The Miracle of Saving Faith

By Mike Cates

And this beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee.  (John 2:11)  Jesus and His disciples had been called to a marriage.  This marriage at Cana of Galilee, the heathen circle, a region of Palestine, pictures the Church with the Gentile.  During the festivities, we read, and when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto Him, They have no wine.

Because so little is known in the earth today about what constitutes true marriage love, it is evident an absence of wine still exist, when two people come together.  The festivities take place, but no marriage.  Many times the Lord is not even called.  Though the wedding may involve the commandments from the Scripture, these commandments are there only to serve for an external bond.  There is no wine!  All that is being drunk is water.

Civil law is enacted that both societies, religious and natural, may be satisfied that two consenting adults, male and female, come together in what they call a loving relationship.  Yet the two co-habit from their own self-ideas formed by their senses.  Without a revelation of true marriage love, the bonds of matrimony will eventually break down.  The earthy union has no spiritual life.  The house that has been built has no foundation.

In this miracle of the Lord turning the water into wine, there is a revelation of how the literal sense of the Word, the law and its rituals, is opened to its interior meaning by Incarnate God, as it is studied and applied.  When there is a wanting for wine--a spiritual understanding of truth--the affection for good will always be present, and when the affection of good is present, it will perceive that what once had prevailed, had come to its end and will acknowledge: there is no wine.  New wine must take its place.  Keep in mind, this wedding was at Cana of Galilee, and it pictures the Church with the Gentile.  The time for the Gentile was not yet, for the Lord had not put off the human He had assumed from Mary and put on the Divine Human from the Father.

This glorification would be a process.  This miracle would show that process, by successive order.    There were set there six waterpots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece.  Jesus saith unto them, Fill the waterpots with water.  And they filled them up to the brim.  And He saith unto them, Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast.  (John 2:6-8)  We want the wine, but will we do what it takes to get it?  Fill the six waterpots to the brim!

When they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto Him, They have no wine.  Mary, recognizing the son she had borne was conceived without knowing a man, placed demand upon the Divine for the glory of God to come forth in the natural.  Jesus had assumed His human body from Mary, but not His soul: His soul was God.  The human had to be glorified, and everything Jesus did, manifested this glorification.  His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it.  (John 2:5)  The natural things in our life must be subservient to the spiritual; for natural things do not flow into spiritual, but spiritual into natural.

Nowhere in Scripture is it recorded that Jesus ever acknowledge Mary as His mother.  He only acknowledged those who did the will of God as His mother and brethren.  We see this in Matthew 12:46-50: While He yet talked to the people, behold, His mother and His brethren stood without, desiring to speak with Him.  Then one said unto Him, Behold, Thy mother and Thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with Thee.  But He answered and said unto him that told Him, Who is my mother? And who are My brethren?  And He stretched forth His hand toward His disciples, and said, Behold My mother and My brethren!  For whosoever shall do the will of My Father which is in heaven, the same is My brother, and sister, and mother.

Jesus response to Mary was, Woman, (not mother) what have I to do with thee?  Mine hour is not yet come.  (John 2:3-4)  In other words, "What have I (that which belongs to the Divine) to do with thee (that which was assumed from the human)?"  The time of the glorification was not yet.  Living waters could not flow out of Him, because He had not yet been glorified.  (John 7:37-39)  But she had said unto the servants, Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it.  This miracle was the beginning of manifesting forth that glory.

Every miraculous work the Lord did was an introduction of spiritual law into the natural mind; they were not miracles to Him.  Because of God's great love for mankind, He had bowed the heavens and come down, assuming a human and by successive steps of glorification, He put off the infirm human and put on a Divine Human.  This process of glorification is a revelation of our regeneration.  Yet mankind freely chooses to remain corporeal minded.  Mankind labors for the meat that perishes, rather than for the meat that endureth unto everlasting life.

The miracles were compelled by external means and used to confirm or witness truth.  We see this in example in Exodus 7 through the Lord's instruction to Moses and Aaron:  When Pharaoh shall speak unto you, (compelled by external), saying, Shew a miracle for you: then thou shalt say unto Aaron, Take thy rod, and cast it before Pharaoh, and it shall become a serpent (confirmation or witness of truth).  (Ex 7:9)  Each miracle that occurred, the natural mind became more natural.  Pharaoh's heart hardened and there was a total removal of the Church in Egypt because of the miracles.

Though the children of Israel came out, still they came short of the promise because of what the miracles did to them.  They had seen God's glory and His miracles, which He did in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet they provoked the Lord, not hearkening to His voice.  They erred in their hearts, because they did not know God's ways.  Their inward had not been affected, only their external.  What is compelled by external means does not endure.  The end is a heart of unbelief, devoid of faith and charity, which always departs from the living God.  (See Numbers 14:11-24; Hebrews 3:7 - 4:1-16)

Faith and charity must be implanted in a man's heart while he is in freedom and can choose a life according to doctrine.  We see this in the story of the man who laid in his same condition on a porch for thirty-eight years by the pool of Bethesda next to the sheep market.  That pool (water-the truths of faith) was called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda (the gate of grace and mercy).  It had five porches (truths leading into the good) that led to this water.  At a certain season an angel would go down and troubled the water; whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.  (John 5:4)

The troubling of the water by the angel pictures the truths of faith being given life.  Had they just gotten into the water before it had been given life, they would not have been healed, anymore than when we just accumulate knowledges from the Scripture.  Faith alone does not save!  It is when that knowledge is appropriated or given life that one is saved.

Each time this miracle occurred in God's grace and mercy, (the pool of Bethesda), it was a message to the multitude—the sicknesses and diseases that were being healed on the human bodies, revealed God's grace and mercy in purifying man from evils and the falsities of evil.  Yet, the state of mankind (the great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered) at that day, who waited for this troubling of the water, waited for the miracle, missed the message and remained in their uninstructed condition.  The doctrine of their lives, the bed they lay on, imprisoned them to a life of hopelessness.  Year after year as they would see the miracle, the more solidified they would become in their gross darkness.  Unless the internal sense of the Word penetrated the gross darkness of their doctrine, they would remain in their dead state always striving for purification, yet never obtaining.  Without hearing the internal sense of the Word, man cannot be saved!

When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, He saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole?  The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me.  Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.  And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked: and on the same day was the Sabbath.  (John 5:6-10)

I want to make it clear right here:  Jesus did not come to do away with the literal sense of the Word; He came to give meaning to it!  For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.  Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.  For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.  (Matt 5:18-20)

Except you Rise and Walk, (hear the spiritual sense of the Word in your death, and appropriate it), the natural sense of the Word will leave you in your iniquities.  Though you delight in the fact you know the Scriptures, (fare sumptuously in fine linen and purple), your righteousness is as filthy rags.  (Isa 64:5-7)  This kind of righteousness gloats in the fact that it has the truth, and even steals from it to satisfy its own needs.  All the fasting, praying, tithing, attending church, prayer meetings and Bible studies will not qualify you as a partaker of the kingdom of heaven.  It is when you hear the voice of the Son of God (the Divinity) that you shall live.  Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth My Word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.  Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.  For as the Father hath life in Himself; so hath He given to the Son (the human) to have life in Himself; And hath given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of man.  (Note here: this is Son of man, not Son of God.  The human of God would be glorified and would be the Son of God.)  Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.  (John 5:24-29)

How often it is that we want the Lord come and heal us and allow us to remain in our evil state.  There is a Mary and Martha in each of us, and we get disappointed when the Lord, does not show up, when the truth of our life is sick.  Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.  (John 11:21)  Not only Martha—the affection of doing, but also Mary—the affection of knowing (remember it was Mary who sat at Jesus feet and heard the Word.  Luke 10:38-42) can become so calloused to the eternal purpose of God, that the desire to be a partaker of God's Divine nature and escape the corruption in the world through lust, the main focus becomes self—what the Lord can do for me.  We want to join the truths of God with our own evils and rule with them in our heart, rather than the truths dominating our evils and changing us.  Until we recognize this sickness and realize why the Lord does not rush to save it but allows it to die, be buried, and begin to stink, we will not see God's glory manifest.

The death of our Pharisaical, religious life has to die, if we are ever going to believe.  Jesus told His own disciples, I'm glad for your sakes that I was not there, (think about this: God said, He was glad He, God, was not there), to the intent ye may believe….(John 11:15)  Saving faith never occurs while we hold on to our Pharisaical life and desire that it serve.  The Pharisaical life is a life that is asleep.  Sleep corresponds throughout the Scripture to being in a natural state.  Jesus told this disciples, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth: but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.  (John 11:11)  Lazarus, however, was dead.  True believing only comes when the Pharisaical life dies, and we recognize that it is bound in grave clothes and stinks!  It is then that we will see the glory of God manifested.  Jesus had told Martha, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die.  Believest thou this?  (John 11:25-26)  When we can respond like she did, Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world, then, we too, will have saving faith!