The Great Gospel of John
Volume 1
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
At the Galilean Sea
- Chapter 102 -
The case of the Jewish believers at Capernaum. A great healing miracle. The Lord's warning against the temple vipers. The leading scribe gives good testimony to the Lord from Isaiah. A crowd. The Lord puts the clever scribe in place.
When all who were with Me had finished supper, whilst Judas slept on a straw mattress in the outhouse, those same Jews who the previous day had put the priest, scribes and Pharisees to the test, brought a great many possessed and a great many others suffering all kinds of ills, imploring Me to heal them all.
2
And I asked them in a lovingly earnest manner whether they believed that the Nazarene carpenter's son was able to do so. Because these people knew Me so to speak from birth.
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But they answered and said, 'What have we to do with the carpenter's son?! If the carpenter's son was chosen of God to become a prophet to the people of Israel, then he is a prophet even if a thousandfold carpenter's son; because each man is what he is out of God and never what his parents were! And so we believe without doubt that you are firstly a God-tutored prophet and that you hence secondly can help everyone, as you helped the son of the city councilor and the centurion's servant!'
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And I answered them, 'Now then, since your faith in Me and your assessment of Me are such, be it done to you according to your faith!'
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Upon this word, all the spirits left the possessed and those suffering all kinds of sickness and plagues became well instantly. (Matt. 8:16).
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That there followed no end of astonishment and thanks hardly needs explaining!
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The most fitting and scathing debunking of the Jewish priesthood in aggregate also followed, but I rebuked the accusers and showed them it is unwise to awaken a brood of sleeping vipers. 'For whilst same is still hibernating it is without harm and danger, but on awakening is more menacing than normally!
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Those temple servants, full of cunning and malice, had indeed been sleeping like a brood of vipers in winter; but through your bold request, you have forcibly roused them from sleep. Guard against their harming you therefore. Because this adulterous kind derives lascivious pleasure from doing harm!'
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All recognise the truth of this lecture and regret the mischief they brought about by their rashness! But I comfort them and tell them not to divulge the sign worked here at Capernaum, except to some trusted friends of truth, who also know how to keep silence. And they assured Me of it!
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But there was one amongst them who, although not counted among the priesthood, nevertheless was very well versed in the scriptures.
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This one stepped in front of the crowd, speaking in an earnest manner, 'Hearken, beloved friends and brothers! In this deed I have discovered something which bespeaks more than just saying "behold, this man is a true prophet." I believe that this act took place in fulfillment of the prophecies of Isaiah, when he spoke, "Surely he has borne our grief and carried our sorrows!" Don't you notice anything?'
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The people looked at the speaker in astonishment, not understanding him. He repeats his question and with the people still not grasping his quotation from Isaiah, he says, "It is not easy to preach about the colours of the rainbow to the blind!"
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Say I, 'Calm down, It is better for these people not to grasp it for the present! Because if these people were to grasp this forthwith, they would run over to the priests and start a mighty argument and this should be good neither for yourselves nor from the viewpoint of My teaching! But when the right time comes they shall grasp even with the hands what the prophet was saying!'
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The speaker settled down with that, whilst the crowd whose possessed and sick I had healed this evening, left with their healed.
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But when the crowd arrived at home in Capernaum they caused a furor among their acquaintances; and when the next morning hardly began to dawn, Peter's house already was surrounded by an immeasurable crowd, wanting to see Me Who had performed such incomprehensibly immense wonder! And Peter asked Me what should be done, since the crowd continued growing.
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'Get the large boat ready and we shall go to the other side of the sea, otherwise there will be trouble here. (Matt. 8:18) Although the people are here with the best intention, also the priests are sneaking up behind them, and at this stage we do not want to have anything to do with them.'
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Peter immediately made the largest ship ready, which we soon boarded and began to sail fast across the sea, helped by a fair wind.
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However, before I had boarded the ship with the disciples a teacher of the law from Capernaum came up to Me and said, 'Rabbi, allow me to follow you where you are going.' (Matt. 8:19) But since I saw that his secret motive in wishing to follow Me was by no means an honourable one, and that he was not much interested in My teaching and all My deeds, but only wanted to be provided for and if profitable commit secret acts of treachery, I shook My head and said to him, 'The foxes have their holes, the birds under the sky have their nests, but the Son of Man has in this world not even a stone belonging to Him upon which He may lay His head.' (Matt. 8:20)
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And the man understood Me, turned away and went home. For thereby I gave him to understand that he, too, was a cunning fox and had his hole (a paid position) and that birds of his kind living under the sky, i.e. a feeding and resting place, where they consumed their prey, but that with the Son of Man nothing is to be found of all the worldly deceit, not even a so-called political emergency-trick (stone), upon which one could occasionally rest the head of one's mind. The teacher of the law, as already mentioned, did understand Me correctly and quickly returned to Capernaum without any further argument.