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#3. The Ruler's Son (4: 46-50).
pp. 65 - 67
The first and last signs bring before us the nation's need. There is a failure of supply
which can only be met by their Messiah. The second and seventh signs emphasize
sickness and death, death being mentioned in these two alone.
The first sign was given on the seventh day of the record. In the second sign
restoration takes place "at the seventh hour". Seven disciples figure in the last sign
(21: 2). We shall find this element emphasized still more in the signs that follow. It is a
genuine part of the symbolism. The nation's restoration to joy and the marriage feast will
take place in the Sabbath that is coming, the seventh thousand years of this world's
history. So likewise will their being received back as alive from the dead.
Possibly, if the words of verse 43 stood alone, no symbolic meaning would be
attached to them, but they appear again in the corresponding seventh sign, and unitedly
compel one to think of Hos. 6: 1-3, viz.:--
"After two days He will revive us, in the third day He will raise us up, and we shall
live in His sight."
The passages are:--
"After two days He departed" (John 4: 43).
"He abode two days.......after that saith He to the disciples, Let us go into Judea
again" (11: 6, 7).
This period prophetically covers the 2,000 years of Israel's death as a nation, and
indicates the millennium as the day of Israel's revival and new life. To the same period
refer the words of Hos. 13: 14:--
"I will ransom them from the power of the grave: I will redeem them from death. O
death, I will be thy plagues: O grave, I will be thy destruction."
The apostle Paul, speaking of Israel's failure as a nation, says:--
"If the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving
of them be but LIFE FROM THE DEAD?" (Rom. 11: 15).
Twice does the nobleman use the words "come down" to the Lord. This may be
simply common usage, it may be strictly topographical, it may nevertheless be a part of
the sign itself. Over and over again in this Gospel the Lord refers to Himself as the bread
which came down from heaven. Israel's great cry in the day of deliverance will be:--
"Oh that Thou wouldest rend the heavens, that Thou wouldest come down" (Isa. 64: 1).
Israel at the point of death will have no hope of deliverance except from above.