John 4:46-54; The Royal Official: Did he believe or not?

46 Then he again went to Cana of Galilee, where he made the water wine.

Now there was a certain royal official whose son was sick in Capernaum.  47 After hearing that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and asked him to come down and heal his son, for he was about to die.  48 Then, Jesus said to him, “If you don’t see (plural) signs and wonders, you (plural) will never believe.”  49 The royal official said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.”  50 Jesus said to him, “Go, your son is living.”  The man believed the word that Jesus had spoken to him, and he left.  51 While he was already going down, his slaves met him, telling him that his child is living.  52 Then, he inquired from them the time that his son got better.  So, they said to him, “The fever left him yesterday at 1:00pm.”  53 Then, the father realized that that was the time when Jesus said to him, “Your son is living.”  He himself and his whole household believed.  54 This again was the second sign that Jesus did after coming from Judea to Galilee.  John 4:46-54

This is one of the greatest stories in the New Testament.  We have a royal official who had heard about Jesus and needed him to heal his young son who was dying with fever.  What I want to focus on is when did this royal official really believe in Jesus.  Did he believe based on what Jesus told him, or did he believe after his son was healed?  In this text, it seems like “both”!

As you can see from my translation, I’ve underlined and put in italics “believed”.  Both verbs are used in the Aorist tense in Greek.  The Aorist tense has an undefined aspect.  In other words, this tense doesn’t offer the time or duration of the action of the verb.  

With that said, there are types of emphasis with verbs in the Aorist tense:

1. Ingressive
2. Effective
3. Constative

“Ingressive” describes the beginning of an action.  “Effective” describes the end of an action.  Last, but not least, “Constative” describes an action as a whole.

In this text, we may have the royal official at the beginning of his believing action in verse 50 (Ingressive Aorist).  If that is true, then verse 53 probably shows the royal official’s “believing action” after his son was healed (Effective Aorist).  In other words, he began believing in Jesus based on what Jesus said to him (and probably based on what he had heard from others), but he REALLY came to believe in Jesus after his son was healed.  Interpretations will differ, but there is no doubt that Greek verb tenses can help in our interpretation of the NT.

On a side note, John loved to incorporate word-plays in his Gospel.  This passage offers a good one.  In verse 49, John uses τὸ παιδίον (to paidion) for “child”, but in verse 51, he uses ὁ παῖς (ho pais) for “child”.  All of the NT authors did this as it was “catchy” for illiterate folks to hear.  It would have helped those folks to remember what had been read out to them.

John 20:21-22; Living Being and Immortal Being

John 20:21 Then Jesus said to them again, “Peace be to you.  Just as the Father has sent me, I will also send you.”  22 After saying this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit!  If you forgive anyone’s sins, they have been forgiven.  If you hold in place anyone’s sins, they have been held in place. (My Translation)

There are several interesting moments in this passage.  The first one is the word-play on “send” that occurs in verse 21.  The first word is ἀποστέλλω (apostellō) and the second one is πέμπω (pempō).  There is no significant difference in meaning.  In fact, John’s Gospel is riddled with word-plays throughout.  It is his style, in my opinion, to make his written Gospel memorable.

The second feature is the direct allusion to Genesis 2:7.  If one looks at the passage in the LXX (the Septuagint, the OT in Greek), one will see that the very same verb, in the very same tense was used for “to breath on”.  Let me demonstrate that.

22 καὶ τοῦτο εἰπὼν ἐνεφύσησεν καὶ λέγει αὐτοῖς· λάβετε πνεῦμα ἅγιον·

22 After saying this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit!

Gen. 2:7 καὶ ἔπλασεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν ἄνθρωπον χοῦν ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς καὶ ἐνεφύσησεν εἰς τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ πνοὴν ζωῆς, καὶ ἐγένετο ὁ ἄνθρωπος εἰς ψυχὴν ζῶσαν.  LXX

Gen. 2:7 God formed man, dust from of the earth, and breathed on/into his face a breath of life, and the man became a living being.  LXX (My Translation)

The third feature has to do with what was breathed on Adam and what was breathed on the disciples.  In Genesis, God breathed “a breath of life”, while in John, Jesus breathed on the disciples “the Holy Spirit”.  There is a cognate relationship between “breath” and “Spirit”.  Both words are cognate nouns from the verb πνέω (pneō).  You can see how the roots of the words are the same. 

πνέω (pneō)

πνοή (pnoē)

πνεῦμα (pneuma)

Also, πνεῦμα (pneuma) can also mean “breath”, “wind”, or “spirit”.

So, in Genesis, God formed man and put life into him so that he would become “alive” (a living being), but in John, Jesus breaths on people who are already “living beings” with the Holy Spirit (breath) and they become “immortal” and received “eternal life”.  “Point A”, mankind lives, “Point B”, mankind not only lives, but lives forever.

The last feature of the passage is the disciples receiving what is the equivalent to “binding and loosing” in Matthew 16:19 and Matthew 18:18.  Here, if the disciples “forgive sin”, those peoples’ sins “have been forgiven”, which is in the perfect tense.  In Greek, the perfect tense indicates an action that has occurred in the past, but the effects of that action are still felt at the present time.  It is the same with the last phrase; “If you hold in place anyone’s sins, they have been held in place.”

It is interesting to consider that what the Apostles “will do” has “already been done”.  If they forgive sins, God has already forgiven them.  It puts into prospective who is really “the prime mover and shaker”.