The Nobleman’s Son (John 4:43–54) — A Sermon by R.C. Sproul
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The Christian life is not about believing in God. It's about believing God. What saving faith is is trusting what God says is the truth. And what is so marvelous about this man that in the midst of his desperation, he heard the promise of Christ and he believed it. He believed the word of Christ. He trusted Christ enough. He didn't say, "Come on, let's see if it's true." He doesn't grab Jesus by the hand and still wanting to drag him to his house. [00:22:48]
This is not an isolated incident that took place 2,000 years ago in Galilee. It happens all over the place in our own day where people come rushing to hear the gospel quote for what they can get out of it. They'll come to Jesus for a blessing. I've talked to people who have gone to faith healers who have no more desire to learn the things of God than the man in the moon. [00:14:08]
But we're like those people. We have calluses on our heart. It's like we've all been born in Missouri. And we're not going to believe or trust our souls to Christ unless we see with our eyes and hear with our ears and see him do his stuff. And there's a lot of that in the world today. And so Jesus is not very complimentary when this man is beside himself and Jesus takes this opportunity to rebuke him and all of his friends. [00:19:49]
Most of us would go to a fortune teller if we thought it would do some good if our child was dying. And here we have a nobleman, a man of wealth, a man of status, who obviously had at his fingertips all of the ability to bring the best physicians to bear on his son's serious illness, an illness, and apparently was unto death. And nothing availed. And he was desperate. [00:16:38]
A couple of years ago, I mentioned to you an experience I had in seminary with a friend of mine who was a classmate who had graduated from MIT and was MIT's valictorian. And he was the most brilliant young man I had ever met with an IQ that measured over 180. He had come to a seminary embracing orthodox Christianity, but being delued by higher criticism, he lost his confidence in the trustworthiness of the Bible. [00:03:15]
but there's something here that is important for us to understand not only this text, but everything that comes afterwards in the Gospel of John. We don't know in what sense or nuance John writes the words here quoting Jesus' statement about a prophet not being without honor except in his own country. Like I've said to you before, we don't have the advantage of listening to the tone of voice that people use when they speak in the Bible or to see their facial expressions or their gestures. [00:11:37]
Now wait a minute. We just read that the prophets's not without honor except in his own country. Jesus comes to his own country. He's come from Judea. He went to Samaria. Samaria certainly wasn't his own country. Now he goes back to his hometown. He goes back to his homeland. And he receives this enormously warm welcome according to John. [00:07:59]
that statement is made sarcastically because if you see the thrust of the narrative that we're reading and what follows afterwards that is a ongoing problem in Jesus' ministry especially in Galilee that people yes indeed they welcome him for a moment when they are looking for signs and wonders. Sure, they welcome him for his miracles, but there is no honor given to him as the Messiah. [00:12:52]
before I leap to the conclusion that the apostle is falling into a contradiction here, let's see if there are any other alternatives. Well, many scholars believe that what John the writer is saying here is that the reason why Jesus went to Galilee was because he had gotten into trouble and had encountered serious hostility from the officials in Jerusalem. [00:09:22]
And these people unabashedly sought him out. They pursued him for the benefit they could derive from him without any sense of repenting of their sins, without any sense of receiving him as Lord, without any purpose of receiving him as the Messiah or as the Savior. And John shows us this time and again throughout his record of the ministry of Jesus. [00:15:08]
"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 and discrepancies and difficult to harmonize passages in a book that thick, even if we had it delivered from a parachute from heaven, that shouldn't surprise anybody. But the fact that there are actual contradictions, that's a serious charge. [00:06:27]
And one by one we examined together these alleged contradictions in sacred scripture. And he having been a student of philosophy was aware of the laws of logic, the laws of immediate inference, ven diagrams and that sort of thing. And we subjected all of these difficult discrepancies of passages in the scripture to the tests to see whether they had in fact violated the law of contradiction. [00:05:32]
How about let's meet back here tomorrow at 1:00 and you give me a list of 50 contradictions that you find in scripture. And 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 50. [00:04:33]
And so he agreed to the challenge. The next day, he showed up at 1:00 to the place where we had stood the day before, blurry eyed, unckempt, confessed that he had been up all night, not only searching himself, the scriptures to list these contradictions, but he enlisted the help of other skeptics in this task. [00:04:58]
And he said to me, "RC, how can you do that when the Bible is filled with contradictions?" And I said to him, I said, "Maybe I'm blind, but I haven't noticed that the Bible's filled with contradictions." He says, "Well, they're all over the place." And I said, 'Well, let me ask you to do me a favor. [00:04:06]
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This is not an isolated incident that took place 2,000 years ago in Galilee. It happens all over the place in our own day where people come rushing to hear the gospel quote for what they can get out of it. They'll come to Jesus for a blessing. I've talked to people who have gone to faith healers who have no more desire to learn the things of God than the man in the moon. [00:14:08]
But we're like those people. We have calluses on our heart. It's like we've all been born in Missouri. And we're not going to believe or trust our souls to Christ unless we see with our eyes and hear with our ears and see him do his stuff. And there's a lot of that in the world today. And so Jesus is not very complimentary when this man is beside himself and Jesus takes this opportunity to rebuke him and all of his friends. [00:19:49]
Most of us would go to a fortune teller if we thought it would do some good if our child was dying. And here we have a nobleman, a man of wealth, a man of status, who obviously had at his fingertips all of the ability to bring the best physicians to bear on his son's serious illness, an illness, and apparently was unto death. And nothing availed. And he was desperate. [00:16:38]
A couple of years ago, I mentioned to you an experience I had in seminary with a friend of mine who was a classmate who had graduated from MIT and was MIT's valictorian. And he was the most brilliant young man I had ever met with an IQ that measured over 180. He had come to a seminary embracing orthodox Christianity, but being delued by higher criticism, he lost his confidence in the trustworthiness of the Bible. [00:03:15]
but there's something here that is important for us to understand not only this text, but everything that comes afterwards in the Gospel of John. We don't know in what sense or nuance John writes the words here quoting Jesus' statement about a prophet not being without honor except in his own country. Like I've said to you before, we don't have the advantage of listening to the tone of voice that people use when they speak in the Bible or to see their facial expressions or their gestures. [00:11:37]
Now wait a minute. We just read that the prophets's not without honor except in his own country. Jesus comes to his own country. He's come from Judea. He went to Samaria. Samaria certainly wasn't his own country. Now he goes back to his hometown. He goes back to his homeland. And he receives this enormously warm welcome according to John. [00:07:59]
that statement is made sarcastically because if you see the thrust of the narrative that we're reading and what follows afterwards that is a ongoing problem in Jesus' ministry especially in Galilee that people yes indeed they welcome him for a moment when they are looking for signs and wonders. Sure, they welcome him for his miracles, but there is no honor given to him as the Messiah. [00:12:52]
before I leap to the conclusion that the apostle is falling into a contradiction here, let's see if there are any other alternatives. Well, many scholars believe that what John the writer is saying here is that the reason why Jesus went to Galilee was because he had gotten into trouble and had encountered serious hostility from the officials in Jerusalem. [00:09:22]
And these people unabashedly sought him out. They pursued him for the benefit they could derive from him without any sense of repenting of their sins, without any sense of receiving him as Lord, without any purpose of receiving him as the Messiah or as the Savior. And John shows us this time and again throughout his record of the ministry of Jesus. [00:15:08]
"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 and discrepancies and difficult to harmonize passages in a book that thick, even if we had it delivered from a parachute from heaven, that shouldn't surprise anybody. But the fact that there are actual contradictions, that's a serious charge. [00:06:27]
And one by one we examined together these alleged contradictions in sacred scripture. And he having been a student of philosophy was aware of the laws of logic, the laws of immediate inference, ven diagrams and that sort of thing. And we subjected all of these difficult discrepancies of passages in the scripture to the tests to see whether they had in fact violated the law of contradiction. [00:05:32]
How about let's meet back here tomorrow at 1:00 and you give me a list of 50 contradictions that you find in scripture. And 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 50. [00:04:33]
And so he agreed to the challenge. The next day, he showed up at 1:00 to the place where we had stood the day before, blurry eyed, unckempt, confessed that he had been up all night, not only searching himself, the scriptures to list these contradictions, but he enlisted the help of other skeptics in this task. [00:04:58]
And he said to me, "RC, how can you do that when the Bible is filled with contradictions?" And I said to him, I said, "Maybe I'm blind, but I haven't noticed that the Bible's filled with contradictions." He says, "Well, they're all over the place." And I said, 'Well, let me ask you to do me a favor. [00:04:06]
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