he went to him and asked him to come down
and heal his son, who was near death.
The royal official did not ask because he wanted a sign. He wanted a healing. But neither did he come seeking belief, or Jesus for his own sake.
Jesus said to him,
“Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe.”
Jesus mentioned a sign because he wanted the royal official and the people to believe in him. He was willing to provide miracles that proved his message and authenticated his identity. He knew that this healing for which he was being asked would be seen as a sign. But he wanted to be sure that those who knew of it did not see it as something great in itself and miss the more important opportunity to believe.
“Sir, come down before my child dies.”
Jesus said to him, “You may go; your son will live.”
The man believed what Jesus said to him and left.
By raising the mind of the royal official from the sign he sought to the purpose of signs Jesus invited the royal official to belief in him. He was actually already able to believe the words of Jesus before he saw the signs and wonders, though perhaps yet imperfectly.
While the man was on his way back,
his slaves met him and told him that his boy would live.
He asked them when he began to recover.
They told him,
“The fever left him yesterday, about one in the afternoon.”
The father realized that just at that time Jesus had said to him,
“Your son will live,”
and he and his whole household came to believe.
Jesus brought about the sign because he wanted to bring many to belief. But he showed how much we are meant to value such things. The temporary renewal of the natural order that signs and wonders produce is a good we are meant to desire. But we are meant to receive such signs not as ends in themselves, but as pointers to the one whom they signify. For all healed in this life will be again subject to death. Yet the signs point beyond that to the one who conquered even death, who now has the power to give life to whomever he wills (see John 5:21).
It is as if Jesus was saying that we were unable to see beyond our desire for the natural and the temporal unless he himself shaped signs within that order that pointed beyond it. We see two stages of belief in the example of the royal official. The first is where we are able to bring our desires to Jesus and to place them in his hands, relinquishing our control over the outcome. The second is when we see in the signs the revelation of the power of Jesus himself and our minds our lifted from the natural order, from the limited purview of the ego, to faith in the identity of Jesus. Our eyes are lifted from the earthly to the heavenly, not by the neglecting of the earthly but by their being taken up into the heavenly.
Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth (see Colossians 3:2).
The renewal God planned and is in the process of bringing to fulfillment is greater than anything we could have asked or imagined (see Ephesians 3:20). He does not begrudge us any sign or wonder that will help to elevate our perspective to see this plan. His only concern is to be sure we don't stop with that which is sign without learning to desire that to which the sign directs us.
Lo, I am about to create new heavens
and a new earth;
The things of the past shall not be remembered
or come to mind.
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