whose son was sick at Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus had come out of Judea into Galilee, he went to Him and implored Him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. Then Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will by no means believe.”

The nobleman said to Him, “Sir, come down before my child dies!”

Jesus said to him, “Go your way; your son lives.” So the man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and he went his way. And as he was now going down, his servants met him and told him, saying, “Your son lives!”

Then he inquired of them the hour when he got better. And they said to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” So the father knew that it was at the same hour in which Jesus said to him, “Your son lives.” And he himself believed, and his whole household.

This again is the second sign Jesus did when He had come out of Judea into Galilee.

He who has ears to hear the Word of God, let him hear. Let us pray.

Our Father and our God, impress upon our minds and our souls the significance of this narrative that reveals to us the power and compassion of our Lord Jesus Christ. Help us to see past the works to the person who did them, that our faith, indeed, may rest in Him. For we ask it in His name. Amen.

Alleged Contradictions

Years ago, I had an experience in seminary with a classmate and friend of mine. He had graduated as valedictorian from MIT, with an IQ that measured over 180, and he was the most brilliant young man I had ever met. He had come to seminary embracing orthodox Christianity, but deluged by higher criticism, he lost his confidence in the trustworthiness of the Bible.

As we were talking together during our senior year, I told him that I was still persuaded of the divine inspiration of sacred Scripture. He said to me, “R.C., how can you believe that when the Bible is filled with contradictions?” I replied, “Maybe I’m blind, but I haven’t noticed that the Bible is filled with contradictions.” He responded, “They’re all over the place.”

I said, “Let me ask you to do me a favor.” I looked at my watch, and it was around one o’clock in the afternoon. I told him: “It’s one o’clock now. Let’s meet back here tomorrow at one o’clock, and you give me a list of fifty contradictions that you find in Scripture. With all the criticisms you’ve heard around here in the last three years, and your statement that the Bible—which is a big book—is filled with them, it shouldn’t be a difficult task to come up with fifty.” He agreed to the challenge.

The next day, he showed up at one o’clock at the place where we had stood the day before, bleary-eyed and unkept. He confessed that he had been up all night, not only searching the Scriptures himself to list these contradictions, but enlisting the help of other skeptics in this task. As hard as they searched, they could only come up with thirty contradictions. I said: “That’s fine. Thirty is enough to persuade me that it’s not the inspired Word of God. Let’s look at them.”

One by one, we examined these alleged contradictions in sacred Scripture. Having been a student of philosophy, he was aware of the laws of logic, the laws of immediate inference, Venn diagrams, and the like. We subjected all these difficult discrepancies in Scripture to these tests, to see whether they had in fact violated the law of contradiction. Not simply to my satisfaction, but to his, we were able to resolve every one of these alleged contradictions.

When we were done, he said: “See? The Bible’s filled with contradictions.” I asked, “What’s thirty times zero?” He responded, “But look at all the gymnastics that you had to go through to prove that they technically did not violate the law of contradiction.” I answered: “That’s right, so that we could exonerate God’s Word from the slander that it’s filled with contradictions. That’s what we’ve had to do. The fact that there are tensions, discrepancies, and difficult-to-harmonize passages in a book that thick, even if it were delivered by a parachute from heaven, shouldn’t surprise anyone. But if there are actual contradictions, that’s a serious charge.” So, we parted friends on the issue.

A Prophet Has No Honor

I mention that for this reason: In verse 43 of this text, we have another one of the passages in the New Testament that critics often use to indicate that Scripture is filled with contradictions. Verse 43, where we began today, says: “Now after the two days He departed from there and went to Galilee. For Jesus Himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country.”

John inserts the testimony of Jesus, quoting the ancient proverb, “A prophet is never without honor, except in his own country.” Then, in the very next sentence, John says, “So when He came to Galilee, the Galileans received Him.” In fact, the force of the text here is that the Galileans welcomed Him.

Now, we just read that a prophet is not without honor, except in his own country. Jesus came to His own country. He had come from Judea and gone to Samaria—Samaria certainly was not His own country. He went back to His hometown, back to His homeland, and received an enormously warm welcome, according to John. Critics look at that and say: “See, the Bible says that a prophet is not without honor except in his own country. Now He comes to His own country, and He receives honor.”

What do you do with that? You should see the gymnastics that scholars go through to reconcile those two lines. But before I try to join the gym, let me say first that it would be surprising to me if John contradicted himself. That is bad enough. But to do it one sentence after the next, to be involved in a blatant contradiction, how stupid would John have to be? Never mind the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. Even if John had no inspiration, it would still be incredibly unlikely that he would contradict himself in two statements in a row. So, before I leap to the conclusion that the Apostle is falling into contradiction here, let us see if there are any other alternatives.

Jesus’ Homeland

Many scholars believe John is saying that Jesus went to Galilee because He had gotten into trouble and encountered serious hostility from the officials in Jerusalem. He was leaving His home country, Judea, to escape the hostility of the people there, because they were not honoring Him. He was going to a place that was more conducive to His public ministry, namely, Galilee. They say, “After all, Jesus was born in Bethlehem, and Bethlehem is in Judea, so there’s no contradiction whatsoever.”

Many scholars take that position. The only problem is that in John’s gospel and everywhere else in the New Testament, although Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the Scriptures primarily speak of His place of origin as Nazareth. That was where He grew up. That was where He was known. That was His home, and so it is a little iffy to get away from this contradiction by saying that He is going to Galilee, which is really where He grew up, because He has no honor in Jerusalem.

That is where the conflict is. Although this is His homeland, and a prophet is never without honor except in his home country, the next statement is, “And the people came out to welcome Him.” If we take the position that the term homeland refers to Galilee and not to Judea, then we have to reconcile this tension.

You may not be interested in this kind of detail, but this is the kind of thing I love to dig into, and you will just have to bear with me for a minute. There is something here that is important for us to understand, not only in this text, but in everything that comes afterwards in the Gospel of John.

Jesus Welcomed

We do not know with what nuance John quotes Jesus’ statement about a prophet not being without honor except in his home country. Like I have said before, we do not have the advantage of listening to the tone of voice the people in the Bible used when they spoke, or seeing their facial expressions and gestures.

Rarely do we get the editorial comment that says, “Jesus spoke in a loud voice.” Sometimes we see in the text statements that, if you read their bare content, mean one thing. But if you understand that they are said ironically or sarcastically, they have completely different significance.

For the sake of argument, let us suppose that Galilee is His homeland, and that when Jesus comes there, and John says, “The people came out, and they received Him,” suppose that statement is made sarcastically. In the narrative that we are reading and what follows, we see an ongoing problem in Jesus’ ministry, especially in Galilee: People welcome Him only when they are looking for signs and wonders.

Sure, the people welcome Jesus for His miracles, but there is no honor given to Him as the Messiah. This is in stark contrast to what we just studied, which took place in Samaria. After the Samaritan woman discovered that Christ was the Messiah, she went and told the people of the village. They all came out and embraced Him as the Messiah. That had not happened in Galilee, and it certainly had not happened in Jerusalem either.

We have this record of those who, like the nobleman, seek Jesus for His power and His gifts. Let me stop here for just a second. This is not an isolated incident that took place two thousand years ago in Galilee. It happens in our own day when people come rushing to hear the gospel for what they can get out of it. They will come to Jesus for a blessing.

I have talked with people who have gone to faith healers. They have no more desire to learn the things of God than the man in the moon, but people say, “When you have a disease that’s chronic or incurable, you’ll try anything.” There were those in Jesus’ day who were desperate in their afflictions, and when the word got around that He was a healer, a miracle maker, they unabashedly sought Him out.

The people pursued Jesus for the benefit they could derive from Him without any purpose of repenting from their sins or receiving Him as Lord, Messiah, and Savior. John shows this to us time and again throughout His record of the ministry of Jesus.

The Nobleman’s Request

Let us look at what happens with the nobleman and his son. John says, “So Jesus came again to Cana of Galilee where He had made the water wine.” Remember, that created a stir. It was the first sign He had done at Cana, and His reputation got around the community. John continues: “And there was a certain nobleman whose son was sick at Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus had come out of Judea into Galilee, he went to Him and implored Him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death.”

Do you have to be a Christian to beg someone to heal your child if your child is dying? No, most of us would probably do rash things if we thought it would do some good if our child were dying. Here we have a nobleman, a man of wealth and of status, who obviously had at his fingertips the ability to call upon the best physicians for his son’s serious illness. The illness was apparently unto death. Nothing availed, and he was desperate.

The nobleman perhaps heard about the miracle Jesus had performed at the wedding feast of Cana. He probably did not believe it—unless maybe he was there. But now, he had a need so pressing that it was consuming his life. He has heard of Jesus by His reputation, and he went to Him. The Scripture uses strong language here. He implored Jesus, “Please come with me.” He is thinking, “Maybe if I can get this miracle worker to come to my house, He can save the life of my son,” and so he begs Jesus to go home with him.

Notice that Jesus refuses the request. That was not very politically correct. You would think that if Jesus really cared and had compassion on this man, who was in absolute agony about the life of his son, He would say: “I’ll go along with you and see what I can do. If I can help, I’ll help.”

Rebuke and Healing

I think Jesus recognized that this man came to Him out of this earthly need, which had nothing to do with a desire for salvation. So, Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will by no means believe.” Is that a stern rebuke from our Lord? “You won’t believe by any means whatsoever unless you see miracles, unless you see signs and wonders.”

This is Jesus, who would later rebuke those who were walking on the way to Emmaus, who were skeptical and in despair after His death in Jerusalem. He said, “Oh, foolish and slow of heart to believe, have you not read the prophets?” Then, beginning with the Old Testament, Jesus went through the Scriptures and showed them that, had they believed the Scriptures, they would not have needed the resurrection to attest to His truth.

But we are like those people. We have calluses on our hearts. It is like we have all been born in Missouri, and we are not going to believe or trust ourselves to Christ unless we see with our eyes, hear with our ears, and see Him do His works. There is a lot of that in the world today.

Jesus is not very complimentary. The nobleman is beside himself, and Jesus takes this opportunity to rebuke him and his friends: “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will by no means believe.”

The nobleman does not waste any time arguing the point with Jesus. Listen to what he says: “Sir, come down before my child dies!” Essentially, he is saying: “I don’t want to get involved in any discussion about theology. Just please come. I need You. That’s all I ask.” So, Jesus said to him: “Go your way. Your son lives.”

I would love to hear how Jesus said that. I do not think He said: “Oh, get out of here. Your son’s okay.” No, He said: “Go your way. Your son’s fine. He’s okay. I’m not going to go with you. I’m not going to show you, but it’s all right.”

There had to be something in how Jesus said it. There had to be something in the way He declared it that elicited trust from this man, who just seconds before was in a panic, begging Jesus and insisting that He come with him: “Please come. Stop the theology and all of the signs and wonders. Just fix my son.” Jesus said: “It’s fixed. It’s done.”

Believe God

The text continues, “So the man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and he went his way.” How many times have I said this? A Christian’s life is not about believing in God; it is about believing God. Saving faith is trusting that what God says is the truth.

What is so marvelous about this man is that in the midst of his desperation, he heard the promise of Christ, and he believed. He believed the word of Christ. He trusted Christ enough. He did not say, “Let’s see if it’s true.” He did not grab Jesus by the hand to drag Him to his house. He said, “I believe you, and I’m going home.” So, he makes his way back home.

“And as he was now going down, his servants met him and told him, saying, ‘Your son lives!’” We do not know what he said right away. You would think he would say: “You’re kidding. That’s fantastic!” Instead, he said, “What time did he get better?” Essentially, “I know he’s alive, but just tell me, when did he recover?” They answered: “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” The text then says: “So the father knew that it was at the same hour in which Jesus said to him, ‘Your son lives.’ And he himself believed, and his whole household.”

At this point, the man took the next step. He enjoyed the tremendous benefit he received from the healing hands of Jesus. But in that act of mercy and compassion, that miracle of healing, the man understood who Jesus was. Then John tells us that the nobleman believed in Him. The words John uses here indicate that this trust, this faith, went beyond his ability to trust Jesus for a miracle. Now, what the man possessed was saving faith, and he was joined by his entire household.

Let me finish by saying this: These words are written, John tells us, that you might believe in Him, and in believing in Him, have life—and have it abundantly. This is just one more glimpse of the person of Christ, the One who, by His command, by His very Word, brings life out of death, safety out of danger, healing out of disease, and salvation out of lostness. This is our Jesus. This is why we are called Christians. Let us pray.

Our Father and our God, we thank You for this glimpse into the person and the work of Your Son. By His Word, lives are changed, and by His Word, we are changed. Give to us, by Your Spirit, the capacity to believe what He says to us. For we ask it in His name. Amen.

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.