John 4:48

Ver. 48. “ Jesus therefore said to him: Unless ye see signs and wonders ye will in no wise believe. ”

This reply of Jesus is perplexing; for it seems to suppose that this man asked for the miracle to the end of believing, which is certainly not the case. But the difficulty is explained by the plurals, ye see, ye will believe, which prove that this expression is not the reply to the father's request, but a reflection which He makes on occasion of that request. It is true, He addresses the remark to the man who is the occasion of it (πρὸς αὐτόν), but He speaks thus, with reference to all the Galilean people, whose moral tendency this man represents, to His view, at this moment. Indeed, the disposition which Jesus thus meets at the moment when He sets foot again on Israelitish soil, is the tendency to see in Him only a thaumaturge (worker of miracles); and He is so much the more painfully affected since He has just passed two days in Samaria, in contact with an altogether opposite spirit. There, it was as the Saviour of souls that He was welcomed. Here, it is bodily cures which are immediately asked of Him. He seems to be fit for nothing but to heal. And He is obliged to confess such is the true meaning of His word that if He refuses to play this part, there is reason to fear that no one will believe, or rather, according to the slightly ironical turn of expression of which He makes use (οὐ μή), “that it is not to be feared that any one will believe.”

There is likewise the expression of a painful feeling in the accumulation of the two nearly synonymous terms σημεῖα and τέρατα, signs and wonders. The first designates the miracle as related to the fact of the invisible world which it manifests; the second characterizes it as related to external nature, whose laws it sets at defiance. The latter term, therefore, brings out with more force the sensible character of the supernatural manifestation. The meaning, therefore, is: “You must have signs; and you are not satisfied unless these signs have the character of wonders.” Some have found in ἴδητε, ye see, an allusion to the request which is addressed to Him to go personally to the sick person, which proves, it is said, that the father wishes to see the healing with his own eyes. But in that case ἴδητε ought to stand at the beginning; and the meaning is forced.