Text -- John 6:1-34 (NET)

The Feeding of the Five Thousand

6:1 After this Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee (also called the Sea of Tiberias). 6:2 A large crowd was following him because they were observing the miraculous signs he was performing on the sick. 6:3 So Jesus went on up the mountainside and sat down there with his disciples. 6:4 (Now the Jewish feast of the Passover was near.) 6:5 Then Jesus, when he looked up and saw that a large crowd was coming to him, said to Philip, “Where can we buy bread so that these people may eat?” 6:6 (Now Jesus said this to test him, for he knew what he was going to do.) 6:7 Philip replied, “Two hundred silver coins worth of bread would not be enough for them, for each one to get a little.” 6:8 One of Jesus’ disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, 6:9 “Here is a boy who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what good are these for so many people?” 6:10 Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” (Now there was a lot of grass in that place.) So the men sat down, about five thousand in number. 6:11 Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed the bread to those who were seated. He then did the same with the fish, as much as they wanted. 6:12 When they were all satisfied, Jesus said to his disciples, “Gather up the broken pieces that are left over, so that nothing is wasted.” 6:13 So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with broken pieces from the five barley loaves left over by the people who had eaten. 6:14 Now when the people saw the miraculous sign that Jesus performed, they began to say to one another, “This is certainly the Prophet who is to come into the world.” 6:15 Then Jesus, because he knew they were going to come and seize him by force to make him king, withdrew again up the mountainside alone.

Walking on Water

6:16 Now when evening came, his disciples went down to the lake, 6:17 got into a boat, and started to cross the lake to Capernaum. (It had already become dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them.) 6:18 By now a strong wind was blowing and the sea was getting rough. 6:19 Then, when they had rowed about three or four miles, they caught sight of Jesus walking on the lake, approaching the boat, and they were frightened. 6:20 But he said to them, “It is I. Do not be afraid.” 6:21 Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat came to the land where they had been heading. 6:22 The next day the crowd that remained on the other side of the lake realized that only one small boat had been there, and that Jesus had not boarded it with his disciples, but that his disciples had gone away alone. 6:23 But some boats from Tiberias came to shore near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. 6:24 So when the crowd realized that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats and came to Capernaum looking for Jesus.

Jesus’ Discourse About the Bread of Life

6:25 When they found him on the other side of the lake, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” 6:26 Jesus replied, “I tell you the solemn truth, you are looking for me not because you saw miraculous signs, but because you ate all the loaves of bread you wanted. 6:27 Do not work for the food that disappears, but for the food that remains to eternal life– the food which the Son of Man will give to you. For God the Father has put his seal of approval on him.” 6:28 So then they said to him, “What must we do to accomplish the deeds God requires?” 6:29 Jesus replied, “This is the deed God requires– to believe in the one whom he sent.” 6:30 So they said to him, “Then what miraculous sign will you perform, so that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? 6:31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, just as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” 6:32 Then Jesus told them, “I tell you the solemn truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but my Father is giving you the true bread from heaven. 6:33 For the bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” 6:34 So they said to him, “Sir, give us this bread all the time!”

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per phrase)

Robertson: Joh 6:1

After these things ( meta tauta ).

A common, but indefinite, note of time in John (Joh 3:22; Joh 5:1; Joh 6:1; Joh 7:1). The phrase does not mean immediate sequence of events. As a matter of fact, a whole year may intervene between the events of chapter 5 in Jerusalem and those in chapter 6 in Galilee. There is no sufficient reason for believing that chapter 6 originally preceded chapter 5. The feeding of the five thousand is the only event before the last visit to Jerusalem recorded in all Four Gospels (Mar 6:30-44; Mat 14:13-21; Luk 9:10-17; Joh 6:1-13). The disciples have returned from the tour of Galilee and report to Jesus. It was the passover time (Joh 6:4) just a year before the end.

Robertson: Joh 6:1

To the other side of the Sea of Galilee ( peran tēs thalassēs tēs Galilaias ).

The name given in Mark and Matthew. It is called Gennesaret in Luk 5:1 and "Sea of Tiberias"in Joh 21:1. Here "of Tiberias"(tēs Tiberiados ) is added as further description. Herod Antipas a.d. 22 built Tiberias to the west of the Sea of Galilee and made it his capital. See Joh 6:23 for this city. Luke (Luk 9:10) explains that it was the eastern Bethsaida (Julias) to which Jesus took the disciples, not the western Bethsaida of Mar 6:45 in Galilee.

Robertson: Joh 6:2

Followed ( ēkolouthei ).

Descriptive imperfect active, picturing the crowd, but without the details of the boat for Christ and the rapid race of the crowd on foot (Mar 6:32.; Mat 14:13.).

Robertson: Joh 6:2

They beheld ( etheōroun ).

Imperfect active of theōreō . They had been beholding the signs which Jesus had been doing (epoiei , imperfect again) for a long time (Joh 2:23), most of which John has not given (Mar 1:29.; Mar 2:1; Mar 3:1; Mar 6:5). The people were eager to hear Jesus again (Luk 9:11) and to get the benefit of his healing power "on them that were sick"(epi tōn asthenountōn , the weak or feeble, without strength, a privative and sthenos , strength).

Robertson: Joh 6:3

Into the mountain ( eis to oros ).

From the level of the Jordan valley up into the high hill on the eastern side. Mark (Mar 6:46) and Matthew (Mat 14:23) mention that after the miracle Jesus went further up into the mountain to pray.

Robertson: Joh 6:3

Sat ( ekathēto ).

Imperfect middle of kathēmai , was sitting, a picture of repose.

Robertson: Joh 6:4

The feast of the Jews ( hē heortē tōn Ioudaiōn ).

Here used of the passover (to pascha ) as in Joh 7:2 of the tabernacles. This is probably the third passover in Christ’ s ministry (Joh 2:13 and one unmentioned unless Joh 5:1 be it). In Joh 2:13, here, and Joh 11:55 (the last one) the adverb eggus (near) is used. John is fond of notes of time. Jesus failed to go to this passover because of the hostility in Jerusalem (Joh 7:1).

Robertson: Joh 6:5

Lifting up his eyes ( eparas tous ophthalmous ).

First aorist active participle of epairō . See the same phrase in Joh 4:35 where it is also followed by theaomai ; Joh 11:41; Joh 17:1; Luk 6:20. Here it is particularly expressive as Jesus looked down from the mountain on the approaching multitude.

Robertson: Joh 6:5

Cometh unto him ( erchetai pros auton ).

Present middle indicative, "is coming to him."The same ochlos polus (here polus ochlos ) of Joh 6:2 that had followed Jesus around the head of the lake.

Robertson: Joh 6:5

Whence are we to buy? ( Pothen agorasōmen ).

Deliberative subjunctive (aorist active). John passes by the earlier teaching and healing of the Synoptics (Mar 6:34.; Mat 14:14.; Luk 9:11.) till mid-afternoon. In John also Jesus takes up the matter of feeding the multitude with Philip (from the other Bethsaida, Joh 1:44) whereas in the Synoptics the disciples raise the problem with Jesus. So the disciples raise the problem in the feeding of the four thousand (Mar 8:4; Mat 15:33). See Num 11:13-22 (about Moses) and 2Ki 4:42. (about Elisha).

Robertson: Joh 6:5

Bread ( artous ).

"Loaves"(plural) as in Mat 4:3.

Robertson: Joh 6:5

That these may eat ( hina phagōsin houtoi ).

Purpose clause with hina and the second aorist active subjunctive of esthiō (defective verb).

Robertson: Joh 6:6

To prove him ( peirazōn auton ).

Present active participle of peirazō , testing him, not here in bad sense of tempting as so often (Mat 4:1).

Robertson: Joh 6:6

What he would do ( ti ēmellen poiein ).

Indirect question with change of tense to imperfect. As in Joh 2:25 so here John explains why Jesus put the question to Philip.

Robertson: Joh 6:7

Two hundred pennyworth of bread ( diakosiōn dēnariōn artoi ).

"Loaves of two hundred denarii."The Roman coin originally for ten asses (afterwards sixteen), about 16-2/3 cents. The denarius was the usual pay for a day’ s labour (Mat 20:2, Mat 20:9, Mat 20:13). This item in Mar 6:37, but not in Matthew or Luke.

Robertson: Joh 6:7

That every one may take a little ( hina hekastos brachu labēi ).

Final clause with hina and second aorist active subjunctive of lambanō . This detail in John alone.

Robertson: Joh 6:8

One of ( heis ek ).

So in Joh 12:4; Joh 13:23; Mar 13:1 without ek .

Robertson: Joh 6:8

Simon Peter’ s brother ( ho adelphos Simōnos Petrou ).

So described in Joh 1:40. The great distinction of Andrew was precisely this that he brought Simon to Christ. Philip and Andrew appear together again in Joh 12:20-22, but in the Synoptics he is distinguished only in Mar 13:3. In the Muratorian Fragment Andrew received the revelation for John to write the Fourth Gospel.

Robertson: Joh 6:9

A lad here ( paidarion hōde ).

Old word, diminutive of pais , here only in N.T., not genuine in Mat 11:16. How he came to have this small supply we do not know.

Robertson: Joh 6:9

Barley ( krithinous ).

Adjective, here and Joh 6:13 only in N.T., in the papyri, from krithē , barley (Rev 6:6). Considered an inferior sort of bread.

Robertson: Joh 6:9

Fishes ( opsaria ).

Late diminutive of opson , common in papyri and inscriptions for delicacies with bread like fish. In N.T. only here, Joh 6:11; Joh 21:9-13. Synoptics have ichthuas .

Robertson: Joh 6:10

Sit down ( anapesein ).

Literally, "fall back,"lie down, recline. Second aorist active infinitive of anapiptō .

Robertson: Joh 6:10

Much grass ( chortos polus ).

Old word for pasture, green grass (Mar 6:39) or hay (1Co 3:12). It was spring (Joh 6:4) and plenty of green grass on the hillside.

Robertson: Joh 6:10

The men ( hoi andres ).

Word for men as distinct from women, expressly stated in Mat 14:21.

Robertson: Joh 6:10

In number ( ton arithmon ).

Adverbial accusative (of general reference).

Robertson: Joh 6:10

About ( hos ).

General estimate, though they were arranged in orderly groups by hundreds and fifties, "in ranks"like "garden beds"(prasiai , Mar 6:40).

Robertson: Joh 6:11

The loaves ( tous artous ).

Those of Joh 6:9.

Robertson: Joh 6:11

Having given thanks ( eucharistēsas ).

The usual grace before meals (Deu 8:10). The Synoptics use "blessed"eulogēsen (Mar 6:41; Mat 14:19; Luk 9:16).

Robertson: Joh 6:11

He distributed ( diedōken ).

First aorist active indicative of diadidōmi , old verb to give to several (dia , between).

Robertson: Joh 6:11

To them that were set down ( tois anakeimenois ).

Present middle participle (dative case) of anakeimai , old verb to recline like anapesein in Joh 6:10.

Robertson: Joh 6:11

As much as they would ( hoson ēthelon ).

Imperfect active of thelō , "as much as they wished."

Robertson: Joh 6:12

And when they were filled ( hōs de eneplēsthēsan ).

First aorist (effective) passive indicative of empimplēmi , old verb to fill in, to fill up, to fill completely. They were all satisfied. The Synoptics have echortasthēsan like Joh 6:26 (echortasthēte ).

Robertson: Joh 6:12

Gather up ( sunagagete ).

Second aorist active imperative of sunagō , to gather together.

Robertson: Joh 6:12

Broken pieces ( klasmata ).

From klaō , to break. Not crumbs or scraps on the ground, but pieces broken by Jesus (Mar 6:41) and not consumed.

Robertson: Joh 6:12

Be lost ( apolētai ).

Second aorist middle subjunctive of apollumi with hina in purpose clause. Only in John. There was to be no wastefulness in Christ’ s munificence. The Jews had a custom of leaving something for those that served.

Robertson: Joh 6:13

Twelve baskets ( dōdeka kophinous ).

One for each of the apostles. What about the lad? Stout wicker baskets (coffins, Wycliff) in distinction from the soft and frail sphurides used at the feeding of the four thousand (Mar 8:8; Mat 15:37). Here all the Gospels (Mar 6:43; Mat 14:20; Luk 9:17; Joh 6:13) use kophinoi . The same distinction between kophinoi and sphurides is preserved in the allusion to the incidents by Jesus in Mar 8:19, Mar 8:20; Mat 16:9, Mat 16:10.

Robertson: Joh 6:13

Unto them that had eaten ( tois bebrōkosin ).

Articular perfect active participle (dative case) of bibrōskō , old verb to eat, only here in N.T., though often in lxx.

Robertson: Joh 6:14

Saw the sign which he did ( idontes ha epoiēsen sēmeia ).

"Signs"oldest MSS. have. This sign added to those already wrought (Joh 6:2). Cf. Joh 2:23; Joh 3:2.

Robertson: Joh 6:14

They said ( elegon ).

Inchoative imperfect, began to say.

Robertson: Joh 6:14

Of a truth ( alēthōs ).

Common adverb (from alēthēs ) in John (Joh 7:40).

Robertson: Joh 6:14

The prophet that cometh ( ho prophētēs ho erchomenos ).

There was a popular expectation about the prophet of Deu 18:15 as being the Messiah (Joh 1:21; Joh 11:27). The phrase is peculiar to John, but the idea is in Acts (Act 3:22; Act 7:37). The people are on the tiptoe of expectation and believe that Jesus is the political Messiah of Pharisaic hope.

Robertson: Joh 6:15

Perceiving ( gnous ).

Second aorist active participle of ginōskō . It was not hard for Christ to read the mind of this excited mob.

Robertson: Joh 6:15

They were about ( mellousin ).

Present active indicative of mellō . Probably the leaders were already starting.

Robertson: Joh 6:15

Take him by force ( harpazein ).

Present active infinitive of harpazō , old verb for violent seizing (Mat 11:12; Mat 13:19). There was a movement to start a revolution against Roman rule in Palestine by proclaiming Jesus King and driving away Pilate.

Robertson: Joh 6:15

To make him king ( hina poiēsōsin basilea ).

Purpose clause with hina and the first aorist active subjunctive of poieō with basilea as predicate accusative. It was a crisis that called for quick action.

Robertson: Joh 6:15

Himself alone ( autos monos ).

At first he had the disciples with him (Joh 6:3). But he sent them hurriedly by boat to the western side (Mar 6:45.; Mat 14:22.) because clearly the apostles were sympathetic with the revolutionary impulse of the crowd. Then Jesus sent the multitudes away also and went up into the mountain alone. He was alone in every sense, for no one but the Father understood him at this stage, not even his own disciples. He went up to pray (Mar 6:46; Mat 14:23).

Robertson: Joh 6:16

When evening came ( hōs opsia egeneto ).

"The late hour"(hōra understood), and so in late Greek the adjective is used as a substantive. It is late evening (real evening), not the early evening in mid-afternoon (Mat 14:15). The disciples were in no hurry to start back to Bethsaida in Galilee (Mar 6:45), Capernaum in John (Joh 6:17).

Robertson: Joh 6:17

Were going ( ērchonto ).

Picturesque imperfect.

Robertson: Joh 6:17

It was now dark ( skotia ēdē egegonei ).

Past perfect active of ginomai . While they were going, "darkness had already come."

Robertson: Joh 6:17

And Jesus had not yet come to them ( kai ouk elēluthei pros autous ho Iēsous ).

Another past perfect active of erchomai with negative oupō . Darkness had come, but Jesus had not come, while they were going over the sea. The tenses in these verses are very graphic.

Robertson: Joh 6:18

And the sea was rising ( hē te thalassa diegeireto ).

Imperfect (without augment) passive of diegeirō , late compound to wake up thoroughly, to arouse.

Robertson: Joh 6:18

By reason of a great wind that blew ( anemou megalou pneontos ).

Genitive absolute with present active participle of pneō , to blow, "a great wind blowing."

Robertson: Joh 6:19

When therefore they had rowed ( elēlakotes oun ).

Perfect active participle of elaunō , old verb to march (Xenophon), to drive (Jam 3:4), to row (Mar 6:48).

Robertson: Joh 6:19

Furlongs ( stadious ).

Stadia, accusative of extent of space, a little over halfway across, "in the midst of the sea"(Mar 6:47). It was about forty stadia (six miles) across.

Robertson: Joh 6:19

They behold ( theōrousin ).

Graphic dramatic present active indicative of theōreō , vividly preserving the emotions of the disciples.

Robertson: Joh 6:19

Walking ( peripatounta ).

Present active participle in the accusative case agreeing with Iēsoun .

Robertson: Joh 6:19

Drawing nigh unto the boat ( eggus tou ploiou ginomenon ).

Present middle participle of ginomai describing the process. "Coming near the boat."They behold Jesus slipping closer and closer to them on the water.

Robertson: Joh 6:19

They were afraid ( ephobēthēsan ).

Ingressive aorist passive indicative of phobeomai , "they became afraid."Sudden change to the regular historical sequence.

Robertson: Joh 6:20

Be not afraid ( mē phobeisthe ).

Prohibition with mē and present middle imperative of phobeomai . So in Mar 6:50 (Mat 14:27). John does not tell that the disciples thought Jesus was an apparition (Mar 6:49; Mat 14:26), nor does he give the account of Peter walking on the water (Mat 14:28-31).

Robertson: Joh 6:21

They were willing therefore ( ēthelon oun ).

Inchoative imperfect, "they began to be willing."This does not contradict Mar 6:51 as Bernard thinks. Both Jesus and Peter climbed into the boat.

Robertson: Joh 6:21

Whither they were going ( eis hēn hupēgon ).

Progressive imperfect active, "to which land they had been going"(intransitive use of hupagō , to lead under, to go under or away as in Joh 6:67; Joh 7:33; Joh 12:11; Joh 18:8.

Robertson: Joh 6:22

Which stood ( ho hestēkōs ).

Perfect active (intransitive) participle of histēmi , to put, to stand. Jesus had sent the multitudes away the evening before (Mar 6:45; Mat 14:22), but evidently some did not go very far, still lingering in excitement on the eastern side of the lake next morning.

Robertson: Joh 6:22

Boat ( ploiarion ).

Diminutive of ploion , little boat (Mar 3:9).

Robertson: Joh 6:22

Entered not with ( ou suneisēlthen ).

Second aorist active of the double compound verb suneiserchomai , followed by associative instrumental case mathētais .

Robertson: Joh 6:22

Went away alone ( monoi apēlthon ).

Second aorist active indicative of aperchomai , to go away or off. Monoi is predicate nominative. These people noted these three items.

Robertson: Joh 6:23

Howbeit ( alla ).

Joh 6:23 is really an explanatory parenthesis in this long sentence. Tiberias, capital of Herod Antipas, diagonally across the lake, is only mentioned in John in the N.T. (Joh 6:1, Joh 6:23; Joh 21:1).

Robertson: Joh 6:23

Boats ( ploia ).

Called "little boats"(ploiaria ) in Joh 6:24.

Robertson: Joh 6:24

When the multitude therefore saw ( hote oun eiden ho ochlos ).

Resumption and clarification of the complicated statements of Joh 6:22.

Robertson: Joh 6:24

That Jesus was not there ( hoti Iēsous ouk estin ekei ).

Present indicative retained in indirect discourse. They still did not understand how Jesus had crossed over, but they acted on the basis of the plain fact.

Robertson: Joh 6:24

They themselves got into ( enebēsan autoi eis ).

Second aorist active indicative of embainō followed by eis (both en and eis together as often in N.T.).

Robertson: Joh 6:24

Seeking Jesus ( zētountes ton Iēsoun ).

Present active participle of zēteō . They had a double motive apart from the curiosity explained in Joh 6:22. They had clearly not given up the impulse of the evening before to make Jesus king (Joh 6:15) and they had hopes of still another bountiful repast at the hands of Jesus as he said (Joh 6:26).

Robertson: Joh 6:25

When they found him ( heurontes auton ).

Second aorist active participle of heuriskō . Found him after search and in the synagogue as John explains (Joh 6:59) in Capernaum, perhaps that very synagogue built by a centurion (Luk 7:5).

Robertson: Joh 6:25

Rabbi ( Rabbei ).

See note on Joh 1:38 for this courteous title.

Robertson: Joh 6:25

When camest thou hither? ( pote hōde gegonas ).

Second perfect active indicative of ginomai . "When hast thou come?"We sought you anxiously on the other side of the lake and could not see how you came across (Joh 6:22-24).

Robertson: Joh 6:26

Not because ye saw signs ( ouch hoti eidete sēmeia ).

Second aorist active indicative of the defective verb horaō . They had seen the "signs"wrought by Jesus (Joh 6:2), but this one had led to wild fanaticism (Joh 6:14) and complete failure to grasp the spiritual lessons.

Robertson: Joh 6:26

But because ye ate of the loaves ( all' hoti ephagete ek tōn artōn ).

Second aorist active indicative of esthiō , defective verb.

Robertson: Joh 6:26

Ye were filled ( echortasthēte ).

First aorist passive indicative of chortazō , from chortos (grass) as in Joh 6:10, to eat grass, then to eat anything, to satisfy hunger. They were more concerned with hungry stomachs than with hungry souls. It was a sharp and deserved rebuke.

Robertson: Joh 6:27

Work not for ( mē ergazesthe ).

Prohibition with mē and present middle imperative of ergazomai , old verb from ergon , work.

Robertson: Joh 6:27

The meat ( tēn brōsin ).

The act of eating (Rom 14:17), corrosion (Mat 6:19), the thing eaten as here (2Co 9:10). See note on Joh 4:32.

Robertson: Joh 6:27

Which perisheth ( tēn apollumenēn ).

Present middle participle of apollumi . They were already hungry again.

Robertson: Joh 6:27

Unto eternal life ( eis zōēn aiōnion ).

Mystical metaphor quite beyond this crowd hungry only for more loaves and fishes. Bernard thinks that John has here put together various sayings of Christ to make one discourse, a gratuitous interpretation.

Robertson: Joh 6:27

Will give ( dōsei ).

Future active indicative of didōmi . The outcome is still future and will be decided by their attitude towards the Son of man (Joh 6:51).

Robertson: Joh 6:27

For him the Father, even God, hath sealed ( touton gar ho patēr esphragisen ho theos ).

Literally, "For this one the Father sealed, God."First aorist active indicative of sphragizō , to seal. See elsewhere in Joh 3:33 (attestation by man). Sealing by God is rare in N.T. (2Co 1:22; Eph 1:13; Eph 4:30). It is not clear to what item, if any single one, John refers when the Father set his seal of approval on the Son. It was done at his baptism when the Holy Spirit came upon him and the Father spoke to him. Cf. Joh 5:37.

Robertson: Joh 6:28

What must we do? ( Ti poiōmen ).

Present active deliberative subjunctive of poieō , "What are we to do as a habit?"For the aorist subjunctive (poiēsōmen ) in a like question for a single act see Luk 3:10. For the present indicative (poioumen ) of inquiry concerning actual conduct see Joh 11:47 (what are we doing?).

Robertson: Joh 6:28

That we may work the works of God ( hina ergazōmetha ta erga tou theou ).

Final clause with hina and the present middle subjunctive, "that we may go on working the works of God."There may have been an element of vague sincerity in this question in spite of their supercilious attitude.

Robertson: Joh 6:29

The work of God that ye believe ( to ergon tou theou hina pisteuēte ).

In 1Th 1:3 Paul speaks of "your work of faith"(humōn tou ergou tēs pisteōs ). So here Jesus terms belief in him as the work of God. These Jews were thinking of various deeds of the Pharisaic type and rules. Jesus turns their minds to the central fact. "This simple formula contains the complete solution of the relation of faith and works"(Westcott). Note the present active subjunctive pisteuēte , "that ye may keep on believing."

Robertson: Joh 6:29

On him whom he hath sent ( eis hon apesteilen ekeinos ).

The pronominal antecedent (eis touton hon ) is omitted and the preposition eis is retained with the relative hon really the direct object of apesteilen (sent). Note ekeinos for God (emphatic he).

Robertson: Joh 6:30

For a sign ( sēmeion ).

Predicate accusative, as a sign, with ti (what). As if the sign of the day before was without value. Jesus had said that they did not understand his signs (Joh 6:26).

Robertson: Joh 6:30

That we may see, and believe thee ( hina idōmen kai pisteusōmen ).

Purpose clause with hina and the second aorist (ingressive) active subjunctive of horaō and the first aorist (ingressive) active subjunctive of pisteuō , "that we may come to see and come to have faith in thee."It is hard to have patience with this superficial and almost sneering mob.

Robertson: Joh 6:30

What workest thou? ( Ti ergazēi ).

They not simply depreciate the miracle of the day before, but set up a standard for Jesus.

Robertson: Joh 6:31

Ate the manna ( to manna ephagon ).

The rabbis quoted Psa 72:16 to prove that the Messiah, when he comes, will outdo Moses with manna from heaven. Jesus was claiming to be the Messiah and able to give bread for eternal life (Joh 6:27). Lightfoot ( Biblical Essays , p. 152) says: "The key to the understanding of the whole situation is an acquaintance with the national expectation of the greater Moses."They quote to Jesus Exo 16:15 (of. Num 11:7; Num 21:5; Deu 8:3). Their plea is that Moses gave us bread "from heaven"(ek tou ouranou ). Can Jesus equal that deed of Moses?

Robertson: Joh 6:32

It was not Moses that gave you ( ou Mōusēs edōken humin ).

"Not Moses gave you."Blunt and pointed denial (aorist active indicative of didōmi ) that Moses was the giver of the bread from heaven (the manna). Moses was not superior to Christ on this score.

Robertson: Joh 6:32

But my Father ( all ho patēr mou ).

Not "our Father,"but same claim as in Joh 5:17. Which caused so much anger in Jerusalem.

Robertson: Joh 6:32

Gives ( didōsin ).

Present active indicative, not aorist (edōken ). Continual process.

Robertson: Joh 6:32

The true bread out of heaven ( ton arton ek tou ouranou ton alēthinon ).

"The bread out of heaven"as the manna and more "the genuine bread"of which that was merely a type. On alēthinos see Joh 1:9; Joh 4:23.

Robertson: Joh 6:33

The bread of God ( ho artos tou theou ).

All bread is of God (Mat 6:11). The manna came down from heaven (Num 11:9) as does this bread (ho katabainōn ). Refers to the bread (ho artos , masculine). Bernard notes that this phrase (coming down) is used seven times in this discourse (Joh 6:33, Joh 6:38, Joh 6:41, Joh 6:42, Joh 6:50, Joh 6:51, Joh 6:58).

Robertson: Joh 6:33

Giveth life ( zōēn didous ).

Chrysostom observes that the manna gave nourishment (trophē ), but not life (zōē ). This is a most astounding statement to the crowd.

Robertson: Joh 6:34

Lord ( Kurie ).

Used now instead of Rabbi (25) though how much the people meant by it is not clear.

Robertson: Joh 6:34

Evermore give us this bread ( pantote dos hēmin ton arton touton ).

Second aorist active imperative second singular like dos in Mat 6:11 (urgent petition). What kind of bread do they mean? The Jewish commentaries and Philo speak of the manna as typifying heavenly bread for the soul. Paul in 1Co 10:3 seems to refer to the manna as "spiritual food."Like the woman at the well (Joh 4:15) they long "always"to have "this bread,"a perpetual supply. It is probably to this crowd as the water in Joh 4:15 was to the woman.

Vincent: Joh 6:1

The sea

See on Mat 4:18.

Vincent: Joh 6:2

Multitude ( ὄχλος )

See on Joh 1:19.

Vincent: Joh 6:2

Followed ( ἠκολούθει )

Imperfect tense, denoting not merely the following on this occasion, but generally.

Vincent: Joh 6:2

Saw ( ἑώρων )

Rev., beheld . See on Joh 1:18.

Vincent: Joh 6:2

His miracles

Omit his . Render, as Rev., the signs .

Vincent: Joh 6:2

He did ( ἐποίει )

Imperfect, was doing , from time to time.

Vincent: Joh 6:3

A mountain ( τὸ ὄρος )

Strictly, the mountain. The writer speaks as one familiar with the district.

Vincent: Joh 6:3

He sat ( ἐκάθητο )

Imperfect: was sitting , when he saw the multitude approaching (Joh 6:5).

Vincent: Joh 6:4

A feast ( ἡ ἑορτὴ )

With the definite article, the feast; pointing to something well known.

Vincent: Joh 6:5

Come ( ἔρχεται )

Better, is coming . Unto Him (πρός ) is rather toward .

Vincent: Joh 6:5

Bread ( ἄρτους )

Properly, loaves . See on Mat 4:1.

Vincent: Joh 6:6

To prove ( πειράζων )

Literally, proving . See on Mat 6:13. Wyc., tempting .

Vincent: Joh 6:7

Pennyworth ( δηναρίων )

See on Mat 20:2. Two hundred pennyworth would represent between thirty and thirty-five dollars.

Vincent: Joh 6:7

That every one may take a little

Peculiar to John.

Vincent: Joh 6:9

A lad ( παιδάριον )

Diminutive. Only here in the New Testament. Only John mentions the lad.

Vincent: Joh 6:9

Barley ( κριθίνους )

A detail peculiar to John. The word occurs in the New Testament only here and Joh 6:13. An inferior sort of bread is indicated by the term. Pliny and some of the Jewish writers describe barley as food fit for beasts. Suetonius speaks of a turgid rhetorician as a barley orator , inflated like barley in moisture: and Livy relates how cohorts which had lost their standards were ordered barley for food.

Vincent: Joh 6:9

Fishes ( ὀψάρια )

The word occurs only here and at Joh 21:9. The Synoptists use ἰχθυές . The A.V., small fishes , is intended to render the diminutive. The word means anything that is eaten with bread, and may apply to meat generally, or to what is eaten with bread as a relish. Homer speaks of an onion as a relish (ὄψον ) for drink (" Iliad," 11, 630). The term was applied to fish par excellence . Fish became among the Greeks a chief dainty to gourmands, so that Demosthenes describes a glutton and spendthrift as one who is extravagant in fish.

Vincent: Joh 6:9

But what are they among so many?

Peculiar to John, though the idea is implied in Luk 9:13.

Vincent: Joh 6:10

Sit down ( ἀναπεσεῖν )

Literally, recline.

Vincent: Joh 6:10

Grass ( χόρτος )

Originally an enclosure . Thus Homer speaks of Peleus offering a sacrifice, αὐλῆς ἐν χόρτῳ , in the enclosure of the court (" Iliad," xi., 774). Hence a feeding-place , and so grass , provender . The sense is merely that of our abstract pasture . Matthew and Mark mention the grass, Mark with the epithet green . Wyc., hay .

Vincent: Joh 6:11

Given thanks

All the Synoptists relate his looking up to heaven and blessing . Perhaps he used the familiar formula, " Blessed art thou Jehovah our God, King of the world, who causes to come forth bread from the earth."

Vincent: Joh 6:11

To the disciples, and the disciples

The best texts omit. Render, as Rev., He distributed to them that were set down .

Vincent: Joh 6:11

Likewise of the fishes

So also Mark.

Vincent: Joh 6:11

As much as they would

Peculiar to John.

Vincent: Joh 6:12

Fragments ( κλάσματα )

From κλάω , to break . Rev., broken pieces .

Vincent: Joh 6:12

That remain ( περισσεύσαντα )

Rev., remain over . Literally, exceed the necessary supply. Only John gives the Lord's command to collect the fragments, and the reason for it, that nothing be lost .

Vincent: Joh 6:13

Baskets ( κοφίνους )

See on Mat 14:20. Wyc., coffins .

Vincent: Joh 6:13

With the fragments, etc.

John goes into fuller detail than the Synoptists. Mark alone notes the gathering of the remains of the fishes. John also uses ἐγέμισαν , filled , for they took up , or were taken up , of the Synoptists.

Vincent: Joh 6:13

Five barley loaves

A detail peculiar to John, emphasizing the identity of the fragments with the original loaves.

Vincent: Joh 6:13

Unto them that had eaten ( βεβρωκόσιν )

Only here in the New Testament.

Vincent: Joh 6:14

That should come ( ὁ ἐρχόμενος )

Literally, the one coming . Rev., that cometh . Joh 6:15-21. Compare Mat 14:22-36; Mar 6:45-52.

Vincent: Joh 6:15

Would come ( μέλλουσιν ἔρχεσθαι )

Literally, are about to come .

Vincent: Joh 6:15

Take by force ( ἁρπάζειν )

See on Mat 11:12.

Vincent: Joh 6:15

A king

Better, as Rev., king; over themselves.

Vincent: Joh 6:15

Himself alone ( αὐτὸς μόνος )

Matthew has κατ ' ἰδίαν , privately , and both Matthew and Mark add, to pray .

Vincent: Joh 6:16

Even ( ὀψία )

An adjective; ὄψιος , late with ὥρα , hour , understood.

Vincent: Joh 6:17

Ship ( πλοῖον )

Rev., boat . See on Luk 5:2. The best texts omit the article.

Vincent: Joh 6:17

Went ( ἤρχοντο )

The imperfect, were going . So Rev.

Vincent: Joh 6:17

Capernaum

Mark has Bethsaida .

Vincent: Joh 6:17

It was now dark ( σκοτία ἤδη ἐγεγόνει )

Literally, darkness had already come on . On darkness , see on Joh 1:5.

Vincent: Joh 6:18

Arose ( διηγείρετο )

It is lamentable how the A.V. misses the graphic force of these imperfects. Rev., rightly, was rising . Literally, was being awakened . The imperfects convey the sense of gathering danger, and throw into stronger relief the fact of Jesus' appearance. They were going; the darkness had already fallen, the sea was rising , and Jesus had not yet come.

Vincent: Joh 6:18

That blew ( πνέοντος )

Literally, blowing . That was blowing would be better. John's narrative at this point is more detailed and graphic than the others.

Vincent: Joh 6:19

Had rowed ( ἐληλακότες )

Literally, had driven or propelled (the boat).

Vincent: Joh 6:19

Five and twenty, etc.

The lake being about forty furlongs, six miles, at its broadest, they had gone only a little more than half-way.

Vincent: Joh 6:19

They see ( θεωροῦσι )

Rev., behold; with an intent gaze. See on Joh 1:18. Both Luke and John use this word frequently.

Vincent: Joh 6:19

Drawing nigh

Literally, becoming nigh . Wyc., to be made next to the boat . Mark adds, He would have passed by them , and Luke that they thought Him a phantom.

Vincent: Joh 6:21

They willingly received ( ἤθελον λαβεῖν )

Wrong. Rev., correctly, they were willing to receive; after being reassured by His voice. The imperfect denotes a continuous state of feeling, not a mere impulsive and temporary wish.

Vincent: Joh 6:21

Immediately ( εὐθέως )

Whether Jesus actually entered the boat or not, John does not say. The more natural inference is that he did. Both Matthew and Mark say so. Their immediate and miraculous arrival at the shore was simultaneous either with their entertaining the wish to receive Him, or with His actually coming on board. Only John mentions this incident. Matthew and Mark say that the wind ceased .

Vincent: Joh 6:21

They went ( ὑπῆγον )

Imperfect: were going . Literally, were going away . The verb has the sense of retiring from something. Compare Joh 6:67; Joh 7:33, on which see note; Joh 12:11; Joh 18:8.

Vincent: Joh 6:22

Which stood ( ὁ ἑστηκὼς )

Having remained daring the night near the scene of the miracle, and being there still.

Vincent: Joh 6:22

Boat ( ποιάριον )

Diminutive: little boat .

Vincent: Joh 6:22

That - whereinto His disciples were entered

Omit, and read as Rev., save one .

Vincent: Joh 6:23

Howbeit there came other boats ( ἄλλα δὲ ἧλθεν πλοιάρια ).

Some editors omit δὲ , howbeit , change ἄλλα , other , into ἀλλὰ , but , and read, but there came boats .

Vincent: Joh 6:26

The miracles ( σημεῖα )

Both the insertion of the definite article and the translation miracles in the A.V. tend to obscure the true sense of the passage. Jesus says: You do not seek me because you saw signs . What you saw in my works was only marvels . You did not see in them tokens of my divine power and mission.

Vincent: Joh 6:26

Were filled ( ἐχορτάσθητε )

See on Mat 5:6; see on Luk 15:16.

Vincent: Joh 6:27

Meat ( βρῶσιν )

See on Joh 4:32. In Mat 6:19, Mat 6:20, and there only, it is used in the sense of rust , that which eats or corrodes . Similarly, corrode is from rodo , to gnaw .

Vincent: Joh 6:27

Him hath God the Father sealed

The Rev. makes the sentence culminate properly in God: " for Him the Father, even God , hath sealed." According to the strict Greek order it is: for Him the Father sealed , even God . On sealed (ἐσφράγισεν ) see on Joh 3:33. Wyc., betokened Him .

Vincent: Joh 6:28

What shall we do? ( τί ποιοῦμεν )

Literally, what do we do? The best texts read ποιῶμεν , what are we to do?

Vincent: Joh 6:28

Works

The question is from the legal standpoint, works being regarded as the condition of obtaining the living bread.

Vincent: Joh 6:29

Believe

Faith is put as a moral act or work . The work of God is to believe . Faith includes all the works which God requires. The Jews' question contemplates numerous works. Jesus' answer directs them to one work. Canon Westcott justly observes that " this simple formula contains the complete solution of the relation of faith and works."

Vincent: Joh 6:30

Therefore

Since He had claimed to be the One sent of God.

Vincent: Joh 6:31

Manna

Properly, the manna, referring to the familiar historic fact. A passage is cited from a Hebrew commentary on Ecclesiastes, as follows: " As the first Redeemer made the manna to descend, as it is written, 'Behold I will rain bread from heaven for you'; so the later Redeemer also shall make the manna to descend, as it is written, 'May there be abundance of corn in the earth.'"

Vincent: Joh 6:32

Moses gave you not ( οὐ Μωσῆς δέδωκεν ὑμῖν )

The antithesis is between Moses and my Father . So Rev., rightly, " it was not Moses that gave you," etc. - " but my Father giveth," etc. Some editors change the perfect tense, δέδωκεν , hath given , to the aorist, ἔδωκεν , gave .

Vincent: Joh 6:32

The true bread from heaven ( τὸν ἄρτον ἐκ τοῦοὐρανοῦ τὸν ἀληθινόν )

The translation would gain by following the Greek order, " the bread out of heaven, the real bread ."

Vincent: Joh 6:33

He which cometh down ( ὁ καταβαίνων )

So it may be rendered; but also that which , referring to ἄρτος , bread: and so, better, as Rev., since Jesus does not identify Himself with the bread until Joh 6:35.

Wesley: Joh 6:1

The history of between ten and eleven months is to be supplied here from the other evangelists. Mat 14:13; Mar 6:32; Luk 9:10.

Wesley: Joh 6:3

Before the people overtook him.

Wesley: Joh 6:5

Perhaps he had the care of providing victuals for the family of the apostles.

Wesley: Joh 6:15

Having ordered his disciples to cross over the lake.

Wesley: Joh 6:16

Mat 14:22; Mar 6:45.

Wesley: Joh 6:22

They were forced to stay a while, because there were then no other vessels; and they stayed the less unwillingly, because they saw that Jesus was not embarked.

Wesley: Joh 6:26

Merely for temporal advantage. Hitherto Christ had been gathering hearers: he now begins to try their sincerity, by a figurative discourse concerning his passion, and the fruit of it, to be received by faith.

Wesley: Joh 6:27

For bodily food: not for that only not chiefly: not at all, but in subordination to grace, faith, love, the meat which endureth to everlasting life. Labour, work for this; for everlasting life. So our Lord expressly commands, work for life, as well as from life: from a principle of faith and love.

Wesley: Joh 6:27

By this very miracle, as well as by his whole testimony concerning him. See Joh 3:33. Sealing is a mark of the authenticity of a writing.

Wesley: Joh 6:28

Works pleasing to God.

Wesley: Joh 6:29

The work most pleasing to God, and the foundation of all others: that ye believe - He expresses it first properly, afterward figuratively.

Wesley: Joh 6:30

Amazing, after what they had just seen!

Wesley: Joh 6:31

This sign Moses gave them.

Wesley: Joh 6:31

From the lower sublunary heaven; to which Jesus opposes the highest heaven: in which sense he says seven times, Joh 6:32-33, Joh 6:38, Joh 6:50, Joh 6:58, Joh 6:62, that he himself came down from heaven.

Wesley: Joh 6:32

It was not Moses who gave the manna to your fathers; but my Father who now giveth the true bread from heaven. Psa 78:24.

Wesley: Joh 6:33

giveth life to the world - Not (like the manna) to one people only: and that from generation to generation. Our Lord does not yet say, I am that bread; else the Jews would not have given him so respectful an answer, Joh 6:34.

Wesley: Joh 6:34

Meaning it still, in a literal sense: yet they seem now to be not far from believing.

JFB: Joh 6:3

Somewhere in that hilly range which skirts the east side of the lake.

JFB: Joh 6:4

But for the reason mentioned (Joh 7:1), Jesus kept away from it, remaining in Galilee.

JFB: Joh 6:14-15

(See on Joh 1:21).

JFB: Joh 6:15

(1) to rest, which He came to this "desert place" on purpose to do before the miracle of the loaves, but could not for the multitude that followed Him (see Mar 6:31); and (2) "to pray" (Mat 14:23; Mar 6:46). But from His mountain-top He kept watching the ship (see on Joh 6:18), and doubtless prayed both for them, and with a view to the new manifestation which He was to give them of His glory.

JFB: Joh 6:16-17

(See on Mar 6:35).

JFB: Joh 6:16-17

"constrained" to do so by their Master (Mat 14:22; Mar 6:45), in order to put an end to the misdirected excitement in His favor (Joh 6:15), into which the disciples themselves may have been somewhat drawn. The word "constrained" implies reluctance on their part, perhaps from unwillingness to part with their Master and embark at night, leaving Him alone on the mountain.

JFB: Joh 6:16-17

Rather, "were proceeding."

JFB: Joh 6:16-17

Mark says (Mar 6:45), "unto Bethsaida," meaning "Bethsaida of Galilee" (Joh 12:21), on the west side of the lake. The place they left was of the same name (see on Mar 6:32).

JFB: Joh 6:16-17

They probably lingered in hopes of His still joining them, and so let the darkness come on.

JFB: Joh 6:18-19

And they were "now in the midst of it" (Mat 14:24). Mark adds the graphic and touching particular, "He saw them toiling in rowing" (Mar 6:48), putting forth all their strength to buffet the waves and bear on against a head wind, but to little effect. He saw this from His mountain-top, and through the darkness of the night, for His heart was all with them; yet would He not go to their relief till His own time came.

JFB: Joh 6:19

"about the fourth watch of the night" (Mat 14:25; Mar 6:48), or between three and six in the morning.

JFB: Joh 6:19

What Job (Job 9:8) celebrates as the distinguishing prerogative of GOD, "WHO ALONE spreadeth out the heavens, and TREADETH UPON THE WAVES OF THE SEA"--What AGUR challenges as GOD'S unapproachable prerogative, to "GATHER THE WIND IN HIS FISTS, and BIND THE WATERS IN A GARMENT" (Pro 30:4) --lo! this is here done in flesh, by "THE SON OF MAN."

JFB: Joh 6:19

Yet as though He "would have passed by them," Mar 6:48 (compare Luk 24:28; Gen 18:3, Gen 18:5; Gen 32:24-26).

JFB: Joh 6:19

"cried out for fear" (Mat 14:26), "supposing it had been a spirit" (Mar 6:49). He would appear to them at first like a dark moving speck upon the waters; then as a human figure, but--in the dark tempestuous sky, and not dreaming that it could be their Lord--they take it for a spirit. (How often thus we miscall our chiefest mercies--not only thinking them distant when they are near, but thinking the best the worst!)

JFB: Joh 6:20

Matthew (Mat 14:27) and Mark (Mar 6:50) give before these exhilarating words, that to them well-known one, "Be of good cheer!"

JFB: Joh 6:21

Their first fears being now converted into wonder and delight.

JFB: Joh 6:21

This additional miracle, for as such it is manifestly related, is recorded here alone. Yet all that is meant seems to be that as the storm was suddenly calmed, so the little bark--propelled by the secret power of the Lord of Nature now sailing in it--glided through the now unruffled waters, and while they were wrapt in wonder at what had happened, not heeding their rapid motion, was found at port, to their still further surprise.

JFB: Joh 6:22-24

The miracle of the loaves, and the stormy night; the day on which they landed at Capernaum.

JFB: Joh 6:22-24

Not the whole multitude that had been fed, but only such of them as remained over night about the shore, that is, on the east side of the lake; for we are supposed to have come, with Jesus and His disciples in the ship, to the west side, to Capernaum.

JFB: Joh 6:22-24

The meaning is, the people had observed that there had been only one boat on the east side where they were; namely, the one in which the disciples had crossed at night to the other, the west side, and they had also observed that Jesus had not gone on board that boat, but His disciples had put off without Him:

JFB: Joh 6:23

"Howbeit," adds the Evangelist, in a lively parenthesis, "there came other boats from Tiberias" (which lay near the southwest coast of the lake), whose passengers were part of the multitude that had followed Jesus to the east side, and been miraculously fed; these boats were fastened somewhere (says the Evangelist)

JFB: Joh 6:23

Thus he refers to the glorious "miracle of the loaves"--and now they were put in requisition to convey the people back again to the west side. For when "the people saw that Jesus was not there, neither His disciples, they also took shipping [in these boats] and came to Capernaum, seeking for Jesus."

JFB: Joh 6:25

At Capernaum.

JFB: Joh 6:25

Astonished at His being there, and wondering how He could have accomplished it, whether by land or water, and when He came; for being quite unaware of His having walked upon the sea and landed with the disciples in the ship, they could not see how, unless He had travelled all night round the head of the lake alone, He could have reached Capernaum, and even then, how He could have arrived before themselves.

JFB: Joh 6:26

Jesus does not put them through their difficulty, says nothing of His treading on the waves of the sea, nor even notices their question, but takes advantage of the favorable moment for pointing out to them how forward, flippant, and superficial were their views, and how low their desires. "Ye seek Me not because ye saw the miracles"--literally, "the signs," that is, supernatural tokens of a higher presence, and a divine commission, "but because ye did eat of the loaves and were filled." From this He proceeds at once to that other Bread, just as, with the woman of Samaria, to that other Water (Joh 4:9-15). We should have supposed all that follows to have been delivered by the wayside, or wherever they happened first to meet. But from Joh 6:59 we gather that they had probably met about the door of the synagogue--"for that was the day in which they assembled in their synagogues" [LIGHTFOOT]--and that on being asked, at the close of the service, if He had any word of exhortation to the people, He had taken the two breads, the perishing and the living bread, for the subject of His profound and extraordinary discourse.

JFB: Joh 6:27

Taking that title of Himself which denoted His incarnate life.

JFB: Joh 6:27

In the sense of Joh 6:51.

JFB: Joh 6:27

Marked out and authenticated for that transcendent office, to impart to the world the bread of an everlasting life, and this in the character of "the Son of man."

JFB: Joh 6:28-31

Such works as God will approve. Different answers may be given to such a question, according to the spirit which prompts the inquiry. (See Hos 6:6-8; Luk 3:12-14). Here our Lord, knowing whom He had to deal with, shapes His reply accordingly.

JFB: Joh 6:29

That lies at the threshold of all acceptable obedience, being not only the prerequisite to it, but the proper spring of it--in that sense, the work of works, emphatically "the work of God."

JFB: Joh 6:30

But how could they ask "a sign," when many of them scarce a day before had witnessed such a "sign" as had never till then been vouchsafed to men; when after witnessing it, they could hardly be restrained from making Him a king; when they followed Him from the one side of the lake to the other; and when, in the opening words of this very discourse, He had chided them for seeking Him, "not because they saw the signs," but for the loaves? The truth seems to be that they were confounded by the novel claims which our Lord had just advanced. In proposing to make Him a king, it was for far other purposes than dispensing to the world the bread of an everlasting life; and when He seemed to raise His claims even higher still, by representing it as the grand "work of God," that they should believe on Himself as His Sent One, they saw very clearly that He was making a demand upon them beyond anything they were prepared to accord to Him, and beyond all that man had ever before made. Hence their question, "What dost Thou work?"

JFB: Joh 6:31

Insinuating the inferiority of Christ's miracle of the loaves to those of Moses: "When Moses claimed the confidence of the fathers, 'he gave them bread from heaven to eat'--not for a few thousands, but for millions, and not once only, but daily throughout their wilderness journey."

JFB: Joh 6:32-33

"It was not Moses that gave you the manna, and even it was but from the lower heavens; 'but My Father giveth you the true bread,' and that 'from heaven.'"

JFB: Joh 6:33

This verse is perhaps best left in its own transparent grandeur--holding up the Bread Itself as divine, spiritual, and eternal; its ordained Fountain and essential Substance, "Him who came down from heaven to give it" (that Eternal Life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us, 1Jo 1:2); and its designed objects, "the world."

JFB: Joh 6:34

Speaking now with a certain reverence (as at Joh 6:25), the perpetuity of the manna floating perhaps in their minds, and much like the Samaritan woman, when her eyes were but half opened, "Sir, give Me this water," &c. (Joh 4:15).

Clarke: Joh 6:1

After these things - This is a sort of indefinite expression, from which me can gather nothing relative to the time in which these things happened. It refers no doubt to transactions in the preceding year

Clarke: Joh 6:1

Jesus went over the sea of Galilee - Or, as some translate the words, by the side of the sea of Galilee. From Luke, Luk 9:10, we learn that this was a desert place in the vicinity of Bethsaida. The sea of Galilee, Genesaret, and Tiberias, are the same in the New Testament with the sea of Cinnereth in the Old. Tiberias was a city in Galilee, situated on the western side of the lake. See on Joh 6:22 (note).

Clarke: Joh 6:2

They saw his miracles which he did - John does not mention these miracles; but Matthew details them, Matthew 12:2-14:13. John seems more intent on supplying the deficiencies of the other evangelists than in writing a connected history himself.

Clarke: Joh 6:3

Went up into a mountain - This mountain must have been in the desert of Bethsaida, in the territories of Philip, tetrarch of Galilee. Our Lord withdrew to this place for a little rest; for he and his disciples had been so thronged with the multitudes, continually coming and going, that they had not time to take necessary food. See Mar 6:31.

Clarke: Joh 6:4

And the passover - was nigh - This happened about ten or twelve days before the third passover which Christ celebrated after his baptism. Calmet. For a particular account of our Lord’ s four passovers see the note on Joh 2:13

For thirty days before the Passover there were great preparations made by the Jews, but especially in the last nineteen days, in order to celebrate the feast with due solemnity. Lightfoot supposes that what is here related happened within the last fifteen days. See Calmet’ s opinion above.

Clarke: Joh 6:5

Saw a great company - See this miracle explained at large on Mat 14:13 (note), etc.; Mar 6:31 (note), etc.; Luk 9:10 (note), etc. In speaking of the passovers, and various other matters, it does not appear that John follows any strict chronological order. From Joh 6:15, it appears that our Lord had come down from the mountain, and fed the multitudes in a plain at the foot of it

Clarke: Joh 6:5

Saith unto Philip - This, with what follows, to the end of the seventh verse, is not mentioned by any of the other evangelists

Philip was probably the provider for the disciples, as Judas was the treasurer

Clarke: Joh 6:5

Whence shall we buy bread - Instead of αγορασομεν, shall we buy, I should read αγορασωμεν, may we buy, which is the reading of ABDEHLS, Mt. VB, and many others. As Philip was of Bethsaida, Joh 1:44; Joh 12:21, he must have been much better acquainted with the country in which they then were than any other of the disciples.

Clarke: Joh 6:6

This he said to prove him - To try his faith, and to see whether he and the other apostles had paid proper attention to the miracles which they had already seen him work; and to draw their attention more particularly to that which he was now about to perform. This is an observation of the evangelist himself, who often interweaves his own judgment with the facts he relates, which St. Matthew rarely ever does. The other evangelists say that, previously to this miracle, he continued to instruct and heal the multitudes till it was near the close of the day. Mat 14:14, Mat 14:15; Mar 6:34, Mar 6:35; Luk 9:11, Luk 9:12.

Clarke: Joh 6:7

Two hundred pennyworth - This sum, rating the denarius at 7 3/4d., would amount to 6£. 9s. 2d. of our money, and appears to have been more than our Lord and all his disciples were worth of this world’ s goods. See the notes on Mat 18:28.

Clarke: Joh 6:8

Andrew, Simon Peter’ s brother, saith - The other evangelists attribute this answer to the apostles in general. See the passages referred to above.

Clarke: Joh 6:9

There is a lad here - Παιδαριον, a little boy, or servant, probably one who carried the apostles’ provisions, or who came on purpose to sell his bread and fish

Clarke: Joh 6:9

Five barley loaves - Barley scarcely bore one-third of the value of wheat in the east: see Rev 6:6. That it was a very mean fare appears from Eze 13:19, where the false prophetesses are said to pollute the name of God for handfuls of barley, i.e. for the meanest reward. And Plutarch, in Apoph. p. 174, speaking concerning the flight of Artaxerxes Mnemon, says he was reduced to such distress as to be obliged to eat barley bread. See Kypke. From this and other circumstances we may plainly perceive that the self-denying doctrine preached by Christ and his apostles was fully exemplified in their own manner of living

Clarke: Joh 6:9

Two small fishes - Δυο οψαρια . The word of οψαριον signifies whatever is eaten with bread, to perfect the meal, or to make it easy of deglutition, or to help the digestion. There is no word in the English language for it, which is a great defect. The inhabitants of Scotland, and of the north and north-west of Ireland, use the word kytshen, by which they express what ever is eaten with bread or potatoes, as flesh, fish, butter, milk, eggs, etc., no satisfactory etymology of which word I am able to offer. In the parallel places in the other three evangelists, instead of οψαρια, ιχθυας is used; so that the word evidently means fish in the text of St. John: see on Joh 21:5 (note).

Clarke: Joh 6:10

There was much grass in the place - Perhaps newly mown grass, or hay, is meant, (so the Vulgate faenum ), and this circumstance marks out more particularly that the passover was at hand. In Palestine the grass is ready for mowing in March; and this miracle seems to have been wrought only a few days before the commencement of that festival: see Joh 6:4.

Clarke: Joh 6:11

Jesus took the loaves - See the notes on Mat 14:19-21 (note). As there were five loaves and five thousand people, so there was one loaf to every thousand men, independently of the women and children.

Clarke: Joh 6:12

Gather up the fragments - " Great will be the punishment of those who waste the crumbs of food, scatter seed, and neglect the law."Synops Sohar. Among the Jews the פאה peah , or residue after a meal, was the property of the servitors.

Clarke: Joh 6:14

This is of a truth that prophet - Spoken of, Deu 18:15, viz. the Messiah. How near were these people at this time to the kingdom of heaven!

Clarke: Joh 6:15

Take him by force, to make him a king - The Jews had often suffered by famine in those times in which their enemies were permitted to prevail over them; but, finding that Jesus had such power as to multiply a few loaves to feed thousands, they took it for granted that while he was at their head no evil could possibly happen to them, and therefore were determined immediately to proclaim him king, and rid themselves at once of Herod and the Romans. Our Lord perceiving this, either by some words which they had dropped, or by his penetration of their hearts, retired before the project had been fully formed, or could be put into execution. It was not till a considerable time afterwards that even the disciples fully understood that his kingdom was not of this world

Clarke: Joh 6:15

Into a mountain - That on which he was with his disciples previously to his working this miracle: see Joh 6:3

St. Matthew, Mat 14:22, Mat 14:23, and Mark, Mar 6:45, Mar 6:46, say that, before this, Jesus constrained his disciples to embark in the vessel, and go along the sea coast towards Capernaum, or Bethsaida - see here Joh 6:17, and the note on Mar 6:45 (note); and that, after they were gone, he dismissed the multitudes, having, no doubt, given them such advices as the nature of the case required; after which he went into the mountain to pray

Worldly wisdom would have said, "Declare thyself king: yield to the desires of the people: this will be the readiest way of converting the Jews."No. Jesus must die for the sin of the world. - No man’ s heart can be turned to God by outward pomp or splendor - no saving change can be brought about by any might or any power, but by the Spirit of the Lord of hosts. Zec 4:6.

Clarke: Joh 6:17

Toward Capernaum - St. Mark says, Mar 6:45, that our Lord commanded them to go along to Bethsaida; and in the course of the history we find they got neither to Bethsaida nor Capernaum, but landed in the country of Genesaret: Mat 14:34. Our Lord seems to have desired them to go either to Bethsaida or Capernaum, which were only a very few miles distant, and on the same side of the sea. The reason why they could reach neither was the storm which the evangelists say rose at the time, and the wind being contrary: the storm being probably excited by the prince of the power of the air. Capernaum lay at the northern part of this sea, and they went along the Galilean or western coast, probably expecting Christ to come to them, on which account they might keep in close by the land. But there are great difficulties in fixing the places mentioned by the evangelists. By some writers Bethsaida and Capernaum are placed on opposite sides of this lake: by others on the same side. Sometimes when our translation speaks of passing over the sea, etc., a coasting voyage only is meant, as we find the disciples landing on the same side from which they had departed: see the note on Joh 6:22.

Clarke: Joh 6:19

Had rowed - Their vessel was a small one only, something of the boat kind: as to sails, if they had any, they could not now venture to carry them, because of the storm

Clarke: Joh 6:19

Five and twenty or thirty furlongs - Between three and four miles. The sea of Tiberias, on which they now were, was, according to Josephus, War, book iii. chap. 25, forty furlongs, or five miles in breadth; and one hundred and forty furlongs, or eighteen miles, in length. Pliny, lib. v. chap. 15, makes it about six miles broad, and sixteen long

Clarke: Joh 6:19

They see Jesus - See the notes on Mat 14:25, etc.

Clarke: Joh 6:21

Immediately the ship was at the land - How far they were from the place at which they landed, when our Lord came to them, we know not. But the evangelist seems to speak of their sudden arrival there as extraordinary and miraculous.

Clarke: Joh 6:22

The people which stood on the other side - ἙϚηκως περαν της θαλασσης, Standing by the sea side. The people were not on the other side, i.e. in Perea, as our version states, but on that side where Bethsaida lay: see the notes on Mat 14:25, Mat 14:34, and on Mar 6:45. The Greek word, περαν, says Bishop Pearce, seems to signify in Scripture sometimes on the side of, and sometimes on this side of: see Jos 5:1 and 1 Maccabees 9:34. The Hebrew word אבר abar , signifies by the side: Exo 28:26, and is translated on this side in Deu 4:29. It has the same meaning in the Septuagint, Deu 1:5; Deu 3:8; Deu 4:46. περαν, says Vorstius, is the same with παρα, near to. This is evidently the meaning of the word in Mat 4:15; as it appears, from what is said of the land of Zabulon and Nepthali, that by περαν is not meant beyond, but by the side of; because those two tribes inhabited the western side of Jordan, which was the side lying nearest to Judea and Galilee: see on Mat 19:1 (note).

Clarke: Joh 6:23

There came other boats - After Jesus and his disciples had departed

Clarke: Joh 6:23

From Tiberias - Herod Antipas built this city near the lake of Genesaret, in the best parts of Galilee, and called it Tiberias, in honor of Tiberius, the Roman emperor: see Jos. Ant. book xviii. chap. 2. sect. 3.

Clarke: Joh 6:24

They also took shipping - That is, as many of them as could get accommodated with boats took them and thus got to Capernaum; but many others doubtless went thither on foot, as it is not at all likely that five or six thousand persons could get boats enow to carry them.

Clarke: Joh 6:25

On the other side of the sea - That is, on the sea coast, to the northward of it, where Capernaum lies in the land of Genesaret: but see the note, on Joh 6:17, Joh 6:22. It was in one of the synagogues of Capernaum that he delivered the following discourse: see Joh 6:59.

Clarke: Joh 6:26

Ye seek me, not because ye saw, etc. - Though the miracle of the loaves was one of the most astonishing that ever was wrought upon earth; and though this people had, by the testimony of all their senses, the most convincing proof of its reality; yet we find many of them paid little attention to it, and regarded the omnipotent hand of God in it no farther than it went to satisfy the demands of their appetite! Most men are willing to receive temporal good from the hands of God; but there are few, very few, who are willing to receive spiritual blessings.

Clarke: Joh 6:27

Labor not for the meat - That is, for that only, but also for the bread, etc. Our Lord wills every man to be active and diligent in that employment in which providence has placed him; but it is his will also that that employment, and all the concerns of life, should be subservient to the interest of his soul

Clarke: Joh 6:27

But for that meat, etc. - He who labors not, in the work of his salvation, is never likely to enter into the kingdom of God. Though our labor cannot purchase it, either in whole or in part, yet it is the way in which God chooses to give salvation; and he that will have heaven must strive for it. Every thing that can be possessed, except the salvation of God, is a perishing thing: this is its essential character: it can last to us no longer than the body lasts. But, when the earth and its produce are burnt up, this bread of Christ, his grace and salvation, will be found remaining unto eternal life. This is the portion after which an immortal spirit should seek

Clarke: Joh 6:27

Him hath God the Father sealed - By this expression, our Lord points out the commission which, as the Messiah, he received from the Father, to be prophet and priest to an ignorant, sinful world. As a person who wishes to communicate his mind to another who is at a distance writes a letter, seals it with his own seal, and sends it directed to the person for whom it was written, so Christ, who lay in the bosom of the Father, came to interpret the Divine will to man, bearing the image, superscription, and seal of God, in the immaculate holiness of his nature, unsullied truth of his doctrine, and in the astonishing evidence of his miracles. But he came also as a priest, to make an atonement for sin; and the bread which nourishes unto eternal life, he tells us, Joh 6:51, is his body, which he gives for the life of the world; and to this sacrifice of himself, the words, him hath God the Father sealed, seem especially to relate. It certainly was a custom, among nations contiguous to Judea, to set a seal upon the victim which was deemed proper for sacrifice. The following account of the method of providing white bulls among the Egyptians, for sacrifices to their god Apis, taken from Herodotus, Euterpe, b. ii. p. 117, casts much light upon this place. "They sacrifice white bulls to Apis; and for that reason make the following trial. If they find one black hair upon him, they consider him as unclean: that they may know this with certainty, the priest appointed for this purpose views every part of the animal, both standing and lying on the ground. After this, he draws out his tongue, to see if he be clean by certain signs: in the last place, he looks upon the hairs of his tail, that he may be sure they are as by nature they should be. If, after this search, the bull is found unblemished, he signifies it by tying a label to his horns; then, having applied wax, he seals it with his ring, and they lead him away: for it is death to sacrifice one of these animals, unless he have been marked with such a seal

The Jews could not be unacquainted with the rites and ceremonies of the Egyptian worship; and it is possible that such precautions as these were in use among themselves, especially as they were so strictly enjoined to have their sacrifices without Spot, and without blemish. Infinite justice found Jesus Christ to be without spot or blemish, and therefore sealed, pointed out and accepted him, as a proper sacrifice and atonement for the sin of the whole world. Collate with this passage, Heb 7:26-28; Eph 5:27; 2Pe 3:14; and especially Heb 9:13, Heb 9:14 : For if the blood of Bulls and of goats, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth - how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself Without Spot to God, purge your consciences from dead works! The rabbins talk much of the seal of God, which they suppose to be אמת emeth , or truth; and that this is a representation of the unoriginated and endless perfections of God. This doctrine is just; but their method of proving it is not so satisfactory. Aleph א, say they, is the first letter of the alphabet; mem מ the middle; and tau ת the last: these three letters make אמת emeth , Truth, because God is the first - there was none before him; he is the middle - none mingles with him; and he is the last - there can be none after him. Hieros. Sanhed. fol. 18. See also 1Pe 1:18, 1Pe 1:19.

Clarke: Joh 6:28

That we might work the works of God? - That is, Divine works, or such as God can approve.

Clarke: Joh 6:29

This is the work of God, that ye believe - There is nothing you can be employed in more acceptable to God than in yielding to the evidence set before you, and acknowledging me as your Messiah and the Savior of a lost world.

Clarke: Joh 6:30

What sign - Τι σημειον, What miracle; so the word is evidently used, Joh 2:11, Joh 2:23, and in many other places

Clarke: Joh 6:30

That we may see, and believe thee - That, having seen the miracle, we may believe thee to be the promised Messiah. They had already seen the miracle of the five loaves, and did not believe; and it was impossible for them to see any thing more descriptive of unlimited power and goodness. Even miracles themselves are lost on persons whose hearts are fixed on the perishing things of the world, and whose minds are filled with prejudice against the truth.

Clarke: Joh 6:31

Our fathers did eat manna in the desert - Their argument seems to run thus: Thou hast, we grant, fed five thousand men with five loaves and two small fishes; but what is this in comparison of what Moses did in the desert, who for forty years fed more than a million of persons with bread from heaven: do something like this, and then we will believe in thee, as we have believed in Moses.

Clarke: Joh 6:32

Moses gave you not that bread from heaven - Our Lord refutes the argument of the Jews, by proving

1.    That it was not Moses, but God, who gave the manna

2.    That this bread was not the true bread, but was merely a type of it

3.    That God had given them now a bread infinitely more excellent

4.    That himself is that heavenly nourishment of which he spake, and who was typified by the manna in the desert

To show that himself was the true bread from heaven, he proves two things

1.    That his doctrine was the true nourishment of the soul, and that those who were to be put in possession of the blessings promised in it must come to God by faith

2.    That he would give his body for the life of the world: that as bread is the staff that supports the natural life of man, so the salvation procured by his death should be that by which the bodies and souls of believers should be preserved unto life eternal.

Clarke: Joh 6:34

Lord, evermore give us this bread - Either meaning, "Let the miracle of the manna be renewed, and continue among us for ever:"or, "Let that bread of which thou hast spoken, become our constant nourishment."The Jews expected that, when the Messiah should come, he would give them all manner of delicacies, and, among the rest, manna, wine, and spicy oil. From the following extract, we may see where Mohammed got his Paradise. "Many affirm, says Rab. Mayemon, that the hope of Israel is this: That the Messiah shall come and raise the dead; and they shall be gathered together in the garden of Eden, and shall eat and drink and satiate themselves all the days of the world. There the houses shall be all builded with precious stones; the beds shall be made of silk; and the rivers shall flow with wine and spicy oil. He made manna to descend for them, in which was all manner of tastes; and every Israelite found in it what his palate was chiefly pleased with. If he desired fat in it, he had it. In it, the young man tasted bread, the old man honey, and the children oil. So shall it be in the world to come, (i.e. the days of the Messiah.) He shall give Israel peace, and they shall sit down in the garden of Eden, and all nations shall behold their condition; as it is said, My servants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry, etc., Isa 65:13."See Lightfoot.

Calvin: Joh 6:1

1.Afterwards, Jesus went Although John was accustomed to collect those actions and sayings of Christ, which the other three Evangelists had omitted, yet in this passage, contrary to his custom, he repeats the history of a miracle which they had related. But he does so for the express purpose of passing from them to Christ’s sermon, which was delivered next day at Capernaum, because the two things were connected; and therefore this narrative, though the other three Evangelists have it in common with him, has this peculiarity, that it is directed to another object, as we shall see. The other Evangelists (Mat 14:13; Mar 6:32; Luk 9:10) state that this happened shortly after the death of John the Baptist, by which circumstance of time they point out the cause of Christ’s departure; for when tyrants have once imbrued their hands in the blood of the godly, they kindle into greater cruelty, in the same manner as intemperate drinking aggravates the thirst of drunkards. Christ therefore intended to abate the rage of Herod by his absence. He uses the term, Sea of Galilee, as meaning the lake of Gennesareth. When he adds that it was called the Sea of Tiberias, he explains more fully the place to which Christ withdrew; for the whole lake did not bear that name, but only that part of it which lay contiguous to the bank on which Tiberias was situated.

Calvin: Joh 6:2

2.And a great multitude followed him So great ardor in following Christ arose from this, that, having beheld his power in miracles, they were convinced that he was some great prophet, and that he had been sent by God. But the Evangelist here omits what the other three relate, that Christ employed a part of the day in teaching and in healing the sick, and that, when the sun was setting, his disciples requested him to send away the multitudes, (Mat 14:13; Mar 6:34; Luk 9:11;) for he reckoned it enough to give the substance of it in a few words, that he might take this opportunity of leading us on to the remaining statements which immediately follow.

Here we see, in the first place, how eager was the desire of the people to hear Christ, since all of them, forgetting themselves, take no concern about spending the night in a desert place. So much the less excusable is our indifference, or rather our sloth, when we are so far from preferring the heavenly doctrine to the gnawings of hunger, that the slightest interruptions immediately lead us away from meditation on the heavenly life. Very rarely does it happen that Christ finds us free and disengaged from the entanglements of the world. So far is every one of us from being ready to follow him to a desert mountain, that scarcely one in ten can endure to receive him, when he presents himself at home in the midst of comforts. And though this disease prevails nearly throughout the whole world, yet it is certain that no man will be fit for the kingdom of God until, laying aside such delicacy, he learn to desire the food of the soul so earnestly that his belly shall not hinder him.

But as the flesh solicits us to attend to its conveniences, we ought likewise to observe that Christ, of his own accord, takes care of those who neglect themselves in order to follow him. ¹¹⁸ For he does not wait till they are famished, and cry out that they are perishing of hunger, and have nothing to eat, but he provides food for them before they have asked it. We shall perhaps be told that this does not always happen, for we often see that godly persons, though they have been entirely devoted to the kingdom of God, are exhausted and almost fainting with hunger. I reply, though Christ is pleased to try our faith and patience in this manner, yet from heaven he beholds our wants, and is careful to relieve them, as far as is necessary for our welfare; and when assistance is not immediately granted, it is done for the best reason, though that reason is concealed from us.

Calvin: Joh 6:3

3.Jesus therefore went up into a mountain Christ unquestionably sought a place of retirement till the feast of the Passover; and therefore it is said that he sat down on a mountain with his disciples. Such was undoubtedly the purpose which he formed as man; but the purpose of God was different, which he willingly obeyed. Although, therefore, he avoided the sight of men, yet he permits himself to be led by the hand of God as into a crowded theater; for there was a larger assembly of men in a desert mountain than in any populous city, and greater celebrity arose from the miracle than if it had happened in the open market-place of Tiberias We are therefore taught by this example to form our plans in conformity to the course of events, but in such a manner that, if the result be different from what we expected, we may not be displeased that God is above us, and regulates everything according to his pleasure.

Calvin: Joh 6:5

5.He saith to Philip What we here read as having been said to Philip alone, the other Evangelists tell us, was said to all. But there is no inconsistency in this; for it is probable that Philip spoke according to the opinion entertained by all, and, therefore, Christ replies to him in particular; just as John, immediately afterwards, introduces Andrew as speaking, where the other Evangelists attribute the discourse to all alike. Perceiving that they have no conception of an extraordinary remedy, he then arouses their minds, which may be said to be asleep, so that they may, at least, have their eyes open to behold what shall be immediately exhibited to them. The design of all that is alleged by the disciples is, to persuade Christ not to detain the people; and, perhaps, in this respect they consult their private advantage, that a part of the inconvenience may not fall upon themselves. Accordingly, Christ disregards their objections, and proceeds in his design.

Calvin: Joh 6:7

7.Two hundred denarii As the denarius, according to the computation of Budaeus, is equal to four times the value of a carolus and two deniers of Tours, this sum amounts to thirty-five francs, or thereby. ¹¹⁹ If you divide this sum among five thousand men, each hundred of them will have less than seventeenpence sterling ¹²⁰ If we now add about a thousand of women and children, it will be found that Philip allots to each person about the sixth part of an English penny, ¹²¹ to buy a little bread But, as usually happens in a great crowd, he probably thought that there was a greater number of people present; and as the disciples were poor and ill supplied with money, Andrew intended to alarm Christ by the greatness of the sum, meaning that they were not wealthy enough to entertain so many people.

Calvin: Joh 6:10

10.Make the men sit down That the disciples were not sooner prepared to cherish the hope which their Master held out, and did not remember to ascribe to his power all that was proper, was a degree of stupidity worthy of blame; but no small praise is due to their cheerful obedience in now complying with his injunction, though they know not what is his intention, or what advantage they will derive from what they are doing. The same readiness to obey is manifested by the people; for, while they are uncertain about the result, they all sit down as soon as a single word of command has been pronounced. And this is the trial of true faith, when God commands men to walk, as it were, in darkness. For this purpose let us learn not to be wise in ourselves, but, amidst great confusion, still to hope for a prosperous issue, when we follow the guidance of God, who never disappoints his own people.

Calvin: Joh 6:11

11.After having given thanks Christ has oftener than once instructed us by his example that, whenever we take food, we ought to begin with prayer. For those things which God has appointed for our use, being evidences of his infinite goodness and fatherly love towards us, call on us to offer praise to Him; and thanksgiving, as Paul informs us, is a kind of solemn sanctification, by means of which the use of them begins to be pure to us, (1Ti 4:4.) Hence it follows, that they who swallow them down without thinking of God, are guilty of sacrilege, and of profaning the gifts of God. And this instruction is the more worthy of attention, because we daily see a great part of the world feeding themselves like brute beasts. When Christ determined that the bread given to the disciples should grow among their hands, we are taught by it that God blesses our labor when we are serviceable to each other.

Let us now sum up the meaning of the whole miracle. It has this in common with the other miracles, that Christ displayed in it his Divine power in union with beneficence, It is also a confirmation to us of that statement by which he exhorts us to seek the kingdom of God, promising that all other things shall be added to us, (Mat 6:33.) For if he took care of those who were led to him only by a sudden impulse, how would he desert us, if we seek him with a firm and steady purpose? True, indeed, he will sometimes allow his own people, as I have said, to suffer hunger; but he will never deprive them of his aid; and, in the meantime, he has very good reasons for not assisting us till matters come to an extremity.

Besides, Christ plainly showed that he not only bestows spiritual life on the world, but that his Father commanded him also to nourish the body. For abundance of all blessings is committed to his hand, that, as a channel, he may convey them to us; though I speak incorrectly by calling him a channel, for he is rather the living fountain flowing from the eternal Father. Accordingly, Paul prays that all blessings may come to us from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, in common, (1Co 1:3;) and, in another passage, he shows that

in all things we ought to give thanks to God the Father, through our Lord Jesus Christ, (Eph 5:20.)

And not only does this office belong to his eternal Divinity, but even in his human nature, and so far as he has taken upon him our flesh, ¹²² the Father has appointed him to be the dispenser, that by his hands he may feed us. Now, though we do not every day see miracles before our eyes, yet not less bountifully does God display his power in feeding us. And indeed we do not read that, when he wished to give a supper to his people, he used any new means; and, therefore, it would be an inconsiderate prayer, if any one were to ask that meat and drink might be given to him by some unusual method.

Again, Christ did not provide great delicacies for the people, but they who saw his amazing power displayed in that supper, were obliged to rest satisfied with barley-bread and fish without sauce. ¹²³ And though he does not now satisfy five thousand men with five loaves, still he does not cease to feed the whole world in a wonderful manner. It sounds to us, no doubt, like a paradox, that

man liveth not by bread alone, but by the word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God,
(Deu 8:3.)

For we are so strongly attached to outward means, that nothing is more difficult than to depend on the providence of God. Hence it arises that we tremble so much, as soon as we have not bread at hand. And if we consider every thing aright, we shall be compelled to discern the blessing of God in all the creatures which serve for our bodily support; ¹²⁴ but use and frequency lead us to undervalue the miracles of nature. And yet, in this respect, it is not so much our stupidity as our malignity that hinders us; for where is the man to be found who does not choose to wander astray in his mind, and to encompass heaven and earth a hundred times, rather than look at God who presents himself to his view?

Calvin: Joh 6:13

13.And filled twelve baskets When four thousand men were fed by seven loaves, Matthew relates that the number of baskets filled with fragments was exactly the same with the number of the loaves, (Mat 15:37.) Since, therefore, a smaller quantity is sufficient for a greater number of men, and since the quantity left is nearly double, hence we see more clearly of what value is that blessing of God, against the sight of which we deliberately shut our eyes. We ought also to observe, in passing, that though Christ commands them to fill the baskets for illustrating the miracle, yet he likewise exhorts his disciples to frugality, when he says, Gather the fragments which are left, that nothing may be lost; for the increase of the bounty of God ought not to be an excitement to luxury. Let those, therefore, who have abundance, remember that they will one day render an account of their immoderate wealth, if they do not carefully and faithfully apply their superfluity to purposes which are good, and of which God approves.

Calvin: Joh 6:14

14.Those men, therefore The miracle appears to have been attended by some advantage, that they acknowledge the author of it to be the Messiah; for Christ had no other object in view. But immediately they apply to a different and improper purpose the knowledge which they have obtained concerning Christ. And it is a fault extremely common among men, to corrupt and pervert his truth by their falsehoods, as soon as he has revealed himself to them; and even when they appear to have entered into the right path, they immediately fall away.

Calvin: Joh 6:15

15.To make him a king When those men intended to give to Christ the title and honor of king, there was some ground for what they did. But they erred egregiously in taking upon themselves the liberty of making a king; for Scripture ascribes this as peculiar to God alone, as it is said,

I have appointed my king on my holy hill of Zion,
(Psa 2:6.)

Again, what sort of kingdom do they contrive for him? An earthly one, which is utterly inconsistent with his person. Hence let us learn how dangerous it is, in the things of God, to neglect His word, and to contrive anything of our own opinion; for there is nothing which the foolish subtlety of our understanding does not corrupt. And what avails the pretense of zeal, when by our disorderly worship we offer a greater insult to God than if a person were expressly and deliberately to make an attack on his glory?

We know how furious were the efforts of adversaries to extinguish the glory of Christ. That violence, indeed, reached its extreme point when he was crucified. But by means of his crucifixion salvation was obtained for the world, ¹²⁶ and Christ himself obtained a splendid triumph over death and Satan. If he had permitted himself to be now made a king, his spiritual kingdom would have been ruined, the Gospel would have been stamped with everlasting infamy, and the hope of salvation would have been utterly destroyed. Modes of worship regulated according to our own fancy, and honors rashly contrived by men, have no other advantage than this, that they rob God of his true honor, and pour upon him nothing but reproach.

And take him by force We must also observe the phrase, take by force They wished to take Christ by force, the Evangelist says; that is, with impetuous violence they wished to make him a king, though against his will. If we desire, therefore, that he should approve of the honor which we confer upon him, we ought always to consider what he requires. And, indeed, they who venture to offer to God honors invented by themselves are chargeable with using some sort of force and violence towards him; for obedience is the foundation of true worship. Let us also learn from it with what reverence we ought to abide by the pure and simple word of God; for as soon as we turn aside in the smallest degree, the truth is poisoned by our leaven, so that it is no longer like itself. They learned from the word of God that he who was promised to be the Redeemer would be a king; but out of their own head they contrive an earthly kingdom, and they assign to him a kingdom contrary to the word of God. Thus, whenever we mix up our own opinions with the word of God, faith degenerates into frivolous conjectures. Let believers, therefore, cultivate habitual modesty, lest Satan hurry them into an ardor of inconsiderate and rash zeal, ¹²⁷ so that, like the Giants, they shall rush violently against God, who is never worshipped aright but when we receive him as he presents himself to us.

It is astonishing that five thousand men should have been seized with such daring presumption, that they did not hesitate, by making a new king, to provoke against themselves Pilate’s army and the vast power ¹²⁸ of the Roman empire; and it is certain that they would never have gone so far, if they had not, relying on the predictions of the Prophets, hoped that God would be on their side, and, consequently, that they would overcome. But still they went wrong in contriving a kingdom of which the Prophets had never spoken. So far are they from having the hand of God favorable to aid their undertaking that, on the contrary, Christ withdraws. That was also the reason why wretched men under Popery wandered so long in gross darkness — while God was, as it were, absent — because they had dared to pollute the whole of his worship by their foolish inventions. ¹²⁹

Calvin: Joh 6:16

16.His disciples went down Christ undoubtedly intended to conceal himself until the crowd should disperse. We know how difficult it is to allay a popular tumult. Now, if they had openly attempted to do what they had intended, it would have been no easy matter afterwards to wipe off the stain which had once been fixed upon him. Meanwhile, he spent all that time in prayer, as the other Evangelists (Mat 14:23; Mar 6:46) relate; probably, that God the Father might repress that folly of the people. ¹³⁰ As to his crossing the lake in a miraculous manner, it is intended to profit his disciples by again confirming their faith. The advantage extended still farther; for next day all the people would easily see that he had not been brought thither by a boat or ship, ¹³¹ but that he had come by his own power; for they blockaded the shore from which he had to set out, and would scarcely have been drawn away from it, if they had not seen the disciples cross to a different place.

Calvin: Joh 6:17

17.It was now dark John passes by many circumstances which the other Evangelists introduce; such as, that for several hours they struggled with a contrary wind; for it is probable that the storm arose immediately after the night began to come on; and they tell us that Christ did not appear to his disciples till about the fourth watch of the night, (Mat 14:28; Mar 6:48.) Those who conjecture that they were still about the middle of the lake when Christ appeared to them, because John says that they had then advanced about twenty-five or thirty furlongs, are led into a mistake by supposing that they had sailed to the farther or opposite bank; for Bethsaida, near which town, Luke tells us, the miracle was performed, (Luk 9:10,) and Capernaum, which the ship reached, (Joh 6:16,) were situated on the same coast.

Pliny, in his fifth book, states that this lake was six miles in breadth, and sixteen in length. Josephus (in the third book of the Wars of the Jews) assigns to it one hundred furlongs in length, and forty in breadth; ¹³² and as eight furlongs make one mile, we may easily infer how little the one description differs from the other. So far as relates to the present sailing, my opinion is, that they did not go over so great a space by direct sailing, but through being driven about by the tempest. ¹³³ However that may be, the Evangelist intended to show that, when Christ presented himself to them, they were in the utmost danger. It may be thought strange that the disciples should be tormented in this manner, while others had nothing to disturb them in sailing; but in this manner the Lord often makes his people fall into alarming dangers, that they may more plainly and familiarly recognize him in their deliverance.

Calvin: Joh 6:19

19.They were terrified The other Evangelists explain the cause of that fear to have been, that they thought that it was an apparition, (Mat 14:26; Mar 6:49.) Now it is impossible not to be seized with consternation and dread, when an apparition is presented before our eyes; for we conclude that it is either some imposture of Satan, or some bad omen which God sends us. Besides, John here holds out to us, as in a mirror, what kind of knowledge of Christ we may obtain without the word, and what advantage may be reaped from that knowledge. For if he present a simple demonstration of his divinity, we immediately fall into our imaginations, and every person forms an idol for himself instead of Christ. After we have thus wandered in our understanding, this is immediately followed by trembling and a confused terror of heart. But when he begins to speak, we then obtain from his voice clear and solid knowledge, and then also joy and delightful peace dawn upon our minds. For there is great weight in these words:

Calvin: Joh 6:20

20.It is I: be not terrified We learn from them that it is in Christ’s presence alone that we have abundant grounds of confidence, so as to be calm and at ease. But this belongs exclusively to the disciples of Christ; for we shall afterwards see that wicked men were struck down by the same words, It is I, (Joh 18:6.) The reason of the distinction is, that he is sent as a Judge to the reprobate and unbelievers for their destruction; and, therefore, they cannot bear his presence without being immediately overwhelmed. But believers, who know that he is given to them to make propitiation, as soon as they hear his name, which is a sure pledge to them both of the love of God and of their salvation, take courage as if they had been raised from death to life, calmly look at the clear sky, dwell quietly on earth, and, victorious over every calamity, take him for their shield against all dangers. Nor does he only comfort and encourage them by his word, but actually removes also the cause of the terror by allaying the tempest.

Calvin: Joh 6:22

22.Next day Here the Evangelist relates circumstances from which the multitude might conclude that Christ had gone across by divine power. There had been but one ship; they see it go away without Christ; next day, ships come from other places, by which they are conveyed to Capernaum; and there they find Christ. It follows that he must have been conveyed across in a miraculous manner. There is an intricacy and apparent confusion (ἀνακόλουθον) in the words, but still the meaning of them is plain enough; for, in the 22^nd verse, John says that there had been but one ship, and that all saw it leave the shore and that place, and that it had not Christ as a passenger; and, in the 23^rd verse, he adds that ships came from Tiberias, by which the multitude passed over, which had remained on the shore, blockading, as it were, every outlet, that Christ might not escape.

Calvin: Joh 6:23

23.Near the place where they had eaten bread The meaning of the words is doubtful; for they may be explained, either that Tiberias was near the place where Christ had fed them with five loaves, or that the ships reached the shore which was near and below that place. I approve more highly of the latter exposition; for Bethsaida, near which Luke states that the miracle was performed, is half-way between Tiberias and Capernaum. Accordingly, when ships came down from that place, which was farther up the lake, they sailed along that shore on which the multitude were standing; and there can be no doubt that they came to land for the purpose of taking in passengers.

After that the Lord had given thanks When John again mentions that Christ gave thanks, it is not a superfluous repetition; for he means that Christ obtained by prayer that those few loaves were sufficient for feeding so many people; and as we are cold and indolent in prayer, he presses upon us the same thing a second time.

Calvin: Joh 6:25

25.On the other side of the sea We have already said that Capernaum was not situated on the opposite shore; for Tiberias is situated on that part of the lake where it is broadest, Bethsaida follows next, and Capernaum lies near the lowest part, not far from where the river Jordan issues from the lake. Now, when John places it on the other side of the lake itself, we must not understand him as if its position were directly across, but because, at the lower extremity, the lake made a large winding, and, on account of the bay that intervened, it was impossible to go by land without a very circuitous journey. The Evangelist therefore says, on the other side of the sea, adopting the mode of expression used by the common people, because the only direct and ordinary mode of conveyance was by a boat.

Calvin: Joh 6:26

26.Jesus answered them Christ does not reply to the question put to him, which would have been fitted to show to them his power in having come thither by a miracle. ¹³⁴ But, on the contrary, he chides them for throwing themselves forward without consideration; for they were not acquainted with the true and proper reason of what he did, because they sought in Christ something else than Christ himself. The fault which he complains of in them is, that they seek Christ for the sake of the belly and not of the miracles And yet it cannot be denied that they looked to the miracle; nay more, the Evangelist has already told us that they were excited by the miracles to follow Christ. But because they abused the miracles for an improper purpose, he justly reproaches them with having a greater regard to the belly than to miracles. His meaning was, that they did not profit by the works of God as they ought to have done; for the true way of profiting would have been to acknowledge Christ as the Messiah in such a manner as to surrender themselves to be taught and governed by him, and, under his guidance, to aspire to the heavenly kingdom of God. On the contrary, they expect nothing greater from him than to live happily and at ease in this world. This is to rob Christ of his chief power; for the reason why he was given by the Father and revealed himself to men is, that he may form them anew after the image of God by giving them his Holy Spirit, and that he may conduct them to eternal life by clothing them with his righteousness.

It is of great importance, therefore, what we keep in view in the miracles of Christ; for he who does not aspire to the kingdom of God, but rests satisfied with the conveniences of the present life, seeks nothing else than to fill his belly. In like manner, there are many persons in the present day who would gladly embrace the gospel, if it were free from the bitterness of the cross, and if it brought nothing but carnal pleasures. Nay, we see many who make a Christian profession, that they may live in greater gaiety and with less restraint. Some through the expectation of gain, others through fear, and others for the sake of those whom they wish to please, profess to be the disciples of Christ. In seeking Christ, therefore, the chief point is, to despise the world and

seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness,
(Mat 6:33.)

Besides, as men very generally impose on themselves, and persuade themselves that they are seeking Christ in the best manner, while they debase the whole of his power, for this reason Christ, in his usual manner, doubles the word verily, as if by the oath he intended to bring to light the vice which lurks under our hypocrisy.

Calvin: Joh 6:27

27.Labour for food, not that which perisheth He shows to what object our desires ought to be directed, namely, to eternal life; but because, in proportion as our understandings are gross, we are always devoted to earthly things, for this reason he corrects that disease which is natural to us, before he points out what we ought to do. The simple doctrine would have been, “Labour to have the incorruptible food;” but, knowing that the senses of men are held bound by earthly cares, he first enjoins them to be loosed and freed from those cords, that they may rise to heaven. Not that he forbids his followers to labor that they may procure daily food; but he shows that the heavenly life ought to be preferred to this earthly life, because the godly have no other reason for living here than that, being sojourners in the world, they may travel rapidly towards their heavenly country.

Next, we ought to see what is the present question; for, since the power of Christ is debased by those who are devoted to the belly and to earthly things, he argues what we ought to seek in him, and why we ought to seek it. He employs metaphors adapted to the circumstances in which his sermon was delivered. If food had not been mentioned, he would have said, without a figure, “You ought to lay aside anxiety about the world, and strive to obtain the heavenly life.” But as those men were running to their fodder like cattle, without looking to anything better, ¹³⁵ Christ presents his sermon in a metaphorical dress, and gives the name of food to everything that belongs to newness of life. We know that our souls are fed by the doctrine of the gospel, when it is efficacious in us by the power of the Spirit; and, therefore, as faith is the life of the soul, all that nourishes and promotes faith is compared to food

Which endureth to eternal life This kind of food he calls incorruptible, and says that it endureth to eternal life, in order to inform us that our souls are not fed for a day, but are nourished in the expectation of a blessed immortality; because the Lord

commences the work of our salvation, that he may perform it till the day of Christ, (Phi 1:6.)

For this reason we must receive the gifts of the Spirit, that they may be earnests and pledges of eternal life. For, though the reprobate, after having tasted this food, frequently reject it, so that it is not permanent in them, yet believing souls feel that enduring power, when they are made partakers of the power of the Holy Spirit in his gifts, which is not of short duration, but, on the contrary, never fails.

It is a frivolous exercise of ingenuity to infer, as some do, from the word labor or work, that we merit eternal life by our works; for Christ metaphorically exhorts men, as we have said, to apply their minds earnestly to meditation on the heavenly life, instead of cleaving to the world, as they are wont to do; and Christ himself removes every doubt, when he declares that it is he who giveth the food; for what we obtain by his gift no man procures by his own industry. There is undoubtedly some appearance of contradiction in these words; but we may easily reconcile these two statements, that the spiritual food of the soul is the free gift of Christ, and that we must strive with all the affections of our heart to become partakers of so great a blessing.

For him hath God the Father sealed He confirms the preceding statement, by saying that he was appointed to us for that purpose by the Father. The ancient writers have misinterpreted and tortured this passage, by maintaining that Christ is said to be sealed, because he is the stamp and lively image of the Father. For he does not here enter into abstruse discussions about his eternal essence, but explains what he has been commissioned and enjoined to do, what is his office in relation to us, and what we ought to seek and expect from him. By an appropriate metaphor, he alludes to an ancient custom; for they sealed with signets what they intended to sanction by their authority. Thus Christ — that it may not appear as if he claimed anything of himself, or by private authority ¹³⁶ — declares that this office was enjoined on him by the Father, and that this decree of the Father was manifested, as if a seal had been engraven on him. It may be summed up thus: As it is not every person who has the ability or the right ¹³⁷ to feed souls with incorruptible food, Christ appears in public, and, while he promises that he will be the Author of so great a blessing, he likewise adds that he is approved by God, and that he has been sent to men with this mark, which is, as it were, God’s seal or signet ¹³⁸

Hence it follows that the desire of those who shall present their souls to Christ, to be fed by him, will not be disappointed. Let us know, therefore, that life is exhibited to us in Christ, in order that each of us may aspire to it, not at random, but with certainty of success. We are, at the same time, taught that all who bestow this praise on any other than Christ are guilty of falsehood before God. Hence it is evident that the Papists, in every part of their doctrine, are altogether liars; for as often as they invent any means of salvation in the room of Christ, so often do they — by erasing, as it were, the impression which has been made — spoil and deface, with wicked presumption and base treachery, this seal of God, which alone is authentic. That we may not fall into so dreadful a condemnation, let us learn to keep pure and entire for Christ all that the Father has given to him.

Calvin: Joh 6:28

28.. What shall we do, that we may work the works of God? The multitude understood well enough that Christ had exhorted them to aim at something higher than the conveniences of the present life, and that they ought not to confine their attention to the earth, since God calls them to more valuable blessings. But, in putting this question, they are partly mistaken by not understanding the kind of labor; for they do not consider that God bestows upon us, by the hand of the Son, all that is necessary for spiritual life. First, they ask what they ought to do; and next, when they use the expression, the works of God, they do not understand what they say, and talk without any definite object. ¹³⁹ In this manner they manifest their ignorance of the grace of God. And yet they appear here to murmur disdainfully against Christ, as if he were accusing them groundlessly. “Dost thou suppose,” say they, “that we have no solicitude about eternal life? Why, then, dost thou enjoin us to do what is beyond our power?” By the works of God we must understand those which God demands, and of which he approves.

Calvin: Joh 6:29

29.The work of God is this They had spoken of works Christ reminds them of one work, that is, faith; by which he means that all that men undertake without faith is vain and useless, but that faith alone is sufficient, because this alone does God require from us, that we believe For there is here an implied contrast between faith and the works and efforts of men; as if he had said, Men toil to no purpose, when they endeavor to please God without faith, because, by running, as it were, out of the course, they do not advance towards the goal. This is a remarkable passage, showing that, though men torment themselves wretchedly throughout their whole life, still they lose their pains, if they have not faith in Christ as the rule of their life. Those who infer from this passage that faith is the gift of God are mistaken; for Christ does not now show what God produces in us, but what he wishes and requires from us.

But we may think it strange that God approves of nothing but faith alone; for the love of our neighbor ought not to be despised, and the other exercises of religion do not lose their place and honor. So then, though faith may hold the highest rank, still other works are not superfluous. The reply is easy; for faith does not exclude either the love of our neighbor or any other good work, because it contains them all within itself. Faith is called the only work of God, because by means of it we possess Christ, and thus become the sons of God, so that he governs us by his Spirit. So then, because Christ does not separate faith from its fruits, we need not wonder if he make it to be the first and the last. ¹⁴⁰

That you believe in him whom he hath sent What is the import of the word believe, we have explained under the Third Chapter. It ought always to be remembered that, in order to have a full perception of the power of faith, we must understand what Christ is, in whom we believe, and why he was given to us by the Father. It is idle sophistry, under the pretext of this passage, to maintain that we are justified by works, if faith justifies, because it is likewise called a work First, it is plain enough that Christ does not speak with strict accuracy, when he calls faith a work, just as Paul makes a comparison between the law of faith and the law of works, (Rom 3:27.) Secondly, when we affirm that men are not justified by works, we mean works by the merit of which men may obtain favor with God. Now faith brings nothing to God, but, on the contrary, places man before God as empty and poor, that he may be filled with Christ and with his grace. It is, therefore, if we may be allowed the expression, a passive work, to which no reward can be paid, and it bestows on man no other righteousness than that which he receives from Christ.

Calvin: Joh 6:30

30.What sign doest thou? This wickedness abundantly proves how truly it is said elsewhere, This wicked generation seeketh a sign, (Mat 12:39.) They had been at first drawn to Christ by the admiration of his miracles or signs, and afterwards, through amazement at a new sign, they acknowledged Christ to be the Messiah, and, with that conviction, wished to make him a king; but now they demand a sign from him, as if he were a man unknown to them. Whence came such sudden forgetfulness, but because they are ungrateful to God, and, through their own malice, are blind to his power, which is before their eyes? Nor can it be doubted that they treat disdainfully all the miracles which they had already beheld, because Christ does not comply with their wishes, and because they do not find him to be what they imagined him to be. If he had given them expectation of earthly happiness, he would have been highly applauded by them; they would undoubtedly have hailed him as a Prophet, and the Messiah, and the Son of God; but now, because he blames them for being too much addicted to the flesh, they think that they ought not to listen to him any more. And in the present day, how many are there who resemble them! At first, because they promise to themselves that Christ will flatter their vices, they eagerly embrace the gospel, and call for no proof of it; but when they are called to deny the flesh and to bear the cross, then do they begin to renounce Christ and ask whence the gospel came. In short, as soon as Christ does not grant their prayers, he is no longer their Master.

Calvin: Joh 6:31

31.Our fathers ate manna in the wilderness Thus we see that Christ put his finger on the sore, when he told them that they came like brute beasts to fill their belly; for they discover this gross disposition, when they demand a Messiah by whom they are to be fed. And as to the magnificent terms in which they extol the grace of God in the manna, they do this cunningly, in order to bury the doctrine of Christ, by which he condemned them for immoderate desire of corruptible food; for they contrast with it the magnificent title bestowed on the manna, when it is called heavenly bread But when the Holy Spirit bestows on the manna the honorable appellation of the bread of heaven, (Psa 78:24,) it is not with this intention, as if God fed his people, like a herd of swine, and gave them nothing more valuable; and, therefore, they are without excuse, when they wickedly reject the spiritual food of the soul, which God now offers to them.

Calvin: Joh 6:32

32.Verily, verily, I say to you, Moses gave you not bread from heaven Christ appears to contradict what was quoted from the psalm, but he speaks only by comparison. The manna מן is called the bread of heaven, but it is for the nourishment of the body; but the bread which ought truly and properly to be reckoned heavenly, is that which gives spiritual nourishment to the soul. Christ therefore makes a contrast here between the world and heaven, because we ought not to seek the incorruptible life but in the kingdom of heaven. In this passage, truth is not contrasted with shadows, as is often done elsewhere; but Christ considers what is the true life of man, or, in other words, what it is that makes him different from brute beasts, and excellent among the creatures.

My Father giveth you the true bread from heaven When he adds these words, the meaning is,” The manna which Moses gave to your fathers did not bring heavenly life, but now heavenly life is truly exhibited to you.” True, it is the Father whom he calls the giver of this bread, but he means that it is given by his own hand. Thus the contrast relates, not to Moses and God, but to Moses and Christ. Now, Christ represents his Father rather than himself as the Author of this gift, in order to procure for himself deeper reverence; as if he had said, “Acknowledge me to be the minister of God, by whose hands he wishes to feed you to eternal life.” But, again, this appears to be inconsistent with the doctrine of Paul, who calls the manna — spiritual food, (1Co 10:3.) I reply, Christ speaks according to the capacity of those with whom he has to deal, and this is not uncommon in Scripture. We see how variously Paul speaks about circumcision. When he writes about the ordinance, he calls it the seal of faith, (Rom 4:11;) but when he has to contend with false apostles, he calls it rather a seal of cursing, and that by taking it with the qualities which they ascribed to it, and according to their opinion. ¹⁴³ Let us consider what was the objection made against Christ, namely, that he did not prove himself to be the Messiah, if he did not supply his followers with bodily food. Accordingly, he does not inquire what it was that was prefigured by the manna, but maintains that the bread with which Moses fed their bellies was not true bread.

Calvin: Joh 6:33

33.For the bread of God Christ reasons negatively from the definition to the thing defined, in this manner: “ The heavenly bread is that which hath come down from heaven to give life to the world In the manna there was nothing of this sort; and, therefore, the manna was not the heavenly bread. ” But, at the same time, he confirms what he formerly said, namely, that he is sent by the Father, in order that he may feed men in a manner far more excellent than Moses. True, the manna came down from the visible heaven, that is, from the clouds; but not from the eternal kingdom of God, from which life flows to us. And the Jews, whom Christ addresses, looked no higher than that the bellies of their fathers were well stuffed and fattened in the wilderness.

What he formerly called the bread of heaven, he now calls the bread of God; not that the bread which supports us in the present life comes from any other than God, but because that alone can be reckoned the bread of God ¹⁴⁴ which quickens souls to a blessed immortality. This passage teaches that the whole world is dead to God, except so far as Christ quickens it, because life will be found nowhere else than in him.

Which hath come down from heaven In the coming down from heaven two things are worthy of observation; first, that we have a Divine life in Christ, because he has come from God to be the Author of life to us; secondly, that the heavenly life is near us,

so that we do not need to fly above the clouds or to cross the sea,
(Deu 30:12; Rom 10:6;)

for the reason why Christ descended to us was, that no man could ascend above.

Calvin: Joh 6:34

34.Give us always this bread There is no doubt that they speak ironically, to accuse Christ of vain boasting, when he said that he was able to give the bread of life. Thus wretched men, while they reject the promises of God, are not satisfied with this evil alone, but put Christ in their room, as if he were chargeable with their unbelief.

Defender: Joh 6:14

This is the third of seven great miracles of creation described by John (Joh 20:31) to demonstrate the deity of Christ. Jesus superseded the law of conservation of matter by creating a great amount of bread and meat for the multitude. This law, considered one of the most basic and universal laws of physics, states that matter (or "mass") can neither be created nor destroyed. The miraculous feeding of the multitude is one of the few events described in all four Gospels (Mat 14:13-21; Mar 6:32-44; Luk 9:10-17).

Defender: Joh 6:14

The "prophet" mentioned here was the subject of one of the instances in which, as Jesus said, "Moses ... wrote of me" (Joh 5:46). There, God had said to Moses: "I will raise them up a Prophet, ... and will put my words in his mouth" (Deu 18:15, Deu 18:18)."

Defender: Joh 6:19

He was "in the midst of the sea" (Mar 6:47).

Defender: Joh 6:19

This fourth miracle of creation described in John's Gospel was also a fulfillment of the Messianic prophecy of Isa 43:2 : "When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee." In this instance, Christ evidently created an anti-gravitational force of some kind enabling Him to set aside the most basic of all scientific laws. The law of conservation of energy stipulates that energy (the capacity to accomplish work, moving forces through distances) be neither created nor annihilated. Jesus, as the Creator, alone can supersede or extend this law."

Defender: Joh 6:29

All man-made religions involve systems of works (works capable of being achieved by man) as prerequisites to salvation. The Christian faith alone is based solely on faith in the finished work of Christ. The "works of God" (Joh 6:28) are impossible to attain, requiring absolute obedience to God's law (Deu 27:26; Jam 2:10) to be acceptable to God. Only Jesus, in His perfect humanity, was able to accomplish this, but His righteousness is imputed to all those who believe on Him apart from works (Rom 4:5). This is possible only because He, perfectly righteous Himself, could then voluntarily and in love bear "our sins in his own body on the tree" (1Pe 2:24). Jesus had just cautioned them to work "not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth" (Joh 6:27)."

Defender: Joh 6:30

As they often did, the Jews required some miraculous sign before they would believe (Joh 2:18; Joh 4:48). On one occasion, Jesus said He would give them no sign except that of Jonah (Mat 12:39). Nevertheless, He did perform many miracles - not to satisfy human doubt or curiosity, but to meet human needs - and John selected seven of these (see note on Joh 2:11) to encourage belief that He was, indeed, the Son of God (Joh 20:30, Joh 20:31)."

Defender: Joh 6:33

They claimed that Moses had authenticated His authority by giving them the sign of the manna. Jesus not only denied their demand for a sign from Him, but denied that the manna was a sign from Moses. It was, rather, a gift from God. Then, in effect, Jesus told them that He Himself was their sign, having been sent from heaven as God's bread of life."

TSK: Joh 6:1

am 4036, ad 32

these : Mat 14:13, Mat 14:15-21; Mar 6:31, Mar 6:32, Mar 6:34, Mar 6:35-44; Luk 9:10-12, Luk 9:13-17

the sea : Num 34:11; Jos 12:3; Mat 4:18, Mat 15:29; Luk 5:1

which : Joh 6:23, Joh 21:1

TSK: Joh 6:2

Mat 4:24, Mat 4:25, Mat 8:1, Mat 12:15, Mat 13:2, Mat 14:14, Mat 15:30,Mat 15:31; Mar 6:33

TSK: Joh 6:3

Joh 6:15; Mat 14:23, Mat 15:29; Luk 6:12, Luk 6:13, Luk 9:28

TSK: Joh 6:4

Joh 2:13, Joh 5:1, Joh 11:55, Joh 12:1, Joh 13:1; Exo 12:6-14; Lev 23:5, Lev 23:7; Deu 16:1

TSK: Joh 6:5

saw : Joh 4:35; Mat 14:14, Mat 14:15; Mar 6:34, Mar 6:35; Luk 9:12

Whence : Mat 15:33; Mar 8:2-4; Luk 9:13

TSK: Joh 6:6

prove : Gen 22:1; Deu 8:2, Deu 8:16, Deu 13:3, Deu 33:8; 2Ch 32:31

TSK: Joh 6:7

Two : This sum, rating the denarius at 7 +d., would amount to 6£. 5s.caps1 . ocaps0 r, reckoning the denarius, with some at 7, 3/4d., it would amount to 6£. 9s. 2d. of our money; which appears to have been more than our Lord and all his disciples were worth of this world’ s goods. Num 11:21, Num 11:22; 2Ki 4:43; Mar 6:37

pennyworth : Joh 12:5; Mat 18:28 *marg.

TSK: Joh 6:8

Andrew : Joh 1:40-44; Mat 4:18

TSK: Joh 6:9

which : Mat 14:17, Mat 16:9; Mar 6:38, Mar 8:19; Luk 9:13

barley : Deu 8:8, Deu 32:14; 1Ki 4:28; 2Ki 7:1; Psa 81:16, Psa 147:14; Eze 27:17; 2Co 8:9; Rev 6:6

but : Joh 6:7, Joh 11:21, Joh 11:32; 2Ki 4:42-44; Psa 78:19, Psa 78:41

TSK: Joh 6:10

Make : Mat 14:18, Mat 14:19, Mat 15:35, Mat 15:36; Mar 6:39-41, Mar 8:6, Mar 8:7; Luk 9:14-16

Now : No wonder, since it was the spring, being near the passover; and, from the plenty of grass, it would be a place much more suitable to the purpose. This circumstance, says Dr. Paley, is plainly the remark of an eye-witness.

TSK: Joh 6:11

when : Joh 6:23; 1Sa 9:13; Luk 24:30; Act 27:35; Rom 14:6; 1Co 10:31; 1Th 5:18; 1Ti 4:4, 1Ti 4:5

TSK: Joh 6:12

they : Neh 9:25; Mat 14:20,Mat 14:21, Mat 15:37, Mat 15:38; Mar 6:42-44, Mar 8:8, Mar 8:9; Luk 1:53, Luk 9:17

that nothing : Neh 8:10; Pro 18:9; Luk 15:13, Luk 16:1

TSK: Joh 6:13

and filled : 1Ki 7:15, 1Ki 7:16; 2Ki 4:2-7; 2Ch 25:9; Pro 11:24, Pro 11:25; 2Co 9:8, 2Co 9:9; Phi 4:19

TSK: Joh 6:14

This : Joh 1:21, Joh 4:19, Joh 4:25, Joh 4:42, Joh 7:40; Gen 49:10; Deu 18:15-18; Mat 11:3, Mat 21:11; Luk 7:16, Luk 24:19; Act 3:22-24, Act 7:37

TSK: Joh 6:15

perceived : Joh 2:24, Joh 2:25; Heb 4:13

take : Joh 7:3, Joh 7:4, Joh 12:12, Joh 12:13; Mar 11:9; Luk 19:38

he departed : Joh 5:41, Joh 18:36; Mat 14:22; Mar 6:46-52

TSK: Joh 6:17

and went : Joh 6:24, Joh 6:25, Joh 2:12, Joh 4:46; Mar 6:45

TSK: Joh 6:18

Psa 107:25, Psa 135:7; Mat 14:24

TSK: Joh 6:19

had rowed : Eze 27:26; Jon 1:13; Mar 6:47, Mar 6:48

furlongs : Joh 11:18; Luk 24:13; Rev 14:20, Rev 21:16

walking : Joh 14:18; Job 9:8; Psa 29:10, Psa 93:4; Mat 14:25, Mat 14:26; Mar 6:49; Luk 24:36-39

TSK: Joh 6:20

It is : Psa 35:3; Isa 41:10,Isa 41:14, Isa 43:1, Isa 43:2, Isa 44:8; Mat 14:27-31; Mar 6:50, Mar 16:6; Rev 1:17, Rev 1:18

TSK: Joh 6:21

they willingly : Psa 24:7-10; Son 3:4; Mat 14:32, Mat 14:33; Mar 6:51; Rev 3:20

TSK: Joh 6:22

but : Joh 6:16, Joh 6:17; Mat 14:22; Mar 6:45

TSK: Joh 6:23

there : Joh 6:24

Tiberias : Tiberias was a celebrated city of Galilee, on the western shore of the lake to which it gave name, so called because built by Herod Agrippa in honour of the emperor Tiberius; distant 30 furlongs from Hippos, 60 from Gadara, 120 from Scythopolis, and 30 from Tarichea. It is still called Tabaria, or Tabbareeah, by the natives, is situated close to the edge of the lake, has tolerably high but ill-built walls on three of its sides, flanked with circular towers, and is of nearly a quadrangular form, according to Pococke, containing a population estimated at from 2,000 to 4,000 souls. Joh 6:1

where : Joh 6:11, Joh 6:12

TSK: Joh 6:24

they also : Joh 6:17, Joh 6:23

seeking : Joh 7:11, Joh 18:4, Joh 18:5, Joh 20:15; Mar 1:37; Luk 8:40

TSK: Joh 6:25

Rabbi : Joh 1:38, Joh 1:39

TSK: Joh 6:26

Verily : Joh 6:47, Joh 6:53, Joh 3:3, Joh 3:5

Ye seek : Joh 6:15, Joh 6:64; Psa 78:37, Psa 106:12-14; Eze 33:31; Act 8:18-21; Rom 16:18; Phi 2:21, Phi 3:19; 1Ti 6:5; Jam 4:3, Jam 4:4

TSK: Joh 6:27

Labour not : or, Work not, Joh 6:28, Joh 6:29; Gal 5:6; Phi 2:13; Col 1:29; 1Th 1:3

the meat : Joh 4:13, Joh 4:14; Ecc 5:11-16, Ecc 6:7; Isa 55:2; Hab 2:13; Mat 6:19, Mat 6:31-33; Luk 10:40-42; 1Co 6:13, 1Co 7:29-31, 1Co 9:24-27; 2Co 4:18; Col 2:22, Col 3:2; Heb 4:11, Heb 12:16; Jam 1:11; 1Pe 1:24; 2Pe 3:11-14

which endureth : Joh 6:40,Joh 6:51, Joh 6:54, Joh 6:58, Joh 6:68, Joh 4:14; Jer 15:16

which the : Joh 10:28, Joh 11:25, Joh 11:26, Joh 14:6, Joh 17:2; Pro 2:2-6; Rom 6:23

for him : Joh 1:33, Joh 1:34, Joh 5:36, Joh 5:37, Joh 8:18, Joh 10:37, Joh 10:38, Joh 11:42, Joh 15:24; Psa 2:7, Psa 40:7; Isa 11:1-3, Isa 42:1, Isa 61:1-3; Mat 3:17, Mat 17:5; Mar 1:11, Mar 9:7; Luk 3:22; Luk 4:18-21, Luk 9:35; Act 2:22, Act 10:38; 2Pe 1:17

TSK: Joh 6:28

What : Deu 5:27; Jer 42:3-6, Jer 42:20; Mic 6:7, Mic 6:8; Mat 19:16; Luk 10:25; Act 2:37, Act 9:6; Act 16:30

TSK: Joh 6:29

This : Joh 3:16-18, Joh 3:36, Joh 5:39; Deu 18:18, Deu 18:19; Psa 2:12; Mat 17:5; Mar 16:16; Act 16:31; Act 22:14-16; Rom 4:4, Rom 4:5, Rom 9:30,Rom 9:31, Rom 10:3, Rom 10:4; Heb 5:9; 1Jo 3:23, 1Jo 5:1

TSK: Joh 6:30

What : Joh 2:18, Joh 4:8; Exo 4:8; 1Ki 13:3, 1Ki 13:5; Isa 7:11-14; Mat 12:38, Mat 12:39, Mat 16:1-4; Mar 8:11; Luk 11:29, Luk 11:30; Act 4:30; 1Co 1:22; Heb 2:4

see : Joh 6:36, Joh 10:38, Joh 12:37, Joh 20:25-29; Isa 5:19; Mar 15:32

TSK: Joh 6:31

fathers : Joh 6:49; Exo 16:4-15, Exo 16:35; Num 11:6-9; Deu 8:3; Jos 5:12; Neh 9:20; Psa 105:40

He gave : Neh 9:15; Psa 78:24, Psa 78:25; 1Co 10:3; Rev 2:17

TSK: Joh 6:32

Moses : Exo 16:4, Exo 16:8; Psa 78:23

the true : Joh 6:33, Joh 6:35, Joh 6:41, Joh 6:50,Joh 6:55, Joh 6:58, Joh 1:9, Joh 15:1; Gal 4:4; 1Jo 5:20

TSK: Joh 6:33

cometh : Joh 6:38, Joh 6:48, Joh 3:13, Joh 8:42, Joh 13:3, Joh 16:28, Joh 17:8; 1Ti 1:15; 1Jo 1:1, 1Jo 1:2

TSK: Joh 6:34

evermore : Joh 6:26, Joh 4:15; Psa 4:6

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per Verse)

Barnes: Joh 6:1

Jesus went over - Went to the east side of the sea. The place to which he went was Bethsaida, Luk 9:10. The account of this miracle of feeding the five thousand is recorded also in Mat 14:13-21; Mar 6:32-44; Luk 9:10-17. John has added a few circumstances omitted by the other evangelists.

Barnes: Joh 6:2

Because they saw his miracles ... - They saw that he had the power to supply their wants, and they therefore followed him. See Joh 6:26. Compare also Mat 14:14.

Barnes: Joh 6:4

The passover - See the notes at Mat 26:2, Mat 26:17.

A feast of the Jews - This is one of the circumstances of explanation thrown in by John which show that he wrote for those who were unacquainted with Jewish customs.

Barnes: Joh 6:6

To prove him - To try him; to see if he had faith, or if he would show that he believed that Jesus had power to supply them.

Barnes: Joh 6:12

Gather up the fragments - This command is omitted by the other evangelists. It shows the care of Jesus that there should be no waste. Though he had power to provide any quantity of food, yet he has here taught us that the bounties of Providence are not to be squandered. In all things the Saviour set us an example of frugality, though he had an infinite supply at his disposal; he was himself economical, though he was Lord of all. If he was thus saving, it becomes us dependent creatures not to waste the bounties of a beneficent Providence. And it especially becomes the rich not to squander the bounties of Providence. They often feel that they are rich. They have enough. They have no fear of want, and they do not feel the necessity of studying economy. Yet let them remember that what they have is the gift of God - just as certainly as the loaves and fishes created by the Saviour were his gift. It is not given them to waste, nor to spend in riot, nor to be the means of injuring their health or of shortening life. It is given to sustain life, to excite gratitude, to fit for the active service of God. Everything should be applied to its appropriate end, and nothing should be squandered or lost.

Barnes: Joh 6:14

That Prophet ... - The Messiah. The power to work the miracle, and the benevolence manifested in it, showed that he was the long-expected Messiah.

Barnes: Joh 6:15

When Jesus perceived ... - They were satisfied by the miracle that he was the Messiah. They supposed that the Messiah was to be a temporal prince. They saw that Jesus was retiring, unambitious, and indisposed to assume the ensigns of office. They thought, therefore, that they would proclaim him as the long-expected king, and constrain him to assume the character and titles of an earthly prince. Men often attempt to dictate to God, and suppose that they understand what is right better than he does. They are fond of pomp and power, but Jesus sought retirement, and evinced profound humility. Though he had claims to the honor and gratitude of the nation, yet he sought it not in this way; nor did it evince a proper spirit in his followers when they sought to advance him to a place of external splendor and regal authority.

Barnes: Joh 6:16-21

See this miracle of walking on the sea explained in the notes at Mat 14:22-33. Compare Mar 6:45-52.

Joh 6:21

Immediately - Quickly. Before a long time. How far they were from the land we know not, but there is no evidence that there was a miracle in the case. The word translated "immediately"does not of necessity imply that there was no interval of time, but that there was not a long interval. Thus, in Mat 13:5, in the parable of the sower, "and immediately (the same word in Greek) they sprung up,"etc., Mar 4:17; Mat 24:29; 3Jo 1:14.

Barnes: Joh 6:22

The people which stood on the other side of the sea - That is, on the east side, or on the same side with Jesus. The country was called the region beyond or on, the other side of the sea, because the writer and the people lived on the west side.

Jesus went not with his disciples - He had gone into a mountain to pray alone, Joh 6:15. Compare Mar 6:46.

Barnes: Joh 6:23

There came other boats - After the disciples had departed. This is added because, from what follows, it appears that they supposed that he had entered one of those boats and gone to Capernaum after his disciples had departed.

From Tiberias - This town stood on the western borders of the lake, not far from where the miracle had been performed. It was so called in honor of the Emperor Tiberius. It was built by Herod Antipas, and was made by him the capital of Galilee. The city afterward became a celebrated seat of Jewish learning. It is now called Tabaria, and is a considerable place. It is occupied chiefly by Turks, and is very hot and unhealthy. Mr. Fisk, an American missionary, was at Tiberius (Tabaria) in 1823. The old town is surrounded by a wall, but within it is very ruinous, and the plain for a mile or two south is strewed with ruins. The Jordan, where it issues from the lake, was so shallow that cattle and asses forded it easily. Mr. Fisk was shown a house called the house of Peter, which is used as the Greek Catholic church, and is the only church in the place. The number of Christian families is 30 or 40, all Greek Catholics. There were two sects of Jews, each of whom had a synagogue.

The Jewish population was estimated at about 1,000. On the 1st of January, 1837, Tiberius was destroyed by an earthquake. Dr. Thomson (The Land and the Book, vol. ii. pp. 76, 77) says of this city: "Ever since the destruction of Jerusalem, it has been chiefly celebrated in connection with the Jews, and was for a long time the chief seat of rabbinical learning. It is still one of their four holy cities. Among the Christians it also early rose to distinction, and the old church, built upon the spot where our Lord gave his last charge to Peter, is a choice bit of ecclesiastical antiquity. The present city is situated on the shore, at the northeast corner of this small plain. The walls inclose an irregular parallelogram, about 100 rods from north to south, and in width not more than 40. They were strengthened by ten round towers on the west, five on the north, and eight on the south. There were also two or three towers along the shore to protect the city from attack by sea. Not much more than one-half of this small area is occupied by buildings of any kind, and the north end, which is a rocky hill, has nothing but the ruins of the old palace.

The earthquake of 1837 prostrated a large part of the walls, and they have not yet been repaired, and perhaps never will be. There is no town in Syria so utterly filthy as Tiberius, or so little to be desired as a residence. Being 600 feet below the level of the ocean, and overhung on the west by a high mountain, which effectually shuts off the Mediterranean breezes, it is fearfully hot in summer. The last time I was encamped at the Baths the thermometer stood at 100ø at midnight, and a steam went up from the surface of the lake as from some huge, smouldering volcano. Of course it swarms with all sorts of vermin. What can induce human beings to settle down in such a place? And yet some 2,000 of our race make it their chosen abode. They are chiefly Jews, attracted hither either to cleanse their leprous bodies in her baths, or to purify their unclean spirits by contact with her traditionary and ceremonial holiness."

Barnes: Joh 6:24

Took shipping - Went into the boats.

Came to Capernaum - This was the ordinary place of the residence of Jesus, and they therefore expected to find him there.

Barnes: Joh 6:26

Ye seek me, not because ... - The miracles which Jesus performed were proofs that he came from God. To seek him because they had seen them, and were convinced by them that he was the Messiah, would have been proper; but to follow him simply because their wants were supplied was mere selfishness of a gross kind. Yet, alas! many seek religion from no better motive than this. They suppose that it will add to their earthly happiness, or they seek only to escape from suffering or from the convictions of conscience, or they seek for heaven only as a place of enjoyment, and regard religion as valuable only for this. All this is mere selfishness. Religion does not forbid our regarding our own happiness, or seeking it in any proper way; but when this is the only or the prevailing motive, it is evident that we have never yet sought God aright. We are aiming at the loaves and fishes, and not at the honor of God and the good of his kingdom; and if this is the only or the main motive of our entering the church, we cannot be Christians.

Barnes: Joh 6:27

Labour not - This does not mean that we are to make no effort for the supply of our wants (compare 1Ti 5:1; 2Th 3:10), but that we are not to manifest anxiety, we are not to make this the main or supreme object of our desire. See the notes at Mat 6:25.

The meat that perisheth - The food for the supply of your natural needs. It perishes. The strength you derive from it is soon exhausted, and your wasted powers need to be reinvigorated.

That meat which endureth - The supply of your spiritual wants; that which supports, and nourishes, and strengthens the soul; the doctrines of the gospel, that are to a weak and guilty soul what needful food is to the weary and decaying body.

To everlasting life - The strength derived from the doctrines of the gospel is not exhausted. It endures without wasting away. It nourishes the soul to everlasting life. "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall run and not be weary, and shall walk and not faint,"Isa 40:31.

Him hath God the Father sealed - To seal is to confirm or approve as ours. This is done when we set our seal to a compact, or deed, or testament, by which we ratify it as our act. So God the Father, by the miracles which had been performed by Jesus, had shown that he had sent him, that he approved his doctrines, and ratified his works. The miracles were to his doctrine what a seal is to a written instrument. See the notes at Joh 3:33.

Barnes: Joh 6:28

What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? - That is, such things as God will approve. This was the earnest inquiry of men who were seeking to be saved. They had crossed the Sea of Tiberias to seek him; they supposed him to be the Messiah, and they sincerely desired to be taught the way of life; yet it is observable that they expected to find that way as other sinners commonly do - by their works. The idea of doing something to merit salvation is one of the last that the sinner ever surrenders.

Barnes: Joh 6:29

This is the work of God - This is the thing that will be acceptable to God, or which you are to do in order to be saved. Jesus did not tell them they had nothing to do, or that they were to sit down and wait, but that there was a work to perform, and that was a duty that was imperative. It was to believe on the Messiah. This is the work which sinners are to do; and doing this they will be saved, for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth, Rom 10:4.

Barnes: Joh 6:30

What sign showest thou? - On the word sign, compare the notes at Isa 7:14. What miracle dost thou work to prove that thou art the Messiah? They had just seen the miracle of the loaves in the desert, which was sufficient to show that he was the Messiah, and it would seem from the preceding narrative that those who crossed the lake to see him supposed that he was the Christ. It seems wonderful that they should so soon ask for further evidence that he was sent from God; but it is not improbable that this question was put by other Jews, rulers of the synagogue, who happened to be present, and who had not witnessed his miracles. Those men were continually asking for signs and proofs that he was the Messiah. See Mat 12:38-39; Mar 8:11; Luk 11:29. As Jesus claimed the right of teaching them, and as it was manifest that he would teach them differently from what they supposed Moses to teach, it was natural to ask him by what authority he claimed the right to be heard.

Barnes: Joh 6:31

Our fathers - The Jews who were led by Moses through the wilderness.

Did eat manna - This was the name given by the Jews to the food which was furnished to them by God in their journey. It means literally, "What is this?"and was the question which they asked when they first saw it, Exo 16:14-15. It was small like frost, and of the size of coriander-seed, and had a sweetish taste like honey. It fell in great quantities, and was regarded by the Jews as proof of a continued miracle during forty years, and was incontestable evidence of the interposition of God in favor of their fathers. The manna which is sold in the shops of druggists is a different substance from this. It is obtained from the bark of certain trees in Armenia, Georgia, Persia, and Arabia. It is procured, as resin is, by making an incision in the bark, and it flows out or distils from the tree.

As it is written - The substance of this is written in Psa 78:24-25.

He gave them - This was regarded as a miraculous interference in their behalf, and an attestation of the divine mission of Moses, and hence they said familiarly that Moses gave it to them.

Bread from heaven - The word "heaven,"in the Scriptures, denotes often the region of the air, the atmosphere, or that region in which the clouds are. See Mat 16:3; "The sky (heaven) is red and lowering."Also Mat 3:16; Luk 4:15; Luk 5:18. The Jews, as appears from their writings (see Lightfoot), expected that the Messiah would provide his followers with plenty of delicious food; and as Moses had provided for the Jews in the wilderness, so they supposed that Christ would make provision for the temporal wants of his friends. This was the sign, probably, which they were now desirous of seeing.

Barnes: Joh 6:32

Moses gave you not that bread from heaven - This might be translated, "Moses gave you not the bread of heaven."The word "that,"which makes some difference in the sense, is not necessary to express the meaning of the original. It does not appear that Jesus intended to call in question the fact that their fathers were fed by the instrumentality of Moses, but to state that he did not give them the true bread that was adapted to the wants of the soul. He fed the Body, although his food did not keep the body alive Joh 6:49 but he did not give that which would preserve the soul from death. God gave, in his Son Jesus, the true bread from heaven which was fitted to man, and of far more value than any supply of their temporal wants. He tells them, therefore, that they are not to seek from him any such supply of their temporal wants as they had supposed. A better gift had been furnished in his being given for the life of the world.

My father giveth you - In the gospel; in the gift of his Son.

The true bread - The trite or real support which is needed to keep the soul from death. It is not false, deceitful, or perishing. Christ is called bread, because, as bread supports life, so his doctrine supports, preserves, and saves the soul from death. He is the true support, not only in opposition to the mere supply of temporal wants such as Moses furnished, but also in opposition to all false religion which deceives and destroys the soul.

Barnes: Joh 6:33

The bread of God - The means of support which God furnishes. That which, in his view, is needful for man.

Is he ... - Is the Messiah who has come from heaven.

And giveth life ... - See the notes at Joh 1:4.

Poole: Joh 6:1

Joh 6:1-14 Christ feedeth five thousand men with five loaves and

two fishes.

Joh 6:15-21 He withdraweth himself from the people, who would

have made him a king, and walketh on the sea.

Joh 6:22-29 The multitude flocking to him, he reproveth their

carnal views, and requireth their faith in him whom

God hath sent.

Joh 6:30-59 They ask a sign like that of the manna in the

wilderness; he declareth himself to be the bread of

life from heaven, and that none can live but by

eating his flesh and drinking his blood.

Joh 6:60-65 Many of his disciples taking offence thereat, he

showeth his meaning to be spiritual.

Joh 6:66-71 Many leaving him, Peter in the name of the twelve

professes stedfast faith in him: Jesus pronounces

one of them to be a devil.

Some good time (some think near a year) after the passages in the former chapter Christ went over the lake of Galilee (for the Jews called all great collections of waters seas); it is also called the lake of Tiberias, and the lake of Gennesaret, Luk 5:1 . These waters received their name from the whole province whose coast they washed, so they were called

the sea of Galilee or the particular shore or cities they washed, so they are sometimes called

the sea of Tiberias sometimes the lake of Gennesaret. It appeareth by Mar 6:31 , that he went upon the apostles coming to give him an account of what they had done and taught.

Poole: Joh 6:2

Our Saviour (as appeareth by Mar 6:31 ) only spake to his apostles to withdraw into a desert place, and to rest a while; but, Mar 6:33 , though our Saviour went by ship, yet the people ran afoot thither out of all cities, and outwent them, and came together unto him. That which induced them was their knowledge of the miracles which he had wrought.

Poole: Joh 6:3-4

Ver. 3,4. That is, the third passover after our Saviour had entered upon his public ministry; by which we may observe, that John omitted many things spoken and done by our Saviour in the year immediately following the second passover, for he giveth us no further account than what we have in the former chapter, and in this. The other evangelists give us a more full account of them. The place whither our Saviour went seemeth to have been toward the end of the lake, so as the people could go on foot, and turn at the point of the lake, and be there before the ship could cross the water.

Poole: Joh 6:5

This is apparently the same history which we have met with in all the former three evangelists. Mat 14:15-21 Mar 6:35-44 Luk 9:10-17 . See the differing circumstances considered in our annotations on those chapters. The other evangelists observe, that Christ had first been preaching to them, until it was near night; and then bring in the disciples first moving him (because they had eaten nothing) to send them away to provide themselves food. This evangelist begins with some words Christ should speak to Philip.

Poole: Joh 6:6

Now this he said to try what Philip would say, for he was himself resolved what to do.

Poole: Joh 6:7

This discourse between our Saviour and Philip is reported by none of the other evangelists, and probably was after that which they report of the other disciples’ motion to Christ to dismiss the people, because it was now towards evening. The number (as we shall find afterward) was five thousand, besides women and children; amongst whom five hundred pennyworth of bread was very little to be divided.

Poole: Joh 6:8-13

Ver. 8-13. The story is the same, in all substantial parts, with the relations of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, in the before mentioned places. See the annotations on those chapters.

Poole: Joh 6:14

When they had seen the miracle of Christ’ s multiplying five loaves and two fishes, to the feeding of five thousand persons, besides women and children; a miracle of that nature, that never any such was wrought either by Moses or any prophet, and to the working of which a creating power was necessary; this brought them to a strong persuasion that this was the Messias; for he is signified by that phrase,

that prophet that should come into the world as appeareth from Luk 7:19 .

Poole: Joh 6:15

This motion of Christ into a mountain alone, after he had sent away the multitude, (thus miraculously fed), and after that his disciples had taken ship again, is mentioned by two other of the evangelists; by Mat 14:23 by Mar 6:45,46 . But this occasion of it is expressed by neither of them; who both say, that he went thither to pray? And indeed John (who rarely mentions any thing set down by the others) is judged to have recorded this history, as for the excellent discourse of our Saviour’ s following this miracle; so for some particular circumstances in and about the miracle, not mentioned by the other evangelists; of which, as the discourse he had with Philip was one, so this about their going about to make him a king was another. The Jews were a people exceedingly jealous of and zealous for their liberties, the Galilaeans especially, amongst whom our Saviour was at that time; so as they never wanted any thing but a leader for a sedition or rebellion. The Scriptures mention two, Act 5:36,37 , under the conduct of one Theudas, and Judas of Galilee. Ecclesiastical history mentions more. Their error as to the Messias (whom they dreamed of as a temporal prince) gave them a colour for these insurrections, whenever they could get any to take upon him that pretence. These men seeing these great miracles wrought by Christ, particularly that of the loaves multiplied to feed five thousand, thought Christ had been such a Messias as they expected; not understanding that the kingdom of the true Messias was not to be of this world, Joh 18:36 , but within men here, and more evident in the day of judgment, Mat 25:34 . But our Saviour, who never came into the world to disturb the civil order and government in it, constantly avoided the giving the least occasion for such a suspicion: when he therefore knew, either by his insight into the hearts of men, or by hearing their discourses, that they had such seditious thoughts, he withdrew himself into a mountain. How he withdrew himself, so as they did not follow him, no, not his disciples, is a matter which hath exercised the thoughts of many. The papists say, that he had a power, by virtue of the personal union of the Divine and human nature in his person, to make his body invisible, and so passed from them, not discerned by them. The Lutherans are not so confident in this, yet seem to incline it might be thus. Indeed both of them are concerned to maintain the possibility of such a thing; for without such a possibility, neither can the papists maintain their doctrine of transubstantiation, where they hold, that the bread in the sacrament of the Lord’ s supper is turned into the very body of Christ, and the wine into his blood (though no such thing be obvious to our senses); nor the Lutherans their doctrine of consubstantiation, who hold, that the very body and blood of Christ is really present in, with, or under the elements, though the elements be not changed into it. But the Greek words are no more than anecwrhsen palin , which signify no more than that he again changed his place, which he might easily do through a multitude in a disorder, without their notice of him; and if his disciples did see him, it is not probable that they, knowing his aversion to any seditious practices, as also his custom to withdraw to places of privacy for devotion, would take any notice at all of him.

Poole: Joh 6:16

This piece of history is related much more fully by the other evangelists, Mat 14:23-33 Mar 6:46-52 . See Poole on "Mat 14:23" , and following verses to Mat 14:33 . See Poole on "Mar 6:46" , and following verses to Mar 6:52 .

Poole: Joh 6:17-22

Ver. 17-22. By the sea is here meant the sea of Galilee, or lake of Tiberias, or of Gennesaret. There our Saviour and his disciples had left the multitude; the disciples having taken a boat, and passing over on the other side, and Christ having followed them, the multitude, probably having gone in the night to rest themselves at their several houses, came again in the morning, expecting to have found Christ, and have seen more miracles; being disappointed, understanding that both Christ and his disciples were gone over.

Poole: Joh 6:23-24

Ver. 23,24. They also took shipping, made use of some other boats that were come over the water, and went over to seek Jesus; not out of any love to his person or doctrine, (as we shall anon hear), but out of a curiosity to see some further miracles wrought by him. Our Lord disappoints them, but preacheth a most admirable sermon to them.

Poole: Joh 6:25-26

Ver. 25,26. They asked him, When camest thou hither? A curious and impertinent question, to which he doth not think fit to give an apposite answer, but at first letteth them know, that he knew their hearts, and what designs they had in following him; which was not to see the miraculous effects of the Divine power, the credentials of his commission from heaven, and to receive him as the true Messiah, and believe his doctrine; but they came upon so low an account as to be fed by him.

Poole: Joh 6:27

By the bread which perisheth is not strictly to be understood bread, but whatsoever is necessary or accommodating to us in this life; all things of this nature are perishing, and perish with the using: nor is all labour as to them forbidden us; for we are to the contrary commanded, In the sweat of our face to eat our bread; and the apostle commandeth, that those that will not labour should not eat; and, Pro 31:27 , the good woman is commended for not eating the bread of idleness: but excessive labour for these things is forbidden. So also is a first and greater labour for and seeking after them, than after

that meat which endureth to everlasting life under which notion also unquestionably cometh whatsoever is necessary by God’ s revealed will, that we may have in us the hopes of glory here, and may enter into the actual possession of that glory hereafter. Such as are, first, the knowledge of the gospel; then the believing of it, and the acceptance of that Saviour, and way of salvation, which God hath revealed in it for lost sinners; and that holiness of life which God hath made necessary to it. All which (saith he) I, who am the Son of man, (a name he ordinarily giveth to himself), will give unto you freely. Not that you are to do nothing; no, labour for it; though it be a gift, yet it is a gift upon labour, for all your labour will not procure it; there will be a great deal of free grace seen when you have given all diligence. And Christ must give it; for the Father, in whose hand this life is, hath (as men by their seals use to confirm the commissions they give out to any persons to do any thing for them, and in their name) confirmed Christ as his commissioner, to give out this eternal life to whomsoever he pleaseth.

Poole: Joh 6:28

They easily understood that our Saviour did not speak of any worldly food, by his opposing the labour he mentions, and persuadeth for, to a labour for the world; but still they did not understand what labour he spake of, but dreamed of the works of the law; knowing of no other work which God commanded, but which was prescribed in the law; and they (probably) being some, or many of them, strict observers, especially of the law contained in ordinances, and probably many of them of the moral law also, according to the sense of it given by their teachers; in which sense the young man, Mat 19:20 , being bid by our Saviour to keep the law, and naming most of the precepts of the second table, told him, All these things have I kept from my youth: what lack I yet? They wondered what works our Saviour meant; what labour, when he said, Labour for that bread, or that meat which endureth to everlasting life; thinking that those who kept the law (in the sense before expressed) had no more to do.

Poole: Joh 6:29

Our Lord calleth them to a work they never thought of, the owning and acknowledgment of him to be the true Messiah; the embracing and receiving him as such, and trusting him with all the concerns of their souls; which was necessary, notwithstanding all their acts of obedience to the law, though most certainly productive also of that obedience, and inseparable from it. This our Saviour calleth

the work of God in answer to what they had said about working the works of God. Yet this will not prove that we are justified by works, because we are justified by faith; for here is no discourse concerning the causation of faith in the justification of a soul, but only concerning what is the will of God, as to all those that shall be saved.

Poole: Joh 6:30

They thought it reasonable, that he who brought forth a new doctrine into the world (such as faith in him was, they having never heard any such thing from their doctors the Pharisees) should confirm his mission by some miraculous operation. But this was a strange stupidity, considering the sign he had so lately showed them, of feeding five thousand with five loaves and two fishes. So it was manifest they sought for a sign, not to promote or confirm their faith, but merely to feed their curiosity; and what our Saviour said, Mat 12:39 , An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, was truly applicable to them; and those words,

believe thee eminently confirm it; for the aforesaid miracle speaking in him a creative power, and being such as was never wrought by any creature, they were obliged to believe him, without any further sign. God ought to be believed upon his bare word.

Poole: Joh 6:31

Here they magnify Moses; he did not bring them a law only, but confirmed it by signs from heaven to be the will of God, by obtaining for them bread to be mined from heaven to satisfy their hunger, Exo 16:15 Num 11:7 ; which is also confirmed by the psalmist, Psa 78:25 . This Moses did for the whole congregation of Israel forty years together. From hence they would seem to conclude, that they had more ground to believe Moses than Christ, who, though he had indeed lately fed five thousand with five loaves, yet had done no such thing. Not considering that Moses, in what he did, was but an instrument to obtain of God by prayer such a miracle, for supporting his people in the wilderness; and that what he had done, was done by a creating power inherent in himself, by which he multiplied that little proportion of bread which they had, to make it sufficient to feed such a quantity as five thousand, besides women and children; to which effect it bare no proportion.

Poole: Joh 6:32

You are mistaken in your opinion of that manna, which indeed was bread from heaven, spiritual meat, ( as the apostle calleth it, 1Co 10:3 ), but it was not given you by any power or virtue in or from Moses. Moses said otherwise; when it was first rained down, he told them, This is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat, Exo 16:15 . It was the Lord, not Moses, that gave you that bread. Nor was that true spiritual bread; it was only spiritual (as the apostle calleth it) because it was typical, and prefigurative of me.

My Father giveth you the true bread from heaven; it was he that gave your fathers manna, not Moses; and it is he who giveth you me, who am the true bread of which that bread was but typical, a shadow, and a figure.

Poole: Joh 6:33

Moses gave you spiritual, heavenly bread; but that was only spiritual as it was typical and prefigured me; heavenly, as it came from the lower heavens, was mined down from thence, not made upon the earth by the art of man; and was therefore called the bread of angels; but I am the true bread of God, signified by that type, who came not down from the lower, but from the highest heavens; and who do not only maintain and uphold life in men, (as that did), but give life to men; and that not a mere natural life, but a spiritual and eternal life; and that not to the Jews only, for whose use alone manna was, but to the world.

Poole: Joh 6:34

Most interpreters agree that they spake this seriously, that is, that they were willing enough to have such bread (if any such were to be had); but yet not conceiving aright the nature and excellency of the bread our Saviour mentioned; and this occasioned his clear explication of it in the following verse.

Lightfoot: Joh 6:4

And the passover, a feast of the Jews, was nigh.   

[And the Passover was nigh.] "It is a tradition. They inquire and discourse about the rites of the Passover, thirty days before the feast."   

From the entrance of these thirty days and so onward, this feast was in the eyes and mouth of this people, but especially in the fifteen days immediately before the Passover. Hence, perhaps, we may take the meaning of these words, the Passover was nigh.   

From the entrance or beginning of these thirty days, viz. "From the fifteenth day of the month Adar, they repaired the ways, the streets, the bridges, the pools, and despatched all other public business; they painted the sepulchres, and proceeded about matters of a heterogeneous nature."   

" These are all the businesses of the public; they judged all pecuniary faults, those also that were capital, and those for which the offenders were scourged. They redeemed devoted things; they made the suspected wife drink; they burnt the red heifer; they bored the ear of the Hebrew servant; they cleansed the lepers, and removed the covers from the well," that every one might be at liberty to drink.   

The Gloss is, "And some that were deputed in that affair went abroad to see if the fields were sown with corn, and the vineyards planted with heterogeneous trees."

Lightfoot: Joh 6:9

There is a lad here, which hath five barley loaves, and two small fishes: but what are they among so many?   

[Five barley loaves.] Compare 2Ki 4:42; and see Chetub; where the masters enhance the number of men fed by Elisha to two thousand two hundred. "Every hundred men had their single loaf set before them." The Gloss is, "Twenty loaves, and the loaf of the first fruits, behold one-and-twenty; the green ear; behold two-and-twenty: these were all singly set, each of them before a hundred men; and so behold there were two thousand and two hundred fed." By the same proportion, in our Saviour's miraculous feeding the people, one single loaf must serve for a thousand.

Lightfoot: Joh 6:12

When they were filled, he said unto his disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.   

[The fragments that remain.] It was a custom and rule, that when they ate together, they should leave something to those that served: which remnant was called peah. And it is remarked upon R. Joshua, that, upon a journey, having something provided for him by a hospitable widow, he ate all up, and left nothing to her that ministered. Where the Gloss: "Every one leaves a little portion in the dish, and gives it to those that serve; which is called the servitor's part."   

Although I would not confound the fragments that remain with the peah; nor would affirm that what was left was in observation of this rule and custom; yet we may observe, that the twelve baskets full of fragments left at this time answered to the number of the twelve apostles that ministered. It is otherwise elsewhere.

Lightfoot: Joh 6:24

When the people therefore saw that Jesus was not there, neither his disciples, they also took shipping, and came to Capernaum, seeking for Jesus.   

[They also took shipping.] They had gone afoot from Capernaum to the desert of Bethsaida, Mar 6:33; by the bridge of Chammath, near Tiberias. But they sail back in ships, partly that they might follow Jesus with the greater speed; and perhaps that they might reach time enough at the synagogue: for that was the day in which they assembled in their synagogues.

Lightfoot: Joh 6:27

Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed.   

[For him hath God the Father sealed.] The Jews speak much of the seal of God; which may not be impertinently remembered at this time. " What is the seal of the holy blessed God? R. Bibai, in the name of R. Reuben, saith, Truth. But what is truth? R. Bon saith, The living God and King eternal. Resh Lachish saith, Aleph is the first letter of the alphabet, Mem the middle, and Tav the last: q.d. I the Lord am the first; I received nothing of any one; and beside me there is no God: for there is not any that intermingles with me; and I am with the last."   

There is a story of the great synagogue weeping, praying, and fasting; " At length there was a little scroll fell from the firmament to them, in which was written, Truth. R. Chaninah saith, Hence learn that truth is the seal of God."   

We may easily apply all this to Christ, who is "the way, the truth; and the life," Joh 14:6; he is the express image of his Father, the truth of the Father; whom the Father, by his seal and diploma, hath confirmed and ratified; as the great ruler both of his kingdom and family.

Lightfoot: Joh 6:28

Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?   

[What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?] observe, first, the rule about workmen or labourers: "It is granted by the permission of the law, that the labourer shall eat of those things wherein he laboureth. If he works in the vintage, let him eat of the grapes; if in gathering the fig trees, let him eat of the figs; if in the harvest, let him eat of the ears of the corn," etc.   

Nay further; "It is lawful for the workmen to eat of those things wherein he worketh; a melon, to the value of a penny; and dates, to the value of a penny," etc.   

Compare these passages with what our Saviour speaks; "Labour (saith he) for that meat which endureth to everlasting life." Now, what is that work of God which we should do, that might entitle us to eat of that food? Believe in Christ, and ye shall feed on him.

Lightfoot: Joh 6:31

Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat.   

[Our fathers did eat manna.] I. They seek a sign of him worthy the Messiah; and in general they seem to look towards those dainties which that nation fondly dreamed their Messiah would bring along with him when he should come; but more particularly they expect manna.   

"Ye seek me (saith our Saviour), not because ye did see the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves and were filled." Were all these so very poor that they had need to live at another man's charge? or should follow Christ merely for bread? It is possible they might expect other kind of dainties, according to the vain musings of that nation. Perhaps he was such a kind of slave to his belly that said, "Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God," Luk 14:15.   

"Many affirm that the hope of Israel is, that Messiah shall come and raise the dead; and they shall be gathered together in the garden of Eden, and shall eat and drink, and satiate themselves all the days of the world....and that there are houses built of precious stones, beds of silk, and rivers flowing with wine and spicy oil." "He made manna to descend for them, in which were all manner of tastes; and every Israelite found in it what his palate was chiefly pleased with. If he desired fat in it, he had it. In it the young men tasted bread, the old men honey, and the children oil....So it shall be in the world to come [the days of the Messias]: he shall give Israel peace, and they shall sit down and eat in the garden of Eden; and all nations shall behold their condition; as it is said, Behold, my servants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry, Isa 65:13."   

Alas, poor wretches! how do you deceive yourselves! for it is to you that this passage of being hungry while others eat does directly point.   

Infinite are the dreams of this kind, particularly about Leviathan and Behemoth, that are to be served up in these feasts.   

II. Compare with this especially what the Jews propound to themselves about their being fed with manna: "The latter Redeemer" [that is, Messiah; for he had spoken of the former redeemer, Moses, immediately before] "shall be revealed against them, etc. And whither will he lead them? Some say into the wilderness of Judah; others, into the wilderness of Sihon and Og." [Note that our Saviour the day before, when he fed such a multitude so miraculously, was in the desert of Og, viz. in Batanea, or Bashan.] And shall make manna descend for them. Note that. So Midras Coheleth; "The former redeemer caused manna to descend for them; in like manner shall our latter Redeemer cause manna to come down; as it is written, 'There shall be a handful of corn in the earth,' Psa 72:16."

Lightfoot: Joh 6:32

Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.   

[Moses gave you not that bread from heaven.] The Gemarists affirm that manna was given for the merits of Moses. "There were three good shepherds of Israel, Moses, Aaron, and Miriam: and there were three good things given us by their hands, a well, a cloud, and manna: the well, for the merits of Miriam; the pillar of the cloud, for the merits of Aaron; manna, for the merits of Moses."   

Contrary, therefore, to this opinion of theirs, it may well be said, Moses did not give you this bread; i.e. it was by no means for any merits of his. But what further he might intend by these words, you may learn from the several expositors.

Haydock: Joh 6:1

Galilee. St. John does not usually relate what is mentioned by the other evangelists, especially what happened in Galilee. If he does it on this occasion, it is purposely to introduce the subject of the heavenly bread, which begins ver. 37. He seems, moreover, to have had in view the description of the different passovers during Christ's public ministry. As he, therefore, remained in Galilee during the third passover, he relates pretty fully what passed during that time. We must also remark, that as the other three evangelists give, in the same terms, the institution of the blessed sacrament, St. John omits the institution, but gives in detail the repeated promises of Jesus Christ, relative to this great mystery.

Haydock: Joh 6:4

From the circumstances of the passover, the number that followed Jesus was greatly increased. (Bible de Vence)

Haydock: Joh 6:5

Our Lord first said, (Matthew xiv. 16.) Give them to eat; but afterwards, accommodating himself to the weakness of his disciples, he says: Whence shall we buy bread? So there is no contradiction.

Haydock: Joh 6:10

The text in St. Matthew adds: without counting the women and the children, who might possibly amount to an equal number.

Haydock: Joh 6:11

In the Greek, there is this addition: He distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were sitting. The Syriac, and some Greek copies agree with the Vulgate.

Haydock: Joh 6:12

To make the miracle still more conspicuous to the multitude, Jesus Christ shewed, that not only their present wants were supplied, but that there remained as much, or more, after they had all been filled, than there had been at first presented to Him.

Haydock: Joh 6:14

The Prophet indeed. That is, the Messias. (Witham)

Haydock: Joh 6:15

St. John here corrects what relates to Jesus, and then what relates to the disciples. For if we attend to the order of time, the apostles got into the boat before Jesus went to the mountain. But, in matters of this nature, it is usual for the historians to follow their own choice. (Polus, Synop. critic.)

Haydock: Joh 6:19

Five and twenty or thirty furlongs. About three or four miles.

Haydock: Joh 6:21

In St. Matthew xiv. 26. and St. Mark vi. 51. we find that Jesus entered into the boat. St. John does not deny it; but he remarks a circumstance not notice by the others: The vessel was presently at the land. (Bible de Vence)

Haydock: Joh 6:26

Christ did not return an express answer to their words, but he replied to their thoughts. For they seem to have put this question to him, that by flattering him, they might induce him to work another miracle, similar to the former; but Christ answers them not to seek for their temporal prosperity, but for their eternal welfare. The Church is daily filled, says St. Augustine, with those who come to petition for temporal advantages, that they may escape this calamity, obtain that advantage in their temporal concerns: but there is scarce one to be found who seeks for Christ, and pays him his adoration, through the pure love he bears him. (Maldonatus)

Haydock: Joh 6:27

For him hath God the Father sealed. The sense seems to be, that Christ having wrought so many miracles in his Father's name, the Father himself hath thereby given testimony in his favour, and witnessed, as it were, under his seal, that Jesus is his true Son, whom he sent into the world. (Witham)

Haydock: Joh 6:30

What sign then dost thou shew? And foreseeing that he might, with great propriety, allege the recent miracle, they contrast it with what Moses performed in the desert. It is true, they say, you once fed 5,000 persons with five loaves; but our fathers, to the number of 600,000 did eat, not for once, but during forty years, manna in the desert; a species of food infinitely superior to barley bread. (Bible de Vence) See Numbers i. 46.

Haydock: Joh 6:31

Christ having declared that he was greater than Moses, (since Moses could not promise them bread which should never perish) the Jews wished for some sign by which they might believe in him; therefore they say, Our fathers did eat manna in the desert, but you have only given us bread; where then is the food that perishes not? Christ therefore answers them, that the food which Moses gave them, was not the true manna from heaven, but that it was only a figure of himself, who came down from heaven to give life to the world. (St. Augustine) ---

St. John Chrysostom observes, that the Jews here acknowledge Christ to be God, since they entreat Christ not merely to ask his Father to give it them; but, do thou thyself give it us.

Haydock: Joh 6:32

Moses gave you not bread from heaven; i.e. the manna was not given to your forefathers by Moses, but by God's goodness. 2ndly, neither came it from heaven, but from the clouds, or from the region of the air only. 3rdly, It did not make them that eat it live for ever; but they that spiritually eat me, the living bread; that is, believe in me, and keep my commandments, shall live for ever. ---

Ver. 37, 44, and 66. No one can come to me, unless the Father draw him. [1] These verses are commonly expounded of God's elect; who are not only called, but saved, by a particular mercy and providence of God. God is said to draw them to himself by special and effectual graces, yet without any force or necessity, without prejudice to the liberty of their free-will. A man, says St. Augustine, is said to be drawn by his pleasures, and by what he loves. (Witham)

Haydock: Joh 6:33

A life of immortality and eternal happiness to all who worthily receive it.

Haydock: Joh 6:34

St. Augustine with all the Fathers, believed that the Jews did not understand this in its proper sense; but only understood a material bread, of superior excellence to the manna, which would preserve their health and life for ever (St. Augustine); or at least, a far more delicious bread, which they were to enjoy during the whole course of their lives.

Gill: Joh 6:1

After these things,.... After Christ's curing the man at Bethesda's pool, and the vindication of himself for doing it or the sabbath day, and for asserting his equality with God; near a year after these things: for these were done at the feast of the passover, and now it was near another; and what is related here, was after the death of John the Baptist, and when the disciples had returned from preaching in the several cities and towns, where Christ afterwards went, and had given an account of their success; see Mat 14:12. Quickly after the passover was ended, Christ departed from Jerusalem, and went into Galilee, and preached in the several cities and towns in those parts, and wrought many miracles: and after these things, in process of time,

Jesus went over the sea of Galilee; the same with the lake of Gennesaret, Luk 5:1;

which is the sea of Tiberias; and is frequently so called by the Jewish writers ^x, who often make mention of טבריה ימה של, "the sea of Tiberias"; and by other writers, it is called the lake of Tiberias ^y; Pliny, who calls it the lake of Genesara ^z, says,

"it was sixteen miles long, and six broad, and was beset with very pleasant towns; on the east were Julias and Hippo, and on the south Tarichea, by which name some call the lake, and on the west Tiberias, wholesome for the hot waters.''

And these are the waters which the Jews call דימוסין דטבריא, or, חמי, the hot baths of Tiberias ^a; and from the city of Tiberias built by Herod, and called so in honour of Tiberius Caesar, the sea took its name.

Gill: Joh 6:2

And a great multitude followed him,.... From several cities and towns in Galilee, where he had been preaching and working miracles:

because they saw his miracles which he did on them that were diseased; so that it was not for the sake of his doctrine, or for the good of their souls, they followed him; but either to gratify their curiosity in seeing his miracles, or to be healed in their bodies, as others had been.

Gill: Joh 6:3

And Jesus went up into a mountain,.... In a desert place near Bethsaida, Luk 9:10;

and there he sat with his disciples; partly for security from the cruelty of Herod, having just heard of the beheading of John; and partly for privacy, that he might have some conversation alone with his disciples, upon their return from off their journey; as also for the sake of rest and refreshment; and according to the custom of the Jewish doctors, which now prevailed; see Gill on Mat 5:1, he sat with his disciples, in order to teach and instruct them.

Gill: Joh 6:4

And the passover, a feast of the Jews, was nigh. This was the third passover, since our Lord's baptism, and entrance on his public ministry; see Joh 2:13. Whether Christ went up to this feast is not certain; some think he did not; but from what is said in Joh 7:1, it looks as if he did: how nigh it was to the feast, cannot well be said. Thirty days before the feast, they began to talk about it; and especially in the last fifteen days, they made preparations for it, as being at hand ^b; and if there was now so long time to it, there was time enough for Jesus to go to it.

Gill: Joh 6:5

When Jesus then lift up his eyes,.... Being before engaged in close conversation with his disciples, and looking wistly and intently on them, whilst he was discoursing with them:

and saw a great company come unto him; who came on foot, over the bridge at Chammath, from Capernaum, and other cities of Galilee:

he saith unto Philip; he directed his discourse to him particularly, because he was of Bethsaida, near to which place Christ now was, and therefore might be best able to answer the following question:

whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat? This, according to the other evangelists, must be said after Christ came from the mountain, and the people were come to him, and he had received them kindly, and had instructed them about the kingdom of God, and had healed the diseased among them, and expressed great compassion for them; and after the disciples had desired him to dismiss them, that they might go to the adjacent towns, and provide food for themselves; which Christ would not admit of and declared it unnecessary, and then put this question, with the following view.

Gill: Joh 6:6

And this he said to prove him,.... Or "tempting him", trying his faith, and not only his, but the rest of the disciples; not as ignorant of it himself, but in order to discover it to him and them, and to prepare them for the following miracle; and that it might appear the more illustrious and marvellous:

for he himself knew what he would do; Christ had determined to work a miracle, and feed the large number of people that were with him, with that small provision they had among them; and being God omniscient, he knew that he was able to do it, and that he was determined to do it, and it would be done; but he was willing first to try the faith of his apostles.

Gill: Joh 6:7

Philip answered him,.... Very quick and short, and in a carnal and unbelieving way:

two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them. Two hundred pence, or "Roman denarii", which may be here meant, amount to six pounds five shillings of our money; and this sum is mentioned, because it might be the whole stock that was in the bag, or that Christ and his disciples had; or because this was a round sum, much in use among the Jews; See Gill on Mar 6:37. Or this may be said by Philip, to show how impracticable it was to provide for such a company; that supposing they had two hundred pence to lay out in this way; though where should they have that, he suggests? yet if they had it, as much bread as that would purchase would not be sufficient:

that everyone of them might take a little; it would be so far from giving them a meal, or proper refreshment, that everyone could not have a small bit to taste of, or in the least to stay or blunt his appetite: a penny, with the Jews, would buy as much bread as would serve ten men; so that two hundred pence would buy bread enough for two thousand men; but here were three thousand more, besides women and children, who could not have been provided for with such a sum of money.

Gill: Joh 6:8

One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother,.... Who also, and his brother Peter, were of Bethsaida, as well as Philip, and was a disciple of Christ's; he hearing what Christ said to Philip, and what answer he returned,

saith unto him; to Christ, with but little more faith than Philip, if any.

Gill: Joh 6:9

There is a lad here,.... Who either belonged to Christ and his disciples, and was employed to carry their provisions for them; which, if so, shows how meanly Christ and his disciples lived; or he belonged to some in the multitude; or rather he came here to sell what he had got:

which hath five barley loaves. The land of Canaan was a land of barley, as well as wheat, Deu 8:8; this sort of grain grew there in plenty, and was in much use; the Jews had a barley harvest, Rth 1:22, which was at the time of the passover; for on the second day after the passover, the sheaf of the first fruits was waved before the Lord, which was of barley; hence the Targumist on the place just cited, paraphrases it thus;

"they came to Bethlehem in the beginning of the passover, and on the day the children of Israel began to reap the sheaf of the wave offering, which was of barley.''

And it was now about the time of the passover, as appears from Joh 6:4, and had it been quite the time, and the barley sheaf had been waved, it might have been thought that these loaves were made of the new barley; but though barley was in use for bread among the Jews, as is evident, from the mention that is made of barley loaves and cakes, 2Ki 4:42; yet it was bread of the coarsest sort, and what the meaner sort of people ate; see Eze 4:12. Yea, barley was used for food for horses and dromedaries, 1Ki 4:28; and since therefore these loaves were, if not designed for the use of Christ and his twelve apostles, yet for some of his followers, and which they all ate of; it is an instance of the meanness and poverty of them: but however, they had better bread than this, even the bread of life, which is afterwards largely treated of in this chapter, which some of them at least ate of; and as our countryman Mr. Dod used to say,

"brown bread and the Gospel are good fare:''

and it may be further observed, that the number of these loaves were but few; there were but "five" of them, for "five thousand" persons; and these do not seem to be very large ones, since one lad was able to carry them; and indeed, these loaves were no other than cakes, in which form they used to be made:

and two small fishes; there were but "two", and these "small"; it is amazing, that five thousand persons should everyone have something of them, and enough: these fishes seem to be what the Jews ^c call מוניני, and which the gloss interprets "small fishes": and by the word which is used of them, they seem to be salted, or pickled fishes, and such it is very probable these were; Nonnus calls them, ιχθυας οπταλεους, "fishes which were broiled", or perhaps dried in the sun; see Luk 24:42.

But what are they among so many? everyone cannot possibly have a taste, much less any refreshment, still less a meal.

Gill: Joh 6:10

Jesus said, make the men sit down,.... The Syriac version reads, "all the men"; and the Persic version, "all the people"; men, women, and children: Christ, without reproving his disciples for their unbelief, ordered them directly to place the people upon the ground, and seat them in rows by hundreds and by fifties, in a rank and company, as persons about to take a meal:

now there was much grass in the place; at the bottom of the mountain; and it was green, as one of the evangelists observes, it being the spring of the year, and was very commodious to sit down upon:

so the men sat down, in number about five thousand; besides women and children, Mat 14:21, so that there was but one loaf for more than a thousand persons.

Gill: Joh 6:11

And Jesus took the loaves,.... Into his hands, as also the fishes, in order to feed the multitude with them:

and when he had given thanks; for them, and blessed them, or implored a blessing on them, that they might be nourishing to the bodies of men, as was his usual manner, and which is an example to us;

he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were sat down. The Vulgate Latin, and all the Oriental versions, only read, "he distributed to them that were sat down": but it was not by his own hands, but by the means of the disciples, who received from him, and gave it to them; so that the sense is the same;

and likewise of the fishes, as much as they would; that is, they had as much, both of the bread and of the fishes, distributed to them, and which they took and ate, as they chose: in some printed copies it is read, "as much as he would", and so the Persic version; that is, as much as Jesus would; but the former is the true reading, and makes the miracle more illustrious.

Gill: Joh 6:12

When they were filled,.... Had not only eaten, but had made a full meal, and were thoroughly satisfied, having eaten as much as they could, or chose to eat:

he said unto his disciples, gather up the fragments that remain,

that nothing be lost; this he said, partly that the truth, reality, and greatness of the miracle might be clearly discerned; and partly, to teach frugality, that, in the midst of abundance, care be taken that nothing be lost of the good things which God gives; and which may be useful to other persons, or at another time.

Gill: Joh 6:13

Therefore they gathered them together,.... The several broken bits of bread, which lay about upon the grass, which the people had left, after they had been sufficiently refreshed:

and filled twelve baskets; every disciple had a basket filled:

with the fragments of the five barley loaves; and it may be of the fishes also:

which remained over and above unto them that had eaten; such a marvellous increase was there, through the power of Christ going along with them; insomuch that they multiplied to such a degree, either in the hands of the distributors, or of the eaters.

Gill: Joh 6:14

Then those men,.... The five thousand men, who had been fed with the loaves and fishes:

when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did; in feeding so many of them, with so small a quantity of food; in multiplying the provision in such a prodigious manner, that after they had eaten to the full, so many baskets of fragments were taken up:

said, this is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world; meaning that prophet, that Moses spoke of, in Deu 18:15; for the ancient Jews understood this passage of the Messiah, though the modern ones apply it to others; See Gill on Act 3:22. And these men concluded that Jesus was that prophet, or the true Messiah, from the miracle he wrought; in which he appeared, not only to be like to Moses, but greater than he.

Gill: Joh 6:15

When Jesus therefore perceived,.... As being the omniscient God, who knew their hearts, and the secret thoughts and purposes of them; or, as man, understood by their words and gestures:

that they would come and take him by force, and make him a king; that they had "determined", as the Arabic version renders it; or "had it in their mind", as the Persic; to gather about him as one man, and seize him in a violent manner, whether he would or not; and proclaim him the King Messiah; place him at the head of them, to deliver the nation from the Roman yoke, and set up a temporal kingdom, in which they might hope for great secular advantages: and they might the rather be induced to take such a step, since, by this miracle, they could not doubt of his being able to support such an army of men, and to succeed in the enterprise; for he that could do this, what was it he could not do? but,

he departed again into a mountain, himself alone; he left the company directly, upon this resolution of theirs, and even took not his disciples with him, who were in the same way of thinking about a temporal kingdom, as the people, and might encourage them in this undertaking: the mountain Christ went into, very probably was the same he went up to before; the reasons of his departure, were to prevent the attempt; to show that his kingdom was not of this world; to teach his followers to forsake the honours and riches of this world, for his sake; and to let them know, that those who sought only for a temporal redeemer, were unworthy of his presence: and also he went away alone, for the sake of secret retirement, and private prayer; and it may be chiefly, that he prayed that God would open the minds of these men, and particularly the disciples; that they might be convinced of their mistaken notions of him as a temporal prince: some copies add, "and he prayed there"; the Syriac, Ethiopic, and Persic versions leave out the word "again"; and the latter, contrary to all others, renders it, "Christ departed from the mountain alone".

Gill: Joh 6:16

And when even was now come,.... The last of the evenings, when night was coming on; for the first of the evenings took place before they sat down to eat, when the above miracle was wrought; see Mat 14:15.

His disciples went down unto the sea; of Galilee, or Tiberias, to the sea side; and this was by the order, and even constraint of Christ, who would have them go before him, that he might be clear of the multitude, and have an opportunity for solitary prayer, See Gill on Mat 14:22, Mar 6:45.

Gill: Joh 6:17

And entered into a ship,.... In which they came, and was waiting for them; or into another:

and went over the sea towards Capernaum; steered their course from Bethsaida, where they took shipping over the sea of Galilee; at least over one part of it, a creek or bay of it, as they intended, towards the city of Capernaum, which lay over against Bethsaida:

and it was now dark; quite night, which made their voyage more uncomfortable, especially as it afterwards was tempestuous: but the worst of all was,

and Jesus was not come to them; as they expected, and therefore were obliged to set sail and go without him.

Gill: Joh 6:18

And the sea arose,.... Swelled, and was tumultuous and raging; the waves mounted up, and tossed the ship to and fro:

by reason of a great wind that blew; which agitated the waters of the sea, and lifted up the waves; which storm seems to have arose after they had set sail, and were got into the midst of the sea.

Gill: Joh 6:19

So when they had rowed,.... For the wind being contrary, they could not make use of their sails, but betook themselves to their oars, and by that means got

about five and twenty, or thirty furlongs; which were three or four miles, or little more than a league; no further had they got, though they had been rowing from the time it was dark, to the fourth watch, which was after three o'clock in the morning; all this while they had been tossed in the sea;

they saw Jesus walking on the sea; See Gill on Mat 14:25, See Gill on Mat 14:26, See Gill on Mat 14:29.

And drawing nigh unto the ship; though Mark says, he "would have passed by them", Mar 6:48; that is, he seemed as if he would, but his intention was to come to them, and save them from perishing, as he did:

and they were afraid; that he was a spirit, some nocturnal apparition, or demon, in an human form; See Gill on Mat 14:26.

Gill: Joh 6:20

But he saith to them, it is I, be not afraid. See Gill on Mat 14:27.

Gill: Joh 6:21

Then they willingly received him into the ship,.... When they knew who he was; and especially he was the more welcome, as they were in distress; and he able, as they well knew, to help them:

and immediately the ship was at the land whither they went; which was done, as Nonnus observes, by a divine motion; for not only the wind ceased, but another miracle was wrought; the ship was in an instant at the place whither they intended to go.

Gill: Joh 6:22

The day following,.... The day after that, in which the miracle of feeding live thousand men with five loaves and two fishes was done: the morning after the disciples had had such a bad voyage:

when the people which stood on the other side of the sea; from that in which the disciples now were, being landed at Capernaum; that is, they stood on that side, or shore, where they took shipping, near Bethsaida and Tiberias: here, after they were dismissed by Christ, they stood all night, waiting for boats to carry them over; or rather, knowing that Christ was not gone with his disciples, they continued, hoping to meet with him in the morning, and enjoy some more advantage by him: for they

saw that there was none other boat there, save that one whereinto his disciples were entered, and that Jesus went not with his disciples into the boat, but that his disciples were gone away alone; from whence they concluded, that since there was only that boat, and Jesus did not go into it, but that the disciples went off without him, that he must be therefore somewhere on shore, and not far off, and they hoped to find him in the morning; wherefore it was very surprising to them, when they found him at Capernaum, when, and how he got there.

Gill: Joh 6:23

Howbeit there came other boats from Tiberias,.... A city by the sea side, built by Herod, and called so in honour of Tiberius Caesar; though the Jews give a different etymology of it; they say, it is the same with Rakkath, Jos 19:35, and that it was a fortified place from the days of Joshua, and that on one side, ימה חומתה, "the sea was its wall" ^d: and so Jonathan the Targumist on Deu 3:17 says, that Tiberias was near the sea of salt: this place became famous for many of the wise men that lived here; here was a famous university, and here the Misna and Jerusalem Talmud were written; and here the sanhedrim sat, after it removed from Jerusalem:

nigh unto the place where they did eat bread; where the day before they had been fed in so miraculous a manner: the meaning is, either that Tiberias was near to the place where the miracle was wrought, or the boats from Tiberias came near that place, and both were true: so that these men that were waiting by the sea side, had an opportunity of going over in these boats in quest of Christ, to whom they were now become greatly attached, by feeding them in so wonderful a manner:

after that the Lord had given thanks; which clause is added to show, that the multiplication of the bread, and the refreshment the men had by it, were owing to the power of Christ, and his blessing it; though this is wanting in Beza's most ancient copy, and in some others.

Gill: Joh 6:24

When the people therefore saw that Jesus was not there,.... At the sea side, at the usual place of taking boat; and having reason to think he was not on that side of the lake, but was gone from thence:

neither his disciples; when they found that there were neither of them there, but both were gone, and considering that it was to no purpose for them to stay there:

they also took shipping, and came to Capernaum seeking Jesus; they might observe, that the disciples steered their course towards this place; and they knew that was a place of general resort with Christ and his disciples; therefore they took boat and came directly thither, and sought for him in the synagogue, it being on a day in which the people used to go thither; and where Christ, as often as he had opportunity, attended.

Gill: Joh 6:25

And when they had found him on the other side of the sea,.... At Capernaum, and in the synagogue there; see Joh 6:59.

They said unto him, Rabbi; or "master", a name now much in use with the Jewish doctors, and by which they delighted to be called; and these men being convinced by the miracle, that Christ was that prophet that should come, honour him with this title, saying,

when camest thou hither? since he did not go with his disciples, and there was no other boat that went off the night before, but that in which they went; and they came over in the first that came out that morning, and he did not come in any of them; and therefore it was amazing to them, both when and how he came, since they could not devise how he should get there by shipping, and also how he should so soon get there on foot.

Gill: Joh 6:26

Jesus answered them and said,.... Not by replying to their question, or giving a direct answer to that, which he could have done, by telling them that he walked upon the water, and found his disciples in great distress, and delivered them, and came early that morning with them to the land of Gennesaret, and so to Capernaum: but not willing to gratify their curiosity; and knowing from what principles, and with what views they sought after him, and followed him; and willing to let them know that he knew them, being the searcher of hearts, and to reprove them for them, thus addressed them:

verily, verily, I say unto you; this is a certain truth, and was full well known to Christ, and what their own consciences must attest:

ye seek me not because ye saw the miracles; of feeding so large a number with so small a quantity of food, and of healing them that needed it, Luk 9:11. Not but that they did regard the miracles of Christ, and concluded from thence he must be that prophet that was to come, and were for taking him by force, and proclaiming him king; but then they had a greater respect to their own worldly interest, and their carnal appetites, than to these, as follows:

but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled; they regarded their own bellies more than the honour and glory of Christ, and even than the good of their immortal souls, and the spiritual and eternal salvation of them: and it is to be feared that this is the case of too many who make a profession of religion; their view being their own worldly advantages, and not the spiritual and everlasting good of their souls, and the real interest of a Redeemer: hence the following advice.

Gill: Joh 6:27

Labour not for the meat which perisheth,.... Meaning either food for the body, which is perishing; its virtue is perishing; man cannot live by it alone, nor does it last long; its substance is perishing; it is received into the stomach, and there digested; it goes into the belly, and is cast out into the draught; and that which it supports, for a while, is perishing; and both the one, and the other, shall be destroyed; even meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: now, though it becomes men to work for their bread, to provide it for themselves and families; yet they should not be anxiously solicitous about it, or labour only for that, and prefer it to spiritual food: or else food for the mind is meant, and that either in a sensual way, as sinful lust and pleasures, the honours of this world, and the riches of it; which are sweet morsels, though bread of deceit, to carnal minds, and which they labour hard for: or, in a religious way, as superstition, will worship, external works of righteousness, in order to please God, and obtain eternal life and salvation; which to labour for in such a way, is to spend money for that which is not bread, and labour for that which profiteth not; and in each of these ways were these Jews labouring for perishing food, from which Christ dissuades them:

but for that which endureth unto everlasting life; either the grace of Christ, which, as meat, is quickening and refreshing, strengthening and supporting, and which causes nourishment and growth, and by virtue of which work is done; and this springs up unto everlasting life, and is inseparably connected with it; and particularly the blessings of grace, such as sanctification, adoption, pardon, and justification: or the Gospel, and the ordinances of it, which are refreshing, and strengthening, and by which the saints are nourished up unto everlasting life; or rather the flesh of Christ eaten, in a spiritual sense, by faith, of which Christ so largely discourses in the following part of the chapter:

which the son of man shall give unto you; meaning either everlasting life, which is in Christ's gift, and is a free grace gift of his; or else the meat which endures unto it: for though it is to be laboured for, not so as to prepare it, or to purchase it, but by asking for it in prayer, and by attending on ordinances, and exercising faith on Christ; yet it is his gift, and he gives it freely; grace, and the blessings of it, are freely given by him, and so are the Gospel and its ordinances; and also his own flesh, which is first given by him, by way of sacrifice, in the room and stead of his people, and for the life of them, Joh 6:51; and then it is given unto them to feed upon spiritually by faith, and which is here designed:

for him hath God the Father sealed; designated and appointed to be the Saviour, and Redeemer of his people, and has sent, authorized, and commissioned him as such; and has made him known, and approved of him, by the descent of the Spirit on him, and by a voice from heaven, declaring him his beloved Son; and has confirmed him to be the Messiah by the miraculous works he gave him to finish; for all which several uses seals are, as to distinguish one thing from another, to render anything authentic, to point it out, or to confirm it.

Gill: Joh 6:28

Then said they unto him,.... Understanding by what he said, that they must labour and work, though not for perishing food, yet for durable food; and as they imagined, in order to obtain eternal life by working:

what shall we do that we might work the works of God? Such as are agreeable to his will, are acceptable to him, and well pleasing in his sight: they seem to intimate, as if they desired to know whether there were any other works of this kind, than what Moses had directed them to, or than they had done; and if there were, they suggest they would gladly do them; for this was the general cast and complexion of this people; they were seeking for righteousness, and life not by faith, but, as it were, by the works of the law.

Gill: Joh 6:29

Jesus answered and said unto them, this is the work of God,.... The main and principal one, and which is well pleasing in his sight; and without which it is impossible to please him; and without which no work whatever is a good work; and this is of the operation of God, which he himself works in men; it is not of themselves, it is the pure gift of God:

that ye believe on him whom he hath sent; there are other works which are well pleasing to God, when rightly performed, but faith is the chief work, and others are only acceptable when done in the faith of Christ. This, as a principle, is purely God's work; as it is an act, or as it is exercised under the influence of divine grace, it is man's act: "that ye believe"; the object of it is Christ, as sent by the Father, as the Mediator between God and men, as appointed by him to be the Saviour and Redeemer; and believing in Christ, is believing in God that sent him. The Jews reduce all the six hundred and thirteen precepts of the law, for so many they say there are, to this one, "the just shall live by his faith", Hab 2:4. ^e.

Gill: Joh 6:30

They said therefore unto him,.... Seeing he proposed believing in him as the grand work of God to be done, and what is most acceptable in his sight:

what sign showest thou then, that we may see and believe thee? The people of the Jews were always requiring signs and wonders, and when they had one and another shown them, they still sought for more, and were never satisfied; see Mat 12:39. These men had lately seen various signs and miracles of Christ, as healing the sick, and feeding live thousand of them, and more, with five loaves, and two fishes; and though, for the time present, these had some influence upon them, and they were ready to believe he was that prophet; yet now, at least some of them, begin to retract, and signify, that unless some other, and greater signs were shown, they should not believe in him as the Messiah:

what dost thou work? more than others, or Moses. They seem to make light of the miracle of the loaves, or at least require some greater sign and miracle, to engage their belief in him as the Messiah; and as they were lovers of their bellies, and expected dainties in the times of the Messiah, they seem to move for, and desire miracles of that kind to be wrought; and which sense the following words confirm.

Gill: Joh 6:31

Our fathers did eat manna in the wilderness,.... Which was a sort of food prepared by angels in the air, and rained down from thence about the tents of the Israelites; it was a small round thing, as small as the hoar frost on the ground; it was like a coriander seed, and the colour of it was the colour of bdellium: it was so called, either from מנה, "to prepare", because it was prepared, and got ready for the Israelites; or from the first words that were spoken upon sight of it, מן הו, "what is it?" for they knew not what it was: and this the Jewish fathers fed upon all the while they were in the wilderness, till they came to Canaan's land, and they only; it was food peculiar to them: "our fathers did eat"; and so the Jews ^f observe on those words in Exo 16:35,

""and the children of Israel did eat manna forty years"; the children of Israel, ולא אחרא, "not another". And the children of Israel saw, and said, what is it? and not the rest of the mixed multitude.''

Now these Jews object this miracle to Christ, and intimate, that he indeed had fed five thousand of them with barley loaves, and fishes, for one meal; but their fathers, in the times of Moses, to the number of six hundred thousand, and more, were fed, and that with manna, very sweet and delightful food, and for the space of forty years; even all the white they were in the wilderness: and therefore, unless he wrought as great a miracle, or a greater than this, and that of the like kind, they should not think fit to relinquish Moses, and follow him; and in proof of what they said, they produce Scripture,

as it is written in Psa 78:24, or rather in Exo 16:15; and perhaps both places may be respected:

he gave them bread from heaven to eat; they leave out the word Lord, being willing it should be understood of Moses, to whom they ascribed it, as appears from the following words of Christ, who denies that Moses gave it; and add the phrase "from heaven", to set forth the excellent nature of it, which is taken from Exo 16:4, where the manna, as here, is called "bread from heaven".

Gill: Joh 6:32

Then Jesus said unto them, verily, verily, I say unto you,.... It is truth, and may be depended on, whether it will be believed or not:

Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; in which Christ denies that that bread, or manna, did come from heaven; that is, from the highest heavens, only from the air, and was not such celestial bread he after speaks of, and which came down from the heaven of heavens: and moreover, he denies that Moses gave them that bread; it was the Lord that gave them it, as is expressly said in the passage referred to, in the above citation. Moses had no hand in it; he did not so much as pray for it, much less procure it, or prepare it: it was promised and prepared by God, and rained by him, and who directed to the gathering and use of it. This stands opposed to a notion of the Jews, that the manna was given by means of Moses, for his sake, and on account of his merits: for they say ^g,

"there arose up three good providers, or pastors for Israel, and they are these, Moses, and Aaron, and Miriam; and three good gifts were given by their means, and they are these, the well, the cloud, and the manna; the well by the merits of Miriam; the pillar of cloud by the merits of Aaron; מן בזכות משה, "the manna, by the merits of Moses".''

This our Lord denies; and affirms,

but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven: he not only gave the manna to the Jewish fathers, and not Moses; but he also gives that bread which the manna was typical of, by which he means himself; who may be compared to bread, because of the original of it, or the matter of it, of which it is made, wheat, he is called a corn of wheat, Joh 12:24; and from its preparation for food, being threshed, and winnowed, and ground, and kneaded, and baked; all which may express the sufferings and death of Christ, by which he becomes fit food for faith; and from its being the main part of human sustenance, and from its nourishing and strengthening nature, and from its being a means of maintaining and supporting life: and he may be called the "true" bread, because he is the truth and substance of the types of him; the unleavened bread, eaten at the passover, was typical of him, as he was free from sin in nature and life; and from all error in doctrine; and so was the showbread a type of his intercession, and set forth the continuance of it, its efficacy and acceptance, of which the priests only shared; and so were the meat offerings in the sacrifices, which were offered up day by day: and particularly the manna, the bread from heaven, the Jews were now speaking of: Christ was the truth of that type; that was but shadowy bread, Christ is the true bread, or the antitype of it in its name; whether it be derived from "manah", to prepare, Christ being the bread of life, and salvation of God, prepared in the council and covenant of grace, and by his sufferings and death before the face of all people; or from the words "man hu", what is it? Christ being as little known by carnal men, as the manna was at first to the Israelites: and in its nature, kind, form, and quality; it was round in form, which might be expressive of the perfections of Christ, and particularly his eternity, being without beginning or end; it was white in colour, which may denote the purity and innocence of him; it was sweet in taste, as he, his fruits, his word, and ordinances, are to them that are born again; it was small in quantity, which may set forth the meanness of Christ in his state of humiliation: it was also typical of Christ in its usefulness; it was sufficient to supply a, great multitude, and that for many years, as the fulness of grace in Christ is sufficient for the whole family in heaven, and in earth, in time, and to all eternity; the Israelites all shared in it, and had all an equal portion of it; so all the people of God have an interest in Christ, and equally participate of the blessings of his grace, and shall enjoy the same eternal life and glory by him: one has neither more nor less than another; Christ is all in all, and made alike all things to them: and he may be called the bread "from heaven"; because he came from thence, not by change of place, but by assumption of nature, even from the highest heavens, the third heaven, from whence the manna came not: he is the Lord from heaven, and is such bread as has a virtue and tendency in it to nourish men for heaven, and is truly of a heavenly nature: and this is Christ's Father's gift, and is of pure grace, without any consideration of works and merits in men. Philo the Jew says ^h, the heavenly food of the soul, which is called "manna", the divine word distributes alike to all that ask.

Gill: Joh 6:33

For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven,.... In the way and manner just now mentioned: and which clearly points out Christ himself, who may be called "the bread of God"; to distinguish him from common bread, and to show the excellency of him, and that he is of God's providing and giving, and which he would have his children feed upon:

and giveth life unto the world; a spiritual life, which he is the author, supporter, and maintainer of; and eternal life, which he gives a right unto and meetness for, and nourishes up unto; and this not to a few only, or to the Israelites only, but to the Gentiles also, and even to the whole world of God's elect: not indeed to every individual in the world, for all are not quickened now, not shall inherit eternal life hereafter; but to all the people of God, in all parts of the world, and in all ages of time; of such extensive virtue and efficacy is Christ, the bread of God, in which he appears greatly superior to that manna the Jews instance in.

Gill: Joh 6:34

Then said they unto him,.... At least some of them:

Lord, evermore give us this bread; that is so divine and heavenly, and has such a quickening virtue in it: these words are said by them either seriously, and to be understood of bread for their bodies, of which they imagined Christ was speaking; and so sprung from ignorance of his sense; and from sensuality in them who followed him for the loaves; and from a covetous disposition, being desirous of being supplied with such excellent food without charge; and from idleness, to save labour and pains in working for it; and from a vain desire of the continuance of this earthly life, being willing to live for ever, and therefore would have this bread evermore; and from a gross opinion of plenty and delicacy of corporeal food in the times of the Messiah; See Gill on Luk 14:15; or else these words are spoken ironically, by way of derision, as if there was no such bread; and if there was, that Christ could not give it. However, the words may be improved, when considered as a petition coming from, and suitable to, a sensible and enlightened soul: for such who are sensible of their famishing condition by nature, and of their need of Christ, the bread of life, and whose taste is changed, and have tasted how good this bread is, will earnestly desire always to be supplied with it, and to live upon it; for nothing is more grateful to them, and more nourishing and satisfying to their souls; they are never weary of it; it is always new and delightful to them, and they always stand in need of it, and wait in the use of means and ordinances for it; and this has always an abiding, lasting, virtue in it, to feed their souls, and nourish them up to everlasting life. Josephus ⁱ says of the "manna", which was a type of this bread, that there was such a divine quality in it, that whoever tasted of it needed nothing else: and the Jews also say ^k, that

"in the manna were all kinds of tastes, and everyone of the Israelites tasted all that he desired; for so it is written in Deu 2:7, "these forty years the Lord thy God hath been with thee, thou hast lacked nothing", or "not wanted anything"; what is anything? when he desired to eat anything, and said with his mouth, O that I had fat to eat, immediately there was in his mouth the taste of fat.--Young men tasted the taste of bread, old men the taste of honey, and children the taste of oil.''

Yea, they say ^l,

"whoever desired flesh, he tasted it, and whoever desired fish, he tasted it, and whoever desired fowl, chicken, pheasant, or pea hen, so he tasted whatever he desired.''

And to this agrees what is said in the apocryphal book of Wisdom, 16:20,21:

"Thou feddest thine own people with angels' food, and didst send them from heaven bread, prepared without their labour, able to content every man's delight, and agreeing to every taste; for thy sustenance (or manna) declared thy sweetness unto thy children, and serving to the appetite of the eater, tempered itself to every man's liking.''

All which must be understood of that pleasure, satisfaction, and contentment which they had in it; for it was a very uncommon case to eat it, and live upon it as their common food for forty years together: and no doubt but that there was something remarkable in suiting it to their appetites, or giving them appetites suitable to that, to feed upon it, and relish it for so long a time: twice indeed in that length of time we read they complained of it, saying, that they had nothing but this manna before their eyes, and their souls loathed it as light bread, Num 11:6, and lusted after the flesh, and the fish they had eaten in Egypt. And so it is with some professors of Christ, and his Gospel; for there is a mixed multitude among them, as there was among the Israelites, who disrelish the preaching of Christ, and the truths of the Gospel respecting his person, blood, and righteousness, and salvation by him; they cannot bear to have these things frequently inculcated and insisted upon; their souls are ready to loath them as light bread, and want to have something else set before them, more suitable to their carnal appetites: but to such who are true believers in Christ, who have tasted that the Lord is gracious, Christ, the true manna, and bread of God, is all things to them; nor do they desire any other: they taste everything that is delightful, and find everything that is nourishing in him.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Joh 6:1

¹ tn Again, μετὰ ταῦτα (meta tauta) is a vague temporal reference. How Jesus got from Jerusalem to Galilee is not explained, which has led many scholars (e.g., Bernard, Bultmann, and Schnackenburg) to posit either editorial redaction or some sort of rearrangement or dislocation of material (such as reversing the order of chaps. 5 and 6, for example). Such a rearrangement of the material would give a simple and consistent connection of events, but in the absence of all external evidence it does not seem to be supportable. R. E. Brown (John [AB], 1:236) says that such an arrangement is attractive in some ways but not compelling, and that no rearrangement can solve all the geographical and chronological problems in John.

² sn This is a parenthetical note by the author. Only John in the New Testament refers to the Sea of Galilee by the name Sea of Tiberias (see also John 21:1), but this is correct local usage. In the mid-20’s Herod completed the building of the town of Tiberias on the southwestern shore of the lake; after this time the name came into use for the lake itself.

NET Notes: Joh 6:3

¹ sn Up on the mountainside does not necessarily refer to a particular mountain or hillside, but may simply mean “the hill country” or “the high ground,” referring to the high country east of the Sea of Galilee (known today as the Golan Heights).

NET Notes: Joh 6:4

¹ sn Passover. According to John’s sequence of material, considerable time has elapsed since the feast of 5:1. If the feast in 5:1 was Pentecost of a.d. 31, then this feast would be the Passover of a.d. 32, just one year before Jesus’ crucifixion.

² sn This is a parenthetical note by the author.

NET Notes: Joh 6:5

¹ tn Grk “when he lifted up his eyes” (an idiom).

NET Notes: Joh 6:6

¹ tn Grk “he”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

² sn This is a parenthetical note by the author.

NET Notes: Joh 6:7

¹ tn Grk “Philip answered him.”

² tn Grk “two hundred denarii.” The denarius was a silver coin worth about a day’s wage for a laborer; this would be an amount worth about eight months’ pay.

NET Notes: Joh 6:8

¹ tn Grk “one of his disciples.”

NET Notes: Joh 6:9

¹ tn Grk “but what are these”; the word “good” is not in the Greek text, but is implied.

NET Notes: Joh 6:10

¹ tn Grk “Make.”

² sn This is a parenthetical note by the author (suggesting an eyewitness recollection).

³ tn Here “men” has been used in the translation because the following number, 5,000, probably included only adult males (see the parallel in Matt 14:21).

NET Notes: Joh 6:11

¹ tn Grk “likewise also (he distributed) from the fish.”

NET Notes: Joh 6:12

¹ tn Grk “he”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

NET Notes: Joh 6:13

¹ sn Note that the fish mentioned previously (in John 6:9) are not emphasized here, only the five barley loaves. This is easy to understand, however, because the bread is of primary importance for the author in view of Jesus’ upcoming discourse on the Bread of Life.

NET Notes: Joh 6:14

¹ tn Grk “he”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

² sn The Prophet is a reference to the “prophet like Moses” of Deut 18:15, by this time an eschatological figure in popular belief.

³ sn An allusion to Deut 18:15.

NET Notes: Joh 6:15

¹ sn Jesus, knowing that his “hour” had not yet come (and would not, in this fashion) withdrew again up the mountainside alone. The ministry of miracles in Galilee, ending with this, the multiplication of the bread (the last public miracle in Galilee recorded by John) aroused such a popular response that there was danger of an uprising. This would have given the authorities a legal excuse to arrest Jesus. The nature of Jesus’ kingship will become an issue again in the passion narrative of the Fourth Gospel (John 18:33ff.). Furthermore, the volatile reaction of the Galileans to the signs prepares for and foreshadows the misunderstanding of the miracle itself, and even the misunderstanding of Jesus’ explanation of it (John 6:22-71).

NET Notes: Joh 6:16

¹ tn Or “sea.” The Greek word indicates a rather large body of water, but the English word “sea” normally indicates very large bodies of water, so the word “lake” in English is a closer approximation.

NET Notes: Joh 6:17

¹ tn Or “sea.” See the note on “lake” in the previous verse.

² map For location see Map1 D2; Map2 C3; Map3 B2.

³ sn This is a parenthetical note by the author.

NET Notes: Joh 6:19

¹ tn Grk “about twenty-five or thirty stades” (a stade as a unit of linear measure is about 607 feet or 187 meters).

sn About three or four miles. The Sea of Galilee was at its widest point 7 mi (11.6 km) by 12 mi (20 km). So at this point the disciples were in about the middle of the lake.

² tn Or “sea.” See the note on “lake” in v. 16. John uses the phrase ἐπί (epi, “on”) followed by the genitive (as in Mark, instead of Matthew’s ἐπί followed by the accusative) to describe Jesus walking “on the lake.”

NET Notes: Joh 6:22

¹ tn Or “sea.” See the note on “lake” in v. 16.

² tc Most witnesses have after “one” the phrase “which his disciples had entered” (ἐκεῖνο εἰς ὃ ἐνέβησαν οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ, ekeino ei" }o enebhsan Joi maqhtai autou) although there are several permutations of this clause ([א* D] Θ [˹³ 33] Ï [sa]). The witnesses that lack this expression are, however, significant and diffused (Ì⁷⁵ א² A B L N W Ψ 1 565 579 1241 al lat). The clarifying nature of the longer reading, the multiple variants from it, and the weighty testimony for the shorter reading all argue against the authenticity of the longer text in any of its variations.

tn Grk “one”; the referent (a small boat) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

³ tn Grk “entered.”

NET Notes: Joh 6:23

¹ map For location see Map1 E2; Map2 C2; Map3 C3; Map4 D1; Map5 G4.

² tn Or “boats from Tiberias landed”; Grk “came.”

³ tc D 091 a e sy^s,c lack the phrase “after the Lord had given thanks” (εὐχαριστήσαντος τοῦ κυρίου, eucaristhsanto" tou kuriou), while almost all the rest of the witnesses ({Ì⁷⁵ א A B L W Θ Ψ 0141 [˹] ˹³ 33 Ï as well as several versions and fathers}) have the words (though {l672 l950 sy^p pbo} read ᾿Ιησοῦ [Ihsou, “Jesus”] instead of κυρίου). Although the shorter reading has minimal support, it is significant that this Gospel speaks of Jesus as Lord in the evangelist’s narrative descriptions only in 11:2; 20:18, 20; 21:12; and possibly 4:1 (but see tc note on “Jesus” there). There is thus but one undisputed preresurrection text in which the narrator calls Jesus “Lord.” This fact can be utilized on behalf of either reading: The participial phrase could be seen as a scribal addition harking back to 6:11 but which does not fit Johannine style, or it could be viewed as truly authentic and in line with what John indisputably does elsewhere even if rarely. On balance, in light of the overwhelming support for these words it is probably best to retain them in the text.

NET Notes: Joh 6:24

¹ tn Or “embarked in the boats.”

² map For location see Map1 D2; Map2 C3; Map3 B2.

NET Notes: Joh 6:25

¹ tn Or “sea.” See the note on “lake” in v. 16.

² sn John 6:25-31. The previous miracle of the multiplication of the bread had taken place near the town of Tiberias (cf. John 6:23). Jesus’ disciples set sail for Capernaum (6:17) and were joined by the Lord in the middle of the sea. The next day boats from Tiberias picked up a few of those who had seen the multiplication (certainly not the whole 5,000) and brought them to Capernaum. It was to this group that Jesus spoke in 6:26-27. But there were also people from Capernaum who had gathered to see Jesus, who had not witnessed the multiplication, and it was this group that asked Jesus for a miraculous sign like the manna (6:30-31). This would have seemed superfluous if it were the same crowd that had already seen the multiplication of the bread. But some from Capernaum had heard about it and wanted to see a similar miracle repeated.

NET Notes: Joh 6:26

¹ tn Grk “answered and said to them.”

² tn Grk “Truly, truly, I say to you.”

³ tn Grk “because you ate of the loaves of bread and were filled.”

NET Notes: Joh 6:27

¹ tn Or “perishes” (this might refer to spoiling, but is more focused on the temporary nature of this kind of food).

sn Do not work for the food that disappears. Note the wordplay on “work” here. This does not imply “working” for salvation, since the “work” is later explained (in John 6:29) as “to believe in the one whom he (the Father) sent.”

² tn The referent (the food) has been specified for clarity by repeating the word “food” from the previous clause.

³ tn Grk “on this one.”

NET Notes: Joh 6:28

¹ tn Grk “the works.”

² tn Grk “What must we do to work the works of God?”

NET Notes: Joh 6:29

¹ tn Grk “answered and said to them.”

² tn Grk “the work.”

³ tn Grk “This is the work of God.”

⁴ tn Grk “that one” (i.e., God).

NET Notes: Joh 6:31

¹ tn Or “forefathers”; Grk “fathers.”

² sn A quotation from Ps 78:24 (referring to the events of Exod 16:4-36).

NET Notes: Joh 6:32

¹ tn Grk “Truly, truly, I say to you.”

NET Notes: Joh 6:33

¹ tn Or “he who.”

NET Notes: Joh 6:34

¹ tn Or “Lord.” The Greek κύριος (kurios) means both “Sir” and “Lord.” In this passage it is not at all clear at this point that the crowd is acknowledging Jesus as Lord. More likely this is simply a form of polite address (“sir”).

Geneva Bible: Joh 6:1

After these things Jesus went ^{( a )} over the sea of Galilee, which is [the sea] of Tiberias.

^{( a )} Not that he cut across the lake of Tiberias, but by sailing across the large creeks he made his journey shorter: therefore he is said to have gone over the sea, when in reality he passed over from one side of the creek to the other.

Geneva Bible: Joh 6:5

^{( 1 )} When Jesus then lifted up [his] eyes, and saw a great company come unto him, he saith unto Philip, Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat?

^{( 1 )} They that follow Christ sometimes hunger, but they are never without help.

Geneva Bible: Joh 6:15

^{( 2 )} When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone.

^{( 2 )} Not only is Christ not delighted by a preposterous worship, but he is greatly offended by it.

Geneva Bible: Joh 6:16

^{( 3 )} And when even was [now] come, his disciples went down unto the sea,

^{( 3 )} The godly are often in peril and danger, but Christ comes to them in time, even in the midst of the tempests, and brings them to the haven.

Geneva Bible: Joh 6:17

And entered into a ship, and went over the sea ^{( b )} toward Capernaum. And it was now dark, and Jesus was not come to them.

^{( b )} In (Mar 6:45) they are told to go ahead to Bethsaida, for Bethsaida was along the way to Capernaum.

Geneva Bible: Joh 6:21

Then they ^{( c )} willingly received him into the ship: and immediately the ship was at the land whither they went.

^{( c )} They were afraid at first, but when they recognized his voice they became new men and took him willingly into the ship, the very one whom they had shunned and fled from before.

Geneva Bible: Joh 6:26

^{( 4 )} Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled.

^{( 4 )} They that seek the kingdom of heaven lack nothing: nevertheless, the gospel is not the food of the stomach but rather of the mind.

Geneva Bible: Joh 6:27

^{( d )} Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father ^{( e )} sealed.

^{( d )} Bestow your labour and pain.

^{( e )} That is, whom God the Father had distinguished from all other men by planting his own power in him, as though he had sealed him with his seal, so that he might be a vivid example and representation of him: and furthermore he installed him to this office, to reconcile us men to God, and bring us to everlasting life, which office belongs only to Christ.

Geneva Bible: Joh 6:28

Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the ^{( f )} works of God?

^{( f )} Which please God: for they think that everlasting life depends upon the condition of fulfilling the law: therefore Christ calls them back to faith.

Geneva Bible: Joh 6:29

^{( 5 )} Jesus answered and said unto them, ^{( g )} This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.

^{( 5 )} Men torment themselves in vain when they try to please God without faith.

^{( g )} That is, this is the work that God requires, that you believe in me, and therefore he calls them back to faith.

Geneva Bible: Joh 6:30

^{( 6 )} They said therefore unto him, What sign shewest thou then, that we may see, and believe thee? what dost thou work?

^{( 6 )} The spiritual virtue of Christ is condemned by those that desire earthly miracles.

Geneva Bible: Joh 6:32

^{( 7 )} Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not ^{( h )} that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.

^{( 7 )} Christ, who is the true and only author and giver of eternal life, was represented unto those in the Old Testament by the manna.

^{( h )} He denies that manna was the true heavenly bread, and says that he himself is the true bread, because he feeds the true and everlasting life. And as for (1Co 10:1-5), where Paul calls manna spiritual food, it does not contradict what is said here, for Paul joins the thing signified with the sign: but in this whole disputation, Christ deals with the Jews after their own opinion and conceit of the matter, who thought of the manna only in terms of physical food.

Commentary -- Verse Range Notes

TSK Synopsis: Joh 6:1-71

1 Christ feeds five thousand men with five loaves and two fishes.

15 Thereupon the people would have made him king;

16 but withdrawing himself, he walks on the sea to his disciples;

26 reproves the people flocking after him, and all the fleshly hearers of his word;

32 declares himself to be the bread of life to believers.

66 Many disciples depart from him.

68 Peter confesses him.

70 Judas is a devil.

Combined Bible: Joh 6:1-13

of the Gospel of John   

CHAPTER 20   

Christ feeding the multitude   

John 6:1-13   

Of all the miracles performed by the Lord Jesus the feeding of the five thousand is the only one recorded by each of the four Evangelists. This at once intimates that there must be something about it of unusual importance, and therefore it calls for our most diligent study. The Holy Spirit has— if we may reverently employ such language— described this miracle in the most matter-of-fact terms. No effort is made to emphasize the marvel of it. There is an entire absence of such language as an uninspired pen would naturally have employed to heighten the effect on the reader. And yet, notwithstanding the simplicity and exceeding brevity of the narrative, it is at once evident that this incident of the feeding of the hungry multitude was a signal example of Christ’ s almighty power. As Bishop Ryle has noted, of all the wonderful works which our Savior did none was quite so public as this, and none other was performed before so many witnesses. Our Lord is here seen supplying the bodily needs of a great crowd by means of five loaves and two small fishes. Food was called into existence which did not exist before. To borrow another thought from Bishop Ryle: In healing the sick and in raising the dead, something was amended or restored which already existed; but here was an absolute creation. Only one other miracle in any wise resembles it— His first, when He made wine out of the water. These two miracles belong to a class by themselves, and it is surely significant, yea most suggestive, that the one reminds us of His precious blood, while the other points to His holy body, broken for us. And here is, we believe, the chief reason why this miracle is mentioned by all of the four Evangelists: it shadowed forth the gift of Christ Himself. His other miracles exhibited His power and illustrated His work, but this one in a peculiar way sets forth the person of Christ, the Bread of Life.  

Why, then, was this particular miracle singled out for special prominence? Above, three answers have been suggested, which may be summarized thus: First, because there was an evidential value to this miracle which excelled that of all others. Some of our Lord’ s miracles were wrought in private, or in the presence of only a small company; others were of a nature that made it difficult, in some cases impossible, for sceptics to examine them. But here was a miracle, performed in the open, before a crowd of witnesses which were to be numbered by the thousand. Second, because of the intrinsic nature of the miracle. It was a creation of food: the calling into existence of what before had no existence. Third, because of the typical import of the miracle. It spoke directly of the person of Christ. To these may be added a fourth answer: The fact that this miracle of the feeding of the hungry multitude is recorded by all the Evangelists intimates that it has a universal application. Matthew’ s mention of it suggests to us that it forshadows Christ, in a coming day, feeding Israel’ s poor— cf. Psalm 132:15. Mark’ s mention of it teaches us what is the chief duty of God’ s servants— to break the Bread of Life to the starving. Luke’ s mention of it announces the sufficiency of Christ to meet the needs of all men. John’ s mention of it tells us that Christ is the Food of God’ s people.  

Before we consider the miracle itself we must note its setting— the manner in which it is here introduced to us. And ere doing this we will follow our usual custom and present an Analysis of the passage which is to be before us:—   

1. Christ followed into Galilee by a great multitude, verses 1, 2.  

2. Christ retires to a mountain with His disciples, verse 3.  

3. Time: just before the Passover, verse 4.  

4. The testing of Philip, verses 5-7.  

5. The unbelief of Andrew, verses 8, 9.  

6. The feeding of the multitude, verses 10, 11.  

7. The gathering up of the fragments, verses 12, 13.  

"After these things Jesus went over the sea of Galilee, which is the sea of Tiberias" (John 6:1).  

"After these things": the reference is to what is recorded in the previous chapter— the healing of the impotent man, the persecution by the Jews because this had been done on the Sabbath day, their determination to kill Him because He had made Himself equal with God, the lengthy reply made by our Lord. After these things, the Lord left Jerusalem and Judea and "went over the sea of Galilee." It is similar to what was before us in John 4:1-3. The Son of God would not remain and cast precious pearls before swine. He departed from those who despised and rejected Him. Very solemn is this, and a warning to every unbeliever who may read these lines.  

"And a great multitude followed him, because they saw his miracles which he did on them that were diseased" (John 6:2). How completely these people failed in their discernment and appreciation of the person of Christ! They saw in Him only a wonderful Magician who could work miracles, a clever Physician that could heal the sick. They failed to perceive that He was the Savior of sinners and the Messiah of Israel. They were blind to His Divine glory. And is it any otherwise with the great multitude today? Alas, few of them see in Christ anything more than a wonderful Teacher and a beautiful Example.  

"And a great multitude followed him, because they saw his miracles which he did on them that were diseased." How sadly true to life. It is still idle curiosity and the love of excitement which commonly gathers crowds together. And how what we read of here is being repeated before our eyes in many quarters today. When some professional evangelist is advertised as a ‘ Faith-healer’ what crowds of sick folk will flock to the meetings! How anxious they are for physical relief, and yet, what little real concern they seem to have for their soul’ s healing!  

"And Jesus went up into a mountain, and there he sat with his disciples" (John 6:3). This may be regarded as the sequel to what we read of in verse 2, or it may be connected with verse 1, and then verse 2 would be considered as a parenthesis. Probably both are equally permissible. If we take verse 2 as giving the cause why our Lord retired to the mountain with His disciples, the thought would be that of Christ withdrawing from the unbelieving world. The miracles drew many after Him, but only a few to Him. He knew why this great multitude "followed him," and it is solemn to see Him withdrawing to the mountain with His disciples. He will not company with the unbelieving world: His place is among His own. If verse 3 be read right on after verse 1, then we view the Savior departing from Judea, weary (cf. Mark 6:31) with the unbelief and self-sufficiency of those in Jerusalem. "He went up into a mountain into another atmosphere, setting forth the elevation with the Father to which He retired for refreshment of spirit" (Malachi Taylor). Compare John 6:15 and John 7:53 to John 8:2 for other examples in John’ s Gospel.  

"And the Passover, a feast of the Jews, was nigh" (John 6:4). This seems introduced here in order to point again to the empty condition to Judaism at this time. The Passover was nigh, but the Lamb of God who was in their midst was not wanted by the formal religionists. Yea, it was because they were determined to "kill him" (John 5:18), that He had withdrawn into Galilee. Well, then, may the Holy Spirit remind us once more that the Passover had degenerated into "a feast of the Jews." How significant is this as an introductory word to what follows! The Passover looks back to the night when the children of Israel feasted on the lamb; but here we see their descendants hungering! Their physical state was the outward sign of their emptiness of soul. Later, we shall see how this verse supplies us with one of the keys to the dispensational significance of our passage.  

"When Jesus then lifted up his eyes, and saw a great company come unto him, he saith unto Philip, Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat?" (John 6:5). While the multitude did not know Christ, His heart went out in tender pity to them. Even though an unworthy motive had drawn this crowd after Christ, He was not indifferent to their need. Matthew, in his account, tells us "And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them" (Matthew 14:14). So also Mark (Mark 6:34). The absence of this sentence here in John is one of the innumerable evidences of the Divine authorship of Scripture. Not only is every word inspired, but every word is in its suited place. The "compassion" of Christ, though noted frequently by the other Evangelists, is never referred to by John, who dwells upon the dignity and glory of His Divine person. Compassion is more than pity. Compassion signifies to suffer with, along side of, another. Thus the mention of Christ’ s compassion by Matthew tells us how near the Messiah had come to His people; while the reference to it in Mark shows how intimately the Servant of Jehovah entered into the sufferings of those to whom He ministered. The absence of this word in John, indicates His elevation above men. Thus we see how everything is most suitably and beautifully placed. And how much we lose by our ungodly haste and carelessness as we fail to mark and appreciate these lovely little touches of the Divine Artist! May Divine grace constrain both writer and reader to handle the Holy Book more reverently, and take more pains to acquaint ourselves with its exhaustless riches. It would be a delight to tarry here, and notice other little details mentioned by the different evangelists which are omitted from John’ s account— such as the fact that Matthew tells us (before the miracle was performed) that "it was evening," and that the disciples bade their Master "send the multitude away"— but perhaps more will be accomplished if we leave the reader to search them out for himself.  

"When Jesus then lifted up his eyes, and saw a great multitude come unto him, he saith unto Philip, Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat? And this he said to prove him: for he himself knew what he would do" (John 6:5, 6). In reading the Scriptures we fail to derive from them the blessings most needed unless we apply them to our own hearts and lives. Unlike all others, the Bible is a living book: It is far more than a history of the past. Stript of their local and incidental details, the sacred narratives depict characters living and incidents transpiring today. God changes not, nor do the motives and principles of His actions. Human nature also is the same in this twentieth century as it was in the first. The world is the same, the Devil is the same, the trials of faith are the same. Let, then, each Christian reader view Philip here as representing himself. Philip was confronted with a trying situation. It was the Lord who caused him to be so circumstanced. The Lord’ s design in this was to "prove" or test him. Let us now apply this to ourselves.  

What happened to Philip is, in principle and essence, happening daily in our lives. A trying, if not a difficult, situation confronts us; and we meet with them constantly. They come not by accident or by chance; instead, they are each arranged by the hand of the Lord. They are God’ s testings of our faith. They are sent to "prove" us. Let us be very simple and practical. A bill comes unexpectedly; how are we to meet it? The morning’ s mail brings us tidings which plunge us into an unlooked-for perplexity; how are we to get out of it? A cog slips in the household’ s machinery, which threatens to wreck the daily routine; what shall we do? An unanticipated demand is suddenly made upon us; how shall we meet it? Now, dear friends, how do such experiences find us? Do we, like Philip and Andrew did, look at our resources? Do we rack our minds to find some solution? or do our first thoughts turn to the Lord Jesus, who has so often helped us in the past? Here, right here, is the test of our faith.  

O, dear reader, have we learned to spread each difficulty, as it comes along, before God? Have we formed the habit of instinctively turning to Him? What is your feebleness in comparison with His power! What is your emptiness in comparison with His ocean fulness? Nothing! Then look daily to Him in simple faith, resting on His sure promise, "My God shall supply all your need" (Phil. 4:19). Ah! you may answer, It is easy to offer such advice, but it is far from easy to act on it. True. Yea, of yourself it is impossible. Your need, and my need, is to ask for faith, to p/cad for grace, to cry unto God for such a sense of helplessness that we shall lean on Christ, and on Him alone. Thus, ask and wait, and you shall find Him as good as His word. "Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God" (Ps. 43:5).  

The birds without barn,  

Or storehouse are fed;  

From them let us learn  

To trust for our bread.  

His saints what is fitting  

Shall ne’ er be denied,  

So long as, ‘ tis written  

"The Lord will provide."  

When Satan appears,  

To stop up our path,  

And fills us with fears,  

We triumph by faith:  

He cannot take from us,  

Though oft he has tried,  

The heart-cheering promise,  

"The Lord will provide."  

"Philip answered him, Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little" (John 6:7). Let us see in Philip, once more, a portrait of ourselves. First, what does this answer of Philip reveal? It shows he was occupied with circumstances. He was looking on the things which are seen— the size of the multitude— and such a look is always a barrier in the way of faith. He made a rapid calculation of how much money it would require to provide even a frugal meal for such a crowd; but he calculated without Christ! His answer was the language of unbelief— "Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little." Fancy talking of "a little’ in the presence of Infinite Power and Infinite Grace! His unbelief was also betrayed by the very amount he specified— two hundred pennyworth.  

Nowhere in Scripture are numbers used haphazardly. Two hundred is a multiple of twenty, and in Scripture twenty signifies a vain expectancy, a coming short of God’ s appointed time or deliverance. For example, in Genesis 31:41 we learn how that Jacob waited twenty years to gain possession of his wives and property; but it was not until the twenty-first that God’ s appointed deliverance came. From Judges 4:3 we learn how that Israel waited twenty years for emancipation from Jabin’ s oppression; but it was not until the twenty-first that God’ s appointed deliverance came. So in 1 Samuel 7:2 we learn how that the ark abode in Kirjath-Jearim for twenty years, but it was in the twenty-first that God delivered it. As, then, twenty speaks of insufficiency, a coming short of God’ s appointed deliverance, so two hundred conveys the same idea in an intensified form. Two hundred is always found in Scripture in an evil connection. Let the reader consult (be sure to look them up) Joshua 7:21; Judges 17:4; 1 Samuel 30:10; 2 Samuel 14:26; Revelation 9:16. So the number here in John 6:7 suitably expressed Philip’ s unbelief.  

How surprising was this failure in the faith of Philip. One would have supposed that after all the disciples had witnessed of the Lord’ s wonder-working power they had learned by this time that all fulness dwelt in Him. We should have supposed their faith was strong and their hearts calm and confident. Ah— should we? Would not our own God-dishonoring unbelief check such expectations? Have we not discovered how weak our faith is! How obtuse our understanding! How earthly our minds and hearts! In vain does the Lord look within us sometimes for even a ray of that faith which glorifies Him. Instead of counting on the Lord, we, like Philip, are occupied with nature’ s resources. Beware, then, of condemning the unbelief of Philip, lest you be found condemning yourself too.  

How often has the writer thought, after some gracious manifestation of the Lord’ s hand on his behalf, that he could trust Him for the future; that the remembrance of His past goodness and mercy would keep him calm and confident when the next cloud should drapen his landscape. Alas! When it came how sadly he failed. Little did we know our treacherous heart. And little do we know it even now. O dear reader, each of us need the upholding hand of the Lord every step of our journey through this world that lieth in the Wicked one; and, should that hand be for a single moment withdrawn, we should sink like lead in the mighty waters. Ah! nothing but grace rescued us; nothing but grace can sustain us; nothing but grace can carry us safely through. Nothing, nothing but the distinguishing and almighty grace of a sovereign God!  

"One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’ s brother, saith unto him, There is a lad here, which hath five barley loaves, and two small fishes: but what are they among so many?" (John 6:8, 9). Unbelief is infectious. Like Philip before him, Andrew, too, seemed blind to the glory of Christ. "What are they among so many?" was the utterance of the same old evil heart of unbelief which long ago had asked, "Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?" (Ps. 78:10). And how the helplessness of unbelief comes out here! "That every one may take a little," said Philip; "What are these among so many?" asked Andrew. What mattered the "many" when the Son of God was there! Like Philip, Andrew calculated without Christ, and, therefore he saw only a hopeless situation. How often we look at God through our difficulties; or, rather, we try to, for the difficulties hide Him. Keep the eye on Him, and the difficulties will not be seen. But alas! what self-centered, skeptical, sinful creatures we are at best! God may lavish upon us the riches of His grace— He may have opened for us many a dry path through the waters of difficult circumstances— He may have delivered us with His outstretched arm in six troubles, yet, when the seventh comes along, instead of resting on Job 5:19, we are distrustful, full of doubts and fears, just as if we had never known Him. Such frail and depraved creatures are we that the faith we have this hour may yield to the most dishonoring distrust in the next. This instance of the disciples’ unbelief is recorded for our "learning"— for our humbling and watchfulness. The same unbelief was evidenced by Israel in the wilderness, for the human heart is the same in all ages. All of God’ s wonders in Egypt and at the Red Sea were as nothing, when the trials of the wilderness came upon them. Their testings in "the wilderness of sin" (Ex. 16:1) only brought out of their hearts just what this testing brought out of Philip’ s and Andrew’ s, and just what similar testing brings out of ours— blindness and unbelief. The human heart, when proved, can yield nothing else, for nothing else is there. O with what fervency should we daily pray to our Father, "Lead us not into temptation [trial]"!  

"And Jesus said, Make the men sit down" (John 6:10). How thankful we should be that God’ s blessings are dispensed according to the riches of His grace, and not according to the poverty of our faith. What would have happened to that multitude if Christ had acted according to the faith of His disciples? Why, the multitude would have gone away unfed! Ah! dear reader, God’ s blessings do come, despite all our undeserving. Christ never fails, though there is nothing but failure in us. His arm is never withdrawn for a moment, nor is His love chilled by our skepticism and ingratitude. To hear or read of this may encourage one who is merely a professing Christian to continue in his careless and God-dishonoring course; but far otherwise will it be with a real child of God. The realization of the Lord’ s unchanging goodness, His unfailing mercies— despite our backslidings— will melt him to tears in godly sorrow.  

"And Jesus said, Make the men sit down." How patient was the Lord with His disciples. There was no harsh rebuke for either Philip or Andrew. The Lord knoweth our frame and remembers that we are dust. "Make the men sit down" was a further test; this time of their obedience. And a searching test it was. What was the use of making a hungry multitude sit down when there was nothing to feed them with? Ah! but God had spoken; Christ had given the command, and that was enough. When He commands it is for us to obey, not to reason and argue. Why must not Adam and Eve eat of the tree of knowledge? Simply because God had forbidden them to. Why should Noah, in the absence of any sign of an approaching flood, go to all the trouble of building the ark? Simply because God had commanded him to. So, today. Why should the Christian be baptized? Why should the women keep silence in the churches? Simply because God has commanded these things— Acts 10:48; 1 Corinthians 14:34.  

It is indeed blessed to note the response of the disciples to this command of their Master. Their faith had failed, but their obedience did not. Where both fail, there is grave reason to doubt if there is spiritual life dwelling in such a soul. Their obedience evidenced the genuineness of their Christianity. "If faith is weak, obedience is the best way in which it may be strengthened. "Then shall ye know,’ says the prophet, ‘ if ye follow on to know the Lord.’ If you have not much light, walk up to the standard of what you have, and you are sure to have more. This will prove that you are a genuine servant of God. Well, this is what the disciples seemed to do here. The light of their faith was low, but they heard the word of Jesus, ‘ Make the men sit down.’ They can act if they cannot see. They can obey His word if they cannot see that all fulness dwells in Him to meet every difficulty. So they obey His command. The men sit down, and Jesus begins to dispense His blessings. And thus by their act of obedience, their faith becomes enlightened, and every want is supplied. This is always the result of walking up to the light we have got. ‘ To him that hath shall more be given.’ That light may be feeble, it may be only a single ray irradiating the darkness of the mind; nevertheless, it is what God has given you. Despise it not. Hide it not. Walk up to it, and more shall be added.  

"And we may notice here how all blessings come down to us through the channel of obedience. The supply for every want had been determined beforehand in the Savior’ s mind, for ‘ he himself knew what he would do’ (verse 6). Yet though this were so, it was to flow through this medium— so intimately and inseparably is the carrying out of all God’ s purposes of grace toward us connected with obedience to His commands. This is the prominent feature in all God’ s people. ‘ Obedient children’ is the term by which they are distinguished from those who are of the world. ‘ He became obedient’ was the distinguishing feature in the character of the divine Master, and it is the mark that the Holy Spirit sets upon all His servants. Obedience and blessing are inseparably connected in God’ s Word. ‘ If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God.’ ‘ He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me; and he that loveth me shall be loved by my Father, and I will love him and will manifest myself to him’ " (Dr. F. Whitfield)  

"And Jesus said, Make the men to sit down." But why "sit down"? Two answers may be returned. First, because God is a God of order. Any one who has studied the works of God knows that. So, too, with His Word. When His people left Egypt, they did not come forth like a disorderly mob; but in ranks of fives— see Exodus 13:18 margin. It was the same when they crossed the Jordan and entered Canaan— see Joshua 1:14 margin. It was so here. Mark says, "They sat down in ranks, by hundreds, and by fifties" (John 6:40). It is so still: "Let all things be done decently and in order" (1 Cor. 14:40). Whenever there is confusion in a religious meeting— two or more praying at the same time, etc.— it is a sure sign that the Holy Spirit is not in control of it. "God is not the author of confusion" (1 Cor. 14:33).  

"Make the men sit down." Why? Secondly, may we not also see in this word the illustration of an important principle pertaining to the spiritual life, namely, that we must sit down if we would be fed— true alike for sinner and saint. The activities of the flesh must come to an end if the Bread of life is to be received by us. How much all of us need to ask God to teach us to be quiet and sit still. Turn to and ponder Psalm 107:30; Isaiah 30:15; 1 Thessalonians 4:11; 1 Peter 3:4. In this crazy age, when almost everybody is rushing hither and thither, when the standard of excellency is not how well a thing is done, but how quickly, when the Lord’ s people are thoroughly infected by the same spirit of haste, this is indeed a timely word. And let not the reader imagine that he has power of himself to comply. We have to be "made" to "sit down"— frequently by sickness. Note the same word in Psalm 23:2— "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures."  

"Now there was much grass in the place" (John 6:10). How gracious of the Holy Spirit to record this. Nothing, however trifling or insignificant, is unknown to God or beneath His notice. The "much cattle" in Nineveh (Jon. 4:11) had not been forgotten by Him. And how minutely has the Word of God recorded the house, the situation of it, and the name and occupation of one of the Lord’ s disciples (Acts 10:5, 6)! Everything is before Him in the registry of heaven. God’ s eye is upon every circumstance connected with our life. There is nothing too little for Him if it concerns His beloved child. God ordered nature to provide cushions for this hungry multitude to sit upon! Mark adds that the grass was "green" (John 6:39), which reminds us that we must rest in the "green pastures" of His Word if our souls are to be fed.  

"So the men sat down, in number about five thousand" (John 6:10). This is another beautiful line in the picture (cf. the five loaves in verse 9), for five is ever the number which speaks of grace, that is why it was the dominant numeral in the Tabernacle where God manifested His grace in the midst of Israel. Five is four (the number of the creature) plus one— God. It is God adding His blessing and grace to the works of His hand.  

"And Jesus took the loaves" (John 6:11). He did not scorn the loaves because they were few in number, nor the fish either because they were "small." How this tells us that God is pleased to use small and weak things! He used the tear of a babe to move the heart of Pharaoh’ s daughter. He used the shepherd-rod of Moses to work mighty miracles in Egypt. He used David’ s sling and stone to overthrow the Philistine giant. He used a "little maid" to bring the "mighty" Naaman to Elisha. He used a widow with a handful of meal to sustain His prophet. He used a "little child" to teach His disciples a much needed lesson in humility. So here, He used the five loaves and two small fishes to feed this great multitude. And, dear reader, perhaps He is ready to use you— weak, insignificant, and ignorant though you be— and make you "mighty through God, to the pulling down of strongholds" (2 Cor. 10:4). But mark it carefully, it was only as these loaves and fishes were placed in the hands of Christ that they were made efficient and sufficient!  

"And Jesus took the loaves." He did not despise them and work independently of them. He did not rain manna from heaven, but used the means which were to hand. And surely this is another lesson that many of His people need to take to heart today. It is true that God is not limited to means, but frequently He employs them. When healing the bitter waters of Marah God used a tree (Ex. 15:23-25). In healing Hezekiah of his boil He employed a lump of figs (2 Kings 20:4-7). Timothy was exhorted to use a "little wine for his stomach’ s sake and his often infirmities" (1 Tim. 5:23). In view of such scriptures let us, then, beware of going to the fanatical lengths of some who scorn all use of drugs and herbs when sick.  

"And when he had given thanks" (John 6:11). In all things Christ has left us a perfect example. He here teaches us to acknowledge God as the Giver of every good gift, and to own Him as the One who provides for the wants of all His creatures. This is the least that we can do. To fail at this point is the basest ingratitude.  

"He distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down" (John 6:11). Here we are taught, again, the same lesson as the first miracle supplied, namely, that God is pleased to use human instruments in accomplishing the counsels of His grace, and thus give us the inestimable honor and privilege of being "laborers together with God" (1 Cor. 3:9). Christ fed the hungry multitude through His disciples. It was their work as truly as it was His. His was the increase, but theirs was the distribution. God acts according to the same principle today. Between the unsearchable riches of Christ and the hungry multitudes there is room for consecrated service and ministry. Nor should this be regarded as exclusively the work of pastors and evangelists. It is the happy duty of every child of God to pass on to others that which the Lord in His grace has first given to them. Yea, this is one of the conditions of receiving more for ourselves. This is one of the things that Paul reminded the Hebrews of. He declared he had many things to say unto them, and they were hard to be interpreted because they had become dull (slothful is the meaning of the word) of hearing, and unskilled in using the Word. Consequently, instead of teaching others— as they ought— they needed to be taught again themselves (Heb. 5:11-13). The same truth comes out in that enigmatical utterance of our Lord recorded in Luke 8:18: "for whosoever hath, to him shall be given; and whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he seemeth to have." The one who "hath" is the believer who makes good use of what he has received, and in consequence more is given him; the one who "seemeth to have" is the man who hides his light under a bushel, who makes not good use of what he received, and from him this is "taken away." Be warned then, dear reader. If we do not use to God’ s glory what He has given us, He may withhold further blessings from us, and take away that which we fail to make good use of.  

"He distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down." One can well imagine the mingled feelings of doubt and skepticism as the twelve left the Savior’ s side for the hungry multitude, with the little store in their baskets. How doubt must have given place to amazement, and awe to adoration, as they distributed, returned to their Master for a fresh supply, and continued distributing, giving a portion of bread and fish to each till all were satisfied, and more remaining at the close than at the beginning! Let us remember that Jesus Christ is "the same yesterday and today and for ever," and that all fulness dwells in Him. By comparing Mark 6:41 it will be found that there the Holy Spirit has described the modus operandi of the miracle: "He looked up to heaven, and blessed, and brake the loaves, and gave to his disciples." The word "brake" is in the aorist tense, intimating an instantaneous act; whereas "gave" is in the imperfect tense, denoting the continuous action of giving. "This shows that the miraculous power was in the hands of Christ, between the breaking and the giving" (Companion Bible).  

He distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down." What a lesson is there here for the Christian servant. The apostles first received the bread from the hands of their Master, and then "distributed" to the multitude. It was not their hands which made the loaves increase, but His! He provided the abundant supply, and their business was to humbly receive and faithfully distribute. In like manner, it is not the business of the preacher to make men value or receive the Bread of life. He can not make it soul-saving to any one. This is not his work; for this he is not responsible. It is God who giveth the "increase"! Nor is it the work of the preacher to create something new and novel. His duty is to seek "bread" at the hands of his Lord, and then set it before the people. What they do with the Bread is their responsibility! But, remember, that we cannot give out to others, except we have first received ourselves. It is only the full vessel that overflows!  

"And likewise of the fishes as much as they would" (John 6:11). "Precious, precious words! The supply stopped only with the demand. So, when Abraham went up to intercede with God on behalf of the righteous in Sodom, the Lord never ceased granting till Abraham had ceased asking. Thus also in the case of Elisha’ s oil; so long as there were empty vessels to be found in the land, it ceased not its abundant supply (2 Kings 4:6). Likewise also here, so long as there was a single one to supply, that supply came forth from the treasuries of the Lord Jesus. The stream flowed on in rich abundance till all were filled. This is grace. This is what Jesus does to all His people. He comes to the poor bankrupt believer, and, placing in His hand a draft on the resources of heaven, says to him, ‘ Write on it what thou wilt.’ Such is our precious Lord still. If we are straitened, it is not in Him, but in ourselves. If we are poor and weak, or tried and tempted, it is not that we cannot help ourselves— it is because we do not (‘ All things are yours’ , in Christ, 1 Corinthians 3:22 A.W.P.). We have so little faith in things unseen and eternal. We draw so little on the resources of Christ. We come not to Him with our spiritual wants— our empty vessels— and draw from the ocean fulness of His grace.  

"‘ As much as they would’ . Precious, precious words. Remember them, doubting, hesitating one, in all thy petitions for faith at the throne of grace. ‘ As much as they would.’ Remember them, tried and tempted one, in all thy pleadings for strength to support thee on thy wilderness way. ‘ As much as they would’ . Remember them, bereaved and desolate one, whose eves are red with weeping, bending over the green sod, beneath which all thy earthly hopes are lying, and with a rent in thine heart that shall never be healed till the morning of resurrection— remember these words as thy wounded and desolate spirit breaks forth in mournful accents on a Savior’ s ear for help and strength. And, guilty one, bowed down with a lifetimes load of sin, traversing the crooked bypaths of the broad road to ruin; a wilful wanderer from thy God; as the arrow of conviction penetrates thy soul, and as thine agonizing voice is heard crying for mercy— remember these precious, precious words, ‘ as much as they would’ . ‘ Him that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out

Combined Bible: Joh 6:14-27

of the Gospel of John   

CHAPTER 21   

Christ walking on the sea   

John 6:14-27   

We begin with our customary Analysis of the passage which is to be before us:—   

1. The Response of the people to the miracle of the loaves: verses 14, 15.  

2. The Retirement of Christ to the mount: verse 15.  

3. The Disciples in the storm: verses 16-19.  

4. The Coming of Christ to them: verses 20, 21.  

5. The people follow Christ to Capernaum: verses 22-25.  

6. Christ exposes their motive: verse 26.  

7. Christ presses their spiritual need upon them: verse 27.  

The opening verses of the passage before us contain the sequel to what is described in the first thirteen verses of John 6. There we read of the Lord ministering, in wondrous grace, to a great multitude of hungry people. They had no real appreciation of His blessed person, but had been attracted by idle curiosity and the love of the sensational— "because they saw his miracles which he did on them that were diseased" (verse 2). Nevertheless, the Son of God, in tenderest pity, had supplied their need by means of the loaves and the fishes. What effects, then, did this have upon them?  

Christ had manifested His Divine power. There was no gainsaying that. The crowd were impressed, for we are told, "Then those men, when they had seen the miracle which Jesus did, said, This is of a truth that prophet which should come into the world" (John 6:14). The title "that prophet" has already been before us in John 1:21. The reference is to Deuteronomy 18:15, where we read that, through Moses God declared, "The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken." These men, then, seemed ready to receive the Lord as their Messiah. And yet how little they realized and recognized what was due Him as "that prophet"— the Son of God incarnate. Instead of falling down before Him as undone sinners, crying for mercy; instead of prostrating themselves at His feet, in reverent worship; instead of owning Him as the Blessed One, worthy of their hearts’ adoration, they would "take him by force to make him a king" (John 6:15); and this, no doubt, for their own ends, thinking that He would lead them in a successful revolt against the hated Romans. How empty, then, were their words! How little were their consciences searched or their hearts exercised! How blind they still were to the Light! Had their hearts been opened, the light had shone in, revealing their wretchedness; and then, they would have taken their place as lost and needy sinners. It is the same today.  

Many there are who regard our Lord as a Prophet (a wonderful Teacher), who have never seen their need of Him as a Refuge from the wrath to come— a doom they so thoroughly deserve. Let us not be misled, then, by this seeming honoring of Christ by those who eulogize His precepts, but who despise His Cross. It is no more a proof that they are saved who, today, own Christ as a greater than Buddha or Mohammed, than this declaration by these men of old— "This is of a truth that prophet which should come into the world," evidenced that they had "passed from death unto life."  

"When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force" (John 6:15). This is very solemn. Christ was not deceived by their fair speech. Their words sounded very commendable and laudatory, no doubt, but the Christ of God was, and is, the Reader of hearts. He knew what lay behind their words. He discerned the spirit that prompted them. "Jesus therefore perceived" is parallel with John 2:24, 25: "But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all, and needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man." "Jesus therefore perceived" is a word that brings before us His Deity. The remainder of verse 15 is profoundly significant and suggestive.  

"When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone" (John 6:15). These Jews had owned Him (with their lips) as Prophet, and they were ready to crown Him as their King, but there is another office that comes in between these. Christ could not be their King until He had first officiated as Priest, offering Himself as a Sacrifice for sin! Hence the doctrinal significance of "He departed again into a mountain himself alone," for in His priestly work He is unattended— cf. Leviticus 16:17!  

But there was also a moral and dispensational reason why Christ "departed" when these Jews would use force to make Him a King. He needed not to be made "a king," for He was born such (Matthew 2:2); nor would He receive the kingdom at their hand. This has been brought out beautifully by Mr. J. B. Bellet in his notes on John’ s Gospel:— "The Lord would not take the kingdom from zeal like this. This could not be the source of the kingdom of the Son of Man. The ‘ beasts’ may take their kingdoms from the winds striving upon the great sea, but Jesus cannot (Dan. 7:2, 25). This was not, in His ear, the shouting of the people bringing in the headstone of the corner (Zech. 4:7); nor the symbol of His People made willing in the day of His power (Ps. 110:3). This would have been an appointment to the throne of Israel on scarcely better principles than those on which Saul had been appointed of old. His kingdom would have been the fruit of their revolted heart. But that could not be. And besides this, ere the Lord could take His seat on Mount Zion, He must ascend the solitary mount; and ere the people could enter the kingdom, they must go down to the stormy sea. And these things we see reflected here as in a glass."  

It should be noted that Matthew tells us how Christ "went up into a mountain apart to pray" (Matthew 14:23); so, too, Mark (Mark 6:46). The absence of this word in John is in beautiful accord with the character and theme of this fourth Gospel, and supplies us with another of those countless proofs for the Divine and verbal inspiration of the Scriptures. In this Gospel we never see Christ praying (John 17 is intercession, giving us a sample of His priestly ministry on our behalf in heaven: note particularly verses 4 and 5, which indicate that the intercession recorded in the verses that follow was anticipatory of Christ’ s return to the Father!), for John’ s special design is to exhibit the Divine glories of the Savior.  

"And when even was now come, his disciples went down unto the sea, And entered into a ship" (John 6:16, 17). Matthew explains the reason for this: "And straightway Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship, and to go before him unto the other side, while he sent the multitudes away" (Matthew 14:22). The Lord desired to be alone, so He caused the disciples to go on ahead of Him. It would seem, too, that He purposed to teach them another lesson on faith. This will appear in the sequel.  

"And entered into a ship, and went over the sea toward Capernaum. And it was now dark, and Jesus was not come to them" (John 6:17). What we have here, and in the verses that follow, speaks unmistakably to us. It describes the conditions through which we must pass as we journey to our Home above. Though not of the world, we are necessarily in it: that world made up of the wicked, who are like "the troubled sea." The world in which we live, dear reader, is the world that rejected and still rejects the Christ of God. It is the world which "lieth in the wicked one" (1 John 5:19), the friendship of which is enmity with God (James 4:4). It is a world devoid of spiritual light; a world over which hangs the shadow of death. Peter declares the world is "a dark place" (2 Pet. 1:19). It is dark because "the light of the world" is absent.  

"It was now dark, and Jesus was not come to them." Sometimes Christ withholds the light of His countenance even from His own. Job cried, "when I waited for light, there came darkness" (Job 30:26). But, thank God, it is recorded, "Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness" (Ps. 112:4). Let us remember that the darkness is not created by Satan, but by God (Isa. 45:7). And He has a wise and good reason for it. Sometimes He withholds the light from His people that they may discover "the treasures of darkness" (Isa. 45:3).  

"Jesus was not come to them. And the sea arose by reason of the great wind that blew" (John 6:17, 18). This tested the faith and patience of the disciples. The longer they waited the worse things became. It looked as though Christ was neglectful of them. It seemed as though He had forgotten to be gracious. Perhaps they were saying, If the Master had been here, this storm would not have come up. Had He been with them, even though asleep on a pillow, His presence would have cheered them. But He was not there; and the darkness was about them, and the angry waves all around them— fit emblems of the opposition of the world against the believer’ s course. It was a real test of their faith and patience.  

And similarly does God often test us today. Frequently our circumstances are dark, and conditions are all against us. We cry to the Lord, but He "does not come." But let us remind ourselves, that God is never in a hurry. However much the petulance of unbelief may seek to hasten His hand, He waits His own good time. Omnipotence can afford to wait, for it is always sure of success. And because omnipotence is combined with infinite wisdom and love, we may be certain that God not only does everything in the right way, but also at the best time: "And therefore will the Lord wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you: for the Lord is a God of judgment: blessed are all they that wait for him" (Isa. 30:18).  

Sometimes the Lord "waits" until it is eventide before He appears in His delivering grace and power. The darkness becomes more gloomy, and still He waits. Yes, but He waits "to be gracious." But why? Could He not be gracious without this waiting, and the painful suspense such waiting usually brings to us? Surely; but one reason for the delay is, that His hand may be the more evident; and another reason is, that His hand may be the more appreciated, when He does intervene. Some times the darkness becomes even more gloomy, well-nigh unbearable; and still He waits. And again, we wonder, Why? All is it not that all our hopes may be disappointed; that our plans may be frustrated, till we reach our wit’ s end (Ps. 107:27)! And, then, just as we had given up hope, He breaks forth unexpectedly, and we are startled, as were these disciples on the stormlashed sea.  

"So when they had rowed about five and twenty or thirty furlongs, they see Jesus walking on the sea" (John 6:19). These lines will, doubtless, be read by more than one saint who is in a tight place. For you, too, the night is fearfully dark, and the breakers of adverse circumstances look as though they would completely swamp you. O tried and troubled one, read the blessed sequel of John 6:17, 18. It contains a word of cheer for you, if your faith lays hold of it. Notice that the disciples did not give up in despair— they continued "rowing" (verse 19)! And ultimately the Lord came to their side and delivered them from the angry tempest. So, dear saint, whatever may be the path appointed by the Lord, however difficult and distasteful, continue therein, and in His own good time the Lord will deliver you. Again we say, Notice that the disciples continued their "rowing." It was all they could do, and it was all that was required of them. In a little while the Lord appeared, and they were at the land. Oh may God grant both writer and reader perseverance in the path of duty. Tempted and discouraged one, remember Isaiah 30:18 (look it up and memorize it) and continue rowing!  

There is another thing, a blessed truth, which is well calculated to sustain us in the interval before the deliverance comes; and it will if the heart appropriates its blessedness. While the storm-tossed disciples were pulling at the oars and making little or no progress, the Lord was on high— not below, but above them— master of the situation. And, as Matthew tells us, He was "praying." And on high He is now thus engaged on our behalf. Remember this, O troubled one, your great High Priest who is "touched with the feeling of your infirmities" is above, ever living to intercede. His prayers undergird you, so that you cannot sink. Mark adds a word that is even more precious— "And he saw them toiling in rowing" (John 6:48). Christ was not indifferent to their peril. His eye was upon them. And even though it was "dark" (John 6:17) He saw them. No darkness could hide those disciples from Him. And this, too, speaks to us. We may be "toiling in rowing" (the Greek word means "fatigued"), weary of the buffeting from the unfriendly winds and waves, but there is One above who is not unconcerned, who sees and knows our painful lot, and who, even now, is preparing to come to our side. Turn your eyes away from your frail barque, away from the surrounding tempest, and "look off unto Jesus, the author and finisher of faith" (Heb. 12:1).  

"So when they had rowed about five and twenty or thirty furlongs, they see Jesus walking on the sea, and drawing nigh unto the ship: and they were afraid" (John 6:19). This shows how little faith was in exercise. Matthew tells us, "And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled" (Matthew 14:26). Think of it, "troubled" and "afraid" of Jesus! Does some one say, That was because the night was dark and the waves boisterous, consequently it was easy to mistake the Savior for an apparition? Moreover, the sight they beheld was altogether unprecedented: never before had they seen one walking on the water! But if we turn to Mark’ s record we shall find that it was not dimness of physical sight which caused the disciples to mistake their Master for a spectre, but dullness of spiritual vision: "They considered not the miracle of the loaves: for their heart was hardened." Their fears had mastered them. They were not expecting deliverance. They had already forgotten that exercise of Divine grace and power which they had witnessed only a few short hours before. And how accurately (and tragically) do they portray us— so quickly do we forget the Lord’ s mercies and deliverances in the past, so little do we really expect Him to answer our prayers of the present.  

"But he saith unto them, "It is I; be not afraid" (John 6:20). This is parallel in thought with what we had before us in verse 10. The scepticism of Philip and the unbelief of Andrew did not prevent the outflow of Divine mercy. So here, even the hardness of heart of these disciples did not quench their Lord’ s love for them. O how deeply thankful we ought to be that "He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities" (Ps. 103:10). From beginning to end He deals with us in wondrous, fathomless, sovereign grace. "It is I," He says. He first directs their gaze to Himself. "Be not afraid," was a word to calm their hearts. And this is His unchanging order. Our fears can only be dispelled by looking in faith to and having our hearts occupied with Him. Look around, and we shall be disheartened. Look within, and we shall be discouraged. But look unto Him, and our fears will vanish.  

"Then they willingly received him into the ship: and immediately the ship was at the land whither they went" (John 6:21). Now that He had revealed Himself to them; now that He had graciously uttered the heart-calming "Be not afraid"; now that He had (as Matthew and Mark tell us) spoken that well-known word "Be of good cheer": they "willingly’ received him into the ship." Christ does not force Himself upon us: He waits to be "received." It is the welcome of our hearts that He desires. And is it not just because this is so often withheld, that He is so slow in coming to our relief— i.e. "manifesting himself" to us (John 14:21)! How blessed to note that as soon as He entered the ship, the end of the voyage was reached for them. In applying to ourselves the second half of this twenty-first verse, we must not understand it to signify that when Christ has "manifested’’ Himself unto us that the winds will cease to blow or that the adverse "sea" will now befriend us; far from it. But it means that the heart will now have found a Haven of rest: our fears will be quieted; we shall be occupied not with the tempest, but with the Master of it. Such are some of the precious spiritual lessons which we may take to ourselves from this passage.  

"The day following, when the people which stood on the other side of the sea saw that there was none other boat there, save that one whereinto his disciples were entered, and that Jesus went not with his disciples into the boat, but that his disciples were gone away alone; (Howbeit there came other boats from Tiberias nigh unto the place where they did eat bread, after that the Lord had given thanks:) When.the people therefore saw that Jesus was not there, neither his disciples, they also took shipping, and came to Capernaum, seeking for Jesus" (John 6:22-24). The multitude, whose hearts were set on making the Miracle-worker their "king," apparently collected early in the morning to carry their purpose into effect. But on seeking for Jesus, He was nowhere to be found. This must have perplexed them. They knew that on the previous evening there was only one boat on their side of the sea, and they had seen the disciples depart in this, alone. Where, then, was the Master? Evidently, He who had miraculously multiplied five loaves and two fishes so as to constitute an abundant meal for more than five thousand people, must also in some miraculous manner have transported Himself across the sea. So, availing themselves of the boats which had just arrived from Tiberias, they crossed over to Capernaum, in the hope of finding the Lord Jesus there; for they knew that this city had, for some time, been His chief place of residence. Nor was their expectation disappointed.  

"And when they had found him on the other side of the sea, they said unto him, Rabbi, when camest thou hither? Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled" (John 6:25, 26). There was, perhaps, nothing wrong in their question, "Rabbi, when camest thou hither?" But to have answered it would not have profited them, and that was what the Lord sought. He, therefore, at once showed them that He was acquainted with their motives, and knew full well what had brought them thither. Outwardly at least, these people appeared ready to honor Him. They had followed Him across the sea of Galilee, and sought Him out again. But He read their hearts. He knew the inward springs of their conduct, and was not to be deceived. It was the Son of God evidencing His Deity again. He knew it was temporal, not spiritual blessing, that they sought. When He tells them, "Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles (or "signs") but because ye did eat of the loaves," His evident meaning is that they realized not the spiritual significance of those "signs." Had they done so, they would have prostrated themselves before Him in worship. And let us remember that "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever." Christ still reads the human heart. No secrets can be withheld from Him. He knows why different ones put on religious garments when it suits their purpose— why, at times, some are so loud in their religious pretensions— why thy profess to be Christians. Hypocrisy is very sinful, but its folly and uselessness are equally great.  

"Labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you" (John 6:27). The expression used here by Christ is a relative and comparative one: His meaning is, Labor for the latter rather than for the former. The word "labor" is very expressive. It signifies that men should be in deadly earnest over spiritual things; that they should spare no pains to obtain that which their souls so imperatively need. It is used figuratively, and signifies making salvation the object of intense desire. O that men would give the same diligence to secure that which is imperative, as they put forth to gain the things of time and sense. That to which Christ bids men direct their thoughts and energies is "meat which endureth"— abideth would be better: it is one of the characteristic words of this Gospel.  

When our Lord says, "Labor... for that meat (satisfying portion) which endureth unto everlasting life," He was not inculcating salvation by works. This is very clear from His next words— "which the Son of man shall give unto you." But He was affirming that which needs to be pressed on the half-hearted and those who are occupied with material things. It is difficult to preserve the balance of truth. On the one hand, we are so anxious to insist that salvation is by grace alone, that we are in danger of failing to uphold the sinner’ s responsibility to seek the Lord with all his heart. Again; in pressing the total depravity of the natural man, his deadness in trespasses and sins, we are apt to neglect our duty of calling on him to repent and believe the Gospel. This word of Christ’ s, "Labor . . . for the meat which endureth" is parallel (in substance) with "Strive to enter in at the strait gate" (Luke 13:24), and "every one presseth into the kingdom of God" (Luke 16:16). "For him hath God the Father sealed" (John 6:27). What is meant by Christ being "sealed" by God the Father? First, notice it is as "Son of man" that He is here said to be "sealed." That is, it was as the Son of God, but incarnate. There are two prime thoughts connected with "sealing:" identification, and attestation or ratification. In Revelation 7 we read of God’ s angel "sealing" twelve thousand from each of the tribes of Israel. The sealing there consists of placing a mark on their foreheads, and it is for the purpose of identification: to distinguish and separate them from the mass of apostate Israel. Again, in Esther 8:8 we read, "Write ye also for the Jews, as it liketh you, in the king’ s name, and seal it with the king’ s ring: for the writing which is written in the king’ s name, and sealed with the king’ s ring, may no man reverse." Here the thought is entirely different. The king’ s "seal" there speaks of authority. His seal was added for the purpose of confirmation and ratification. These, we doubt not, are the principle thoughts we are to associate with the "sealing" of Christ.  

The historical reference is to the time when Christ was baptized— Acts 10:38. When the Lord Jesus, in marvellous condescension, had identified Himself with the believing remnant in Israel, taking His place in that which spoke of death, the Father there singled Him out by "anointing" or "sealing" Him with the Holy Spirit. This was accompanied by His audible voice, saying, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Thus was the Christ, now about to enter upon His mediatorial work, publicly identified and accredited by God. The Father testified to the perfections of His incarnate Son, and communicated official authority, by "sealing" Him with the Holy Spirit. This declaration of Christ here in verse 27 anticipated the question or challenge which we find in verse 52, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" The sufficient answer, already given, was "for him hath God the Father sealed." So, too, it anticipated and answered the question of verse 30: "What sign showest thou then, that we may see, and believe thee?" Just as princes of the realm are often authorized by the king to act in governmental and diplomatic affairs on his behalf, and carry credentials that bear the king’ s seal to confirm their authority before those to whom they are sent, so Christ gave proof of His heavenly authority by His miracles: "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power" (Acts 10:38).  

It is blessed to know that we, too, have been "sealed": Ephesians 1:13. Believers are "sealed" as those who are approved of God But observe, carefully, that it is in Christ we are thus distinguished. "In whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise." Christ was "sealed" because of His own intrinsic perfections; we, because of our identification and union with Him! "Accepted in the beloved" (Eph. 1:6) gives us the same thought. Mark, though, it is not said (as commonly misunderstood) that the Holy Spirit seals us, but that the Holy Spirit Himself is God’ s "Seal" upon us— the distinguishing sign of identification, for sinners do not have the Holy Spirit (Jude 19).  

Let the student ponder the following questions, preparatory to our next chapter:—   

1. What does the question in verse 28 intimate?  

2. What is the meaning of verse 29?  

3. What do verses 30 and 31 demonstrate in connection with those people?  

4. In how many different respects is "bread" a suited emblem of Christ?  

5. What is the meaning of verse 35— Does a believer ever "hunger" or "thirst"?  

6. Who have been given to Christ by the Father? verse 37.  

7. What comforting truth is found in verse 39?  

  

Combined Bible: Joh 6:28-40

of the Gospel of John   

CHAPTER 22   

Christ, the Bread of Life   

John 6:28-40   

Below we give an Analysis of the passage which is to be before us:—   

1. The Inquiry of the legalistic heart: verse 28.  

2. The Divine answer thereto: verse 29.  

3. The Scepticism of the natural heart: verses 30, 31.  

4. Christ the true Bread: verses 32-34.  

5. Christ the Satisfier of man’ s heart: verse 35.  

6. The Unbelief of those who had seen: verse 36.  

7. Christ’ s Submission to the Father’ s will: verses 37-40.  

It is both important and instructive to observe the connection between John 5 and John 6: the latter is, doctrinally, the sequel to the former. There is both a comparison and a contrast in the way Christ is presented to us in these two chapters. In both we see Him as the Source of life, Divine life, spiritual life, eternal life. But, speaking of what is characteristic in John 5, we have life communicated by Christ, whereas in John 6 we have salvation received by us. Let us amplify this a little.  

John 5 opens with a typical illustration of Christ imparting life to an impotent soul: a man, helpless through an infirmity which he had had for thirty-eight years, is made whole. This miracle Christ makes the basis of a discourse in which He presented His Divine glories. In verse 21 we read, "As the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them: even so the Son quickeneth whom he will." The same line of thought continues through to the end of verse 26. Thus, Christ there presents Himself in full Godhead title, as the Source and Dispenser of life, sovereignly imparted to whom He pleases. The one upon whom this Divine life is bestowed, as illustrated by the case of the impotent man, is regarded as entirely passive; he is called into life by the all-mighty, creating voice of the Son of God (verse 25). There is nothing in the sinner’ s case but the powerlessness of death until the deep silence is broken by the word of the Divine Quickener. His voice makes itself heard in the soul, hitherto dead, but no longer dead as it hears His voice. But nothing is said of any searchings of heart, any exercises of conscience, any sense of need, any felt desire after Christ. It is simply Christ, in Divine sufficiency, speaking to spiritually dead souls, empowering them (by sovereign "quickening") to hear.  

In John 6 Christ is presented in quite another character, and in keeping with this, so is the sinner too. Here our Lord is viewed not in His essential glories, but as the Son incarnate. Here He is contemplated as "the Son of man" (verses 27, 53), and therefore, as in the place of humiliation, "come down from heaven" (verses 33, 38, 51, etc.). As such, Christ is made known as the Object of desire, and as the One who can meet the sinner’ s need. In John 5 it was Christ who sought out the "great multitude" of impotent folk (verses 3, 6), and when Christ presented Himself to the man who had an infirmity thirty and eight years, he evidenced no desire for the Savior. He acted as one who had no heart whatever for the Son of God. As such he accurately portrayed the dead soul when it is first quickened by Christ. But in John 6 the contrast is very noticeable. Here the "great multitude" followed him (verses 2, 24, 25), with an evident desire for Him— we speak not now of the unworthy motive that prompted that desire, but the desire itself as illustrative of a truth. It is this contrast which indicates the importance of noting the relation of John 5 and 6. As said in our opening sentences, the latter is the sequel to the former. We mean that the order in the contents of the two chapters, so far as their contents are typical and illustrative, set forth the doctrinal order of truth. They give us the two sides: the Divine and the human; and here, as ever, the Divine comes first. In ,John 5 we have the quickening power of Christ, as exercised according to His sovereign prerogative; in John 6 we have illustrated the effects of this in a soul already quickened. In the one, Christ approaches the dead soul; in the other, the dead soul, now quickened, seeks Christ!  

In developing this illustration of the truth in John 6, the Holy Spirit has followed the same order as in John 5. Here, too, Christ works a miracle, on those who typically portray the doctrinal characters which are in view. These are sinners already "quickened," but not yet saved; for, unlike quickening, there is a human side to salvation, as well as a Divine. The prominent thing brought before us in the first section of John 6 is a hungry multitude. And how forcibly and how accurately they illustrate the condition of a soul just quickened, is obvious. As soon as the Divine life has been imparted, there is a stirring within; there is a sense of need awakened. It is the life turning toward its Source, just as water ever seeks its own level. The illustration is Divinely apt, for there are few things of which we are more conscious than when we are assailed by the pangs of hunger. But not so with a dead man, for he is unconscious; or with a paralyzed man, for he is incapable of feeling. So it is spiritually. The one who is dead in trespasses and sins, and paralyzed by depravity, has no hunger for God. But how different with one who has been Divinely "quickened"! The first effect of quickening is that the one quickened awakes to consciousness: the Divine life within gives capacity to discern his sinfulness and his need of Christ.  

Mark, too, what follows in the second section of John 6. The same line of truth is pursued further. Here we see the disciples in darkness, in the midst of a storm, rowing towards the Place of Consolation. What a vivid illustration does this supply of the experiences of the newly quickened and so awakened soul! It tells of the painful experiences through which he passes ere the Haven of Rest is reached. Not yet is he really saved; not yet does he understand the workings of Divine grace within him. All he is conscious of is his sense of deep need. And it is then that Satan’ s fiendish onslaughts are usually the fiercest. Into what a storm is he now plunged! But the Devil is not permitted to completely overwhelm the soul, any more than he was the disciples in the illustration. When God’ s appointed time arrives, Christ draws nigh and says, "I am: be not afraid." He stands revealed before the one who was seeking Him, and then is He "willingly received into the ship"— He is gladly embraced by faith, and received into the heart! Then the storm is over, the desired haven is reached, for the next thing we see is Christ and the disciples at "Capernaum" (place of consolation). Thus, in the feeding of the hungry multitude, and in the delivering of the disciples from the storm-tossed sea, we have a most blessed and wonderful illustration of Christ meeting and satisfying the conscious need of the soul previously quickened.  

It will thus be seen that all of this is but introductory to the great theme unfolded in the middle section of John 6. Just as the healing of the impotent man at the beginning of John 5 introduced and prepared the way for the discourse that followed, so it is in John 6. Here the prominent truth is Christ in the place of humiliation, which He had voluntarily entered as man, "come down from heaven"; and thus as "the bread of life" presenting Himself as the Object who alone can supply the need of which the quickened and awakened soul is so conscious. [1]   

"Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?" (John 6:28). This question appears to be the language of men temporarily impressed and aroused, but still in the dark concerning the way to Heaven. They felt, perhaps, that they were on the wrong road, that something was required of them, but what that something was they knew not. They supposed they had to do some work; but what works they were ignorant. It was the old self-righteousness of the natural man, who is ever occupied with his own doings. The carnal mind is flattered when it is consciously doing something for God. For his doings man deems himself entitled to reward. He imagines that salvation is due him, because he has earned it. Thus does he reckon the reward "not of grace, but of debt." Man seeks to bring God into the humbling position of debtor to him. How unbelief and pride degrade the Almighty! How they rob Him of His glory!  

"What shall we do that we might work the works of God?" It seems almost incredible that these men should have asked such a question. Only a moment before, Christ had said to them "Labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you" (verse 27). But the carnal mind, which is enmity against God, is unable to rise to the thought of a gift. Or, rather, the carnal heart is unwilling to come down to the place of a beggar and a pauper, and receive everything for nothing. The sinner wants to do something to earn it. It was thus with the woman at the well: until Divine grace completed its work within her, she knew not the "gift of God" (John 4:10). It was the same with the rich young ruler: "Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" (Luke 18:18). It was the same with the stricken Jews on the day of Pentecost: "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" (Acts 2:37). It was the same with the Philippian jailer: "Sirs, what must I do to be " saved? (Acts 16:30). So it was with the prodigal son— "Make me as one of thy hired servants" (one who works for what he receives) was his thought (Luke 15:19). Ah! dear friends, God and man are ever the same wherever you find them!  

"Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent" (John 6:29). In what lovely patient grace did the Lord make reply! In blessed simplicity of language, He stated that the one thing that God requires of sinners is that they believe on the One whom He has sent into the world to meet their deepest need. "This is the work of God" means, this is what God requires. It is not the works of the law, nor the bringing of an offering to His temple altar; but faith in Christ. Christ is the Savior appointed by God, and faith in Him is that which God approves, and without which nothing else can be acceptable in His sight. Paul answered the question of the Philippian jailer as the Lord before him had done— "What must I do to be saved?": "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved" was the reply (Acts 16:31). But again we say, Man had rather do than "believe." And why is this? Because it panders to his pride: because it repudiates his utter ruin, inasmuch as it is a denial that he is "without strength" (Rom. 5:6): because it provides for him a platform on which he can boast and glory. Nevertheless, the one and only "work" which God will accept is faith in His Son.  

But, perhaps some one will raise the question, Is it possible that I can ever enter heaven without good works? Answer: No; you cannot enter heaven without a good character. But those good works and that character of yours must be without a flaw. They must be as holy as God, or you can never enter His presence. But how may I secure such a character as that? Surely that is utterly impossible! No, it is not. But how then? By a series of strivings after holiness? No; that is doing again. Do nothing. Only believe. Accept the Work already done— the finished work of the Lord Jesus on our behalf. This is what God asks of you— give up your own doings and receive that of My beloved Son. But are you ready to do this? Are you willing to abandon your own doings, your own righteousness, and to accept His? You will not till you are thoroughly convinced that all your doings are faulty, that all your efforts fall far short of God’ s demands, that all your own righteousness is tarnished with sin, yea, is as "filthy rags." What man will renounce his own work in order to trust to that of another, unless he be first convinced that his own is worthless? What man will repose for safety in another till he be convinced that there is no safety in trusting to himself? It is impossible. Man cannot do this of himself: it takes the work of God." It is the convicting power of the Holy Spirit, and that alone, which brings the sinner to renounce his own works and lay hold on the Lord Jesus for salvation.  

O dear reader, we would solemnly press this upon you. Is the finished work of Christ the only rock on which your soul is resting for eternal life, or are you still secretly trusting to your own doings for salvation? If so, you will be eternally lost, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it— "He that believeth not shall be damned." Your own doings, even if they were such as you wish them to be, could never save you. Your prayers, your tears, your sorrowings for sin, your alms-givings, your church-goings, your efforts at holiness of life— what are they all but doings of your own, and if they were all perfect they could not save you. Why? Because it is written, "By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight." Salvation is not a thing to be earned by a religious life, but is a free gift received by faith— Romans 6:23.  

"They said therefore unto him, What sign showest thou then, that we may see, and believe thee? What dost thou work?" (John 6:30). How this exhibits the works of unbelief! How difficult it is, yea impossible, for the natural man, of himself, to accept Christ and His finished work by "simple" faith! Truly, nothing but the Spirit of God can enable a man to do it. The Lord had said, "Believe." They replied, "Show us a sign." Give us something we can see along with it. Man must either see or feel before he will believe. "We do not mean to say that salvation is not by believing on Christ, but we want some evidence first. We will believe if we can have some evidence on which to believe. Oh, perfect picture of the natural heart! I come to a man— one who has probably for years been making a profession of religion— and I say to him, ‘ Have you got eternal life dwelling in you? Do you know that you are a saved man, that you have passed from death unto life?’ The reply is, ‘ No, I am not sure of it.’ Then you do not believe on the Lord Jesus. You have not accepted the finished work of Christ as yours. He replies, ‘ Yes, I do believe on Christ.’ Then remember what He has said, ‘ He that believeth hath everlasting life.’ He does not hope to have it. He is not uncertain about it. ‘ He hath it,’ says the Son of God. The man answers, ‘ Well, I would believe this if I could only feel better. If I could only see in myself some evidences of a change, then I could believe it, and be as certain of it as you are.’ So said these people to the Lord— give us some evidence that we may see and believe. Do you not see that you are thus making salvation depend on the evidences of the Spirit’ s work within you, instead of the finished work of the Lord Jesus for you? You say, I would believe if I could only feel better— if I could only see a change. God says, Believe first, then you shall feel— then you shall see. God reverses your order, and you must reverse it too, if you would ever have peace with God. Believe, and you will then have in your heart a motive for a holy life, and not only so, you will walk in liberty, and peace, and joy" (Dr. F. Whitfield).  

"They said therefore unto him, What sign showest thou then, that we may see, and believe thee? What dost thou work?" The force of that is this: You have asked us to receive you as the One sent of God. What sign, then do you show; where are your credentials to authorize your mission? And this was asked, be it remembered, on the morning following the feeding of the five thousand! It seems unthinkable. Only a few hours before they had witnessed a miracle, which in some respects, was the most remarkable our Lord had performed, and from which they had themselves benefitted. And yet, does not our own sad history testify that this is true to life? Men are surrounded by innumerable evidences for the existence of God: they carry a hundred demonstrations of it in their own persons, and yet how often do they ask, What proof have we that there is a God? So, too, with believers. We enjoy countless tokens of His love and faithfulness; we have witnessed His delivering hand again and again, and yet when some fresh trial comes upon us— something which completely upsets our plans, the removal, perchance, of some earthly object around which we had entwined our heart’ s affections— we ask, Does God really care? And, maybe, we are sufficiently callous to ask for another "sign" in proof that He does!  

"Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat" (John 6:31). Here they drew a disparaging contrast between Christ and Moses. It was the further workings of their unbelief. The force of their objection was this: What proof have we that Thou art greater than Moses? They sought to deprecate the miracle they had witnessed on the previous day by comparing Moses and the manna. It was as though they had said, ‘ If you would have us believe on you as the Sent One of God, you must show us greater works. You have fed five thousand but once, whereas in Moses’ day, our fathers ate bread for forty years!’ It is striking to note how they harped back to their "fathers." The woman at the well did the same thing (see John 4:12). And is it not so now? The experiences of "the fathers", what they believed and taught, is still with many the final court of appeal.  

"Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat." Their speech betrayed them, as is evident from their use of the word "manna." The late Malachi Taylor pointed out how this was "a name always used by their father, of wilfulness, persistently ignoring Jehovah’ s word ‘ bread’ , and now uttered by them, because it was so written. It is notable that they of old never called it anything at all but ‘ manna’ (meaning ‘ What is this?’ ), except when they despised it (Num. 21:5); and then they called it ‘ light bread.’ And Jehovah named it ‘ manna’ in Numbers 11:7 when the mixed multitude fell a lusting for the flesh-pots of Egypt. What lessons for us as to our thoughts of Christ, the Bread of God! In Psalm 78:24, where God is recounting the evil ways of Israel through the wilderness, He calls it ‘ manna’ ; but in Psalm 105:40, where all His mercies pass in review, calling for praise, it is called ‘ bread’ . Again we say, What lessons for us!"  

"Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not the bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven" (John 6:32). With good reason might our blessed Lord have turned away from His insulting challengers. Well might He have left them to themselves. But as another has said, "Grace in Him was active. Their souls’ interests He had at heart" (C.E.S.). And so, in wondrous condescension, He speaks to them of the Father’ s "Gift", who alone could meet their deep need, and satisfy their souls. And has He not often dealt thus with thee, dear reader? Cannot you say with the Psalmist, "He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities" (Ps. 103:10)? Instead of turning away in disgust at our ingratitude and unbelief, He has continued to care for us and minister to us. O how thankful ought we to be for that precious promise, and the daily fulfillment of it in our lives, "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee."  

"Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven." The error of the Jews here should be a warning to us. They thought Moses gave them the manna. But it was God and not Moses. He was only the humble instrument. They ought to have looked through the instrument to God. But the eye rested, where it is ever so prone to rest— on the human medium. The Lord here leads them to look beyond the human instrument to God— "Moses gave you not that bread... but my Father," etc. O what creatures of sense we are. We live so much in the outward and visible, as almost to forget there is anything beyond. All that we gaze upon here is but the avenue to what eye hath not seen, nor ear heard. All the temporal gifts and blessings we receive are but the finger of the Father beckoning us within the inner shrine. He is saying to us, ‘ If My works be so beautiful, if My gifts be so precious, if My footprints be so glorious, what must I be?’ Thus should we ever look through nature, to nature’ s God. Thus shall we enjoy God’ s gifts, when they lead us up to Him; and then shall we not make idols of them, and so run the risk of their removal. Everything in nature and in providence is but the "Moses" between us and God. Let us not be like the Jews of old, so taken up with Moses as to forget the "greater than Moses," whence they all proceed.  

"For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world" (John 6:33). The Father’ s provision for a dying world was to send from heaven His only begotten Son. There is another suggestive contrast here, yea, a double one. The manna had no power to ward off death— the generation of Israel that ate it in the wilderness died! How, then, could it be the "true bread"? No; Christ is the "true bread," for He bestows "life." But again: the manna was only for Israel. No other people in the desert (the Amorites, for instance) partook of the manna; for it fell only in Israel’ s camp. But the true Bread "giveth life unto the world." The "world" here does not include the whole human race, for Christ does not bestow "life" on every descendant of Adam. It is not here said that the true Bread offereth "life unto the world," but He "giveth life." It is the "world" of believers who are here in view. The Lord, then, designedly employs a word that reached beyond the limits of Israel, and took in elect Gentiles too!  

"For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world." Three different expressions are used by our Lord in this passage, each having a slightly varied meaning; the three together, serving to bring out the fulness and blessedness of this title. In verse 32 He speaks of Himself as the "true bread from heaven": "true" speaks of that which is real, genuine, satisfying; "from heaven" tells of its celestial and spiritual character. In verse 33 He speaks of Himself as "the bread of God," which denotes that He is Divine, eternal. Then, in verse 35 He says, "I am the bread of life": the One who imparts, nourishes and sustains life.  

"Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread" (John 6:34). This was but the outcome of a fleeting impression which had been made by His words. It reminds us very much of the language of the woman at the well, "Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw" (John 4:15), and those who recall our comments on that verse will remember the motive that prompted her. The words of these men but served to make their rejection of Him more manifest and decisive when they fully grasped His meaning: verse 36 proves this conclusively"But I said unto you, That ye also have seen me, and believe not."  

"And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life" (John 6:35). The Lord places Himself before us under the figure of bread. The emblem is beautifully significant, and like all others used in Scripture calls for prolonged and careful meditation. First, bread is a necessary food. Unlike many other articles of diet which are more or less luxuries, this is essential to our very existence. Bread is the food we cannot dispense with. There are other things placed upon our tables that we can do without, but not so with bread. Let us learn the lesson well. Without Christ we shall perish. There is no spiritual life or health apart from the Bread of God.  

Second, bread is a Food that is suited to all. There are some people who cannot eat sweets; others are unable to digest meats. But all eat bread. The physical body may retain its life for a time without bread, but it will be sickly, and soon sink into the grave. Bread, then is adapted to all. It is the food of both king and artisan. So it is with Christ. It meets the need of all alike; He is able to satisfy every class of sinners— rich or poor, cultured or illiterate.  

Third, bread is a daily food. There are some articles of food which we eat but occasionally; others only when they are in season. But bread is something we need every day of our lives. It is so spiritually. If the Christian fails to feed on Christ daily, if he substitutes the husks of religious forms and ceremonies, religious books, religious excitement, the glare and glitter of modem Christianity, he will be weak and sickly. It is failure at this very point which is mainly responsible for the feebleness of so many of the Lord’ s people.  

Fourth, bread is a satisfying food. We quickly fire of other articles of diet, but not so with this. Bread is a staple and standard article, which we must use all our lives. And does not the analogy hold good again spiritually? How often have we turned aside to other things, only to find them but husks! None but the Bread of life can satisfy.  

Fifth, let us note the process through which bread passes before it becomes food. It springs up— the blade, the ear, the full corn in the ear. Then it is cut down, winnowed, and ground into flour, and finally subjected to the fiery process of the oven. Thus, and only thus, did it become fit to sustain life. Believer in Christ, such was the experiences of the Bread of God. He was "bruised for our iniquities." He was subjected to the fierce fires of God’ s holy wrath, as He took our place in judgment. O how wonderful— God forbid that we should ever lose our sense of wonderment over it. The Holy One of God, was "made a curse for us." "It pleased the Lord to bruise him." And this in order that He might be the Bread of life to us! Let us then feed upon Him. Let us draw from His infinite fulness. Let us ever press forward unto a more intimate fellowship with Him.  

"And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst" (John 6:35). In verse 33 Christ had spoken of giving life to "the world"— the world of believers, the sum total of the saved. Now He speaks of, the individual— "he that cometh to me... he that believeth. A similar order is to be observed in verse 37— note the "all" is followed by "him." There is, no doubt, a shade of difference between "believing on" Christ, and "coming to" Him. To "believe on" Christ is to receive God’ s testimony concerning His Son, and to rest on Him alone for salvation. To "come to" Him— which is really the effect of the former— is for the heart to go out to Him in loving confidence. The two acts are carefully distinguished in Hebrews 11:6: "without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is: and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him." I must know who the physician is, and believe in his ability, before I shall go to him to be cured.  

But what are we to understand by "shall never hunger" and "shall never thirst"? Does the Christian never "hunger" or "thirst"? Surely; then, how are we to harmonize his experience with this positive declaration of the Savior? Ah! He speaks here according to the fulness and satisfaction there is in Himself, and not according to our imperfect apprehension and appreciation of Him. If we are straitened it is in ourselves, not in Him. If we do "hunger" and "thirst," it is not because He is unable, and not because He is unwilling, to satisfy our hunger and quench our thirst, but because we are of "little faith" and fail to draw daily from His fulness.  

"But I said unto you, That ye also have seen me, and believe not" (John 6:36). Even the sight of Christ in the flesh, and the beholding of His wondrous miracles, did not bring men to believe on Him. O the depravity of the human heart! "Ye also have seen me, and believe not." This shows how valueless was their request: "Lord, evermore give us this bread" (verse 34). It is unspeakably solemn. They trusted in Moses (John 9:28), they had rejoiced for a season in John the Baptist’ s light (John 5:35); they could quote the Scriptures (John 6:31), and yet they believed not on Christ! It is difficult to say how far a man may go, and yet come short of the one thing needful. These men were not worse than many others, but their unbelief was manifested and declared; consequently, Christ addresses them accordingly. This, indeed, would be the result in every case, were we left to our own thoughts of Christ. Be warned then, dear reader, and make sure that yours is a saving faith.  

"But I said unto you, that ye also have seen me, and believe not." Was, then, the incarnation a failure? Was His mission fruitless? That could not be. There can be no failure with God, though there is much failure in all of us to understand His purpose. Christ was not in anywise discouraged or disheartened at the apparent failure of His mission. His next word shows that very conclusively, and to it we turn.  

"All that the Father giveth me shall come to me" (John 6:37). Here the Lord speaks of a definite company which have been given to Him by the Father. Nor is this the only place where He makes mention of this people. In John 17 He refers to their seven times over. In verse 2 He says, "As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him." So again in verse 6 He says, "I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: Thine they were, and thou gavest them me." And again in verse 9 He declares, "I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine." See also verses 11, 12, 24. Whom those are that the Father gave to Christ we are told in Ephesians 1:4— "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world." Those given to Christ were God’ s elect, singled out for this marvellous honor before the foundation of the world: "God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation" (2 Thess. 2:13). But let us notice the exact connection in our passage wherein Christ refers to the elect.  

In verse 36 we find our Lord saying to those who had no heart for Him, "ye also have seen me, and believe not." Was He, then, disheartened? Far from it. And why not? Ah! mark how the Son of God, here the lowly Servant of Jehovah, encourages Himself. He immediately adds, "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me." What a lesson is this for every under shepherd. Here is the true haven of rest for the heart of every Christ worker. Your message may be slighted by the crowd, and as you see how many there are who "believe not" it may appear that your labor is in vain. Nevertheless "the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are his" (2 Tim. 2:19). The eternal purpose of the Almighty cannot fail; the sovereign will of the Lord Most High cannot be frustrated. All, every one, that the Father gave to the Son before the foundation of the world "shall come to him." The Devil himself cannot keep one of them away. So take heart fellow-worker. You may seem to be sowing the Seed at random, but God will see to it that part of it falls onto ground which He has prepared. The realization of the invincibility of the eternal counsels of God will give you a calmness, a poise, a courage, a perseverance which nothing else can. "Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord" (1 Cor. 15:58).  

"All that the Father giveth me shall come to me." But while this is very blessed, it is solemnly tragic and deeply humbling. How humiliating for us, that in the presence of incarnate life and love in the person of the Lord of glory, no one would have come to Him, none would have benefitted by His mission, had there not been those who were given to Him by the Father, and on whose coming He could, therefore, reckon. Man’ s depravity is so entire, his enmity so great, that in every instance, his will would have resisted and rejected Christ, had not the Father determined that His Son should have some as the trophies of His victory and the reward of His coming down from heaven. Alas that our deadness to such love should have called forth such sighs as seem to breathe in these very words of Christ!  

"And him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out" (John 6:37). Let us not miss (as is so commonly done) the connection between this clause and the one which precedes it. "Him that cometh to me" is explained by "all that the Father giveth me." None would come to Him unless the Father had first predestinated that they should, for it is only "as many as were ordained to eternal life" that believe (Acts 13:48). Each one that the Father had given to Christ in eternity past, "cometh" to Him in time— comes as a lost sinner to be saved; comes having nothing, that he may receive everything.  

The last clause "I will in no wise cast out" assures the eternal preservation of everyone that truly cometh to Christ. These words of the Savior do not signify (as generally supposed) that He promises to reject none who really come to Him, though that is true; but they declare that under no imaginable circumstances will He ever expel any one that has come. Peter came to Him and was saved. Later, he denied his Master with an oath. But did Christ "cast him out"? Nay, verily. And can we find a more extreme case? If Peter was not "cast out," no Christian ever was, or ever will be. Praise the Lord!  

"For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me" (John 6:38). This is most instructive. The force of it is this: Those whom the Father had given the Son— all of them— would come to Him. It was no longer the Son in His essential glory, quickening whom He would, as in verse 21, but the Son incarnate, the "Son of man" (John 6:27), receiving those the Father "drew" to Him (John 6:44)! "Therefore be it who it might, He would in no wise cast him out: enemy, scoffer, Jew or Gentile, they would not come if the Father had not sent them" (J.N.D.). Christ was here to do the Father’ s will. Thus does Christ assure His own that He will save to the end all whom the Father had given Him.  

"For I came down from heaven not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me." How greatly does this enhance the value of the precious words at the close of the preceding verse, when we see that our coming to Christ is not attributed to man’ s fickle will, but as the effect of the Father’ s drawing to the Savior each one given to Him in the counsels of that Father’ s love before the foundation of the world! So, too, the reception of them is not merely because of Christ’ s compassion for the lost, but as the obedient Servant of the Father’ s will, He welcomes each one brought to Him— brought by the unseen drawings of the Father’ s love. Thus our security rests not upon anything in us or from us, but upon the Father’ s choice and the Son’ s obedient love!  

"And this is the Father’ s will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day" (John 6:39). How blessedly this, too, explains the closing words of verse 37! Eternal predestination guarantees eternal preservation. The "last day" is, of course, the last day of the Christian dispensation. Then it shall appear that He hath not lost a single one whom the Father gave to Him. Then shall He say, "Behold I and the children which God hath given me" (Heb. 2:13).  

"And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day" (John 6:40). Christ had just spoken of the Father’ s counsels. He had disclosed the fact that the success of His ministry depended not on man’ s will— for that was known to be, in every case, so perverse as to reject the Savior— but on the drawing power of the Father. But here He leaves, as it were, the door wide open to any one any where who is disposed to enter: "that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life." Yet it is instructive to note the order of the two verbs here: "believing" on Christ is the result of "seeing" Him. He must first be revealed by the Spirit before He will be received by the sinner. Thus did our Lord disclose to these men that a far deeper and infinitely more important work had been entrusted to Him than that of satisfying Israel’ s poor with material bread— not less a change than that of raising up at the last day all that had been given to Him by the Father, without losing so much as one.  

The following questions are submitted to help the student for the next chapter on John 6:41-59:—   

1. Wherein does verse 44 rebuke their "murmuring"?  

2. What ought to have been their response to verse 44?  

3. Who are the "all" that are "taught of God"? verse 45.  

4. What is meant by "not die"? verse 50.  

5. What are the various thoughts suggested by "eat"? verse 51.  

6. What is the difference in thought between verses 53 and 56?  

7. What is meant by "I live by the Father"? verse 57.  

ENDNOTES:   

[1] We do not think the time would be wasted if the above paragraphs were re-read before proceeding farther.  

  

Maclaren: Joh 6:11

The Fourth Miracle In John's Gospel

And Jesus took the loaves; and when He had given thanks, He distributed to the disciples,, and the disciples to them that were set down; and likewise of the fishes as much as they would.'--John 6:11.

THIS narrative of the miraculous feeding of the five thousand is introduced into John's Gospel with singular abruptness. We read in the first verse of the chapter: After these things Jesus went over the Sea of Galilee,' i.e. from the western to the eastern side. But the Evangelist does not tell us how or when He got to the western side. These things,' which are recorded in the previous chapter, are the healing of the impotent man at the Pool of Bethesda, the consequent outburst of Jewish hostility, and the profound and solemn discourse of our Lord, in which He claims filial relationship to the Father. So that we must insert between the chapters a journey from Jerusalem to Galilee, and a lapse at all events of some months--or, if the feast referred to in the previous chapter be, as it may be, the Passover, an interval of nearly a year. So little care for the mere framework of events has this fourth Gospel; so entirely would the Evangelist have us see that his reason for narrating this miracle is mainly its spiritual lessons and the revelation which it makes of Christ as Himself the Bread of Life.

Similarly, he has no care to tell us anything about the reasons for our Lord's retirement with His disciples from Galilee to the eastern bank. These we have to learn from the other Evangelists. They give us several concurrent motives--the news of the death of John the Baptist; and of the desire of the bloody tyrant to see Jesus, which foreboded evil; also the return of the twelve Apostles from their trial journey, which involved the necessity of rest for them; and, perhaps, the approach of the Passover, which our Lord did not purpose to observe in Jerusalem because of the Jewish hostility, and which, therefore, suggested the withdrawal to temporary retirement.

All these reasons concurring, He and His disciples would seek for a brief space of seclusion and repose. But the hope of securing such was vain. The people followed in crowds so eagerly, so hastily, in such enormous numbers, that no natural or ordinary provision for their wants could be thought of. Hence the occasion for the miracle before us.

Now I think that this narrative, with which I wish to deal, falls mainly into two portions, both of which suggest for us some important lessons. There is, first, the preparations for the sign; and then there is the sign itself. Let us look at these two points in succession.

I. First, Then, The Preparations For The Sign.

Now it is to he observed that this is the only incident before our Lord's last journey to Jerusalem which is recorded by all four Evangelists; therefore the variations between the narratives are of especial interest, and these variations are very considerable. We find, for instance, that in John's account the question as to how the bread was to be provided came from Christ; in the other Evangelists' accounts that question is discussed first amongst the Apostles privately. We find from John's narrative that the question was suggested even before the multitudes had come to Jesus. We find in the Synoptic Gospels that it arose at the close of a long day of teaching and of healing.

Now it is possible that this diversity of time may be the solution of the diversity of the person proposing. That is to say, it is quite legitimate to conclude that John's account takes up the incident at an earlier period than the other Evangelists do, and that the full order of events was this; that, privately, at the beginning of the day, whilst the people were yet flocking to our Lord, He, to one of the disciples alone, suggests the question, Whence shall we buy bread that these may eat?' and that the answer, Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient that every one of them may take a little,' explains for us the suggestion of the same amount at a subsequent part of the day, by the Apostles when they asked our Lord the question, Shall we go and buy two hundred pennyworth of bread that these may eat?'

Be that as it may, we may pause for a moment upon this question of our Lord's, Whence shall we buy bread that these may eat?'

Now notice what a lovely glimpse we get there into the quick-rising sympathy of the Saviour with all forms of human necessity. He had gone away to snatch a brief moment of rest. The rest is denied Him; the hurrying crowds come pressing with their vulgar curiosity--for it was nothing better--after Him. No movement of impatience passes across His mind; no reluctance as He turns away from the vanishing prospect of a quiet afternoon with His friends. He looks upon them, and the first thought is a quick, instinctive movement of a divine and yet most human sympathy. The question rises in His mind of how He was to provide for them; they were not hungry yet; they bad not thought where their bread was to come from. But He cared for the careless, and His heart was prophetic of their necessities, and quick to determine what He should do' to supply them. So is it ever. Before we call, He answers. Thy mercy, O loving Christ! needs no more than the sight of human necessities, or even the anticipation of them, swiftly to bestir itself for their satisfaction and their supply.

But, farther, He selects for the question Philip, a man who seems to have been what is called--as if it were the highest praise--an intensely practical person'; who seems to have had little faith in anything that he could not get hold of by his senses, and who lived upon the low level of' common sense.' He always lays stress upon seeing.' His answer to Nathanael when he said, Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?' was, Come and see.' A very good answer, and yet one that relies only on the external manifestation of Christ to the senses. Then, on another occasion, he breaks in upon the lofty spiritualities of our Lord's final discourse to His disciples, with the malapropos request, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us.' And so here, to the man who believed in his eyesight, and did not easily apprehend much else, Jesus puts this question, Where is the bread to come from for all "these people? This He said to prove him.' He hoped that the question might have shaped itself in the hearer's mind into a promise, and that he might have been able to say in answer, Thou canst supply; we need not buy.'

So Christ does still. He puts problems before us, too, to settle; takes us, as it were, into His confidence with interrogations that try us, Whether we can rise above the level of the material and visible, or whether all our conceptions of possibilities are bounded by these. And sometimes, even though the question at first sight seems to evoke only such a response as it did here, it works more deeply down below afterwards, and we are helped by the very difficulty to rise to a clear faith.

Philip's answer is very significant. Two hundred pennyworth of bread are not sufficient.' He casts his eye over the multitude, he makes a rough, rapid calculation, one does not exactly see the data on which it was based; and he comes to the conclusion, Two hundred pennyworth' (in our English money some £7 or £8 worth) would give them each a morsel. And no doubt he thought himself very practical. He was a man of figures; he believed in what could be put into tables and statistics. Yes; and like a great many other people of his sort, he left out one small element in his calculation, and that was Jesus Christ, and so his answer went creeping along the low levels, dragging itself like a half-wounded snake, when it might have risen on the wings of faith into the empyrean, and soared and sung.

So learn that when we have to deal with Christ's working--and when have we not to deal with Christ's working?--perhaps probabilities that can be tabulated are not altogether the best bases upon which to rest our calculations. Learn that the audacity of a faith that expects great things, though there be nothing visible upon which to build, is wiser and more prudent than the creeping common-sense that adheres to facts which are shadows, and forgets that the chief fact is that we have an Almighty Helper and Friend at our sides.

Still further, among these preliminaries, let us point to the exhibition of the inadequate resources which Christ, according to the fuller narrative in the other Evangelists, desired to know. There is a little lad here with five barley loaves'--one per thousand--and two small fishes'--insufficient in quantity and very, very common in quality, for barley bread was the food of the poorest. But what are they among so many?' And Christ says, Bring them to Me.'

Christ's preparation for making our poor resources adequate for anything is to drive home into our hearts the consciousness of their insufficiency. We need, first of all, to be brought to this, All that I have is this wretched little stock; and what is that measured against the work that I have to do, and the claims upon me?' Only when we are brought to that can His great power pour itself into us and fill us with rejoicing and overcoming strength. The old mystics used to say, and they said truly: You must be emptied of yourself before you can be filled by God.' And the first thing for any man to learn, in preparation for receiving a mightier power than his own into his opening heart, is to know that all his own strength is utter and absolute weakness. What are they among so many?' When we have once gone right down into the depths of felt impotence, and when our work has risen before us, as if it were far too great for our poor strengths which are weaknesses, then we are brought, and only then, into the position in which we may begin to hope that power equal to our desire will be poured into our souls.

And so the last of the preparations that I will touch upon is that majestic preparation for blessing by obedience. And Jesus said, Make the men sit down.' And there they sat themselves, as Mark puts it in his picturesque way, like so many garden plots--the rectangular oblongs in a garden in which pot-herbs are grown--on the green grass, below the blue sky, by the side of the quiet lake. Cannot you fancy how some of them seated themselves with a scoff, and some with a quiet smile of incredulity; and some half sheepishly and reluctantly; and some in mute expectancy; and some in foolish wonder; and yet all of them with a partial obedience? And says John in the true translation: So the men sat down, therefore Jesus took the loaves.' Sit you down where He bids you, and your mouths will not be long empty. Do the things He tells you, and you will get the food that you need. Our business is to obey and to wait, and His business is, when we are seated, to open His hand and let the mercy drop. So much for the preparations for this great miracle.

II. Now, In The Next Place, A Word As To The Sign Itself.

I take two lessons, and two only, out of it. I see in it, first, a revelation of Christ, as continually through all the ages sustaining men's physical life. And I see in it, second, a symbol of Christ as Himself the Bread of Life.

As to the first, there is here, I believe, a revelation of the law of the universe, of Christ as being through all the ages the Sustainer of the physical life of men. What was done then once, with the suppression of certain links in the chain, is done always, with the introduction of those links. The miraculous moment in the narrative is not described to us. We do not know where or when there came in the supernatural power which multiplied the loaves--probably as they passed from the hand of the Master. But be that as it may, it was Christ's will that made the provision which fed all these five thousand. And I believe that the teaching of Scripture is in accordance with the deepest philosophy, that the one cause of all physical phenomena is the will of a present God; howsoever that may usually conform to the ordinary method of working which people generalise and call laws. The reason why anything is, and the reason why all things change, is the energy there and then of the indwelling God who is in all His works, and who is the only Will and Power in the physical world.

And I believe, further, that Scripture teaches us that that continuous will, which is the cause of all phenomena and the underlying subsistence on which all things repose, is all managed and mediated by Him who from of old was named the Word; in whom was life, and without whom was not anything made that was made.' Oar Christ is Creator, our Christ is Sustainer, our Christ moves the stars and feeds the sparrows. He was before all things, and in Him all things consist.' He opens His hand--and there is the print of a nail in it--and satisfies the desire of every living thing.'

So learn how to think of second causes, and see in tills story a transient manifestation, in unusual form, of an eternal and permanent fact. Jesus took the loaves and distributed to them that were set down.

And so, secondly, the miracle is a sign--a symbol of Him as the true Bread and Food of the world. That is the explanation and commentary which He Himself appends to it in the subsequent part of the chapter, in the great discourse which is founded upon this miracle.

I am the Bread of Life.' There is a triple statement by our Lord upon this subject in the remaining portion of the chapter. He says, I am the Bread of Life.' My personality is that which not only sustains life when it is given, but gives life to them that feed upon it. But more than that, the bread which I will give,' pointing to some future giving' beyond the present moment, and therefore something more than His life and example, is My flesh, which '--in some as yet unexplained way--I give for the life of the world.' And that there may be no misunderstanding, there is a third, deeper, more mysterious statement still: My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed.' Repulsive and paradoxical, but in its very offensiveness and paradox, proclaiming that it covers a mighty truth, and the truth, brother, is this, the one Food that gives life to will, affections, conscience, understanding, to the whole spirit of a man, is that great Sacrifice of the Incarnate Lord who gave upon the Cross His flesh, and on the Cross shed His blood, for the life of the world that was dead in trespasses and sins.' Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us, and we feed on the sacrifice. Let your conscience, your heart, your desires, your anticipations, your understanding, your will, your whole being feed on Him. He will be cleansing, He will be love, He will be fruition, He will be hope, He will be truth, He will be righteousness, He will be all. Feed upon Him by that faith which is the true eating of the true Bread, and your souls shall live.

And notice finally here, the result of this miracle as transferred to the region of symbol. They did all eat and were filled'; men, women, children, both sexes, all ages, all classes, found the food that they needed in the bread that came from Christ's hands. If any man wants dainties that will tickle the palates of Epicureans, let him go somewhere else. But if he wants bread, to keep the life in and to stay his hunger, let him go to this Christ who is human nature's daily food.'

The world has scoffed for nineteen centuries at the barley bread that the Gospel provides; coarse by the side of its confectionery, but it is enough to give life to all who eat it. It goes straight to the primal necessities of human nature. It does not coddle a class, or pander to unwholesome, diseased, or fastidious appetites. It is the food of the world, and not of a section. All men can relish it, all men need it. It is offered to them all.

And more than that; notice the inexhaustible abundance. They did all eat, and were filled.' And then they took up--not' of the fragments,' as our Bible gives it, conveying the idea of the crumbs that littered the grass after the repast was over, but of the broken pieces '--the portions that came from Christ's hands--twelve baskets full, an immensely greater quantity than they had to start with. The gift doth stretch itself as tis received.' Other goods and other possessions perish with the using, but this increases with use. The more one eats, the more there is for him to eat. And all the world may live upon it for ever, and there will be more at the end than there was at the beginning.

Brethren, why do ye spend your money for that which is not bread'? There is no answer worthy of a rational soul, no answer that will stand either the light of conscience or the clearer light of the Day of Judgment. I come to you now, and although my poor words may be but like the barley bread and the two fishes--nothing amongst all this gathered audience, I come with Christ in my hands, and I say to you, Eat, and your souls shah live.' He will spread a table for you in the wilderness, and take you to sit at last at His table in His Kingdom.

Maclaren: Joh 6:12

Fragments' Or Broken Pieces'

When they were filled, He said unto His disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.'--John 6:12.

THE Revised Version correctly makes a very slight, but a very significant change in the words of this verse. Instead of fragments' it reads broken pieces.' The change seems very small, but the effect of it is considerable. It helps our picture of the scene by correcting a very common misapprehension as to what it was which the Apostles are bid to gather up. The general notion, I suppose, is that the fragments' are the crumbs that fell from each man's hands, as he ate, and the picture before the imagination of the ordinary reader is that of the Apostles' carefully collecting the debris of the meal from the grass where it had dropped. But the true notion is that the broken pieces which remain over' are the unused portions into which our Lord's miracle-working hand had broken the bread, and the true picture is that of the Apostles carefully putting away in store for future use the abundant provision which their Lord had made, beyond the needs of the hungry thousands. And that conception of the command teaches far more beautiful and deeper lessons than the other.

For if the common translation and notion be correct, all that is taught us, or at least what is principally taught us, is the duty of thrift and careful economy; whereas the other shows more clearly that what is taught us is that Jesus Christ always gets ready for His people something over and above the exact limits of their bare need at the moment, that He prepares for His poor and hungry dependants in royal fashion, leaving ever a wide margin of difference between what would be just enough to keep the life in them, and His liberal housekeeping. Further, we are taught a lesson of wise husbandry and economy in the use of that overplus of grace which Christ ministers, and are instructed that the laws of prudent thrift have as honoured a place in the management of spiritual as of temporal wealth. Gather up,' says our Lord, the pieces which I broke, the large provision which I made for possible wants. My gifts are in excess of the requirements of the moment. Take care of them till you need them.' That is a worthier interpretation of His command than one which merely sees in it an exhortation to thrifty taking care of the crumbs that fell from the lips of the hungry eaters.

Looking at this command, then, with this slight alteration of rendering, and consequent widening of scope, we may briefly try to gather up the lessons which it obviously suggests.

I. The Connection With Christ's Breaking The Loaves And Fishes.

We have that thought, to which I have already referred, as more strikingly brought out by the slight alteration of translation, which, by the use of broken pieces,' suggests the connection with Christ's breaking the loaves and fishes. We are taught to think of the large surplus in Christ's gifts over and above our need. Our Lord has Himself given us a commentary upon this miracle. All Christ's miracles are parables, for all teach us, on the level of natural and outward things, lessons that are true in regard to the spiritual world; but this one is especially symbolical, as indeed are all these recorded in John's Gospel. And here we have Christ, on the day after the miracle, commenting upon it in His long and profound discourse upon the Bread of Life, which plainly intimates that He meant His office of feeding the hungry crowds, with bread supernaturally increased by the touch of His hand, to be but a picture and a guide which might lead to the apprehension of the higher view of Himself as the bread of God which came down from heaven,' feeding and giving life to the world' by His broken body and shed blood.

So that we are not inventing a fanciful interpretation of an incident not meant to have any meaning deeper than shows on the surface, when we say that the abundance far beyond what the eaters could make use of at the moment really represented the large surplus of inexhaustible resources and unused grace which is treasured for us all in Christ Jesus. Whom He feeds He feasts. His gifts answer our need, and over-answer it, for He is able to do exceeding abundantly above that which we ask or think,' and neither our conceptions, nor our petitions, nor our present powers of receiving, are the real limits of the illimitable grace that is laid up for us in Christ, and which, potentially, we have each of us in our hands whenever we lay our hands on Him.

Oh, dear friends! what you and I have ever had and felt of Christ's power, sweetness, preciousness, and love is as nothing compared with the infinite depths of all those which lie in Him. The sea fills the little creeks along its shore, but it rolls in unfathomed depths, boundless to the horizon away out there in the mid-Atlantic. And all the present experience of all Christian people, of what Christ is, is like the experience of the first settlers in some great undiscovered continent; who timidly plant a little fringe of population round its edge and grow their scanty crops there, whilst the great prairies of miles and miles, with all their wealth and fertility, are lying untrodden and unknown in the heart of the untraversed continent. The most powerful telescope leaves nebulae unresolved, which, though they seem but a dim dust of light, are all ablaze with mighty suns. The goodness' which He has wrought before the sons of men for them that fear' Him is, as the Psalmist adoringly exclaims, wondrously great,' but still greater is that which the same verse of the Psalm celebrates--the goodness which He has laid up for them that fear Him.' The gold which is actually coined and passing from hand to hand, is but a fraction, a mere scale, as it were, off the surface of the great uncoined mass of bullion that lies stored in the vaults there. Christ is a great deal more than any man, or than all men, have yet found Him to be. Gather up the broken pieces'; and see that nothing of that infinite preciousness of His be lost by us.

II. Then There Is Another Very Simple Lesson Which I Draw.

This command suggests for us Christ's thrift (if I may use the word) in the employment of His miraculous power.

Surely they might have said: If thou canst multiply five loaves into all this abundance, why should we be trudging about, each with a basket on his back full of bread, when we have with us He whose word can make it for us at any moment?' Yes, but a law which characterises all the miraculous, in both the Old and the New Testament, and which broadly distinguishes Christ's miracles from all the false miracles of false religions is this, that the miraculous is pared down to the smallest possible amount, that not one hairsbreadth beyond the necessity shall be done by miracle; that whatever men can do they shall do; that their work shall stop as late, and begin again as soon as possible. Thus, though Christ was going to raise Lazarus, men's hands had to roll away the stone; and when Christ had raised Lazarus, men's hands had to loose the napkins from his face. And though Christ was able to say to the daughter of Jairus, Talitha cumi!' (damsel, arise!) His next word was: Give her something to eat.' Where the miraculous was needed it was used, and not a hairsbreadth beyond absolute necessity did it extend.

And so here Christ multiplies the bread, and yet each of the Apostles has to take a basket, probably some kind of woven wicker-work article which they would carry for holding their little necessaries in their peregrinations; each Apostle has to take his basket, and perhaps emptying it of some of his humble apparel, to fill it with these bits of bread; for Christ was not going to work miracles where men's thrift and prudence could be employed.

Nor does He do so now. We live by faith, and our dependence on Him can never be too absolute. Only laziness sometimes dresses itself in the garb and speaks with the tongue of faith, and pretends to be truthful when it is only slothful. Why criest thou unto Me?' said God to Moses, speak unto the children of Israel that they go forward.' True faith sets us to work. It is not to be perverted into idle and false depending upon Him to work for us, when by the use of our own ten fingers and our own brains, guided and strengthened by His working in us, we can do the work that is set before us.

III. Still Further, There Is Another Lesson Here.

Not only does the injunction show us Christ's thrift in the employment of the supernatural, but it teaches us our duty of thrift and care in the use of the spiritual grace bestowed upon us.

These men had given to them this miraculously made bread; but they had to exercise ordinary thrift in the preservation of the supernatural gift. Christ has been given to you by the most stupendous miracle that ever was or can be wrought, and if you are Christian people, you have the Spirit of Christ given to you, to dwell in your hearts, to make you wise and fair, gentle and strong, and altogether Christlike. But you have to take care of these gifts. You have to exercise the common virtues of economy and thrift in your use of the divine gifts as in your use of the common things of daily life. You have to use wisely and not waste the Bread of God that came down from heaven, or that Bread of God will not feed you. You have to provide the basket in which to carry the unexhausted residue of the divine gift, or you may stand hungry in the very midst of plenty, and whilst within arm's length of you there is bread enough and to spare to feed the whole world.

The lesson of my text, which is most eminently brought out if we adopt the translation which I have referred to at the beginning of these remarks, is, then, just this: Christian men, be watchful stewards of that great gift of a living Christ, the food of your souls, that has been by miracle bestowed upon you. Such gathering together for future need of the unused residue of grace may be accomplished by three ways. First, there must be a diligent use of the grace given. See that you use to the very full, in the measure of your present power of absorbing and your present need, the gift bestowed upon you. Be sure that you take in as much of Christ as you can contain before you begin to think of what to do with the overplus. If we are not careful to take what we can, and to use what we need, of Christ, there is little chance of our being faithful stewards of the surplus. The water in a mill-stream runs over the trough in great abundance when the wheel is not working, and one reason why so many Christians seem to have so much more given to them in Christ than they need is because they are doing no work to use up the gift.

A second essential to such stewardship is the careful guarding of the grace given from whatever would injure it. Let not worldliness, business, cares of the world, the sorrows of life, its joys, duties, anxieties or pleasures, let not these so come into your hearts that they will elbow Christ out of your hearts, and dull your appetite for the true Bread that came down from heaven.

And lastly, not only by use and by careful guarding, but also by earnest desire for larger gifts of the Christ who is large beyond all measure, shall we receive more and more of His sweetness and His preciousness into our hearts, and of His beauty and glory into our transfigured characters. The basket that we carry, this recipient heart of ours, is elastic. It can stretch to hold any amount that you like to put into it. The desire for more of Christ's grace will stretch its capacity, and as its capacity increases the inflowing gilt greatens, and a larger Christ fills the larger room of my poor heart.

So the lesson is taught us of out. prudence in the care and use of the grace bestowed on us, and we are bidden to cherish a happy confidence in the inexhaustible resources of Christ, and the continual gift in the future of even larger measures of grace, which are all ours already, given to us at the first reception of Him into our hearts, and only needing our faithfulness to be growingly ours in experience as they are ours from the first in germ.

IV. A Solemn Warning That Nothing Be Lost.

Finally, a solemn warning is implied in this command, and its reason that nothing be lost.'

Then there is a possibility of losing the gift that is freely given to us. We may waste the bread, and so, sometime or other when we are hungry, awake to the consciousness that it has dropped out of our slack hands. The abundance of Christ's grace may, so far as you are profited or enriched by it, be like the unclaimed millions of money which nobody asks for and that is of use to no living soul. You may be paupers while all God's riches in glory are at your disposal, and starving while baskets full of bread broken for us by Christ lie unused at our sides. Some of us have never tasted the sweetness or been fed by the nutritiousness of that Bread of God which came down from heaven. And more marvellous still, there may be some of us, who having come to Christ hungry and been fed by Him, have ceased to care for the pure nourishment and taste for the manna, and are turning again with gross appetite to the husks in the swine's trough. Negligent Christians! worldly Christians! you who care more for money and other dainties and delights which perish with the using--backsliding Christians, who once hungered and thirsted for more of Christ, and now have no longing for Him--awake to the danger in which you stand of letting all your spiritual wealth slip through your fingers; behold the treasures, yet unreached, within your grasp, and seek to garner and realise them. Gather up the broken pieces which remain over, lest everything be lost.

Maclaren: Joh 6:19-20

The Fifth Miracle In John's Gospel

So when they had rowed about five-and-twenty or thirty furlongs, they see Jesus walking on the sea, and drawing nigh unto the ship: and they were afraid. 20. But He said unto them, It is I; be not afraid.'--John 6:19-20.

THERE are none of our Lord's parables recorded in this Gospel, but all the miracles which it narrates are parables. Moral and religious truth is communicated by the outward event, as in the parable it is communicated by the story. The mere visible fact becomes more than semi-transparent. The analogy between the spiritual and the natural world which men instinctively apprehend, of which the poet and the orator and the religious teacher have always made abundant use, and which it has sometimes been attempted, unsuccessfully as I think, to elevate to the rank of a scientific truth, underlies the whole series of these miracles. It is the principal if not the only key to the meaning of this one before us.

The symbolism which regards life under the guise of a voyage, and its troubles and difficulties under the metaphor of storm and tempest, is especially natural to nations that take kindly to the water, like us Englishmen. I do not know that there is any instance, either in the Old or in the New Testament, of the use of that to us very familiar metaphor; but the emblem of the sea as the symbol of trouble, unrest, rebellious power, is very familiar to the writers of the Old Testament. And the picture of the divine path as in the waters, and of the divine prerogative as being to tread upon the heights of the sea,' as Job has it, is by no means unknown. So the natural symbolism, and the Old Testament use of the expressions, blend together, as I think, in suggesting the one point of view from which this miracle is to be regarded.

It is found in two of the other Evangelists, and the condensed account of it which we have in this Gospel, by its omission of Peter's walking on the water, and of some other smaller but graphic details that the other Evangelists give us, serves to sharpen the symbolical meaning of the whole story, and to bring that as its great purpose and signification into prominence.

We shall, I think, then, best gain the lessons intended to be drawn if we simply follow the points of the narrative in their order as they stand here.

I. We Have Here, First Of All, Then, The Struggling Toilers.

The other Evangelists tell us that after the feeding of the five thousand our Lord constrained' His disciples to get into the ship, and to pass over to the other side. The language implies unwillingness, to some extent, on their part, and the exercise of authority upon His. Our Evangelist, who does not mention the constraint, supplies us with the reason for it. The preceding miracle had worked up the excitement of the mob to a very dangerous point. Crowds are always the same, and this crowd thought, as any other crowd anywhere and in any age would have done, that the prophet that could make bread at will was the kind of prophet whom they wanted. So they determined to take Him by force, and make Him a king; and Christ, seeing the danger, and not desiring that His Kingdom should be furthered by such unclean hands and gross motives, determined to withdraw Himself into the loneliness of the bordering hills. It was wise to divide the little group; it would distract attention; it might lead some of the people, as we know it did lead them, to follow the boat when they found it was gone. It would save the Apostles from being affected by the coarse, smoky enthusiasm of the crowd. It would save them from revealing the place of His retirement. It might enable Him to steal away more securely unobserved. So they are sent across to the other side of the lake, some five or six miles. An hour or two might have done it, but for some unknown reason they seem to have lingered. Perhaps they had no special call for haste. The Paschal moon, nearly full, would be shining down upon the waters; their hearts and minds would be busy with the miracle which they had just seen. And so they may have drifted along, not caring much when they reached their destination. But suddenly one of the gusts of wind which are frequently found upon mountain lakes, especially towards nightfall, rose and soon became a gale with which they could not battle. Our Evangelist does not tell us how long it lasted, but we get a note of time from St. Mark, who says it was about the fourth watch of the night'; that is between the hours of three and six in the morning of the subsequent day. So that for some seven or eight hours at least they had been tugging at the useless oars, or sitting shivering, wet and weary, in the boat.

Is it not the history of the Church in a nutshell? Is it not the symbol of life for us all? The solemn law under which we live demands persistent effort, and imposes continual antagonism upon us; there is no reason why we should regard that as evil, or think ourselves hardly used, because we are not fair-weather sailors. The end of life is to make men; the meaning of all events is to mould character. Anything that makes me stronger is a blessing, anything that develops my morale is the highest good that can come to me. If therefore antagonism mould in me.

The wrestling thews that throw the world,' and give me good, strong muscles, and put tan and colour into my cheek, I need not mind the cold and the wet, nor care for the whistling of the wind in my face, nor the dash of the spray over the bows. Summer sailing in fair weather, amidst land-locked bays, in blue seas, and under calm skies, may be all very well for triflers, but Blown seas and storming showers' are better if the purpose of the voyage be to brace us and call out our powers.

And so be thankful if, when the boat is crossing the mouth of some glen that opens upon the lake, a sudden gust smites the sheets and sends you to the helm, and takes all your effort to keep you from sinking. Do not murmur, or think that God's Providence is strange, because many and many a time when it is dark, and Jesus is not yet come to us,' the storm of wind comes down upon the lake and threatens to drive us from our course. Let us rather recognise Him as the Lord who, in love and kindness, sends all the different kinds of weather which, according to the old proverb, make up the full-summed year.

And then notice how, in this first picture of our text, the symbolism so naturally lends itself to spiritual meanings, not only in regard to the tempest that caught the unthinking voyagers, but also in regard to other points; such as the darkness amidst which they had to fight the tempest, and the absence of the Master. Once before, they had been caught in a similar storm on the lake, but it was daylight then, and Jesus was with them, and that made all the difference. This time it was night, and they looked up in vain to the green Eastern hills, and wondered where in their folds He was lurking, so far from their help. Mark gives us one sweet touch when he tells us that Christ on the hillside there saw them toiling in rowing, but they did not see Him. No doubt they felt themselves deserted, and sent many a wistful glance of longing towards the shore where He was. Hard thoughts of Him may have been in some of their minds. Master, carest Thou not?' would be springing to some of their lips with more apparent reason than in the other storm on the lake. But His calm and loving gaze looked down pitying on all their fear and toil. The darkness did not hide from Him, nor His own security on the steadfast land make Him forget, nor his communion with the Father so absorb Him as to exclude thoughts of them.

It. is a parable and a prophecy of the perpetual relation between the absent Lord and the toiling Church. He is on the mountain while we are on the sea. The stable eternity of the Heavens holds Him; we are tossed on the restless mutability of time, over which we toil at His command. He is there interceding for us. Whilst He prays He beholds, and He beholds that He may help us by His prayer. The solitary crew were not so solitary as they thought. That little dancing speck on the waters, which held so much blind love and so much fear and trouble, was in His sight, as on the calm mountain-top He communed with God. No wonder that weary hearts and lonely ones, groping amidst the darkness, and fighting with the tempests and the sorrows of life, have ever found in our story a symbol that comes to them with a prophecy of hope and an assurance of help, and have rejoiced to know that they on the sea are beheld of the Christ in the sky, and that the darkness hideth not from' His loving eye.

II. And Now Turn To The Next Stage Of The Story Before Us.

We have the approaching Christ.

When they had rowed about five-and-twenty or thirty furlongs, and so were just about the middle of the lake, they see Jesus walking on the sea and drawing nigh unto the ship.' They were about half-way across the lake. We do not know at what hour in the fourth watch the Master came. But probably it was towards daybreak. Toiling had endured for a night. It would be in accordance with the symbolism that joy and help should come with the morning.

If we look for a moment at the miraculous fact, apart from the symbolism, we have a revelation here of Christ as the Lord of the material universe, a kingdom wider in its range and profounder in its authority than that which that shouting crowd had sought to force upon Him. His will consolidated the yielding wave, or sustained His material body on the tossing surges. Whether we suppose the miracle as wrought on the one or the other, makes no difference to its value as a manifestation of the glory of Christ, and of His power over the physical order of things. In the latter ease there would, perhaps, be a hint of a power residing in His material frame, of which we possibly have other phases, as in the Transfiguration, which may be a prophecy of what lordship over nature is possible to a sinless manhood However that may be, we have here a wonderful picture which is true for all ages of the mighty Christ, to whose gentle footfall the unquiet surges are as a marble pavement; and who draws near in the purposes of His love, unhindered by antagonism, and using even opposing forces as the path for His triumphant progress. Two lessons may be drawn from this. One is that in His marvellous providence Christ uses all the tumults and unrest, the opposition and tempests which surround the ship that bears His followers, as the means of achieving His purposes. We stand before a mystery to which we have no key when we think of these two certain facts; first, the Omnipotent redeeming will of God in Christ; and, second, the human antagonism which is able to rear itself against that. And we stand in the presence of another mystery, most blessed, and yet which we cannot unthread, when we think, as we most assuredly may, that in some mysterious fashion He works His purposes by the very antagonism to His purposes, making even head-winds fill the sails, and planting His foot on the white crests of the angry and changeful billows. How often in the world's history has this scene repeated itself, and by a divine irony the enemies have become the helpers of Christ's cause, and what they plotted for destruction has turned out rather to the furtherance of the Gospel! He maketh the wrath of man to praise Him, and with the residue thereof He girdeth Himself.'

Another lesson for our individual lives is this, that Christ, in His sweetness and His gentle sustaining help, comes near to us all across the sea of sorrow and trouble. A more tender, a more gracious sense of His nearness to us is ever granted to us in the time of our darkness and our grief than is possible to us in the sunny hours of joy. It is always the stormy sea that Christ comes across, to draw near to us; and they who have never experienced the tempest have yet to learn the inmost sweetness of His presence. When it is night, and it is dark, at the hour which is the keystone of night's black arch, Christ comes to us, striding across the stormy waters. Sorrow brings Him near to us. Do you see that sorrow does not drive you away from Him!

III. Then, Still Further, We Note In The Story Before Us The Terror And The Recognition.

St. John does not tell us why they were afraid. There is no need to tell us. They see, possibly in the chill uncertain light of the grey dawn breaking over the Eastern hills, a Thing coming to them across the water there. They had fought gallantly with the storm, but this questionable shape freezes their heart's blood, and a cry, that is audible above even the howling of the wind and the dash of the waves, gives sign of the superstitious terror that crept round the hearts of those commonplace, rude men.

I do not dwell upon the fact that the average man, if he fancies that anything from out of the Unseen is near him, shrinks in fear. I do not ask you whether that is not a sign and indication of the deep conviction that lies in men's souls, of a discord between themselves and the unseen world; but I ask you if we do not often mistake the coming Master, and tremble before Him when we ought to be glad?

We are often so absorbed with our work, so busy tugging at the oar, so anxiously watching the set of current, so engaged in keeping the helm right, that we have no time and no eyes to look across the ocean and see who it is that is coming to us through all the hurly-burly. Our tears fill our eyes, and weave a veil between us and the Master. And when we do see that there is Something there, we are often afraid of it, and shrink from it. And sometimes when a gentle whisper of consolation, or some light air, as it were, of consciousness of His presence, breathes through our souls, we think that it is only a phantasm of our own making, and that the coming Christ is nothing more than the play of our thoughts and imaginations.

Oh, brethren, let no absorption in cares and duties, let no unchildlike murmurings, let no selfish abandonment to sorrow, blind you to the Lord who always comes near troubled hearts, if they will only look and see! Let no reluctance to entertain religious ideas, no fear of contact with the Unseen, no shrinking from the thought of Christ as a Kill-joy keep you from seeing Him as He draws near to you in your troubles. And let no sly, mocking Mephistopheles of doubt, nor any poisonous air, blowing off the foul and stagnant marshes of present materialism, make you fancy that the living Reality, treading on the flood there, is a dream or a fancy or the projection of your own imagination on to the void of space. He is real, whatever may be phenomenal and surface. The storm is not so real as the Christ, the waves not so substantial as He who stands upon them. They will pass and quieten, He will abide for ever. Lift up your hearts and be glad, because the Lord comes to you across the waters, and hearken to His voice: It is I! Be not afraid.'

The encouragement not to fear follows the proclamation, It is I!' What a thrill of glad confidence must have poured itself into their hearts, when once they rose to the height of that wondrous fact!

Well roars the storm to those who hearA deeper voice across the storm.'

There is no fear in the consciousness of His presence. It is His old word: Be not afraid!' And He breathes it whithersoever He comes; for His coming is the banishment of danger and the exorcism of dread. So that if only you and I, in the midst of all storm and terror, can say It is the Lord,' then we may catch up the grand triumphant chorus of the old psalm, and say: Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, and the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea, yet I will not fear.' The Lord is with us; the everlasting Christ is our Helper, our Refuge, and our Strength.

IV. So, Lastly, We Have Here In This Story The End Of The Tempest And Of The Voyage.

Our Evangelist does not record, as the others do, that the storm ceased upon Christ's being welcomed into the little boat. The other Evangelists do not record, as he does, the completion of the voyage. Immediately the ship was at the land whither they went.' The two things are cause and effect. I do not suppose, as many do, that a subordinate miracle is to be seen in that last clause of our text, or that the immediately' is to be taken as if it meant that without one moment's delay, or interval, the voyage was completed; but only, which I think is all that is needful, that the falling of the tempest and the calming of the waters which followed upon the Master's entrance into the vessel made the remainder of the voyage comparatively brief and swift.

It is not always true, it is very seldom true, that when Christ comes on board opposition ends, and the haven is reached. But it is always true that when Christ comes on board a new spirit enters into the men who have Him for their companion, and are conscious that they have. It makes their work easy, and makes them more than conquerors' over what yet remains. With what a different spirit the weary men would bend their backs to the oars once more when they had the Master on board, and with what a different spirit you and I will set ourselves to our work if we are sure of His presence. The worst of trouble is gone when Christ shares it with us. There is a wonderful charm to stay His rough wind in the assurance that in all our affliction He is afflicted. If we feel that we are following in His footsteps, we feel that He stands between us and the blast, a refuge from the storm and a covert from the tempest. And if still, as no doubt will be the case, we have our share of trouble and storm and sorrow and difficulty, yet the worst of the gale will be passed, and though a long swell may still heave, the terror and the danger will have gone with the night, and hope and courage and gladness revive as the morning's sun breaks over the still unquiet waves, and shows us our Master with us and the white walls of the port glinting in the level beams.

Friends, life is a voyage, anyhow, with plenty of storm and danger and difficulty and weariness and exposure and anxiety and dread and sorrow, for every soul of man. But if you will take Christ on board, it will be a very different thing from what it will be if you cross the wan waters alone. Without Him you will make shipwreck of yourselves; with Him your voyage may seem perilous and be tempestuous, but He will make the storm a calm,' and will bring you to the haven of your desire.

Maclaren: Joh 6:28-29

How To Work The Work Of God

Then said they unto Him. What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? 29. Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent.'--John 6:28-29.

THE feeding of the five thousand was the most popular' of Christ's miracles. The Evangelist tells us, with something between a smile and a sigh, that when the people saw it, they said, This is of a truth that Prophet that should come into the world,' and they were so delighted with Him and with it, that they wanted to get up an insurrection on the spot, and make a King of Him. I wonder if there are any of that sort of people left. If two men were to come into Manchester to-morrow morning, and one of them were to offer material good, and the other wisdom and peace of heart, which of them, do you think, would have the larger following? We need not cast a stone at the unblushing, frank admiration that these men had for a Prophet who could feed them, for that is exactly the sort of prophet that a great number of us would like best if they spoke out.

So Jesus Christ had to escape from the inconvenient enthusiasm of these mistaken admirers of His; and they followed Him in their eagerness, but were met with words which lift them into another region and damp their zeal. He tries to turn away their thoughts from the miracle to a far loftier gift. He contrasts the trouble which they willingly took in order to get a meal with their indifference as to obtaining the true bread from heaven, and He bids them work for it just as they had shown themselves ready to work for the other.

They put to Him this question of my text, so strangely blending as it does right and wrong, You have bid us work; tell us how to work? What must we do that we may work the works of God?' Christ answers, in words that illuminate their confusions and clear the whole matter, This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent.'

I. Faith, Then, Is A Work.

You know that the commonplace of evangelical teaching opposes faith to works; and the opposition is perfectly correct, if it be rightly understood. But I have a strong impression that a great deal of our preaching goes clean over the heads of our hearers, because we take for granted, and they fancy that they understand, the meaning of terms because the terms themselves are so familiar. And I believe that many people go to churches and chapels all their lives long, and hear this doctrine dinned into them, that they are to be saved by faith, and not by works, and never approach a definite understanding of what it means.

So let me just for a moment try to clear up the terms of this apparently paradoxical statement that faith is a work. What do we mean by faith? What do you mean by saying that you have faith in your friend, in your wife, in your husband, in your guide? You simply mean, and we mean, that you trust the person, grasping him by the act of trust. On trust the whole fabric of human society depends, as well as in another aspect of the same expression does the whole fabric of Manchester commerce. Faith, confidence, the leaning of myself on one discerned to be true, trusty, strong, sufficient for the purpose in hand, whatever it may be --that, and nothing more mysterious, nothing further away from daily life and the common emotions which knit us to one another, is, as I take it, what the New Testament means when it insists upon faith.

Ah, we all exercise it. You put it forth in certain low levels and directions. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her,' is the short summary of the happy lives of many, I have no doubt, of my present hearers. Have you none of that confidence to spare for God? Is it all meant to be poured out upon weak, fallible, changeful creatures like ourselves, and none of it to rise to the One in whom absolute confidence may eternally be fixed?

But then, of course, as we may see by the exercise of the same emotion in regard to one another, the under side (as I have been accustomed to say to you) of this confidence in God or Christ is diffidence of myself. There is no real exercise of confidence which does not involve, as an essential part of itself, the going out from myself in order that I may lay all the weight and the responsibility of the matter in hand upon Him in whom I trust. And so Christian faith is compounded of these two elements, or rather, it has these two sides which correspond to one another. The same figure is convex or concave according as you look at it from one side or another. If you look at faith from one side, it rises towards God; if from the other, it hollows itself out into a great emptiness. And so the under side of faith is distrust; and he that puts his confidence in God thereby goes out of himself, and declares that in himself there is nothing to rest upon.

Now that two-sided confidence and diffidence, trust and distrust, which are one, is truly a work. It is not an easy one either; it is the exercise of our own inmost nature. It is an effort of will. It has to be done by coercing ourselves. It has to be maintained in the face of many temptations and difficulties. The contrast between faith and work is between an inward act and a crowd of outward performances. But the faith which knits me to God is my act, and I am responsible for it.

But yet it is not a work, just because it is a ceasing from my own works, and going out from myself that He may enter in. Only remember, when we say, Not by works of righteousness, but by the faith of Christ,' we are but proclaiming that the inward man must exercise that act of self-abnegation and confession of its own impotence, and ceasing from all reliance on anything which it does, whereby, and whereby alone, it can be knit to God. Labour not for the meat that perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto eternal life … This is the work of God, that ye believe.' You are responsible for doing that, or for not doing it.

II. Secondly, Faith, And Not A Multitude Of Separate Acts, Is What Pleases God.

Mark the difference between the form of the question and that of the answer. The people say, What are we to do that we may work the works of God?' Christ answers in the singular: This is the work.' They thought of a great variety of observances and deeds. He gathers them all up into one. They thought of a pile, and that the higher it rose the more likely they were to be accepted. He unified the requirement, and He brought it all down to this one act, in which all other acts are included, and on which alone the whole weight of a man's salvation is to rest. What shall we do that we might work the works of God?' is a question asked in all sorts of ways, by the hearts of men all round about us; and what a babble of answers comes!

The priest says, Rites and ceremonies.' The thinker says, Culture, education.' The moralist says, Do this, that, and the other thing,' and enumerates a whole series of separate acts. Jesus Christ says, One thing is needful … This is the work of God.' He brushes away the sacerdotal answer and the answer of the mere moralist, and He says, No! Not do; but trust.' In so far as that is act, it is the only act that you need.

That is evidently reasonable. The man is more than his work; motive is more important than action; character is deeper than conduct. God is pleased, not by what men do, but by what men are. We must be first, and then we shall do. And it is obviously reasonable, because we can find analogies to the requirement in all other relations of life. What would you care for a child that scrupulously obeyed, and did not love or trust? What would a prince think of a subject who was ostentatious in acts of loyalty, and all the while was plotting and nurturing treason in his heart?

If doing separate acts of righteousness be the way to work the works of God, then no man has ever done them. For it is a plain fact that every man falls below his own conscience- which conscience is less scrupulous than the divine law. The worst of us knows a great deal more than the best of us does; and our lives, universally, are, at the best, lives of partial effort after unreached attainments of obedience and of virtue.

But, even supposing that we could perform, far more completely than we do, the requirements of our own consciences, and conform to the evident duties of our position and relations, do you think that without faith we should be therein working the works of God?

Suppose a man were able fully to realise his own ideal of goodness, without any confidence in God underlying all his acts; do you think that these would be acts that would please God? It seems to me that, however lovely and worthy of admiration, looked at with human eyes only, many lives are, which have nobly and resolutely fought against evil, and struggled after good, if they have lacked the crowning grace of doing this for God's sake, they lack, I was going to say, almost everything; I will not say that, but I will say that they lack that which makes them acceptable, well-pleasing to Him. The poorest, the most imperfect realisation of our duty and ideal of conduct which has in it a love towards God and a faith in Him that would fain do better if it could, is a nobler thing, I venture to say, in the eyes of Heaven--which are the truth-seeing eyes--than the noblest achievements of an untrusting soul. It does not seem to me that to say so is bigotry or narrowness or anything else but the plain deduction from this, that a man's relation to God is the deepest thing about him, and that if that be right, other things will come right, and if that be wrong nothing is as right as it might be.

Here we have Jesus Christ laying the foundation for the doctrine which is often said to be Pauline, as if that meant something else than coming from Jesus Christ. We often hear people say, Oh, your evangelical teaching of justification by faith, and all that, comes out of Paul's Epistles, not out of Christ's teaching, nor out of John's Gospel.' Well, there is a difference, which it is blindness not to recognise, between the seeds Of teaching in our Lord's words, and the flowers and fruit of these seeds, which we get in the more systematised and developed teaching of the Epistles. I frankly admit that, and I should expect it, with my belief as to who Christ is, and who Paul is. But in that saying, This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent,' is the germ of everything that Paul has taught us about the works of the law being of no avail, and faith being alone and unfailing in its power of uniting men to God, and bringing them into the possession of eternal life. The saying stands in John's Gospel, and so Paul and John alike received, though in different fashions, and wrought out on different lines of subsequent teaching, the germinal impulse from these words of the Master. Let us hear no more about salvation by faith being a Pauline addition to Christ's Gospel, for the lips of Christ Himself have declared this is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent.'

III. Thirdly, This Faith Is The Productive Parent Of All Separate Works Of God.

The teaching that I have been trying to enforce has, I know, been so presented as to make a pillow for indolence, and to be closely allied to immorality. It has been so presented, but it has not been so presented half as often as its enemies would have us believe. For I know of but very few, and those by no means the most prominent and powerful of the preachers of the great doctrine of salvation by faith, who have not added, as its greatest teacher did: Let us also be careful to maintain good works for necessary uses.' But the true teaching is not that trust is a substitute for work, but that it is the foundation of work. The Gospel is, first of all, Trust; then, Set yourselves to do the works of faith. It works by love, it is the opening of the heart to the entrance of the life of Christ, and, of course, when that life comes in, it will act in the man in a manner appropriate to its origin and source, and he that by faith has been joined to Jesus Christ, and has opened his heart to receive into that heart the life of Christ, will, as a matter of course, bring forth, in the measure of his faith, the fruits of righteousness.

We are surely not despising fruits and flowers when we insist upon the root from which they shall come. A man may take separate acts of partial goodness, as you see children in the springtime sticking daisies on the spikes of a thorn-twig picked from the hedges. But these will die. The basis of all righteousness is faith, and the manifestation of faith is practical righteousness. Show Me thy faith by thy works' is Christ's teaching quite as much as it is the teaching of His sturdy servant James. And so, dear friends, we are going the shortest way to enrich lives with all the beauties of possible human perfection when we say, Begin at the beginning. The longest way round is the shortest way home; trust Him with all your hearts first, and that will effloresce into "whatsoever things are lovely and whatever things are of good report."In the beautiful metaphor of the Apostle Peter, in his second Epistle, Faith is the damsel who leads in the chorus of consequent graces; and we are exhorted to add to our faith virtue,' and all the others that unfold themselves in harmonious sequence from that one central source.

If I had time I should be glad to turn for a moment to the light which such considerations cast upon subjects that are largely occupying the attention of the Christian Church to-day. I should like to insist that, before you talk much about applied Christianity, you should be very sure that in men there is a Christianity to apply. I venture to profess my own humble belief that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, Christian ministers and churches will do no more for the social, political, and intellectual and moral advancement of men and the elevation of the people by sticking to their own work and preaching this Gospel--This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent.'

IV. Lastly, This Faith Secures The Bread Of Life.

The bread of life is the starting-point of the whole conversation. In the widest possible sense it is whatsoever truly stills the hunger of the immortal soul. In a deeper sense it is the person of Jesus Christ Himself, for He not only says that He will give, but that He is the Bread of Life. And, in the deepest sense of all, it is His flesh broken for us in His sacrifice on the Cross. That bread is a gift. So the paradox results which stands in our text--work for the bread which God will give. If it be a gift, that fact determines what sort of work must be done in order to possess it. If it be a gift, then the only work is to accept it. If it be a gift, then we are out of the region of quid pro quo; and have not to bring, as Chinese do, great strings of copper cash that, all added up together, do not amount to a shilling, in order to buy what God will bestow upon us. If it be a gift, then to trust the Giver and to accept the gift is the only condition that is possible.

It is not a condition that God has invented and arbitrarily imposed. The necessity of it is lodged deep in the very nature of the case. Air cannot get to the lungs of a mouse in an air-pump. Light cannot come into a room where all the shutters are up and the keyhole stopped. If a man chooses to perch himself on some little stool of his own, with glass legs to it, and to take away his hand from the conductor, no electricity will come to him. If I choose to lock my lips, Jesus Christ does not prise open my clenched teeth to put the bread of life into my unwilling mouth. If we ask, we get; if we take, we get.

Anal so the paradox comes, that we work for a gift, with a work which is not work because it is a departure from myself. It is the same blessed paradox which the prophet spoke when he said, Buy … without money and without price.' Oh! what a burden of hopeless effort and weary toil--like that of the man that had to roll the stone up the hill, which ever slipped back again--is lifted from our shoulders by such a word as this that I have been poorly trying to speak about now! Thou art careful and troubled about many things,' poor soul! trying to be good; trying to fight yourself, and the world, and the devil. Try the other plan, and listen to Him saying,' Give up self-imposed effort in thine own strength. Take, eat, this is My body, which is broken for you.'

MHCC: Joh 6:1-14

John relates the miracle of feeding the multitude, for its reference to the following discourse. Observe the effect this miracle had upon the people. Even the common Jews expected the Messiah to come into the world, and to be a great Prophet. The Pharisees despised them as not knowing the law; but they knew most of Him who is the end of the law. Yet men may acknowledge Christ as that Prophet, and still turn a deaf ear to him.

MHCC: Joh 6:15-21

Here were Christ's disciples in the way of duty, and Christ was praying for them; yet they were in distress. There may be perils and afflictions of this present time, where there is an interest in Christ. Clouds and darkness often surround the children of the light and of the day. They see Jesus walking on the sea. Even the approaches of comfort and deliverance often are so mistaken, as to become the occasions of fear. Nothing is more powerful to convince sinners than that word, " I am Jesus whom thou persecutest;" nothing more powerful to comfort saints than this, " I am Jesus whom thou lovest." If we have received Christ Jesus the Lord, though the night be dark, and the wind high, yet we may comfort ourselves, we shall be at the shore before long.

MHCC: Joh 6:22-27

Instead of answering the inquiry how he came there, Jesus blamed their asking. The utmost earnestness should be employed in seeking salvation, in the use of appointed means; yet it is to be sought only as the gift of the Son of man. Him the Father has sealed, proved to be God. He declared the Son of man to be the Son of God with power.

MHCC: Joh 6:28-35

Constant exercise of faith in Christ, is the most important and difficult part of the obedience required from us, as sinners seeking salvation. When by his grace we are enabled to live a life of faith in the Son of God, holy tempers follow, and acceptable services may be done. God, even his Father, who gave their fathers that food from heaven to support their natural lives, now gave them the true Bread for the salvation of their souls. Coming to Jesus, and believing on him, signify the same. Christ shows that he is the true Bread; he is to the soul what bread is to the body, nourishes and supports the spiritual life. He is the Bread of God. Bread which the Father gives, which he has made to be the food of our souls. Bread nourishes only by the powers of a living body; but Christ is himself living Bread, and nourishes by his own power. The doctrine of Christ crucified is now as strengthening and comforting to a believer as ever it was. He is the Bread which came down from heaven. It denotes the Divinity of Christ's person and his authority; also, the Divine origin of all the good which flows to us through him. May we with understanding and earnestness say, Lord, evermore give us this Bread.

Matthew Henry: Joh 6:1-14

We have here an account of Christ's feeding five thousand men with five loaves and two fishes, which miracle is in this respect remarkable, that it is the only passage of the actions of Christ's life that is recorded by all the four evangelists. John, who does not usually relate what had been recorded by those who wrote before him, yet relates this, because of the reference the following discourse has to it. Observe,

I. The place and time where and when this miracle was wrought, which are noted for the greater evidence of the truth of the story; it is not said that it was done once upon a time, nobody knows where, but the circumstances are specified, that the fact might be enquired into.

1. The country that Christ was in (Joh 6:1): He went over the sea of Galilee, called elsewhere the lake of Gennesareth, here the sea of Tiberias, from a city adjoining, which Herod had lately enlarged and beautified, and called so in honour of Tiberius the emperor, and probably had made his metropolis. Christ did not go directly over cross this inland sea, but made a coasting voyage to another place on the same side. It is not tempting God to choose to go by water, when there is convenience for it, even to those places whither we might go by land; for Christ never tempted the Lord his God, Mat 4:7.

2. The company that he was attended with: A great multitude followed him, because they saw his miracles, Joh 6:2. Note, (1.) Our Lord Jesus, while he went about doing good, lived continually in a crowd, which gave him more trouble than honour. Good and useful men must not complain of a hurry of business, when they are serving God and their generation; it will be time enough to enjoy ourselves when we come to that world where we shall enjoy God. (2.) Christ's miracles drew many after him that were not effectually drawn to him. They had their curiosity gratified by the strangeness of them, who had not their consciences convinced by the power of them.

3. Christ's posting himself advantageously to entertain them (Joh 6:3): He went up into a mountain, and there he sat with his disciples, that he might the more conveniently be seen and heard by the multitude that crowded after him; this was a natural pulpit, and not, like Ezra's, made for the purpose. Christ was now driven to be a field preacher; but his word was never the worse, nor the less acceptable, for that, to those who knew how to value it, who followed him still, not only when he went out to a desert place, but when he went up to a mountain, though up-hill be against heart. He sat there, as teachers do in cathedra - in the chair of instruction. He did not sit at ease, not sit in state, yet he sat as one having authority, sat ready to receive addresses that were made to him; whoever would might come, and find him there. He sat with his disciples; he condescended to take them to sit with him, to put a reputation upon them before the people, and give them an earnest of the glory in which they should shortly sit with him. We are said to sit with him, Eph 2:6.

4. The time when it was. The first words, After those things, do not signify that this immediately followed what was related in the foregoing chapter, for it was a considerable time after, and they signify no more than in process of time; but we are told (Joh 6:4) that it was when the passover was nigh, which is here noted, (1.) Because, perhaps, that had brought in all the apostles from their respective expeditions, whither they were sent as itinerant preachers, that they might attend their Master to Jerusalem, to keep the feast. (2.) Because it was a custom with the Jews religiously to observe the approach of the passover thirty days before, with some sort of solemnity; so long before they had it in their eye, repaired the roads, mended bridges, if there was occasion, and discoursed of the passover and the institution of it. (3.) Because, perhaps, the approach of the passover, when every one knew Christ would go up to Jerusalem, and be absent for some time, made the multitude flock the more after him and attend the more diligently on him. Note, The prospect of losing our opportunities should quicken us to improve them with double diligence; and, when solemn ordinances are approaching, it is good to prepare for them by conversing with the word of Christ.

II. The miracle itself. And here observe,

1. The notice Christ took of the crowd that attended him (Joh 6:5): He lifted up his eyes, and saw a great company come to him, poor, mean, ordinary people, no doubt, for such make up the multitudes, especially in such remote corners of the country; yet Christ showed himself pleased with their attendance, and concerned for their welfare, to teach us to condescend to those of low estate, and not to set those with the dogs of our flock whom Christ hath set with the lambs of his. The souls of the poor are as precious to Christ, and should be so to us, as those of the rich.

2. The enquiry he made concerning the way of providing for them. He directed himself to Philip, who had been his disciple from the first, and had seen all his miracles, and particularly that of his turning water into wine, and therefore it might be expected that he should have said, "Lord, if thou wilt, it is easy to thee to feed them all."Those that, like Israel, have been witnesses of Christ's works, and have shared in the benefit of them, are inexcusable if they say, Can he furnish a table in the wilderness? Philip was of Bethsaida, in the neighbourhood of which town Christ now was, and therefore he was most likely to help them to provision at the best hand; and probably much of the company was known to him, and he was concerned for them. Now Christ asked, Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat? (1.) He takes it for granted that they must all eat with him. One would think that when he had taught and healed them he had done his part; and that now they should rather have been contriving how to treat him and his disciples, for some of the people were probably rich, and we are sure that Christ and his disciples were poor; yet he is solicitous to entertain them. Those that will accept Christ's spiritual gifts, instead of paying for them, shall be paid for their acceptance of them. Christ, having fed their souls with the bread of life, feeds their bodies also with food convenient, to show that the Lord is for the body, and to encourage us to pray for our daily bread, and to set us an example of compassion to the poor, Jam 2:15, Jam 2:16. (2.) His enquiry is, Whence shall we buy bread? One would think, considering his poverty, that he should rather have asked, Where shall we have money to buy for them? But he will rather lay out all he has than they shall want. He will buy to give, and we must labour, that we may give, Eph 4:28.

3. The design of this enquiry; it was only to try the faith of Philip, for he himself knew what he would do, Joh 6:6. Note, (1.) Our Lord Jesus is never at a loss in his counsels; but, how difficult soever the case is, he knows what he has to do and what course he will take, Act 15:18. He knows the thoughts he has towards his people (Jer 29:11) and is never at uncertainty; when we know not, he himself knows what he will do. (2.) When Christ is pleased to puzzle his people, it is only with a design to prove them. The question put Philip to a nonplus, yet Christ proposed it, to try whether he would say, "Lord, if thou wilt exert thy power for them, we need not buy bread."

4. Philip's answer to this question: " Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient, Joh 6:7. Master, it is to no purpose to talk of buying bread for them, for neither will the country afford so much bread, nor can we afford to lay out so much money; ask Judas, who carries the bag."Two hundred pence of their money amount to about six pounds of ours, and, if they lay out all that at once, it will exhaust their fund, and break them, and they must starve themselves. Grotius computes that two hundred pennyworth of bread would scarcely reach to two thousand, but Philip would go as near hand as he could, would have every one to take a little; and nature, we say, is content with a little. See the weakness of Philip's faith, that in this strait, as if the Master of the family had been an ordinary person, he looked for supply only in an ordinary way. Christ might now have said to him, as he did afterwards, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? Or, as God to Moses in a like case, Is the Lord's hand waxen short? We are apt thus to distrust God's power when visible and ordinary means fail, that is, to trust him no further than we can see him.

5. The information which Christ received from another of his disciples concerning the provision they had. It was Andrew, here said to be Simon Peter's brother; though he was senior to Peter in discipleship, and instrumental to bring Peter to Christ, yet Peter afterwards so far outshone him that he is described by his relation to Peter: he acquainted Christ with what they had at hand; and in this we may see,

(1.) The strength of his love to those for whom he saw his Master concerned, in that he was willing to bring out all they had, though he knew not but they might want themselves, and any one would have said, Charity begins at home. He did not go about to conceal it, under pretence of being a better husband of their provision than the master was, but honestly gives in an account of all they had. There is a lad here, paidarion - a little lad, probably one that used to follow this company, as settlers do the camp, with provisions to sell, and the disciples had bespoken what he had for themselves; and it was five barley-loaves, and two small fishes. Here, [1.] The provision was coarse and ordinary; they were barley loaves. Canaan was a land of wheat (Deu 8:8); its inhabitants were commonly fed with the finest wheat (Psa 81:16), the kidneys of wheat (Deu 32:14); yet Christ and his disciples were glad of barley-bread. It does not follow hence that we should tie ourselves to such coarse fare, and place religion in it (when God brings that which is finer to our hands, let us receive it, and be thankful); but it does follow that therefore we must not be desirous of dainties (Psa 23:3); nor murmur if we be reduced to coarse fare, but be content and thankful, and well reconciled to it; barley-bread is what Christ had, and better than we deserve. Nor let us despise the mean provision of the poor, nor look upon it with contempt, remembering how Christ was provided for. [2.] It was but short and scanty; there were but five loaves, and those so small that one little lad carried them all; and we find (2Ki 4:42, 2Ki 4:43) that twenty barley-loaves, with some other provision to help out, would not dine a hundred men without a miracle. There were but two fishes, and those small ones ( duo opsaria ), so small that one of them was but a morsel, pisciculi assati . I take the fish to have been pickled, or soused, for they had not fire to dress them with. The provision of bread was little, but that of fish was less in proportion to it, so that many a bit of dry bread they must eat before they could make a meal of this provision; but they were content with it. Bread is meat for our hunger; but of those that murmured for flesh it is said, They asked meat for their lust, Psa 78:18. Well, Andrew was willing that the people should have this, as far as it would go. Note, A distrustful fear of wanting ourselves should not hinder us from needful charity to others.

(2.) See here the weakness of his faith in that word, " But what are they among so many? To offer this to such a multitude is but to mock them."Philip and he had not that actual consideration of the power of Christ (of which they had had such large experience) which they should have had. Who fed the camp of Israel in the wilderness? He that could make one man chase a thousand could make one loaf feed a thousand.

6. The directions Christ gave the disciples to seat the guests (Joh 6:10): " Make the men sit down, though you have nothing to set before them, and trust me for that."This was like sending providence to market, and going to buy without money: Christ would thus try their obedience. Observe, (1.) The furniture of the dining-room: there was much grass in that place, though a desert place; see how bountiful nature is, it makes grass to grow upon the mountains, Psa 147:8. This grass was uneaten; God gives not only enough, but more then enough. Here was this plenty of grass where Christ was preaching; the gospel brings other blessings along with it: Then shall the earth yield her increase, Psa 67:6. This plenty of grass made the place the more commodious for those that must sit on the ground, and served them for cushions, or beds (as they called what they sat on at meat, Est 1:6), and, considering what Christ says of the grass of the field (Mat 6:29, Mat 6:30), these beds excelled those of Ahasuerus: nature's pomp is the most glorious. (2.) The number of the guests: About five thousand: a great entertainment, representing that of the gospel, which is a feast for all nations (Isa 25:6), a feast for all comers.

7. The distribution of the provision, Joh 6:11. Observe,

(1.) It was done with thanksgiving: He gave thanks. Note, [1.] We ought to give thanks to God for our food, for it is a mercy to have it, and we have it from the hand of God, and must receive it with thanksgiving, 1Ti 4:4, 1Ti 4:5. And this is the sweetness of our creature-comforts, that they will furnish us with matter, and give us occasion, for that excellent duty of thanksgiving. [2.] Though our provision be coarse and scanty, though we have neither plenty nor dainty, yet we must give thanks to God for what we have.

(2.) It was distributed from the hand of Christ by the hands of his disciples, Joh 6:11. Note, [1.] All our comforts come to us originally from the hand of Christ; whoever brings them, it is he that sends them, he distributes to those who distribute to us. [2.] In distributing the bread of life to those that follow him, he is pleased to make use of the ministration of his disciples; they are the servitors at Christ's table, or rather rulers in his household, to give to every one his portion of meat in due season.

(3.) It was done to universal satisfaction. They did not every one take a little, but all had as much as they would; not a short allowance, but a full meal; and considering how long they had fasted, with what an appetite they sat down, how agreeable this miraculous food may be supposed to have been, above common food, it was not a little that served them when they ate as much as they would and on free cost. Those whom Christ feeds with the bread of life he does not stint, Psa 81:10. There were but two small fishes, and yet they had of them too as much as they would. He did not reserve them for the better sort of the guests, and put off the poor with dry bread, but treated them all alike, for they were all alike welcome. Those who call feeding upon fish fasting reproach the entertainment Christ here made, which was a full feast.

8. The care that was taken of the broken meat. (1.) The orders Christ gave concerning it (Joh 6:12): When they were filled, and every man had within him a sensible witness to the truth of the miracle, Christ said to the disciples, the servants he employed, Gather up the fragments. Note, We must always take care that we make no waste of any of God's good creatures; for the grant we have of them, though large and full, is with this proviso, wilful waste only excepted. It is just with God to bring us to the want of that which we make waste of. The Jews were very careful not to lose any bread, nor let it fall to the ground, to be trodden upon. Qui panem contemnit in gravem incidit paupertatem - He who despises bread falls into the depths of poverty, was a saying among them. Though Christ could command supplies whenever he pleased, yet he would have the fragments gathered up. When we are filled we must remember that others want, and we may want. Those that would have wherewith to be charitable must be provident. Had this broken meat been left upon the grass, the beasts and fowls would have gathered it up; but that which is fit to be meat for men is wasted and lost if it be thrown to the brute-creatures. Christ did not order the broken meat to be gathered up till all were filled; we must not begin to hoard and lay up till all is laid out that ought to be, for that is withholding more than is meet. Mr. Baxter notes here, "How much less should we lose God's word, or helps, or our time, or such greater mercies!"(2.) The observance of these orders (Joh 6:13): They filled twelve baskets with the fragments, which was an evidence not only of the truth of the miracle, that they were fed, not with fancy, but with real food (witness those remains), but of the greatness of it; they were not only filled, but there was all this over and above. See how large the divine bounty is; it not only fills the cup, but makes it run over; bread enough, and to spare, in our Father's house. The fragments filled twelve baskets, one for each disciple; they were thus repaid with interest for their willingness to part with what they had for public service; see 2Ch 31:10. The Jews lay it as a law upon themselves, when they have eaten a meal, to be sure to leave a piece of bread upon the table, upon which the blessing after meat may rest; for it is a curse upon the wicked man (Job 20:21) that there shall none of his meat be left.

III. Here is the influence which this miracle had upon the people who tasted of the benefit of it (Joh 6:14): They said, This is of a truth that prophet. Note, 1. Even the vulgar Jews with great assurance expected the Messiah to come into the world, and to be a great prophet, They speak here with assurance of his coming. The Pharisees despised them as not knowing the law; but, it should seem, they knew more of him that is the end of the law than the Pharisees did. 2. The miracles which Christ wrought did clearly demonstrate that he was the Messiah promised, a teacher come from God, the great prophet, and could not but convince the amazed spectators that this was he that should come. There were many who were convinced he was that prophet that should come into the world who yet did not cordially receive his doctrine, for they did not continue in it. Such a wretched incoherence and inconsistency there is between the faculties of the corrupt unsanctified soul, that it is possible for men to acknowledge that Christ is that prophet, and yet to turn a deaf ear to him.

Matthew Henry: Joh 6:15-21

Here is, I. Christ's retirement from the multitude.

1. Observe what induced him to retire; because he perceived that those who acknowledged him to be that prophet that should come into the world would come, and take him by force, to make him a king, Joh 6:15. Now here we have an instance,

(1.) Of the irregular zeal of some of Christ's followers; nothing would serve but they would make him a king. Now, [1.] This was an act of zeal for the honour of Christ, and against the contempt which the ruling part of the Jewish church put upon him. They were concerned to see so great a benefactor to the world so little esteemed in it; and therefore, since royal titles are counted the most illustrious, they would make him a king, knowing that the Messiah was to be a king; and if a prophet, like Moses, then a sovereign prince and lawgiver, like him; and, if they cannot set him up upon the holy hill of Zion, a mountain in Galilee shall serve for the present. Those whom Christ has feasted with the royal dainties of heaven should, in return for his favour, make him their king, and set him upon the throne in their souls: let him that has fed us rule us. But, [2.] It was an irregular zeal; for First, It was grounded upon a mistake concerning the nature of Christ's kingdom, as if it were to be of this world, and he must appear with outward pomp, a crown on his head, and an army at his foot; such a king as this they would make him, which was as great a disparagement to his glory as it would be to lacquer gold or paint a ruby. Right notions of Christ's kingdom would keep us to right methods for advancing it. Secondly, It was excited by the love of the flesh; they would make him their king who could feed them so plentifully without their toil, and save them from the curse of eating their bread in the sweat of their face. Thirdly, It was intended to carry on a secular design; they hoped this might be a fair opportunity of shaking off the Roman yoke, of which they were weary. If they had one to head them who could victual an army cheaper than another could provide for a family, they were sure of the sinews of the war, and could not fail of success, and the recovery of their ancient liberties. Thus is religion often prostituted to a secular interest, and Christ is served only to serve a turn, Rom 16:18. Vix quaritur Jesus properter Jesusm, sed propter aliud - Jesus is usually sought after for something else, not for his own sake. - Augustine. Nay, Fourthly, It was a tumultuous, seditious attempt, and a disturbance of the public peace; it would make the country a seat of war, and expose it to the resentments of the Roman power. Fifthly, It was contrary to the mind of our Lord Jesus himself; for they would take him by force, whether he would or no. Note, Those who force honours upon Christ which he has not required at their hands displease him, and do him the greatest dishonour. Those that say I am of Christ, in opposition to those that are of Apollos and Cephas (so making Christ the head of a party), take him by force, to make him a king, contrary to his own mind.

(2.) Here is an instance of the humility and self-denial of the Lord Jesus, that, when they would have made him a king, he departed; so far was he from countenancing the design that he effectually quashed it. Herein he has left a testimony, [1.] Against ambition and affectation of worldly honour, to which he was perfectly mortified, and has taught us to be so. Had they come to take him by force and make him a prisoner, he could not have been more industrious to abscond than he was when they would make him a king. Let us not then covet to be the idols of the crowd, nor be desirous of vainglory. [2.] Against faction and sedition, treason and rebellion, and whatever tends to disturb the peace of kings and provinces. By this it appears that he was no enemy to Caesar, nor would have his followers be so, but the quiet in the land; that he would have his ministers decline every thing that looks like sedition, or looks towards it, and improve their interest only for their work's sake.

2. Observe whither he retired: He departed again into a mountain, eis to oros - into the mountain, the mountain where he had preached (Joh 6:3), whence he came down into the plain, to feed the people, and then returned to it alone, to be private. Christ, though so useful in the places of concourse, yet chose sometimes to be alone, to teach us to sequester ourselves from the world now and then, for the more free converse with God and our own souls; and never less alone, says the serious Christian, than when alone. Public services must not jostle out private devotions.

II. Here is the disciples' distress at sea. They that go down to the sea in ships, these see the works of the Lord, for he raiseth the stormy wind, Psa 107:23, Psa 107:24. Apply this to these disciples.

1. Here is their going down to the sea in a ship (Joh 6:16, Joh 6:17): When even was come, and they had done their day's work, it was time to look homeward, and therefore they went aboard, and set sail for Capernaum. This they did by particular direction from their Master, with design (as it should seem) to get them out of the way of the temptation of countenancing those that would have made him a king.

2. Here is the stormy wind arising and fulfilling the word of God. They were Christ's disciples, and were now in the way of their duty, and Christ was now in the mount praying for them; and yet they were in this distress. The perils and afflictions of this present time may very well consist with our interest in Christ and his intercession. They had lately been feasted at Christ's table; but after the sun-shine of comfort expect a storm. (1.) It was now dark; this made the storm the more dangerous and uncomfortable. Sometimes the people of God are in trouble, and cannot see their way out; in the dark concerning the cause of their trouble, concerning the design and tendency of it, and what the issue will be. (2.) Jesus was not come to them. When they were in that storm (Mat 8:23, etc.) Jesus was with them; but now their beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone. The absence of Christ is the great aggravation of the troubles of Christians. (3.) The sea arose by reason of a great wind. It was calm and fair when they put to sea (they were not so presumptuous as to launch out in a storm), but it arose when they were at sea. In times of tranquillity we must prepare for trouble, for it may arise when we little think of it. Let it comfort good people, when they happen to be in storms at sea, that the disciples of Christ were so; and let the promises of a gracious God balance the threats of an angry sea. Though in a storm, and in the dark, they are no worse off than Christ's disciples were. Clouds and darkness sometimes surround the children of the light, and of the day.

3. Here is Christ's seasonable approach to them when they were in this peril, Joh 6:19. They had rowed (being forced by the contrary winds to betake themselves to their oars) about twenty-five or thirty furlongs. The Holy Spirit that indicted this could have ascertained the number of furlongs precisely, but this, being only circumstantial, is left to be expressed according to the conjecture of the penman. And, when they were got off a good way at sea, they see Jesus walking on the sea. See here, (1.) The power Christ has over the laws and customs of nature, to control and dispense with them at his pleasure. It is natural for heavy bodies to sink in water, but Christ walked upon the water as upon dry land, which was more than Moses's dividing the water and walking through the water. (2.) The concern Christ has for his disciples in distress: He drew nigh to the ship; for therefore he walked upon the water, as he rides upon the heavens, for the help of his people, Deu 33:26. He will not leave them comfortless when they seem to be tossed with tempests and not comforted. When they are banished (as John) into remote places, or shut up (as Paul and Silas) in close places, he will find access to them, and will be nigh them. (3.) The relief Christ gives to his disciples in their fears. They were afraid, more afraid of an apparition (for so they supposed him to be) than of the winds and waves. It is more terrible to wrestle with the rulers of the darkness of this world than with a tempestuous sea. When they thought a demon haunted them, and perhaps was instrumental to raise the storm, they were more terrified than they had been while they saw nothing in it but what was natural. Note, [1.] Our real distresses are often much increased by our imaginary ones, the creatures of our own fancy. [2.] Even the approaches of comfort and deliverance are often so misconstrued as to become the occasions of fear and perplexity. We are often not only worse frightened than hurt, but then most frightened when we are ready to be helped. But, when they were in this fright, how affectionately did Christ silence their fears with that compassionate word (Joh 6:20), It is I, be not afraid! Nothing is more powerful to convince sinners than that word, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest; nothing more powerful to comfort saints than this, " I am Jesus whom thou lovest; it is I that love thee, and seek thy good; be not afraid of me, nor of the storm."When trouble is nigh Christ is nigh.

4. Here is their speedy arrival at the port they were bound for, Joh 6:17. (1.) They welcomed Christ into the ship; they willingly received him. Note, Christ's absenting himself for a time is but so much the more to endear himself, at his return, to his disciples, who value his presence above any thing; see Son 3:4. (2.) Christ brought them safely to the shore: Immediately the ship was at the land whither they went. Note, [1.] The ship of the church, in which the disciples of Christ have embarked themselves and their all, may be much shattered and distressed, yet it shall come safe to the harbour at last; tossed at sea, but not lost; cast down, but not destroyed; the bush burning, but not consumed. [2.] The power and presence of the church's King shall expedite and facilitate her deliverance, and conquer the difficulties which have baffled the skill and industry of all her other friends. The disciples had rowed hard, but could not make their point till they had got Christ in the ship, and then the work was done suddenly. If we have received Christ Jesus the Lord, have received him willingly, though the night be dark and the wind high, yet we may comfort ourselves with this, that we shall be at shore shortly, and are nearer to it than we think we are. Many a doubting soul is fetched to heaven by a pleasing surprise, or ever it is aware.

Matthew Henry: Joh 6:22-27

In these verses we have,

I. The careful enquiry which the people made after Christ, Joh 6:23, Joh 6:24. They saw the disciples go to sea; they saw Christ retire to the mountain, probably with an intimation that he desired to be private for some time; but, their hearts being set upon making him a king, they way-laid his return, and the day following, the hot fit of their zeal still continuing,

1. They were much at a loss for him. He was gone, and they knew not what was become of him. They saw there was no boat there but that in which the disciples went off, Providence so ordering it for the confirming of the miracle of his walking on the sea, for there was no boat for him to go in. They observed also that Jesus did not go with his disciples, but that they went off alone, and left him among them on their side of the water. Note, Those that would find Christ must diligently observe all his motions, and learn to understand the tokens of his presence and absence, that they may steer accordingly.

2. They were very industrious in seeking him. They searched the places thereabouts, and when they saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples (neither he nor any one that could give tidings of him), they resolved to search elsewhere. Note, Those that would find Christ must accomplish a diligent search, must seek till they find, must go from sea to sea, to seek the word of God, rather than live without it; and those whom Christ has feasted with the bread of life should have their souls carried out in earnest desires towards him. Much would have more, in communion with Christ. Now, (1.) They resolved to go to Capernaum in quest of him. There were his head-quarters, where he usually resided. Thither his disciples were gone; and they knew he would not be long absent from them. Those that would find Christ must go forth by the footsteps of the flock. (2.) Providence favoured them with an opportunity of going thither by sea, which was the speediest way; for there came other boats from Tiberias, which lay further off upon the same shore, nigh, though not so nigh to the place where they did eat bread, in which they might soon make a trip to Capernaum, and probably the boats were bound for that port. Note, Those that in sincerity seek Christ, and seek opportunities of converse with him, are commonly owned and assisted by Providence in those pursuits. The evangelist, having occasion to mention their eating the multiplied bread, adds, After that the Lord had given thanks, Joh 6:11. So much were the disciples affected with their Master's giving thanks that they could never forget the impressions made upon them by it, but took a pleasure in remembering the gracious words that then proceeded out of his mouth. This was the grace and beauty of that meal, and made it remarkable; their hearts burned within them.

3. They laid hold of the opportunity that offered itself, and they also took shipping, and came to Capernaum, seeking for Jesus. They did not defer, in hopes to see him again on this side the water; but their convictions being strong, and their desires warm, they followed him presently. Good motions are often crushed, and come to nothing, for want of being prosecuted in time. They came to Capernaum, and, for aught that appears, these unsound hypocritical followers of Christ had a calm and pleasant passage, while his sincere disciples had a rough and stormy one. It is not strange if it fare worst with the best men in this evil world. They came, seeking Jesus. Note, Those that would find Christ, and find comfort in him, must be willing to take pains, and, as here, to compass sea and land to seek and serve him who came from heaven to earth to seek and save us.

II. The success of this enquiry: They found him on the other side of the sea, Joh 6:25. Note, Christ will be found of those that seek him, first or last; and it is worth while to cross a sea, nay, to go from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth, to seek Christ, if we may but find him at last. These people appeared afterwards to be unsound, and not actuated by any good principle, and yet were thus zealous. Note, Hypocrites may be very forward in their attendance on God's ordinances. If men have no more to show for their love to Christ than their running after sermons and prayers, and their pangs of affection to good preaching, they have reason to suspect themselves no better than this eager crowd. But though these people were no better principled, and Christ knew it, yet he was willing to be found of them, and admitted them into fellowship with him. If we could know the hearts of hypocrites, yet, while their profession is plausible, we must not exclude them from our communion, much less when we do not know their hearts.

III. The question they put to him when they found him: Rabbi, when camest thou hither? It should seem by Joh 6:59 that they found him in the synagogue. They knew this was the likeliest place to seek Christ in, for it was his custom to attend public assemblies for religious worship, Luk 4:16. Note, Christ must be sought, and will be found, in the congregations of his people and in the administration of his ordinances; public worship is what Christ chooses to own and grace with his presence and the manifestations of himself. There they found him, and all they had to say to him was, Rabbi, when camest thou hither? They saw he would not be made a king, and therefore say no more of this, but call him Rabbi, their teacher. Their enquiry refers not only to the time, but to the manner, of his conveying himself thither; not only When, but, " How, camest thou thither?"for there was no boat for him to come in. They were curious in asking concerning Christ's motions, but not solicitous to observe their own.

IV. The answer Christ gave them, not direct to their question (what was it to them when and how he came thither?) but such an answer as their case required.

1. He discovers the corrupt principle they acted from in following him (Joh 6:26): " Verily, verily, I say unto you, I that search the heart, and know what is in man, I the Amen, the faithful witness, Rev 3:14, Rev 3:15. You seek me; that is well, but it is not from a good principle."Christ knows not only what we do, but why we do it. These followed Christ, (1.) Not for his doctrine's sake: Not because you saw the miracles. The miracles were the great confirmation of his doctrine; Nicodemus sought for him for the sake of them (Joh 3:2), and argued from the power of his works to the truth of his word; but these were so stupid and mindless that they never considered this. But, (2.) It was for their own bellies' sake: Because you did eat of the loaves, and were filled; not because he taught them, but because he fed them. He had given them, [1.] A full meal's meat: They did eat, and were filled; and some of them perhaps were so poor that they had not known of a long time before now what it was to have enough, to eat and leave. [2.] A dainty meal's meat; it is probable that, as the miraculous wine was the best wine, so was the miraculous food more than usually pleasant. [3.] A cheap meal's meat, that cost them nothing; no reckoning was brought in. Note, Many follow Christ for loaves, and not for love. Thus those do who aim at secular advantage in their profession of religion, and follow it because by this craft they get their preferments. Quantis profuit nobis haec fabula de Christo - This fable respecting Christ, what a gainful concern we have made of it! said one of the popes. These people complimented Christ with Rabbi, and showed him great respect, yet he told them thus faithfully of their hypocrisy; his ministers must hence learn not to flatter those that flatter them, nor to be bribed by fair words to cry peace to all that cry rabbi to them, but to give faithful reproofs where there is cause for them.

2. He directs them to better principles (Joh 6:27): Labour for that meat which endures to everlasting life. With the woman of Samaria he had discoursed of spiritual things under the similitude of water; here he speaks of them under the similitude of meat, taking occasion from the loaves they had eaten. His design is,

(1.) To moderate our worldly pursuits: Labour not for the meat that perishes. This does not forbid honest labour for food convenient, 2Th 3:12. But we must not make the things of this world our chief care and concern. Note, [1.] The things of the world are meat that perishes. Worldly wealth, honour, and pleasure, are meat; they feed the fancy (and many times this is all) and fill the belly. These are things which mean hunger after as meat, and glut themselves with, and which a carnal heart, as long as they last, may make a shift to live upon; but they perish, are of a perishing nature, wither of themselves, and are exposed to a thousand accidents; those that have the largest share of them are not sure to have them while they live, but are sure to leave them and lose them when they die. [2.] It is therefore folly for us inordinately to labour after them. First, We must not labour in religion, nor work the works thereof, for this perishing meat, with an eye to this; we must not make our religion subservient to a worldly interest, nor aim at secular advantages in sacred exercises. Secondly, We must not at all labour for this meat; that is, we must not make these perishing things our chief good, nor make our care and pains about them our chief business; not seek those things first and most, Pro 23:4, Pro 23:5.

(2.) To quicken and excite our gracious pursuits: "Bestow your pains to better purpose, and labour for that meat which belongs to the soul,"of which he shows,

[1.] That it is unspeakably desirable: It is meat which endures to everlasting life; it is a happiness which will last as long as we must, which not only itself endures eternally, but will nourish us up to everlasting life. The blessings of the new covenant are our preparative for eternal life, our preservative to it, and the pledge and earnest of it.

[2.] It is undoubtedly attainable. Shall all the treasures of the world be ransacked, and all the fruits of the earth gathered together, to furnish us with provisions that will last to eternity? No, The sea saith, It is not in me, among all the treasures hidden in the sand. It cannot be gotten for gold; but it is that which the Son of man shall give; hēn dōsei , either which meat, or which life, the Son of man shall give. Observe here, First, Who gives this meat: the Son of man, the great householder and master of the stores, who is entrusted with the administration of the kingdom of God among men, and the dispensation of the gifts, graces, and comforts of that kingdom, and has power to give eternal life, with all the means of it and preparatives for it. We are told to labour for it, as if it were to be got by our own industry, and sold upon that valuable consideration, as the heathen said, Dii laboribus omnia vendunt - The gods sell all advantages to the industrious. But when we have laboured ever so much for it, we have not merited it as our hire, but the Son of man gives it. And what more free than gift? It is an encouragement that he who has the giving of it is the Son of man, for then we may hope the sons of men that seek it, and labour for it, shall not fail to have it. Secondly, What authority he has to give it; for him has God the Father sealed, touton gar ho Patēr esphragisen̂ ho Theos - for him the Father has sealed (proved and evidenced) to be God; so some read it; he has declared him to be the Son of God with power. He has sealed him, that is, has given him full authority to deal between God and man, as God's ambassador to man and man's intercessor with God, and has proved his commission by miracles. Having given him authority, he has given us assurance of it; having entrusted him with unlimited powers, he has satisfied us with undoubted proofs of them; so that as he might go on with confidence in his undertaking for us, so may we in our resignations to him. God the Father scaled him with the Spirit that rested on him, by the voice from heaven, by the testimony he bore to him in signs and wonders. Divine revelation is perfected in him, in him the vision and prophecy is sealed up (Dan 9:24), to him all believers seal that he is true (Joh 3:33), and in him they are all sealed, 2Co 1:22.

Matthew Henry: Joh 6:28-59

Whether this conference was with the Capernaites, in whose synagogue Christ now was, or with those who came from the other side of the sea, is not certain nor material; however, it is an instance of Christ's condescension that he gave them leave to ask him questions, and did not resent the interruption as an affront, no, not from his common hearers, though not his immediate followers. Those that would be apt to teach must be swift to hear, and study to answer. It is the wisdom of teachers, when they are asked even impertinent unprofitable questions, thence to take occasion to answer in that which is profitable, that the question may be rejected, but not the request. Now,

I. Christ having told them that they must work for the meat he spoke of, must labour for it, they enquire what work they must do, and he answers them, Joh 6:28, Joh 6:29. 1. Their enquiry was pertinent enough (Joh 6:28): What shall we do, that we may work the works of God? Some understand it as a pert question: "What works of God can we do more and better than those we do in obedience to the law of Moses?"But I rather take it as a humble serious question, showing them to be, at least for the present, in a good mind, and willing to know and do their duty; and I imagine that those who asked this question, How and What (Joh 6:30), and made the request (Joh 6:34), were not the same persons with those that murmured (Joh 6:41, Joh 6:42), and strove (Joh 6:52), for those are expressly called the Jews, who came out of Judea (for those were strictly called Jews) to cavil, whereas these were of Galilee, and came to be taught. This question here intimates that they were convinced that those who would obtain this everlasting meat, (1.) Must aim to do something great. Those who look high in their expectations, and hope to enjoy the glory of God, must aim high in those endeavours, and study to do the works of God, works which he requires and will accept, works of God, distinguished from the works of worldly men in their worldly pursuits. It is not enough to speak the words of God, but we must do the works of God. (2.) Must be willing to do any thing: What shall we do? Lord, I am ready to do whatever thou shalt appoint, though ever so displeasing to flesh and blood, Act 9:6. 2. Christ's answer was plain enough (Joh 6:29): This is the work of God that ye believe. Note, (1.) The work of faith is the work of God. They enquire after the works of God (in the plural number), being careful about many things; but Christ directs them to one work, which includes all, the one thing needful: that you believe, which supersedes all the works of the ceremonial law; the work which is necessary to the acceptance of all the other works, and which produces them, for without faith you cannot please God. It is God's work, for it is of his working in us, it subjects the soul to his working on us, and quickens the soul in working for him, (2.) That faith is the work of God which closes with Christ, and relies upon him. It is to believe on him as one whom God hath sent, as God's commissioner in the great affair of peace between God and man, and as such to rest upon him, and resign ourselves to him. See Joh 14:1.

II. Christ having told them that the Son of man would give them this meat, they enquire concerning him, and he answers their enquiry.

1. Their enquiry is after a sign (Joh 6:30): What sign showest thou? Thus far they were right, that, since he required them to give him credit, he should produce his credentials, and make it out by miracle that he was sent of God. Moses having confirmed his mission by signs, it was requisite that Christ, who came to set aside the ceremonial law, should in like manner confirm his: " What dost thou work? What doest thou drive at? What lasting characters of a divine power does thou design to leave upon thy doctrine?"But herein they missed it,

(1.) That they overlooked the many miracles which they had seen wrought by him, and which amounted to an abundant proof of his divine mission. Is this a time of day to ask, "What sign showest thou?"especially at Capernaum, the staple of miracles, where he had done so many mighty works, signs so significant of his office and undertaking? Were not these very persons but the other day miraculously fed by him? None so blind as they that will not see; for they may be so blind as to question whether it be day or no, when the sun shines in their faces.

(2.) That they preferred the miraculous feeding of Israel in the wilderness before all the miracles Christ wrought (Joh 6:31): Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; and, to strengthen the objection, they quote a scripture for it: He gave them bread from heaven (taken from Psa 78:24), he gave them of the corn of heaven. What a good use might be made of this story to which they here refer! It was a memorable instance of God's power and goodness, often mentioned to the glory of God (Neh 9:20, Neh 9:21), yet see how these people perverted it, and made an ill use of it. [1.] Christ reproved them for their fondness of the miraculous bread, and bade them not set their hearts upon meat which perisheth; "Why,"say they, " meat for the belly was the great good thing that God gave to our fathers in the desert; and why should not we then labour for that meat? If God made much of them, why should not we be for those that will make much of us?"[2.] Christ had fed five thousand men with five loaves, and had given them that as one sign to prove him sent of God; but, under colour of magnifying the miracles of Moses, they tacitly undervalue this miracle of Christ, and evade the evidence of it. "Christ fed his thousands; but Moses his hundreds of thousands; Christ fed them but once, and then reproved those who followed him in hope to be still fed, and put them off with a discourse of spiritual food; but Moses fed his followers forty years, and miracles were not their rarities, but their daily bread: Christ fed them with bread out of the earth, barley-bread, and fishes out of the sea; but Moses fed Israel with bread from heaven, angel's food."Thus big did these Jews talk of the manna which their fathers did eat; but their fathers had slighted it as much as they did now the barley-loaves, and called light bread, Num 21:5. Thus apt are we to slight and overlook the appearances of God's power and grace in our own times, while we pretend to admire the wonders of which our fathers told us. Suppose this miracle of Christ was outdone by that of Moses, yet there were other instances in which Christ's miracles outshone his; and, besides, all true miracles prove a divine doctrine, though not equally illustrious in the circumstances, which were ever diversified according as the occasion did require. As much as the manna excelled the barley-loaves, so much, and much more, did the doctrine of Christ excel the law of Moses, and his heavenly institutions the carnal ordinances of that dispensation.

2. Here is Christ's reply to this enquiry, wherein,

(1.) He rectifies their mistake concerning the typical manna. It was true that their fathers did eat manna in the desert. But, [1.] It was not Moses that gave it to them, nor were they obliged to him for it; he was but the instrument, and therefore they must look beyond him to God. We do not find that Moses did so much as pray to God for the manna; and he spoke unadvisedly when he said, Must we fetch water out of the rock? Moses gave them not either that bread or that water. [2.] It was not given them, as they imagined, from heaven, from the highest heavens, but only from the clouds, and therefore not so much superior to that which had its rise from the earth as they thought. Because the scripture saith, He gave them bread from heaven, it does not follow that it was heavenly bread, or was intended to be the nourishment of souls. Misunderstanding scripture language occasions many mistakes in the things of God.

(2.) He informs them concerning the true manna, of which that was a type: But my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven; that which is truly and properly the bread from heaven, of which the manna was but a shadow and figure, is now given, not to your fathers, who are dead and gone, but to you of this present age, for whom the better things were reserved: he is now giving you that bread from heaven, which is truly so called. As much as the throne of God's glory is above the clouds of the air, so much does the spiritual bread of the everlasting gospel excel the manna. In calling God his Father, he proclaims himself greater than Moses; for Moses was faithful but as a servant, Christ as a Son, Heb 3:5, Heb 3:6.

III. Christ, having replied to their enquiries, takes further occasion from their objection concerning the manna to discourse of himself under the similitude of bread, and of believing under the similitude of eating and drinking; to which, together with his putting both together in the eating of his flesh and drinking of his blood, and with the remarks made upon it by the hearers, the rest of this conference may be reduced.

1. Christ having spoken of himself as the great gift of God, and the true bread (Joh 6:32), largely explains and confirms this, that we may rightly know him.

(1.) He here shows that he is the true bread; this he repeats again and again, Joh 6:33, Joh 6:35, Joh 6:48-51. Observe, [1.] That Christ is bread is that to the soul which bread is to the body, nourishes and supports the spiritual life (is the staff of it) as bread does the bodily life; it is the staff of life. The doctrines of the gospel concerning Christ - that he is the mediator between God and man, that he is our peace, our righteousness, our Redeemer; by these things do men live. Our bodies could better live without food than our souls without Christ. Bread-corn is bruised (Isa 28:28), so was Christ; he was born at Bethlehem, the house of bread, and typified by the show-bread. [2.] That he is the bread of God (Joh 6:33), divine bread; it is he that is of God (Joh 6:46), bread which my Father gives (Joh 6:32), which he has made to be the food of our souls; the bread of God's family, his children's bread. The Levitical sacrifices are called the bread of God (Lev 21:21, Lev 21:22), and Christ is the great sacrifice; Christ, in his word and ordinances, the feast upon the sacrifice. [3.] That he is the bread of life (Joh 6:35, and again, Joh 6:48), that bread of life, alluding to the tree of life in the midst of the garden of Eden, which was to Adam the seal of that part of the covenant, Do this and live, of which he might eat and live. Christ is the bread of life, for he is the fruit of the tree of life. First, He is the living bread (so he explains himself, Joh 6:51): I am the living bread. Bread is itself a dead thing, and nourishes not but by the help of the faculties of a living body; but Christ is himself living bread, and nourishes by his own power. Manna was a dead thing; if kept but one night, it putrefied and bred worms; but Christ is ever living, everlasting bread, that never moulds, nor waxes old. The doctrine of Christ crucified is now as strengthening and comforting to a believer as ever it was, and his mediation still of as much value and efficacy as ever. Secondly, He gives life unto the world (Joh 6:33), spiritual and eternal life; the life of the soul in union and communion with God here, and in the vision and fruition of him hereafter; a life that includes in it all happiness. The manna did only reserve and support life, did not preserve and perpetuate life, much less restore it; but Christ gives life to those that were dead in sin. The manna was ordained only for the life of the Israelites, but Christ is given for the life of the world; none are excluded from the benefit of this bread, but such as exclude themselves. Christ came to put life into the minds of men, principles productive of acceptable performances. [4.] That he is the bread which came down from heaven; this is often repeated here, Joh 6:33, Joh 6:50, Joh 6:51, Joh 6:58. This denotes, First, The divinity of Christ's person. As God, he had a being in heaven, whence he came to take our nature upon him: I came down from heaven, whence we may infer his antiquity, he was in the beginning with God; his ability, for heaven is the firmament of power; and his authority, he came with a divine commission. Secondly, The divine original of all that good which flows to us through him. He comes, not only katabas - that came down (Joh 6:51), but katabainōi - that comes down; he is descending, denoting a constant communication of light, life, and love, from God to believers through Christ, as the manna descended daily; see Eph 1:3. Omnia desuper - All things from above. [5.] That he is that bread of which the manna was a type and figure (Joh 6:58), that bread, the true bread, Joh 6:32. As the rock that they drank of was Christ, so was the manna they ate of spiritual bread, 1Co 10:3, 1Co 10:4. Manna was given to Israel; so Christ to the spiritual Israel. There was manna enough for them all; so in Christ a fulness of grace for all believers; he that gathers much of this manna will have none to spare when he comes to use it; and he that gathers little, when his grace comes to be perfected in glory, shall find that he has no lack. Manna was to be gathered in the morning; and those that would find Christ must seek him early. Manna was sweet, and, as the author of the Wisdom of Solomon tells us (Wisd. 16:20), was agreeable to every palate; and to those that believe Christ is precious. Israel lived upon manna till they came to Canaan; and Christ is our life. There was a memorial of the manna preserved in the ark; so of Christ in the Lord's supper, as the food of souls.

(2.) He here shows what his undertaking was, and what his errand into the world. Laying aside the metaphor, he speaks plainly, and speaks no proverb, giving us an account of his business among men, Joh 6:38-40.

[1.] He assures us, in general, that he came from heaven upon his Father's business (Joh 6:38), not do his own will, but the will of him that sent him. He came from heaven, which bespeaks him an intelligent active being, who voluntarily descended to this lower world, a long journey, and a great step downward, considering the glories of the world he came from and the calamities of the world he came to; we may well ask with wonder, "What moved him to such an expedition?"Here he tells that he came to do, not his own will, but the will of his Father; not that he had any will that stood in competition with the will of his Father, but those to whom he spoke suspected he might. "No,"saith he, "my own will is not the spring I act fRom. nor the rule I go by, but I am come to do the will of him that sent me. "That is, First, Christ did not come into the world as a private person, that acts for himself only, but under a public character, to act for others as an ambassador, or plenipotentiary, authorized by a public commission; he came into the world as God's great agent and the world's great physician. It was not any private business that brought him hither, but he came to settle affairs between parties no less considerable than the great Creator and the whole creation. Secondly, Christ, when he was in the world, did not carry on any private design, nor had any separate interest at all, distinct from theirs for whom he acted. The scope of his whole life was to glorify God and do good to men. He therefore never consulted his own ease, safety, or quiet; but, when he was to lay down his life, though he had a human nature which startled at it, he set aside the consideration of that, and resolved his will as man into the will of God: Not as I will, but as thou wilt.

[2.] He acquaints us, in particular, with that will of the Father which he came to do; he here declares the decree, the instructions he was to pursue.

First, The private instructions given to Christ, that he should be sure to save all the chosen remnant; and this is the covenant of redemption between the Father and the Son (Joh 6:38): " This is the Father's will, who hath sent me; this is the charge I am entrusted with, that of all whom he hath given me I should lose none. "Note, 1. There is a certain number of the children of men given by the Father to Jesus Christ, to be his care, and so to be to him for a name and a praise; given him for an inheritance, for a possession. Let him do all that for them which their case requires; teach them, and heal them, pay their debt, and plead their cause, prepare them for, and preserve them to, eternal life, and then let him make his best of them. The Father might dispose of them as he pleased: as creatures, their lives and beings were derived from him; as sinners, their lives and beings were forfeited to him. He might have sold them for the satisfaction of his justice, and delivered them to the tormentors; but he pitched upon them to be the monuments of his mercy, and delivered them to the Saviour. Those whom God chose to be the objects of his special love he lodged as a trust in the hands of Christ. 2. Jesus Christ has undertaken that he will lose none of those that were thus given him of the Father. The many sons whom he was to bring to glory shall all be forth-coming, and none of them missing, Mat 18:14. None of them shall be lost, for want of a sufficient grace to sanctify them. If I bring him not unto thee, and set him before thee, then let me bear the blame for ever, Gen 43:9. 3. Christ's undertaking for those that are given him extends to the resurrection of their bodies. I will raise it up again at the last day, which supposes all that goes before, but this is to crown and complete the undertaking. The body is a part of the man, and therefore a part of Christ's purchase and charge; it pertains to the promises, and therefore it shall not be lost. The undertaking is not only that he shall lose none, no person, but that he shall lose nothing, no part of the person, and therefore not the body. Christ's undertaking will never be accomplished till the resurrection, when the souls and bodies of the saints shall be re-united and gathered to Christ, that he may present them to the Father: Behold I, and the children that thou has given me, Heb 2:13; 2Ti 1:12. 4. The spring and original of all this is the sovereign will of God, the counsels of his will, according to which he works all this. This was the commandment he gave to his Son, when he sent him into the world, and to which the Son always had an eye.

Secondly, The public instructions which were to be given to the children of men, in what way, and upon what terms, they might obtain salvation by Christ; and this is the covenant of grace between God and man. Who the particular persons were that were given to Christ is a secret: The Lord knows them that are his, we do not, nor is it fit we should; but, though their names are concealed, their characters are published. An offer is made of life and happiness upon gospel terms, that by it those that were given to Christ might be brought to him, and others left inexcusable (Joh 6:40): " This is the will, the revealed will, of him that sent me, the method agreed upon, upon which to proceed with the children of men, that every one, Jew or Gentile, that sees the Son, and believes on him, may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up. "This is gospel indeed, good news. Is it now reviving to hear this? 1. That eternal life may be had, if it be not our own fault; that whereas, upon the sin of the first Adam, the way of the tree of life was blocked up, by the grace of the second Adam it is laid upon again. The crown of glory is set before us as the prize of our high calling, which we may run for and obtain. 2. Every one may have it. This gospel is to be preached, this offer made, to all, and none can say, "It belongs not to me,"Rev 22:17. 3. This everlasting life is sure to all those who believe in Christ, and to them only. He that sees the Son, and believes on him, shall be saved. Some understand this seeing as a limitation of this condition of salvation to those only that have the revelation of Christ and his grace made to them. Every one that has the opportunity of being acquainted with Christ, and improves this so well as to believe in him, shall have everlasting life, so that none shall be condemned for unbelief (however they maybe for other sins) but those who have had the gospel preached to them, who, like these Jews here (Joh 6:36), have seen, and yet have not believed; have known Christ, and yet not trusted in him. But I rather understand seeing here to mean the same thing with believing, for it is theōrōn , which signifies not so much the sight of the eye (as Joh 6:36, heōrakate me - ye have seen me ) as the contemplation of the mind. Every one that sees the Son, that is, believes on him, sees him with an eye of faith, by which we come to be duly acquainted and affected with the doctrine of the gospel concerning him. It is to look upon him, as the stung Israelites upon the brazen serpent. It is not a blind faith that Christ requires, that we should be willing to have our eyes put out, and then follow him, but that we should see him, and see what ground we go upon in our faith. It is then right when it is not taken up upon hearsay (believing as the church believes), but is the result of a due consideration of, and insight into, the motives of credibility: Now mine eye sees thee. We have heard him ourselves. 4. Those who believe in Jesus Christ, in order to their having everlasting life, shall be raised up by his power at the last day. He had it in charge as his Father's will (Joh 6:39), and here he solemnly makes it his own undertaking: I will raise him up, which signifies not only the return of the body to life, but the putting of the whole man into a full possession of the eternal life promised.

2. Now Christ discoursing thus concerning himself, as the bread of life that came down from heaven, let us see what remarks his hearers made upon it.

(1.) When they heard of such a thing as the bread of God, which gives life, they heartily prayed for it (Joh 6:34): Lord, evermore give us this bread. I cannot think that this is spoken scoffingly, and in a way of derision, as most interpreters understand it: "Give us such bread as this, if thou canst; let us be fed with it, not for one meal, as with the five loaves, but evermore; "as if this were no better a prayer than that of the impenitent thief: If thou be the Christ, save thyself and us. But I take this request to be made, though ignorantly, yet honestly, and to be well meant; for they call him Lord, and desire a share in what he gives, whatever he means by it. General and confused notions of divine things produce in carnal hearts some kind of desires towards them, and wishes of them; like Balaam's wish, to die the death of the righteous. Those who have an indistinct knowledge of the things of God, who see men as trees walking, make, as I may call them, inarticulate prayers for spiritual blessings. They think the favour of God a good thing, and heaven a fine place, and cannot but wish them their own, while they have no value nor desire at all for that holiness which is necessary both to the one and to the other. Let this be the desire of our souls; have we tasted that the Lord is gracious, been feasted with the word of God, and Christ in the word? Let us say, " Lord, evermore give us this bread; let the bread of life be our daily bread, the heavenly manna our continual feast, and let us never know the want of it."

(2.) But, when they understood that by this bread of life Jesus meant himself, then they despised it. Whether they were the same persons that had prayed for it (Joh 6:34), or some others of the company, does not appear; it seems to be some others, for they are called Jews. Now it is said (Joh 6:41), They murmured at him. This comes in immediately after that solemn declaration which Christ had made of God's will and his own undertaking concerning man's salvation (Joh 6:39, Joh 6:40), which certainly were some of the most weighty and gracious words that ever proceeded out of the mouth of our Lord Jesus, the most faithful, and best worthy of all acceptation. One would think that, like Israel in Egypt, when they heard that God had thus visited them, they should have bowed their heads and worshipped; but on the contrary, instead of closing with the offer made them, they murmured, quarrelled with what Christ said, and, though they did not openly oppose and contradict it, yet they privately whispered among themselves in contempt of it, and instilled into one another's minds prejudices against it. Many that will not professedly contradict the doctrine of Christ (their cavils are so weak and groundless that they are either ashamed to own them or afraid to have them silenced), yet say in their hearts that they do not like it. Now, [1.] That which offended them was Christ's asserting his origin to be from heaven, Joh 6:41, Joh 6:42. How is it that he saith, I came down from heaven? They had heard of angels coming down from heaven, but never of a man, overlooking the proofs he had given them of his being more than a man. [2.] That which they thought justified them herein was that they knew his extraction on earth: Is not this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? They took it amiss that he should say that he came down from heaven, when he was one of them. They speak slightly of his blessed name, Jesus: Is not this Jesus. They take it for granted that Joseph was really his father, though he was only reputed to be so. Note, Mistakes concerning the person of Christ, as if he were a mere man, conceived and born by ordinary generation, occasion the offence that is taken at his doctrine and offices. Those who set him on a level with the other sons of men, whose father and mother we know, no wonder if they derogate from the honour of his satisfaction and the mysteries of his undertaking, and, like the Jews here, murmur at his promise to raise us up at the last day.

3. Christ, having spoken of faith as the great work of God (Joh 6:29), discourses largely concerning this work, instructing and encouraging us in it.

(1.) He shows what it is to believe in Christ. [1.] To believe in Christ is to come to Christ. He that comes to me is the same with him that believes in me (Joh 6:35), and again (Joh 6:37): He that comes unto me; so Joh 6:44, Joh 6:45. Repentance towards God is coming to him (Jer 3:22) as our chief good and highest end; and so faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ is coming to him as our prince and Saviour, and our way to the Father. It denotes the out-goings of our affection towards him, for these are the motions of the soul, and actions agreeable; it is to come off from all those things that stand in opposition to him or competition with him, and to come up to those terms upon which life and salvation are offered to us through him. When he was here on earth it was more that barely coming where he was; so it is now more than coming to his word and ordinances. [2.] It is to feed upon Christ (Joh 6:51): If any man eat of this bread. The former denotes applying ourselves to Christ; this denotes applying Christ to ourselves, with appetite and delight, that we may receive life, and strength, and comfort from him. To feed on him as the Israelites on the manna, having quitted the fleshpots of Egypt, and not depending on the labour of their hands (to eat of that), but living purely on the bread given them from heaven.

(2.) He shows what is to be got by believing in Christ. What will he give us if we come to him? What shall we be the better of we feed upon him? Want and death are the chief things we dread; may we but be assured of the comforts of our being, and the continuance of it in the midst of these comforts, we have enough; now these two are here secured to true believers.

[1.] They shall never want, never hunger, never thirst, Joh 6:35. Desires they have, earnest desires, but these so suitably, so seasonably, so abundantly satisfied, that they cannot be called hunger and thirst, which are uneasy and painful. Those that did eat manna, and drink of the rock, hungered and thirsted afterwards. Manna surfeited them; water out of the rock failed them. But there is such an over-flowing fulness in Christ as can never be exhausted, and there are such ever-flowing communications from him as can never be interrupted.

[2.] They shall never die, not die eternally; for, First, He that believes on Christ has everlasting life (Joh 6:47); he has the assurance of it, the grant of it, the earnest of it; he has it in the promise and first-fruits. Union with Christ and communion with God in Christ are everlasting life begun. Secondly, Whereas they that did eat manna died, Christ is such bread as a man may eat of and never die, Joh 6:49, Joh 6:50. Observe here, 1. The insufficiency of the typical manna: Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. There may be much good use made of the death of our fathers; their graves speak to us, and their monuments are our memorials, particularly of this, that the greatest plenty of the most dainty food will neither prolong the thread of life nor avert the stroke of death. Those that did eat manna, angel's food, died like other men. There could be nothing amiss in their diet, to shorten their days, nor could their deaths be hastened by the toils and fatigues of life (for they neither sowed nor reaped), and yet they died. (1.) Many of them died by the immediate strokes of God's vengeance for their unbelief and murmurings; for, though they did eat that spiritual meat, yet with many of them God was not well-pleased, but they were overthrown in the wilderness, 1Co 10:3-5. Their eating manna was no security to them from the wrath of God, as believing in Christ is to us. (2.) The rest of them died in a course of nature, and their carcases fell, under a divine sentence, in that wilderness where they did eat manna. In that very age when miracles were daily bread was the life of man reduced to the stint it now stands at, as appears, Psa 90:10. Let them not then boast so much of manna. 2. The all-sufficiency of the true manna, of which the other was a type: This is the bread that cometh down from heaven, that truly divine and heavenly food, that a man may eat thereof and not die; that is, not fall under the wrath of God, which is killing to the soul; not die the second death; no, nor the first death finally and irrecoverably. Not die, that is, not perish, not come short of the heavenly Canaan, as the Israelites did of the earthly, for want of faith, though they had manna. This is further explained by that promise in the next words: If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever, Joh 6:51. This is the meaning of this never dying: though he go down to death, he shall pass through it to that world where there shall be no more death. To live for ever is not to be for ever (the damned in hell shall be for ever, the soul of man was made for an endless state), but to be happy for ever. And because the body must needs die, and be as water spilt upon the ground, Christ here undertakes for the gathering of that up too (as before, Joh 6:44, I will raise him up at the last day ); and even that shall live for ever.

(3.) He shows what encouragements we have to believe in Christ. Christ here speaks of some who had seen him and yet believed not, Joh 6:36. They saw his person and miracles, and heard him preach, and yet were not wrought upon to believe in him. Faith is not always the effect of sight; the soldiers were eye-witnesses of his resurrection, and yet, instead of believing in him, they belied him; so that it is a difficult thing to bring people to believe in Christ: and, by the operation of the Spirit of grace, those that have not seen have yet believed. Two things we are here assured of, to encourage our faith: -

[1.] That the Son will bid all those welcome that come to him (Joh 6:37): Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. How welcome should this word be to our souls which bids us welcome to Christ! Him that cometh; it is in the singular number, denoting favour, not only to the body of believers in general, but to every particular soul that applies itself to Christ. Here, First, The duty required is a pure gospel duty: to come to Christ, that we may come to God by him. His beauty and love, those great attractives, must draw us to him; sense of need and fear of danger must drive us to him; any thing to bring us to Christ. Secondly, The promise is a pure gospel promise: I will in no wise cast out - ou mē ekbagō exō . There are two negatives: I will not, no, I will not. 1. Much favour is expressed here. We have reason to fear that he should cast us out. Considering our meanness, our vileness, our unworthiness to come, our weakness in coming, we may justly expect that he should frown upon us, and shut his doors against us; but he obviates these fears with this assurance, he will not do it; will not disdain us though we are mean, will not reject us though we are sinful. Do poor scholars come to him to be taught? Though they be dull and slow, he will not cast them out. Do poor patients come to him to be cured, poor clients come to him to be advised? Though their case be bad, and though they come empty-handed, he will in no wise cast them out. But, 2. More favour is implied than is expressed; when it is said that he will no cast them out the meaning is, He will receive them, and entertain them, and give them all that which they come to him for. As he will not refuse them at their first coming, so he will not afterwards, upon every displeasure, cast them out. His gifts and callings are without repentance.

[2.] That the Father will, without fail, bring all those to him in due time that were given him. In the federal transactions between the Father and the Son, relating to man's redemption, as the Son undertook for the justification, sanctification, and salvation, of all that should come to him ("Let me have them put into my hands, and then leave the management of them to me"), so the Father, the fountain and original of being, life, and grace, undertook to put into his hand all that were given him, and bring them to him. Now,

First, He here assures us that this shall be done: All that the Father giveth me shall come to me, Joh 6:37. Christ had complained (Joh 6:36) of those who, though they had seen him, yet would not believe on him; and then he adds this,

a. For their conviction and awakening, plainly intimating that their not coming to him, and believing on him, if they persisted in it, would be a certain sign that they did not belong to the election of grace; for how can we think that God gave us to Christ if we give ourselves to the world and the flesh? 2Pe 1:10.

b. For his own comfort and encouragement: Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious. The election has obtained, and shall though multitudes be blinded, Rom 11:7. Though he lose many of his creatures, yet none of his charge: All that the Father gives him shall come to him notwithstanding. Here we have, ( a. ) The election described: All that the father giveth me, pan ho didōsi - every thing which the Father giveth to me; the persons of the elect, and all that belongs to them; all their services, all their interests. As all that he has is theirs, so all that they have is his, and he speaks of them as his all: they were given him in full recompense of his undertaking. Not only all persons, but all things, are gathered together in Christ (Eph 1:10) and reconciled, Col 1:20. The giving of the chosen remnant to Christ is spoken of (Joh 6:39) as a thing done; he hath given them. Here it is spoken of as a thing in the doing; he giveth them; because, when the first begotten was brought into the world, it should seem, there was a renewal of the grant; see Heb 10:5, etc. God was now about to give him the heathen for his inheritance (Psa 2:8), to put him in possession of the desolate heritages (Isa 49:8), to divide him a portion with the great, Isa 53:12. And though the Jews, who saw him, believed not on him, yet these (saith he) shall come to me; the other sheep, which are not of this fold, shall be brought, Joh 10:15, Joh 10:16. See Act 13:45-48. ( b. ) The effect of it secured: They shall come to me. This is not in the nature of a promise, but a prediction, that as many as were in the counsel of God ordained to life shall be brought to life by being brought to Christ. They are scattered, are mingled among the nations, yet none of them shall be forgotten; not a grain of God's corn shall be lost, as is promised, Amo 9:9. They are by nature alienated from Christ, and averse to him, and yet they shall come. As God's omniscience is engaged for the finding of them all out, so is his omnipotence for the bringing of them all in. Not, They shall be driven, to me, but, They shall come freely, shall be made willing.

Secondly, He here acquaints us how it shall be done. How shall those who are given to Christ be brought to him? Two things are to be done in order to it: -

a. Their understandings shall be enlightened; this is promised, Joh 6:45, Joh 6:46. It is written in the prophets, who spoke of these things before, And they shall be all taught of God; this we find, Isa 54:13, and Jer 31:34. They shall all know me. Note,

( a. ) In order to our believing in Jesus Christ, it is necessary that we be taught of God; that is, [ a. ] That there be a divine revelation made to us, discovering to us both what we are to believe concerning Christ and why we are to believe it. There are some things which even nature teaches, but to bring us to Christ there is need of a higher light. [ b. ] That there be a divine work wrought in us, enabling us to understand and receive these revealed truths and the evidence of them. God, in giving us reason, teaches us more than the beasts of the earth; but in giving us faith he teaches more than the natural man. Thus all the church's children, all that are genuine, are taught of God; he hath undertaken their education.

( b. ) It follows then, by way of inference from this, that every man that has heard and learned of the Father comes to Christ, Joh 6:45. [ a. ] It is here implied that none will come to Christ but those that have heard and learned of the Father. We shall never be brought to Christ but under a divine conduct; except God by his grace enlighten our minds, inform our judgments, and rectify our mistakes, and not only tell us that we may hear, but teach us, that we may learn the truth as it is in Jesus, we shall never be brought to believe in Christ. [ b. ] That this divine teaching does so necessarily produce the faith of God's elect that we may conclude that those who do not come to Christ have never heard nor learned of the Father; for, if they had, doubtless they would have come to Christ. In vain do men pretend to be taught of God if they believe not in Christ, for he teaches no other lesson, Gal 1:8, Gal 1:9. See how God deals with men as reasonable creatures, draws them with the cords of a man, opens the understanding first, and then by that, in a regular way, influences the inferior faculties; thus he comes in by the door, but Satan, as a robber, climbs up another way. But lest any should dream of a visible appearance of God the Father to the children of men (to teach them these things), and entertain any gross conceptions about hearing and learning of the Father, he adds (Joh 6:46): Not that any man hath seen the Father; it is implied, nor can see him, with bodily eyes, or may expect to learn of him as Moses did, to whom he spoke face to face; but God, in enlightening men's eyes and teaching them, works in a spiritual way. The Father of spirits hath access to, and influence upon, men's spirits, undiscerned. The Father of spirits hath access to, and influence upon, men's spirits, undiscerned. Those that have not seen his face have felt his power. And yet there is one intimately acquainted with the Father, he who is of God, Christ himself, he hath seen the Father, Joh 1:18. Note, First, Jesus Christ is of God in a peculiar manner, God of God, light of light; not only sent of God, but begotten of God before all worlds. Secondly, It is the prerogative of Christ to have seen the Father, perfectly to know him and his counsels. Thirdly, Even that illumination which is preparative to faith is conveyed to us through Christ. Those that learn of the Father, forasmuch as they cannot see him themselves, must learn of Christ, who alone hath seen him. As all divine discoveries are made through Christ, so through him all divine powers are exerted.

b. Their wills shall be bowed. If the soul of man had now its original rectitude there needed no more to influence the will than the illumination of the understanding; but in the depraved soul of fallen man there is a rebellion of the will against the right dictates of the understanding; a carnal mind, which is enmity itself to the divine light and law. It is therefore requisite that there be a work of grace wrought upon the will, which is here called drawing, (Joh 6:44): No man can come to me except the Father, who hath sent me, draw him. The Jews murmured at the doctrine of Christ; not only would not receive it themselves, but were angry that others did. Christ overheard their secret whisperings, and said (Joh 6:43), " Murmur not among yourselves; lay not the fault of your dislike of my doctrine one upon another, as if it were because you find it generally distasted; no, it is owing to yourselves, and your own corrupt dispositions, which are such as amount to a moral impotency; your antipathies to the truths of God, and prejudices against them, are so strong that nothing less than a divine power can conquer them."And this is the case of all mankind: " No man can come to me, can persuade himself to come up to the terms of the gospel, except the Father, who hath sent me, draw him, "Joh 6:44. Observe, ( a. ) The nature of the work: It is drawing, which denotes not a force put upon the will, whereby of unwilling we are made willing, and a new bias is given to the soul, by which it inclines to God. This seems to be more than a moral suasion, for by that it is in the power to draw; yet it is not to be called a physical impulse, for it lies out of the road of nature; but he that formed the spirit of man within him by his creating power, and fashions the hearts of men by his providential influence, knows how to new-mould the soul, and to alter its bent and temper, and make it conformable to himself and his own will, without doing any wrong to its natural liberty. It is such a drawing as works not only a compliance, but a cheerful compliance, a complacency: Draw us, and we will run after thee. ( b. ) The necessity of it: No man, in this weak and helpless state, can come to Christ without it. As we cannot do any natural action without the concurrence of common providence, so we cannot do any action morally good without the influence of special grace, in which the new man lives, and moves, and has its being, as much as the mere man has in the divine providence. ( c. ) The author of it: The Father who hath sent me. The Father, having sent Christ, will succeed him, for he would not send him on a fruitless errand. Christ having undertaken to bring souls to glory, God promised him, in order thereunto, to bring them to him, and so to give him possession of those to whom he had given him a right. God, having by promise given the kingdom of Israel to David, did at length draw the hearts of the people to him; so, having sent Christ to save souls, he sends souls to him to be saved by him. ( d. ) The crown and perfection of this work: And I will raise him up at the last day. This is four times mentioned in this discourse, and doubtless it includes all the intermediate and preparatory workings of divine grace. When he raises them up at the last day, he will put the last hand to his undertaking, will bring forth the topstone. If he undertakes this, surely he can do any thing, and will do every thing that is necessary in order to do it. Let our expectations be carried out towards a happiness reserved for the last day, when all the years of time shall be fully complete and ended.

4. Christ, having thus spoken of himself as the bread of life, and of faith as the work of God, comes more particularly to show what of himself is this bread, namely, his flesh, and that to believe is to eat of that, Joh 6:51-58, where he still prosecutes the metaphor of food. Observe, here, the preparation of this food: The bread that I will give is my flesh (Joh 6:51), the flesh of the Son of man and his blood, Joh 6:53. His flesh is meat indeed, and his blood is drink indeed, Joh 6:55. observe, also, the participation of this food: We must eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood (Joh 6:53); and again (Joh 6:54), Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood; and the same words (Joh 6:56, Joh 6:57), he that eateth me. This is certainly a parable or figurative discourse, wherein the actings of the soul upon things spiritual and divine are represented by bodily actions about things sensible, which made the truths of Christ more intelligible to some, and less so to others, Mar 4:11-12. Now,

(1.) Let us see how this discourse of Christ was liable to mistake and misconstruction, that men might see, and not perceive. [1.] It was misconstrued by the carnal Jews, to whom it was first delivered (Joh 6:52): They strove among themselves; they whispered in each other's ears their dissatisfaction: How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Christ spoke (Joh 6:51) of giving his flesh for us, to suffer and die; but they, without due consideration, understood it of his giving it to us, to be eaten, which gave occasion to Christ to tell them that, however what he said was otherwise intended, yet even that also of eating of his flesh was no such absurd thing (if rightly understood) as prima facie - in the first instance, they took it to be. [2.] It has been wretchedly misconstrued by the church of Rome for the support of their monstrous doctrine of transubstantiation, which gives the lie to our senses, contradicts the nature of a sacrament, and overthrows all convincing evidence. They, like these Jews here, understand it of a corporal and carnal eating of Christ's body, like Nicodemus, ch. 3, 4. The Lord's supper was not yet instituted, and therefore it could have no reference to that; it is a spiritual eating and drinking that is here spoken of, not a sacramental. [3.] It is misunderstood by many ignorant carnal people, who hence infer that, if they take the sacrament when they die, they shall certainly go to heaven, which, as it makes many that are weak causelessly uneasy if they want it, so it makes many that are wicked causelessly easy if they have it. Therefore,

(2.) Let us see how this discourse of Christ is to be understood.

[1.] What is meant by the flesh and blood of Christ. It is called (Joh 6:53), The flesh of the Son of man, and his blood, his as Messiah and Mediator: the flesh and blood which he assumed in his incarnation (Heb 2:14), and which he gave up in his death and suffering: my flesh which I will give to be crucified and slain. It is said to be given for the life of the world, that is, First, Instead of the life of the world, which was forfeited by sin, Christ gives his own flesh as a ransom or counterprice. Christ was our bail, bound body for body (as we say), and therefore his life must go for ours, that ours may be spared. Here am I, let these go their way. Secondly, In order to the life of the world, to purchase a general offer of eternal life to all the world, and the special assurances of it to all believers. So that the flesh and blood of the Son of man denote the Redeemer incarnate and dying; Christ and him crucified, and the redemption wrought out by him, with all the precious benefits of redemption: pardon of sin, acceptance with God, the adoption of sons, access to the throne of grace, the promises of the covenant, and eternal life; these are called the flesh and blood of Christ, 1. Because they are purchased by his flesh and blood, by the breaking of his body, and shedding of his blood. Well may the purchased privileges be denominated from the price that was paid for them, for it puts a value upon them; write upon them pretium sanguinis - the price of blood. 2. Because they are meat and drink to our souls. Flesh with the blood was prohibited (Gen 9:4), but the privileges of the gospel are as flesh and blood to us, prepared for the nourishment of our souls. He had before compared himself to bread, which is necessary food; here to flesh, which is delicious. It is a feast of fat things, Isa 25:6. The soul is satisfied with Christ as with marrow and fatness, Psa 63:5. It is meat indeed, and drink indeed; truly so, that is spiritually; so Dr. Whitby; as Christ is called the true vine; or truly meat, in opposition to the shows and shadows with which the world shams off those that feed upon it. In Christ and his gospel there is real supply, solid satisfaction; that is meat indeed, and drink indeed, which satiates and replenishes, Jer 31:25, Jer 31:26.

[2.] What is meant by eating this flesh and drinking this blood, which is so necessary and beneficial; it is certain that is means neither more nor less than believing in Christ. As we partake of meat and drink by eating and drinking, so we partake of Christ and his benefits by faith: and believing in Christ includes these four things, which eating and drinking do: - First, It implies an appetite to Christ. This spiritual eating and drinking begins with hungering and thirsting (Mat 5:6), earnest and importunate desires after Christ, not willing to take up with any thing short of an interest in him: "Give me Christ or else I die." Secondly, An application of Christ to ourselves. Meat looked upon will not nourish us, but meat fed upon, and so made our own, and as it were one with us. We must so accept of Christ as to appropriate him to ourselves: my Lord, and my God, Joh 20:28. Thirdly, A delight in Christ and his salvation. The doctrine of Christ crucified must be meat and drink to us, most pleasant and delightful. We must feast upon the dainties of the New Testament in the blood of Christ, taking as great a complacency in the methods which Infinite Wisdom has taken to redeem and save us as ever we did in the most needful supplies or grateful delights of nature. Fourthly, A derivation of nourishment from him and a dependence upon him for the support and comfort of our spiritual life, and the strength, growth, and vigour of the new man. To feed upon Christ is to do all in his name, in union with him, and by virtue drawn from him; it is to live upon him as we do upon our meat. How our bodies are nourished by our food we cannot describe, but that they are so we know and find; so it is with this spiritual nourishment. Our Saviour was so well pleased with this metaphor (as very significant and expressive) that, when afterwards he would institute some outward sensible signs, by which to represent our communicating of the benefits of his death, he chose those of eating and drinking, and made them sacramental actions.

(3.) Having thus explained the general meaning of this part of Christ's discourse, the particulars are reducible to two heads: -

[1.] The necessity of our feeding upon Christ (Joh 6:53): Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you have no life in you. That is, First, "It is a certain sign that you have no spiritual life in you if you have no desire towards Christ, nor delight in him."If the soul does not hunger and thirst, certainly it does not live: it is a sign that we are dead indeed if we are dead to such meat and drink as this. When artificial bees, that by curious springs were made to move to and fro, were to be distinguished from natural ones (they say), it was done by putting honey among them, which the natural bees only flocked to, but the artificial ones minded not, for they had no life in them. Secondly, "It is certain that you can have no spiritual life, unless you derive it from Christ by faith; separated from him you can do nothing."Faith in Christ is the primum vivens - the first living principle of grace; without it we have not the truth of spiritual life, nor any title to eternal life: our bodies may as well live without meat as our souls without Christ.

[2.] The benefit and advantage of it, in two things: -

First, We shall be one with Christ, as our bodies are with our food when it is digested (Joh 6:56): He that eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, that lives by faith in Christ crucified (it is spoken of as a continued act), he dwelleth in me, and I in him. By faith we have a close and intimate union with Christ; he is in us, and we in him, Joh 17:21-23; 1Jo 3:24. Believers dwell in Christ as their stronghold or city of refuge; Christ dwells in them as the master of the house, to rule it and provide for it. Such is the union between Christ and believers that he shares in their griefs, and they share in his graces and joys; he sups with them upon their bitter herbs, and they with him upon his rich dainties. It is an inseparable union, like that between the body and digested food, Rom 8:35; 1Jo 4:13.

Secondly, We shall live, shall live eternally, by him, as our bodies live by our food.

a. We shall live by him (Joh 6:57): As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. We have here the series and order of the divine life. ( a. ) God is the living Father, hath life in

Barclay: Joh 6:1-13

There were times when Jesus desired to withdraw from the crowds. He was under continuous strain and needed rest. Moreover, it was necessary that sometimes he should get his disciples alone to lead them into a deeper understanding of himself. In addition, he needed time for prayer. On this particular occasion it was wise to go away before a head-on collision with the authorities took place, for the time of the final conflict had not yet come.

From Capernaum to the other side of the Sea of Galilee was a distance of about four miles and Jesus set sail. The people had been watching with astonishment the things he did; it was easy to see the direction the boat was taking; and they hastened round the top of the lake by land. The River Jordan flows into the north end of the Sea of Galilee. Two miles up the river were the fords of Jordan. Near the fords was a village called Bethsaida Julias, to distinguish it from the other Bethsaida in Galilee, and it was for that place that Jesus was making (Luk 9:10). Near Bethsaida Julias, almost on the lakeside, was a little plain where the grass always grew. It was to be the scene of a wondrous happening.

At first Jesus went up into the hill behind the plain and he was sitting there with his disciples. Then the crowd began to appear in droves. It was nine miles round the top of the lake and across the ford, and they had made the journey with all speed. We are told that the Feast of the Passover was near and there would be even bigger crowds on the roads at that time. Possibly many were on the way to Jerusalem by that route. Many Galilaean pilgrims travelled north and crossed the ford and went through Peraea, and then re-crossed the Jordan near Jericho. The way was longer but it avoided the territory of the hated and dangerous Samaritans. It is likely that the great crowd was swelled by detachments of pilgrims on their way to the Passover Feast.

At sight of the crowd Jesus' sympathy was kindled. They were hungry and tired, and they must be fed. Philip was the natural man to whom to turn, for he came from Bethsaida (Joh 1:44) and would have local knowledge. Jesus asked him where food could be got. Philip's answer was despairing. He said that even if food could be got it would cost more than two hundred denarii to give this vast crowd even a little each. A denarius was worth about 4 pence and was the standard day's wage for a working man. Philip calculated that it would take more than six months' wages to begin to feed a crowd like this.

Then Andrew appeared on the scene. He had discovered a lad with five barley loaves and two little fishes. Quite likely the boy had brought them as a picnic lunch. Maybe he was out for the day, and as a boy might, had got attached himself to the crowd. Andrew, as usual, was bringing people to Jesus.

The boy had not much to bring. Barley bread was the cheapest of all bread and was held in contempt. There is a regulation in the Mishnah about the offering that a woman who has committed adultery must bring. She must, of course, bring a trespass offering. With all offerings a meat-offering was made, and the meat-offering consisted of flour and wine and oil intermixed. Ordinarily the flour used was made of wheat; but it was laid down that, in the case of an offering for adultery, the flour could be barley flour, for barley is the food of beasts and the woman's sin was the sin of a beast. Barley bread was the bread of the very poor.

The fishes would be no bigger than sardines. Pickled fish from Galilee were known all over the Roman Empire. In those days fresh fish was an unheard-of luxury, for there was no means of transporting it any distance and keeping it in an eatable condition. Small sardine-like fish swarmed in the Sea of Galilee. They were caught and pickled and made into a kind of savoury. The boy had his little pickled fish to help the dry barley bread down.

Jesus told the disciples to make the people sit down. He took the loaves and the fishes and he blessed them. When he did that he was acting as father of the family. The grace he used would be the one that was used in every home: "Blessed art Thou, O Lord, our God, who causest to come forth bread from the earth." The people ate and were rifled. Even the word that is used for filled (chortazesthai, 5526) is suggestive. Originally, in classical Greek, it was a word used for feeding animals with fodder. When used of people it meant that they were fed to repletion.

When the people had eaten their fill, Jesus bade his disciples gather up the fragments left. Why the fragments? At Jewish feasts the regular practice was to leave something for the servants. That which was left was called the Peah; and no doubt the people left their usual part for those who had served them with the meal.

Of the fragments twelve baskets were taken up. No doubt each of the disciples had his basket (kophinos, 2894). It was bottle-shaped and no Jew ever travelled without his. Twice Juvenal (3: 14; 6: 542) talks of "the Jew with his basket and his truss of hay." (The truss of hay was to use as a bed, for many of the Jews lived a gypsy life.) The Jew with his inseparable basket was a notorious figure. He carried it partly because he was characteristically acquisitive, and partly because he needed to carry his own food if he was going to observe the Jewish rules of cleanness and uncleanness. From the fragments each of the disciples filled his basket. And so the hungry crowd were fed and more than fed.

Barclay: Joh 6:1-13

We will never know exactly what happened on that grassy plain near Bethsaida Julias. We may look at it in three ways.

(a) We may regard it simply as a miracle in which Jesus multiplied loaves and fishes. Some may find that hard to conceive of; and some may find it hard to reconcile with the fact that that is just what Jesus refused to do at his temptations (Mat 4:3-4). If we can believe in the sheer miraculous character of this miracle, then let us continue to do so. But if we are puzzled, there are two other explanations.

(b) It may be that this was really a sacramental meal. In the rest of the chapter the language of Jesus is exactly that of the Last Supper, when he speaks about eating his flesh and drinking his blood. It could be that at this meal it was but a morsel, like the sacrament, that each person received; and that the thrill and wonder of the presence of Jesus and the reality of God turned the sacramental crumb into something which richly nourished their hearts and souls--as happens at every Communion Table to this day.

© There may be another and very lovely explanation. It is scarcely to be thought that the crowd left on a nine-mile expedition without making any preparations at all. If there were pilgrims with them, they would certainly possess supplies for the way. But it may be that none would produce what he had, for he selfishly--and very humanly--wished to keep it all for himself. It may then be that Jesus, with that rare smile of his, produced the little store that he and his disciples had; with sunny faith he thanked God for it and shared it out. Moved by his example, everyone who had anything did the same; and in the end there was enough, and more than enough, for all.

It may be that this is a miracle in which the presence of Jesus turned a crowd of selfish men and women into a fellowship of sharers. It may be that this story represents the biggest miracle of all--one which changed not loaves and fishes, but men and women.

However that may be, there were certain people there without whom the miracle would not have been possible.

(i) There was Andrew. There is a contrast between Andrew and Philip. Philip was the man who said: "The situation is hopeless; nothing can be done." Andrew was the man who said: "I'll see what I can do; and I'll trust Jesus to do the rest."

It was Andrew who brought that lad to Jesus, and by bringing him made the miracle possible. No one ever knows what will come out of it when we bring someone to Jesus. If a parent trains up his child in the knowledge and the love and the fear of God, no man can say what mighty things that child may some day do for God and for men. If a Sunday School teacher brings a child to Christ, no man knows what that child may some day do for Christ and his church.

There is a tale of an old German schoolmaster who, when he entered his class of boys in the morning, used to remove his cap and bow ceremoniously to them. One asked him why he did this. His answer was: "You never know what one of these boys may some day become." He was right--because one of them was Martin Luther.

Andrew did not know what he was doing when he brought that lad to Jesus that day, but he was providing material for a miracle. We never know what possibilities we are releasing when we bring someone to Jesus.

(ii) There was the boy. He had not much to offer but in what he had Jesus found the materials of a miracle. There would have been one great deed fewer in history if that boy had withheld his loaves and fishes.

Jesus needs what we can bring him. It may not be much but he needs it. It may well be that the world is denied miracle after miracle and triumph after triumph because we will not bring to Jesus what we have and what we are. If we would lay ourselves on the altar of his service, there is no saying what he could do with us and through us. We may be sorry and embarrassed that we have not more to bring--and rightly so; but that is no reason for failing to bring what we have. Little is always much in the hands of Christ.

Barclay: Joh 6:14-15

Here we have the reaction of the mob. The Jews were waiting for the prophet whom they believed Moses had promised to them. "The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brethren--him you shall heed" (Deu 18:15). In that moment at Bethsaida Julias they were willing to accept Jesus as that prophet and to carry him to power on a wave of popular acclaim. But it was not so very long before another mob was clamouring: "Crucify him! Crucify him!" Why was it at that moment that the mob acclaimed Jesus?

For one thing, they were eager to support Jesus when he gave them what they wanted. He had healed them and fed them; and they would thereupon have made him their leader. There is such a thing as a bought loyalty. There is such a thing as cupboard love. Dr. Johnson, in one of his more cynical moments, defined gratitude as "a lively sense of favours still to come."

The attitude of that mob disgusts us. But are we so very different? When we want comfort in sorrow, when we want strength in difficulty, when we want peace in turmoil, when we want help in face of depression, there is no one so wonderful as Jesus and we talk to him and walk with him and open our hearts to him. But when he comes to us with some stern demand for sacrifice, with some challenge to effort, with the offer of some cross, we will have nothing to do with him. When we examine our hearts, it may be that we wig find that we too love Jesus for what we can get out of him.

For another thing, they wished to use him for their own purposes and to mould him to their own dreams. They were waiting for the Messiah; but they visualized him in their own way. They looked for a Messiah who would be king and conqueror, who would set his foot upon the eagle's neck and drive the Romans from the land. They had seen what Jesus could do; and the thought in their minds was: "This man has power, marvellous power. If we can harness him and his power to our dreams, things will begin to happen." If they had been honest, they would have had to admit that they wished to make use of him.

Again, are we so very different? When we appeal to Christ, is it for strength to go on with our own schemes and ideas or is it for humility and obedience to accept his plans and wishes? Is our prayer: "Lord, give me strength to do what you want me to do" or is it in reality: "Lord, give me strength to do what I want to do"?

That crowd of Jews would have followed Jesus at that moment because he was giving them what they wanted and they wished to use him for their own purposes. That attitude still lingers. We would like Christ's gifts without his Cross; we would like to use him instead of allowing him to use us.

Barclay: Joh 6:16-21

This is one of the most wonderful stories in the Fourth Gospel, and it is all the more wonderful when we press behind the meaning of the Greek to find that it really describes not some extraordinary miracle, but a simple incident in which John found, in a way he never forgot, what Jesus was like.

Let us reconstruct the story. After the feeding of the five thousand and the attempt to make him king, Jesus slipped away to the hills alone. The day wore on. It came to the time which the Jews described as "the second evening," the time between the twilight and the dark. Jesus had still not arrived. We must not think that the disciples were forgetful or discourteous in leaving Jesus behind, for, as Mark tells the story, Jesus sent them on ahead (Mar 6:45), while he persuaded the crowds to go home. Doubtless it was his intention to walk round the head of the lake while they rowed across and to rejoin them in Capernaum.

The disciples set sail. The wind got up, as it can in the narrow, land-locked lake; and the waters were whipped to foam. It was Passover time, and that was the time of the full moon (Joh 6:4). Up on the hillside Jesus had prayed and communed with God; as he set out the silver moon made the scene almost like daylight; and down on the lake below he could see the boat and the rowers toiling at the oars, making heavy weather of it. So he came down.

We must remember two facts. At the north end the lake was no more than four miles across; and John tens us that the disciples had rowed between three and four miles; that is to say, they were very nearly at their journey's end. It is natural to suppose that in the wind they hugged the shore of the lake, seeking what shelter they might find. That is the first fact and now we come to the second. They saw Jesus, as the King James Version and Revised Standard Version have it, walking on the sea. The Greek is epi (1909) tes (3588) thalasses (2281) which is precisely the phrase used in Joh 21:1, where it means--it has never been questioned--that Jesus was walking on the seashore. That is what the phrase means in our passage, too.

Jesus was walking epi tes thalasses, by the seashore. The toiling disciples looked up, and suddenly saw him. It was all so unexpected, they had been bent so long over their oars, that they were alarmed because they thought it was a spirit they were seeing. Then across the waters came that well-loved voice--"It is I; don't be afraid." They wanted him to come on board; the Greek most naturally means that their wish was not fulfilled. Why? Remember the breadth of the lake was four miles and they hid rowed about that distance. The simple reason was that, before they could take Jesus on board, the boat grounded on the shingle, and they were there.

Here is just the kind of story that a fisherman like John would have loved and remembered. Every time he thought of it he would feel that night again, the grey silver of the moonlight, the rough oar against his hand, the flapping sail, the shriek of the wind, the sound of the surging water, the astonishingly unexpected appearance of Jesus, the sound of his voice across the waves and the crunch of the boat as it reached the Galilaean side.

As he remembered, John saw wonders which are still there for us.

(i) He saw that Jesus watches. Up on the hill Jesus had been watching them. He had not forgotten. He was not too busy with God to think of them. John suddenly realized that all the time they had pulled at the oars Jesus' loving look was on them.

When we are up against it Jesus watches. He does not make things easy for us. He lets us fight our own battles. Like a parent watching his son put up a splendid effort in some athletic contest, he is proud of us; or,. like a parent watching his son let the side down, he is sad. Life is lived with the loving eye of Jesus upon us.

(ii) He saw that Jesus comes. Down from the hillside Jesus came to enable the disciples make the last pull that would reach safety.

He does not watch us with serene detachment; when strength is failing he comes with strength for the last effort which leads to victory.

(iii) He saw that Jesus helps. He watches, he comes and he helps. It is the wonder of the Christian life that there is nothing that we are left to do alone. Margaret Avery tells how there was a teacher in a little country school who had told this story to her children, and she must have told it well. Some short time afterwards there was a blizzard of wind and snow. When school finished, the teacher was helping the children home. Sometimes she had practically to drag them through the drifts. When they were all very nearly exhausted with the struggle, she overheard a little boy say, half to himself: "We could be doing with that chap Jesus here now." We could always be doing with Jesus and we never need to do without him.

(iv) He saw that Jesus brings us to the haven. It seemed to John, as he remembered it, that, as soon as Jesus arrived, the keel of the boat grated on the shingle and they were there. As the Psalmist had it: "Then they were glad because they had quiet, and he brought them to their desired haven" (Psa 107:30). Somehow in the presence of Jesus the longest journey is shorter and the hardest battle easier.

One of the loveliest things in the Fourth Gospel is that John, the old fisherman turned evangelist, found all the wealth of Christ in the memory of a fisherman's story.

Barclay: Joh 6:22-27

The crowd had lingered on the far side of the lake. In the time of Jesus people did not need to keep office-hours. They had time to wait until he came back to them. They waited because having seen that there was only one boat and that the disciples had gone off in it without Jesus, they deduced that he must still be somewhere near at hand. After they had waited for some time, they began to realize that he was not coming back. Into the bay came some little boats from Tiberias. No doubt they had taken shelter from the storm of the night. The waiting people embarked on them and made the crossing of the lake back to Capernaum.

Discovering to their surprise that Jesus was already there, they asked him when he had arrived. To that question Jesus simply did not reply. This was no time to talk of things like that; life was too short for pleasant gossip about journeys. He went straight to the heart of the matter. "You have seen," he said, "wonderful things. You have seen how God's grace enabled a crowd to be fed. Your thoughts ought to have been turned to the God who did these things; but instead all that you are thinking about is bread." It is as if Jesus said: "You cannot think about your souls for thinking of your stomachs."

"Men," as Chrysostom said, "are nailed to the things of this life." Here were people whose eyes never lifted beyond the ramparts of the world to the eternities beyond. Once Napoleon and an acquaintance were talking of life. It was dark; they walked to the window and looked out. There in the sky were distant stars, little more than pin-points of light. Napoleon, who had sharp eyes while his friend was dim-sighted, pointed to the sky: "Do you see these stars?" he asked. "No," his friend answered. "I can't see them." "That," said Napoleon, "is the difference between you and me." The man who is earthbound is living half a life. It is the man with vision, who looks at the horizon and sees the stars, who is truly alive.

Jesus put his command in one sentence. "Don't work for the food which perishes but for that which lasts for ever and gives eternal life." Long ago a prophet called Isaiah had asked: "Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which does not satisfy?" (Isa 55:2). There are two kinds of hunger. There is physical hunger which physical food can satisfy; but there is a spiritual hunger which that food can never satisfy. A man may be as rich as Croesus and still have an incompleteness in his life.

In the years just after A.D. 60 the luxury of Roman society was unparalleled. It was at this time that they served feasts of peacocks' brains and nightingales' tongues; that they cultivated the odd habit of taking emetics between courses so that the next might taste better; that meals costing thousands of pounds were commonplace. It was at this time that Pliny tells of a Roman lady who was married in a robe so richly jewelled and gilded that it cost the equivalent of 432,000 British pounds. There was a reason for all this, and the reason was a deep dissatisfaction with life, a hunger that nothing could satisfy. They would try anything for a new thrill, because they were both appallingly rich and appallingly hungry. As Matthew Arnold wrote:

"In his cool hall with haggard eyes,

The Roman noble lay;

He drove abroad in furious guise

Along the Appian Way;

He made a feast, drank fierce and fast;

He crowned his hair with flowers;

No easier nor no quicker passed

The impracticable hours."

Jesus' point was that all that these Jews were interested in was physical satisfaction. They had received an unexpectedly free and lavish meal; and they wanted more. But there are other hungers which can be satisfied only by him. There is the hunger for truth--in him alone is the truth of God. There is the hunger for life--in him alone is life more abundant. There is the hunger for love--in him alone is the love that outlasts sin and death. Christ alone can satisfy the hunger of the human heart and soul.

Why is this so? There is a wealth of meaning in the phrase: "God has set his seal upon him." H. B. Tristram in Eastern Customs in Bible Lands has a most interesting section on seals in the ancient world. It was not the signature, but the seal that authenticated. In commercial and political documents it was the seal, imprinted with the signet ring, which made the document valid; it was the seal which authenticated a will; it was the seal on the mouth of a sack or a crate that guaranteed the contents. Tristram tells how on his own eastern journeys, when he made an agreement with his muleteers and his porters, they set the impression of their seal upon it to show that it was binding. Seals were made of pottery or metal or jewels. In the British Museum there are the seals of most of the Assyrian kings. The seal was fixed on clay and the clay attached to the document.

The Rabbis had a saying: "The seal of God is truth." "One day," says the Talmud, "the great synagogue (the assembly of the Jewish experts in the law) were weeping, praying and fasting together, when a little scroll fell from the firmament among them. They opened it and on it was only one word, Emeth (0571), which means truth. 'That,' said the Rabbi, 'is the seal of God.' " Emeth (0571) is spelled with three Hebrew letters ('-M-T): aleph, which is the first letter of the alphabet; min, the middle letter, and tau, the last. The truth of God is the beginning, the middle and the end of life.

That is why Jesus can satisfy the eternal hunger. He is sealed by God, he is God's truth incarnate and it is God alone who can truly satisfy the hunger of the soul which he created.

Barclay: Joh 6:28-29

When Jesus spoke about the works of God, the Jews immediately thought in terms of "good" works. It was their conviction that a man by living a good life could earn the favour of God. They held that men could be divided into three classes--those who were good, those who were bad and those who were in between, who, by doing one more good work, could be transferred to the category of the good. So when the Jews asked Jesus about the work of God they expected him to lay down lists of things to do. But that is not what Jesus says at all.

His answer is extremely compressed and we must expand it and see what lies behind it. He said that God's work was to believe in him whom he had sent. Paul would have put it this way--the one work that God desires from man is faith. Now what does faith mean? It means being in such a relationship with God that we are his friends, not terrified of him any more but knowing him as our Father and our friend and giving him the trust and the obedience and the submission which naturally arise from this new relationship. How does believing in Jesus tie up with that? It is only because Jesus came to tell us that God is our Father and loves us and wants nothing more than to forgive, that the old distance and enmity are taken away and the new relationship with him made possible.

But that new relationship issues in a certain kind of life. Now we know what God is like, our lives must answer to that knowledge. That answer will be in three directions, each of which corresponds to what Jesus told us of God.

(i) God is love. Therefore in our lives there must be love and service of others corresponding to the love and the service of God, and forgiveness of others corresponding to his forgiveness of God.

(ii) God is holiness. Therefore in our lives there must be purity corresponding to the holiness of God.

(iii) God is wisdom. Therefore in our lives there must be complete submission and trust corresponding to the wisdom of God.

The essence of the Christian life is a new relationship to God, a relationship offered by him and made possible by the revelation which Jesus gave us of him, a relationship which issues in that service, purity and trust which are the reflection of God. This is the work which God wishes us and enables us to perform.

Barclay: Joh 6:30-34

Here the argument becomes specifically Jewish in its expression and assumptions and allusions. Jesus had just made a great claim. The true work of God was to believe in him. "Very well," said the Jews, "this is in effect a claim to be the Messiah. Prove it."

Their minds were still on the feeding of the crowd and inevitably that turned their thoughts to the manna in the wilderness. They could hardly help connecting the two things. The manna had always been regarded as the bread of God (Psa 78:24; Exo 16:15); and there was a strong rabbinic belief that when the Messiah came he would again give the manna. The giving of the manna was held to be the supreme work in the life of Moses and the Messiah was bound to surpass it. "As was the first redeemer so was the final redeemer; as the first redeemer caused the manna to fall from heaven, even so shall the second redeemer cause the manna to fall." "Ye shall not find the manna in this age, but ye shall find it in the age that is to come." "For whom has the manna been prepared? For the righteous in the age that is coming. Everyone who believes is worthy and eateth of it." It was the belief that a pot of the manna had been hidden in the ark in the first temple, and that, when the temple was destroyed, Jeremiah had hidden it away and would produce it again when the Messiah came. In other words, the Jews were challenging Jesus to produce bread from God in order to substantiate his claims. They did not regard the bread which had fed the five thousand as bread from God; it had begun in earthly loaves and issued in earthly loaves. The manna, they held, was a different thing and a real test.

Jesus' answer was twofold. First, he reminded them that it was not Moses who had given them the manna; it was God. Second, he told them that the manna was not really the bread of God; it was only the symbol of the bread of God. The bread of God was he who came down from heaven and gave men not simply satisfaction from physical hunger, but life. Jesus was claiming that the only real satisfaction was in him.

Constable: Joh 1:19--13:1

II. Jesus' public ministry 1:19--12:50

The first part of the body of John's Gospel records Jesus' public ministry to the multitudes in Palestine who were primarily Jewish. Some writers have called this section of the Gospel "the book of signs" because it features seven miracles that signify various things about Jesus.

"Signs are miraculous works performed or mentioned to illustrate spiritual principles."⁶⁹

Often John recorded a lengthy discourse that followed the miracle, in which Jesus explained its significance to the crowds. This section also contains two extended conversations that Jesus had with two individuals (chs. 3 and 4).

"The opening of the narrative proper might well be understood as the account of the happenings of one momentous week. John does not stress the point, but he does give notes of time that seem to indicate this. The first day is taken up with a deputation from Jerusalem that interrogates the Baptist. The next day' we have John's public pointing out of Jesus (vv. 29-34). Day 3 tells of two disciples of the Baptist who followed Jesus (vv. 35-40). It seems probable that verse 41 takes us to day 4 . . . It tells of Andrew's bringing of Peter to Jesus. Day 5 is the day when Philip and Nathanael come to him (vv. 43-51). The marriage in Cana is two days after the previous incident (i.e., the sixth and seventh days, 2:1-11). If we are correct in thus seeing the happenings of one momentous week set forth at the beginning of this Gospel, we must go on to ask what significance is attached to this beginning. The parallel with the days of creation in Genesis 1 suggests itself, and is reinforced by the In the beginning' that opens both chapters. Just as the opening words of this chapter recall Genesis 1, so it is with the framework. Jesus is to engage in a new creation. The framework unobtrusively suggests creative activity."⁷⁰

Constable: Joh 6:1--7:10

G. Jesus' later Galilean ministry 6:1-7:9

This section of the text records the high point of Jesus' popularity. His following continued to build, and antagonism continued to increase. This is the only section in John that narrates Jesus' later Galilean ministry, which occupies so much of the Synoptic Gospels.

Constable: Joh 6:1-15

1. The fourth sign: feeding the 5,000 6:1-15 (cf. Matt. 14:13-23; Mark 6:30-46; Luke 9:10-17)

The importance of this sign is clear in that all four Gospels contain an account of it. Apparently John was familiar with the other evangelists' versions of this miracle as well as being an eyewitness of the event. His story compliments the others (cf. vv. 5, 15). This miracle demonstrated Jesus' authority over quantity.²³⁷ It constitutes further proof that Jesus was the Son of God.

6:1 After an undesignated lapse of time (cf. 5:1), Jesus travelled to the east side of the Sea of Galilee. That was the more sparsely populated side where fewer Jews and more Gentiles lived. It was particularly to the northeast coast that He went (cf. Matt. 14:13; Mark 6:32; Luke 9:10). Evidently John's readers knew this lake as the Sea of Tiberias. Tiberias was the chief city on its western coast. Herod Antipas had founded it in 20 A.D. and had named it in honor of the current Roman emperor who ruled from 15 to 35 A.D.

6:2-3 Multitudes followed Jesus because they wanted to profit from His miraculous powers as well as to hear Him teach (cf. 2:23-25).

"Like the vast majority of men and women, they [these Galileans] supposed that their needs as human beings were limited to their physical requirements. They were, in consequence, very ready to accept Jesus as a political Christ, who would be a purveyor of cheap food and establish an economic Utopia, for that would render the task of satisfying these physical needs less laborious."²³⁸

Jesus went up on the mountainside to be alone with His disciples who had just returned from their mission to the towns of Galilee (Mark 6:30-32; Luke 9:10). He had just heard that Herod Antipas had beheaded John the Baptist (Matt. 14:12-13). The crowd soon found Him, and He healed many of the people and taught them (Matt. 14:14; Mark 6:33-34; Luke 9:11). Only John mentioned that this happened on a mountainside. Perhaps he did this so his readers would see a parallel with what happened on Mt. Sinai (vv. 31-32; cf. Exod. 16:21). Possibly it is just a detail that he as an eyewitness observed.

6:4 Evidently John identified the nearness of the Passover because of Jesus' later references to Himself as the Bread of Life (vv. 33, 35, 51), the fulfillment of what the Passover bread typified.

"The people were thinking in terms of blood, flesh, lambs, and unleavened bread. They longed for a new Moses who would deliver them from Roman bondage."²³⁹

This was John's second reference to a Passover feast during Jesus' ministry (cf. 2:13, 23; 11:55; 13:1). Evidently this event happened two years after Jesus' first cleansing of the temple and one year before He died on the cross. It would have taken place in April of 32 A.D.²⁴⁰

"The movement from the miracle to the discourse, from Moses to Jesus (vv. 32-5, cf. i. 17), and, above all, from bread to flesh, is almost unintelligible unless the reference in v. 4 to the Passover picks up i. 29, 36, anticipates xix. 36 (Exod. xii. 46; Num. ix. 12), and governs the whole narrative."²⁴¹

The Passover was an intensely nationalistic celebration in Israel. This accounts for the extreme zeal that many of the Jews demonstrated when they sought to draft Jesus as their political deliverer (v. 15).

6:5-6 John telescoped the events of the day. He omitted mention of Jesus' teaching and healing ministry (Matt. 14:14; Mark 6:34; Luke 9:11) as well as the disciples' concern for food (Matt. 14:15; Mark 6:35-36; Luke 9:12). Instead he focused on the miracle. His account also shows Jesus' initiative in solving the food problem. Only John recorded that Jesus approached Philip about the need. This would have been normal since Philip was from Bethsaida, the nearest sizable town (1:44). John also explained that Jesus' question was a test in Philip's discipleship training, not an indication that Jesus wondered what to do initially.

6:7 Philip, too, as Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman, was thinking only on the physical level. Two hundred denarii represented about eight month's wages for a working man. Such a large sum might be the minimum they could scrape by with, but it would not provide enough bread to satisfy the people. Philip, as an accountant, put his mental calculator to work and concluded that the situation was hopeless.

6:8-9 Andrew had discovered a young lad (Gr. paidarion, a double diminutive) who had five small barley biscuits and two small fish (Gr. opsaria). Probably the fish would have served as a relish to eat with the bread.²⁴² Barley bread was the food of the poor. One writer called the boy's food mere "hors d'oeuvres."²⁴³ Andrew seems to have felt embarrassed that he had even suggested such an inadequate solution to the problem.

John may have intended his unique inclusion of the details of this boy and his lunch to remind his readers of Elisha's similar miracle (2 Kings 4:42-44). The same Greek word for "boy" occurs in the Septuagint translation of that story (2 Kings 4:38, 41).²⁴⁴ The main point, however, was the lack of adequate food and Jesus' ability to feed a multitude with such meager resources.

6:10 When the disciples had confessed their own inadequacy Jesus proceeded to demonstrate His adequacy. He instructed the disciples to seat the multitude on the comfortable grass. Perhaps we should view Jesus as the Good Shepherd making His sheep lie down in green pastures (cf. Ps. 23:2). Perhaps Jesus did this also to discourage the people from rushing madly for the food once they realized what was happening. All four evangelists recorded the size of the crowd in terms of the males present. This was customary since these people lived in a predominantly paternalistic culture. The scene also recalls Moses feeding the Israelites in the wilderness with bread from heaven.

6:11 Jesus first thanked God for the food in prayer, as pious Jews normally did (cf. v. 23). In this He set a good example. We should give thanks for what we have, and God will make it go farther. Jesus multiplied the food evidently as he broke it apart and distributed it to the people. John stressed the lavishness of Jesus' supply. The Son of God has always been the perfect sufficient provider of people's needs.

John probably did not intend that we make connections with the Lord's Supper. He omitted references that would have obviously connected the two meals such as the breaking of the bread and the distribution of the pieces. John omitted referring to the disciples' role in assisting Jesus by serving the people probably to keep Jesus central in the narrative. Obviously there is nothing in the text to support the popular liberal interpretation that the miracle consisted of Jesus making the people willing to share their food.

6:12-13 Everyone had enough to eat. Jesus satisfied everyone's appetite. There was even quite a bit of food left over that Jesus instructed His disciples to collect to avoid waste. All four evangelists noted that there were 12 large Jewish baskets (Gr. kophinos) of bread fragments left over. Commentators have suggested that they represent food for the disciples or food for Israel's 12 tribes. At least this detail proves the abundance of Jesus' provision for the people who were present. Each of the Twelve had his own evidence of Jesus' supernatural power and His adequacy.

6:14 The Jews who enjoyed Jesus' provision concluded that He must be the prophet whom Moses had predicted (Deut. 18:15-19; cf. John 1:21; 7:40, 52). Jesus had fed the Israelites in a wilderness area (Matt. 14:15; Mark 6:35) as Moses had with bread that came from heaven.

6:15 Moses had also provided military leadership for the Israelites and had liberated them from the oppression of the Egyptians. These Jews concluded that Jesus could do the same for them and sought to secure His political leadership forcefully. This decision marks the apogee of Jesus' popularity. Jesus realized their intention and withdrew from the crowd by ascending the mountainside farther by Himself to pray (Matt. 14:23; Mark 6:46). The time was not right for Him to establish His kingdom on the earth.

This sign demonstrated Jesus' identity as the Son of God, and it prepared for Jesus' revelation of Himself as the Bread of Life (vv. 22-59).

Notice that this sign illustrates three solutions to problems that people typically try. First, Philip suggested that money was the solution to the problem (v. 7). Second, Andrew looked to people for the solution (v. 9). Third, Jesus proved to be the true solution (v. 11).²⁴⁵ In satisfying the need of the people, Jesus used what someone made available to Him. In this case, as in most others, He used a very insignificant person, in the sight of other people, with very insignificant resources. Jesus did not create food out of thin air.

"The practical lesson is clear: whenever there is a need, give all that you have to Jesus and let Him do the rest. Begin with what you have, but be sure you give it all to Him."²⁴⁶

Constable: Joh 6:16-21

2. The fifth sign: walking on the water 6:16-21 (cf. Matt. 14:24-33; Mark 6:47-52)

John probably included this incident for a number of reasons. It accounts for the return of Jesus and His disciples to the western shore of Galilee where Jesus gave the discourse on the Bread of Life. Perhaps he did so to continue the Exodus theme (cf. vv. 14-15). It is primarily further proof that Jesus was the Son of God as He claimed. The disciples went from the thrill of great success to the agony of great danger. The feeding of the 5,000 was a lesson, and Jesus' walking on the water was the test following the lesson.

6:16 "Evening" could refer to anytime in the late afternoon before sunset. The feeding of the 5,000 evidently happened on the northeast side of the Sea of Galilee south of Bethsaida Julius. This town stood immediately east of the place where the Jordan River empties into the lake on its northern coast. Some of the town may have been on the western side of the Jordan.²⁴⁷ Evidently Jesus sent His disciples to this town by boat (Mark 6:45).

6:17-18 The disciples' ultimate destination was Capernaum. They evidently reached Bethsaida Julius and waited there for Jesus to join them. When He did not appear by nightfall, they decided to travel on to Capernaum without Him.

In John's Gospel darkness often has symbolic significance implying a bad situation (cf. 3:2; 13:30). Jesus' absence cast another foreboding cloud over the disciples. To make the occasion even worse a strong wind came up and created a storm on the lake. The wind normally came from the west, the direction in which the disciples headed. Mark described the disciples as straining at the oars (Mark 6:48).

6:19 The distance the disciples had rowed in the Greek text is 25 or 30 stadia, which is between two and three quarters miles and three and a half miles. Matthew and Mark wrote that the disciples were in the middle of the lake probably meaning that they were well out into it (Matt. 14:24; Mark 6:47). Some scholars wishing to depreciate this miracle have translated the Greek preposition epi as "by" rather than "on."²⁴⁸ However, the context and the Synoptics clearly present Jesus as walking on the water, not on the shore beside the water.

Mark reported that the disciples thought Jesus was a ghost (Mark 6:49). John simply described them as frightened. This emphasis has the effect of stressing Jesus' alleviation of their fear. The fear of the disciples and Jesus' ability to calm their fear is the point of John's record of this miracle. Jesus met the disciples between 3:00 and 6:00 a.m. (Matt. 14:25; Mark 6:48).

"Sometimes we are caught in a storm because we have disobeyed the Lord. Jonah is a good example. But sometimes the storm comes because we have obeyed the Lord. When that happens, we can be sure that our Saviour [sic] will pray for us, come to us, and deliver us. . . . Jesus had led His people into the green pastures (John 6:10), and now He brought them into the still waters (Ps. 23:2) What a wonderful Shepherd He is!"²⁴⁹

6:20 Jesus identified Himself by saying literally "I am" (Gr. ego eimi). This is sometimes a way Jesus described Himself as God as John recorded Jesus' words (e.g., 8:24). However the clause does not always mean that since it is the normal way of identifying oneself (cf. 9:9). In those instances the translation, "It is I," gives the intended meaning. Here Jesus was just identifying Himself to the disciples though obviously someone who could walk on water was more than a mere mortal.

6:21 When the disciples realized that it was Jesus, they willingly received Him into the boat. Perhaps Jesus met the disciples fairly close to their destination and so it did not take them long to arrive there. Perhaps with Jesus in the boat the remaining trip appeared to them to be a short one, or with the wind subdued it did not take them long to reach land. Any of these explanations could account for John's description. Many commentators believed that John referred to a second miracle and that the boat supernaturally reached Capernaum swiftly. There seems little point to such a miracle, however, and there is nothing in the text that explains it.

The feeding of the 5,000 presents Jesus as the provider of people's needs. His walking on the water pictures Him as the protector of those who trust and obey Him. The second of these two signs taught the disciples that Jesus had authority over nature (cf. Job 38:8-11; Ps. 29:3-4, 10-11; 65:5-7; 89:9; 107:29).²⁵⁰ John undoubtedly recorded the incident to teach his readers the same lesson. Both miracles demonstrated Jesus' equality with the Father, whom Old Testament writers described as doing these things.

Constable: Joh 6:22-59

3. The bread of life discourse 6:22-59

Jesus proceeded to clarify His identity by teaching the crowds and His disciples. He did so by developing the figure of the Bread of Life, which He claimed to be. Jesus used the feeding of the 5,000 as a basis for explaining His identity to the multitudes. He compared Himself to bread.

"Again, it was a ministry of grace and truth' (John 1:17). In grace, our Lord fed the hungry people; but in truth, He gave them the Word of God."²⁵¹

Constable: Joh 6:22-25

The people's search for Jesus 6:22-25

The multitude on the "other side" must have been near the northeast shore where Jesus had fed the 5,000 south of Bethsaida. They were across the lake from the northwestern shore where Jesus and the disciples now were, in Capernaum. They could not figure out where Jesus could have gone. The disciples had left in one boat without Jesus. There was only one other boat still there. Jesus had not used it to leave the area. While they waited for Jesus to appear, other boats with people from Tiberias, on the western shore, arrived. Eventually the crowd realized that Jesus was not in that region, so they boarded the boats that had come from Tiberias and set out for Capernaum. They probably thought they could find Jesus there because Capernaum was His headquarters. When they did find Him, they wanted to discover how He got there.

Why did John bother to relate this seemingly unimportant information? Apparently he did so to document the fact that Jesus really had crossed the lake by walking on the water. Another reason could be that his description supports Jesus' statement that the people sought Him (v. 26). In view of what these people proceeded to demand of Jesus (vv. 30-31) it was important that John show that they were the very people who had witnessed the sign of the miraculous feeding.

Constable: Joh 6:26-34

Jesus' creating desire for the bread 6:26-34

This section of the text contains Jesus' enigmatic and attractive description of the Bread of Life. Jesus was whetting His hearers' appetites for it (cf. 4:10). The pericope ends with their asking Him to give them the Bread (v. 34).

6:26 Jesus' introductory words identified another very important statement (cf. vv. 32, 47, 53). He did not answer their question (v. 25) and tell them that He had walked across the surface of the lake. He did not want them to follow Him primarily because He could do miracles. He understood that their interest in Him was mainly because of His ability to provide for them physically. They were not interested in Him because they identified Him as the God-man but because Jesus could fill their stomachs. Many people today are only interested in Jesus because of the benefits He may give them. Jesus proceeded to explain what the miracle they had witnessed signified.

6:27 Jesus had previously spoken to the Samaritan woman about living water (4:10, 14), and now He spoke to these Galileans about food that endures. He was, as previously, contrasting physical and spiritual nourishment. Consequently the descriptions that follow contain a mixture of literal and metaphorical language. Jesus wanted His hearers to view the spiritual aspects of His mission as more important than its physical aspects.

The people apparently understood His reference to bread that endures to eternal life as meaning physical bread that does not become stale and moldy. As the Son of Man, Jesus claimed to be able to give this food because God the Father had set His seal of approval on Jesus. The Father had authorized the Son to act for Him (cf. 5:32-47). This was one of the functions of a seal in Jesus' culture. Jesus was speaking of Himself as the food (vv. 35, 53). The Son would give this food and eternal life, but the people had a responsibility to work for it too.

6:28 The works of God are the works that God requires to obtain the food that remains, even eternal life. The people were still thinking on the physical level. They thought Jesus was talking about some physical work that would yield eternal life. Moreover they assumed that they could do it and that by doing it they could earn eternal life. They ignored Jesus' statement that He would give them eternal life (cf. Rom. 10:2-4). There is something within the fallen nature of human beings that makes working for eternal life more attractive than receiving it as a gift.

6:29 The only work that God requires of people for salvation is faith in His Son (cf. 3:11-17). The work that Jesus specified was not something physical at all. It was what God requires, namely trust in Jesus (cf. Rom. 3:28). Jesus' reply was a flat contradiction of the idea that people can earn salvation with their good deeds. This is another of the many great evangelistic verses in John's Gospel (1:12; 3:16, 36; 5:24; 6:47; et al.).

6:30-31 Jesus had told the people what work they needed to do to obtain eternal life. Now they asked Him what work He would do to prove that He was God's authorized representative as He claimed to be (cf. 1 Cor. 1:22). They suggested that producing bread from heaven as Moses did might convince them. Their unwillingness to believe the sign that Jesus had given them the previous day shows the hardness of their hearts. No matter what Jesus did the unbelievers always demanded more.

Probably Jesus' providing bread for thousands of people the previous day led them to ask for this greater miracle. Some of them had concluded that Jesus might be the Prophet that Moses had predicted (v. 14). If He was, He ought to be able to do greater miracles than Moses did. The manna that Moses produced spoiled if left uneaten overnight, but Jesus seemed to be promising bread that would not spoil.

The source of the people's loose quotation is probably Psalm 78:24. However there are also similarities to Nehemiah 9:15; Exodus 16:4 and 15; and Psalm 105:40.

"This section of the discourse is to be understood against the background of a Jewish expectation that, when the Messiah came, he would renew the miracle of the manna."²⁵²

6:32-33 The people were viewing Moses as the source of their blessing in the past. Jesus pointed them beyond Moses to the true source, namely God. He wanted them to look to God for their needs, not to a human channel of God's blessing.

Jesus also turned the conversation away from the request for a physical sign back to the subject of the bread that satisfies. God had given manna in the past, but He was giving a new type of bread now. Jesus described it as coming down from heaven and providing life for the entire world, not just Israel. With this response Jesus effectively took Moses and his sign, which the people had put in a superior place over Himself, and placed them in an inferior position under Himself. The true (Gr. alethinos, genuine or original, cf. 1:9) bread is the bread that satisfies ultimately. In this discourse Jesus mentioned seven times that He had come down out of heaven, stressing the fact that He was God's divine gift (vv. 33, 38, 41, 42, 50, 51, 58).

6:34 Jesus had glorified the new bread sufficiently now for the people to request it of Him, as he had glorified the living water for the Samaritan woman. He had set them up for the revelation that He was that bread. If they were sincere in their desire for it, they would accept Him. Yet the people did not realize what they were requesting, as the woman at the well did not (cf. 4:15). They were still thinking of physical bread. They wanted this new type of physical bread from then on.

College: Joh 6:1-71

JOHN 6

2. The Passover and Jesus' Explanation of the Exodus (6:1-71)

The Background (6:1-4)

¹ Some time after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee (that is, the Sea of Tiberias), ² and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the miraculous signs he had performed on the sick. ³ Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples. ⁴ The Jewish Passover Feast was near.

6:1. The Sea of Galilee was referred to by several names in the first century. One of these was the " Sea of Tiberias," a name derived from the most prominent city on its shores. This city of Tiberias was built by Herod Antipas about AD 20 in honor of the Roman Emperor, Tiberius Caesar, and was located on the west shore. Tiberias was a Hellenistic city, and we have no record of Jesus ever visiting it. Tiberias escaped eradication in the Roman War against the Jews (AD 66-70) and became the capital of the province after the destruction of Jerusalem. John's use of the designation Sea of Tiberias (6:1; 6:21; and 21:1) is unique in the New Testament, and serves as an indication of a later date for the writing of this Gospel, well after AD 70. The " Sea" is actually a large freshwater lake.

Since this is the second Passover after Jesus began his ministry, after this refers to the time after his second year of ministry, the choosing of the Twelve and the Sermon on the Mount. The far shore (" other side" as in NASB, et al.) is likely Bethsaida (as in the Synoptics and in John 1:44; 12:21).

6:2. The multitude or the great crowd gives evidence that Jesus' popularity was nearing its zenith. John explains why the people followed - because they saw the miraculous signs he had performed on the sick . No doubt some of the crowd had pure motives in following Jesus; perhaps others followed out of curiosity. The Jews in general were expecting a Messiah who would perform great deeds, and in Jesus they were seeing amazing things that made their hearts race as they journeyed to Jerusalem.

6:3. Which mountainside is this? Some have speculated that it was what is now known as the Golan Heights. Had Jesus intended to escape the crowd, which had not even allowed for time to eat, by climbing the hill with his disciples? They had probably set out to secure some time for themselves when the crowds interrupted them.

6:4. John dates this scene and helps our chronology by telling us that the Passover Feast was near . All three times in John, this is referred to as the " Jewish Passover" (John 2:13; 6:4; and 11:55). Because John consistently labels the Passover as " Jewish," it is likely that Christians had given up the practice of celebrating the Passover at the time of John's writing.

Jesus' Feeding of the Five Thousand (6:5-13)

⁵ When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, " Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?" ⁶ He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.

⁷ Philip answered him, " Eight months' wages ^a would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!"

⁸ Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, spoke up, ⁹" Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?"

¹⁰ Jesus said, " Have the people sit down." There was plenty of grass in that place, and the men sat down, about five thousand of them. ¹¹ Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish.

¹² When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, " Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted." ¹³ So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.

^a 7 Greek two hundred denarii

6:5-6. The feeding of the 5,000 is one of the few accounts included in all four of the Gospels (see Matt 14:15-21; Mark 6:35-44; Luke 9:12-17). Philip's role in this and other narratives is unique in John's Gospel. First Philip was introduced as following Jesus and bringing his friend Nathaniel (John 1:43-48). Here Philip comments on the price of food (vv. 5,7). Later, in John 12:21,22, we will learn of Philip's role in an incident where some Greeks wanted to meet Jesus and of Philip's introduction of them to Andrew. Finally, in John 14:8,9, Philip makes a request to be shown the Father.

Jesus probably addresses Philip because he was the disciple nearest to him at the time. The same Greek word used for test (peiravzwn, peirazôn) is translated elsewhere as " tempt." Here it shows Jesus' method of training his disciples by challenging them with responsibility.

6:7. Philip calculated quickly that eight months' wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite ! The figure in the Greek text is actually 200 denarii. The silver denarius was commonly used for a day's wage in the ancient world. Thus 200 denarii, would have been 200 days' wages for a common laborer, or about eight month's pay (KJV, " 200 pennies" ). This would have the equivalent of several thousands of dollars in modern buying power.

6:8-9. Andrew reappeared bringing a boy with a small lunch. Andrew was introduced in John 1:40,44 as an early follower of Jesus and recruiter of his brother, Peter. We will see him again in John 12:22 helping Philip with Greek guests. While the word ojyavria ( opsaria ) came to mean fish in general, here it most likely means cooked fish tidbits or cooked fish filets. Tenney suggests that they were " probably pickled fish used as relish, much as sardines are used now for hors d'oeuvres."

6:10-11. There was plenty of grass means that it was springtime. And, according to custom, the men sat down . John's word here is gender specific, 5,000 men (a[ndre", andres - plural of ajnhvr, a " man" in contrast to women or children) sat down to hear Jesus. It is common to multiply the 5,000 to as many as 15,000 since Matthew 14:21 says, " besides women and children." However, it is unlikely that all these men took their entire families into such a remote place to listen to a rabbi . A more reasonable total number might be 6,000-8,000.

After giving thanks, Jesus distributed [the bread first] to those who were seated as much as they wanted . The important point, aside from the obvious miracle, is the latter - they received as much as they wanted ! John's theological point is that there is no lack when Jesus is providing. This sets up the coming comparisons to the manna in the wilderness. As with the manna, there is no lack, for all could eat until they were full (see Exod 16:12,18).

6:12-13. Not only did they eat their fill, there were leftovers (understated in the NIV Study Bible note, " abundant supply" ). It's one thing to feed 5,000 men, but it's another to have pieces of food that would fill twelve wicker baskets (kofivnou", kophinous ). Hendriksen notes, " Wastefulness is sinfulness." This is echoed by Butler, " What a lesson for the poor stewardship for present day followers of Jesus!"

Jesus, Not That Kind of King (6:14-15)

¹⁴ After the people saw the miraculous sign that Jesus did, they began to say, " Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world." ¹⁵ Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.

6:14-15. Human nature prompted the title declaration by the crowd. They saw in Jesus the fulfillment of their messianic expectations. Part of this was their expectation of the coming Prophet , who had been promised by Moses (Deut. 18:15-19). This Prophet was to be greater than any previous prophet, the ultimate manifestation of God's spokesman. Ironically, the people were correct in this identification. John develops the theme of Jesus as the eschatological Prophet elsewhere. In John 1:21 the readers were introduced to the concept of the expected Prophet by learning that John the Baptist denied being this person. The Samaritan woman was able to discern Jesus' prophetic vocation (4:19). John has indicated that Jesus acknowledged his prophetic role in the editorial comment of 4:44. The controversy of whether or not Jesus is the Prophet/Messiah comes to a head again in 7:40-52.

They were going to make him king over a physical order and no room would be left for the Messiah that Jesus really was, i.e., a being of totally spiritual order. The first century Jews of Palestine looked for a military Messiah, a savior like Judas Maccabeus. As Judas had run the Syrian Greeks out of the Promised Land 200 years earlier, they wanted a military general/king to rid Israel of the hated Romans. Surely a man who could miraculously feed thousands could also lead them to victory!

The meaning here is " to seize" (aJrpavzein, harpazein - a present infinitive) him in order to make things happen their way. This word has a violent background (" a ferocious animal has dragged Joseph away" in Gen. 37:33 in the LXX) and is used of forcefully taking another man's property (Matt 12:29). It is used in Jude 23 " to snatch" something out of the fire. Jesus, therefore, immediately retreated from the people into the hills to be by himself and prevent this forced coronation.

From this point on in John, the character of Jesus' ministry is drastically altered. He is the " Son of Man," but the " Son of Man" is henceforth the great servant of God. Up to now (vv. 1ff.), Jesus has revealed himself as a " Son of Man," but few in his audience had thought through what kind of " Son of Man" he meant (see above discussion on 1:51). The people had in mind a physical kingdom and a physical king (associating " Son of Man" with the eschatological figure of Daniel 7:13,14), but Jesus had in mind a purely spiritual king and kingdom. In the " Bread of Life Discourse" that follows, Jesus begins to say this clearly, with the result that many of his would-be followers leave him (v. 66).

Jesus' Walking on the Sea of Galilee (6:16-21)

¹⁶ When evening came, his disciples went down to the lake, ¹⁷ where they got into a boat and set off across the lake for Capernaum. By now it was dark, and Jesus had not yet joined them. ¹⁸ A strong wind was blowing and the waters grew rough. ¹⁹ When they had rowed three or three and a half miles, ^a they saw Jesus approaching the boat, walking on the water; and they were terrified. ²⁰ But he said to them, " It is I; don't be afraid." ²¹ Then they were willing to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the shore where they were heading.

^a 19 Greek rowed twenty-five or thirty stadia (about 5 or 6 kilometers)

6:16-21. Mark 6:45 says Jesus " compelled" (ajnagkavzw, anankazô, " force, urge or insist" ) his disciples to " get into the boat." John says they set off . . . for Capernaum ; Mark says they left for Bethsaida. Which is correct? Apparently Jesus had directed them to wait at Bethsaida Julius (northeastern side of the Sea) but they finally gave up and went on toward Capernaum without him. By now it was dark (" dark" and " darkness" are common themes in Johannine writings: 1:5; 3:19; 6:17; 8:12; 12:35,46; 20:1; 1 John 1:5,6; 2:8,9,11; Rev 8:12; 9:17; 16:10). The formula for a storm is cool mountain air rushing down onto the warm, moist air of the lake (696 feet below sea level). This resulted in turbulence! Rowing one mile is a challenge, but to row over three or three and a half miles, in a storm had to be exasperating.

Then, Jesus walked on the Sea of Galilee. As skeptics have taunted, " Did he just walk along the beach as they hugged the shoreline? Did he just know where the rocks were (and they didn't)?" Matthew and Mark clearly answer by specifying that Jesus was " walking on the lake." This seems to be an event without precedent. His disciples had walked to their boat on the shore of the sea while Jesus dismissed the crowd and set out on the sea! When Jesus came to them, he was walking on the water; and they were terrified (ejfobhvqhsan, ephobçthçsan, from fobevomai, phobeomai - intransitive " be afraid" ). They would have been terrified because it was dark, a strong wind was blowing, and they had never seen anything like this. They knew this was impossible! Only when Jesus commanded, don't be afraid (mhÉ fobei'sqe, mç phobeisthe - present imperative) did they take him on board. Apparently two miracles took place here: (1) Jesus walked on water and (2) the boat was immediately at the safety of the shore.

This little narrative, found in two of the other Gospels (Matt 14:22-36; Mark 6:45-56), is used by John to give two christological teachings. First, there is an intended connection between the two miracles of this chapter and the Exodus experience of Israel. The miraculous provision of manna by God in the wilderness has now been replicated by Jesus. This feeding is a sign of God's providential care. But further, the mastery of the sea that God demonstrated by parting the Red Sea has also been shown by Jesus' walking on the water. Mastery of the sea was a sign of God's sovereignty and omnipotence (see Exod 15:6-8). This Exodus connection is a major background for the following " Bread of Life" discourse.

Second, the words of Jesus are significant here. The disciples are told not to be afraid because, "ejgwv eijmi" (egô eimi), " I am" (NIV, " It is I" ). Jesus' " I am" statements in the Gospel of John form a claim to deity based on the Divine Name of God (cf. Exod 3:14, and see comments below on John 8:58).

The Crowds' Search for Jesus (6:22-25)

²² The next day the crowd that had stayed on the opposite shore of the lake realized that only one boat had been there, and that Jesus had not entered it with his disciples, but that they had gone away alone. ²³ Then some boats from Tiberias landed near the place where the people had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. ²⁴ Once the crowd realized that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats and went to Capernaum in search of Jesus.

²⁵ When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, " Rabbi, when did you get here?"

6:22-24. Fact: only one boat was available to the disciples. Fact: Jesus did not leave in it. Fact: He's gone! Implied Fact: If he had walked around the shore, the crowd would have seen him. The crowd again sensed that a miracle has occurred.

Then some boats from Tiberias landed . . . very likely blown off course by the wind that had been in the face of the disciples . . . where the people had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. The term for giving thanks (eujcaristevw, eucharisteô) almost becomes a formula. This influences our understanding concerning the connections between the " bread of life" and the Lord's Supper, known as the " eucharist" in some Christian traditions.

Where did all the boats in verse 24 come from? Possibly they were blown in from Tiberias. Why did they go to Capernaum? Likely it was well known as Jesus' most recent base of operations. These would have arrived very early, perhaps between 3 and 6 A.M. Here is the synagogue in Capernaum (see v. 59). The expected answer from Jesus would have been something like, " Oh, I just walked along the shore . . . ." However, that is not true, and therefore not an option for Jesus. But instead of answering the question directly, he uses their bewilderment as a jumping off point for the famous " Bread of Life" speech.

The Discourse on the Bread of Life, Part 1 (6:26-34)

²⁶ Jesus answered, " I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. ²⁷ Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval."

²⁸ Then they asked him, " What must we do to do the works God requires?" ²⁹ Jesus answered, " The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."

³⁰ So they asked him, " What miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? ³¹ Our forefathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written: 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.' ^a"

³² Jesus said to them, " I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. ³³ For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world."

³⁴" Sir," they said, " from now on give us this bread."

^a 31 Exodus 16:4; Neh. 9:15; Psalm 78:24,25

6:26-29. John presents the crowd as having a certain degree of mixed motives here. There is a motive that sees Jesus as a meal ticket, the new Moses who could conjure up bread in the wilderness. Jesus confronts this attitude of freeloading directly, and surely this hit home with some. But there is a deeper motive at work, and Jesus recognizes it, too. There is a spiritual need in these people, and now he speaks to that hunger. The people specifically request a miraculous sign (albeit a self-serving one) that will be sufficient for them to believe in him.

At issue here (as elsewhere in John) is the very nature of faith. For the current audience of Jesus, there must be a parade of miraculous signs to compel belief (v. 30). Not unrelated is their conviction that Jesus should assign them some specific tasks so that they might be pleasing to God (v. 28). Jesus demolishes both of these misconceptions with a single stroke. The audience is called to believe in Jesus himself , to believe in the one he [God] has sent (v. 29). This response has the effect of saying, " Work by believing !"

Jesus claims that God has placed his seal of approval (ejsfravgisen, esphragisen - aorist of sfragivzw, sphragizô) on him. The Jews should have recognized Jesus' seal through the miracles he performed. As Nicodemus has already noted in John, no one could do the signs Jesus had done without God's approval (3:2). The " sealing" is both God's stamp of approval and his mark of identification to serve as credentials for Jesus. He is the certified, authorized, " franchise" distributor of the bread of life.

6:30-34. What follows shows a bit of the method Jesus often used to interpret the Old Testament. Jesus understood himself to be a fulfillment of the manna from the Exodus. But this was not in the usual prophecy/fulfillment sense, for nowhere does the Old Testament promise that God would send an eternal, messianic manna at a later date. Jesus' method here is a typological interpretation of the manna. In this typology the manna stands for God's miraculous and gracious provision for his people (see Ps 78:23-24). The manna is a type , an identifiable pattern. The type of manna is fulfilled in the antitype , Jesus. Jesus was not physical food. He was a spiritual provision by a gracious God. The rabbis taught that in the new age the gift of manna would be restored - and therefore the people would know that all has been restored. But with Jesus there is much more than food aplenty. There is eternal food that sustains " eternal life" (v. 27). There is living water that sustains " eternal life" (4:14). This will be taken out of the realm of typology and explained below as a matter of faith. One must " believe" in the Son to gain eternal life (v. 40) and to be a participant in the coming resurrection (v. 54).

Ironically the people ask to be given this Jesus-manna, not quite knowing what he is talking about (v. 34). Perhaps for them the true bread (v. 32) or the bread of God (v. 33) would be miraculous, self-replenishing bread that they could keep in their pantries at home. The true bread is neither manna nor barley loaves. They have made a category error, for the bread is a Somebody.

Their mistake is similar to that of the woman who asked for the " living water" that Jesus claimed to control (4:15), not realizing that this " water" was the Holy Spirit (7:39). The implicit claim is that Jesus is far superior to Moses, who was merely able to facilitate temporary and physical water and bread relief. The provision of God through Jesus is for supernatural water and bread, a spiritual nourishment that cannot be depleted. Jesus clearly identifies the bread of life and its source. It was not Moses who gave the bread of life from heaven. It was God. It was God then; it is God now.

The contrasts in Jesus' teaching with the historical precedent and the expectations of his audience may be charted accordingly:

The Experience of Israel in Exodus The Expectations of Jesus' Audience Jesus' Offer in the Bread of Life Discourse Frequency Manna given daily Eat loaves, want daily Eat Bread once Giver Moses Prophet like Moses Prophet like Moses, but ultimately God Recipients Jews Jews All men and women Spiritual Lesson Ate & learned nothing Ate & learned nothing Learn Christ Eternal Result Died Will die in sins Live forever

The Discourse on the Bread of Life, Part 2 (6:35-40)

³⁵ Then Jesus declared, " I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. ³⁶ But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. ³⁷ All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. ³⁸ For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. ³⁹ And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. ⁴⁰ For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day."

6:35-37. I am the bread of life - so, the giver of the bread is himself the bread! He is claiming to eternally supply for one of humankind's greatest needs: bread/food. He has also promised to supply eternal thirst-quenching (cf. 4:14, 7:38). This is the first of seven specific " I am" (ejgwÉ eijmi, egô eimi) statements with predicate complements in John. All of them make a particular christological claim as to the nature of Jesus. These statements in John are as follows:

1. I am the bread of life (6:35,41,48,51).

2. I am the light of the world (8:12; 9:5).

3. I am the gate for the sheep (10:7,9).

4. I am the good shepherd (10:11,14).

5. I am the resurrection and the life (11:25).

6. I am the way, the truth, and the life (14:6).

7. I am the true vine (15:1,5).

Contrary to popular understanding, Jesus says that seeing is not necessarily believing (v. 36). Many had seen Jesus yet refused to believe in him. Others had believed in him, but not with a true faith (2:23-25). If Jesus hadn't raised their ire by now, this declaration would have triggered some animosity in the crowd.

Jesus declares that " everyone who receives me" would, in turn, have eternal life. Will never in the NIV here and in verse 35 translates ouj mh (ou mç) with the subjunctive mood (called an " emphatic negation" construction in Greek grammars). Such language hammers home the eternal commitment of Jesus to guard those who believe in him.

Verse 37 brings up an interesting question, " How does God give anyone to Jesus?" Several possibilities might be suggested:

A. God determines who will be saved and delivers those individuals to his Son, Jesus. Salvation is ultimately a decision of a sovereign God, and not dependent upon human free will.

B. God draws them to himself and his Son by His love which has been shed abroad in our hearts (cf. Rom. 5:5; John 3:16).

C. God gives them to the Son through a combination of his divine drawing, and our human turning. People come to Jesus of their own free choice. This explanation is to be preferred. That the freedom of choice is the human's prerogative is evident from many other Scriptures and this context . Human beings exercise this prerogative until the end of their life on earth. Even after having become a member of the body of Christ (the church), we continually choose to remain in the fold, or are consequently lost. In exercising this choice, one must continually " show his faith by his works" (cf. Jas 2:18). Jesus will never drive away anyone who comes to him, yet " man's rejection by God is caused by man's rejection of God." (See comments below on v. 43. Cf. John 15:2; 1 Cor 9:27; 10:12; Rev 3:16.)

6:38-40. A strong christological statement dominates verses 38-40. Here Jesus declares that it is God's will that all who come to him truly do receive eternal life and will be raised up at the last day (vv. 39, 40, 44, and 54; his power to raise the dead was established in John 5). The clause, I have come down from heaven , is repeated six times in this chapter (vv. 33, 36, 41, 50, 51, 58). It reminds us again of the manna typology, the bread that came down from heaven. This is an explicitly supernatural claim, that although Jesus was human, he was the heavenly Word of God incarnate (cf. 1:14).

Why did Jesus come down from heaven? While we make the answer to this very complex at times, Jesus states it very simply: to do the will of him who sent me . There is no conflict between the wills of Father and Son; they are one. In verse 39 Jesus' will = save those individuals given to him by God. In verse 40 Father's will = save those who believe. God " gives" individuals to Jesus. Jesus in turn guards the ones who come to him and believe. The Greek text of verse 40 means literally, " the one looking and believing." Both of these actions are present participles, implying ongoing action. This looking and believing is done so that they shall have eternal life (see comments above on verse 27). God is " not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance" (2 Pet. 3:9).

Conflict Concerning Bread from Heaven and Flesh and Blood (6:41-59)

⁴¹ At this the Jews began to grumble about him because he said, " I am the bread that came down from heaven." ⁴² They said, " Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, 'I came down from heaven'?"

⁴³" Stop grumbling among yourselves," Jesus answered. ⁴⁴" No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. ⁴⁵ It is written in the Prophets: 'They will all be taught by God.' ^a Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me. ⁴⁶ No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. ⁴⁷ I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life. ⁴⁸ I am the bread of life. ⁴⁹ Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. ⁵⁰ But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. ⁵¹ I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."

⁵² Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, " How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"

^a 45 Isaiah 54:13

6:41-43. The similarities between this account and the story of Israel in the wilderness become even more pronounced at this point. John tells us that the people " grumble" (Greek verb gogguvzw, gongyzô), the very verb used by the LXX for the complaining Israelites (see Exod 17:3, Num 14:27, Ps 106:25, et al.). Jesus' hearers don't want spiritual food; they want belly-filling food. They don't want to listen to someone who claims to be from heaven; they want a king who will rule on earth.

Jesus enters this conflict or debate concerning bread from heaven versus physical flesh and blood. The controversy turned on the identity of Jesus, his origin. The Jews (probably leaders of the synagogue in Capernaum) asked, " How could Jesus, the son of Joseph and Mary, be from heaven?" They thought they knew Jesus' origin and nature. He ate and drank daily, and he was otherwise a normal human being. Even Christians have had trouble with this theological matter for many centuries, trying to reconcile the simultaneous humanity and divinity of Jesus.

Jesus is addressing the hometown crowd. (Nazareth was not far from his current home base of Capernaum.) Joseph may or may not have been alive at this time. Stop grumbling among yourselves - now we have the complete Exodus scene!

6:44. The word draws implies resistance. Note the use of e{lkw (helkô) in John and elsewhere in the New Testament:

John 6:44 - Father draws him

John 12:32 - I will draw all men to myself

John 18:10 - Simon Peter drew his sword

John 21:6 - unable to haul the net of fish aboard

John 21:11 - Simon Peter dragged the net ashore

Acts 16:19 - dragged Paul and Silas into the marketplace

Acts 21:30 - they dragged him [Paul] from the temple

James 2:6 - dragging you into court

As mentioned above in the discussion of verse 37, John presents conversion as the result of divine drawing and human turning. There is no question but that the divine drawing of verse 44 is a compulsion that our wills initially resist. We are not expected to find a God who hides himself. We respond to the self-revealing God who draws all men and women to himself. John makes plain the central role of Jesus in this process. When Jesus is " lifted up" (when he dies on the cross), he draws all men and women to himself (12:32). For John the preaching of the cross is the central element of God's bringing people to him. Salvation is from God's initiative, not ours. While we deny the " irresistible grace" required by the " total depravity" of the Calvinists, we must readily admit that (1) the process of salvation is initiated by God's action, and (2) it meets with initial resistance in every one of us. God does not, however, overrule our will.

6:45. It is written in the Prophets: 'They will all be taught by God.' The Old Testament verse Jesus seems to have in mind is Isaiah 54:13, " All your sons will be taught by the LORD," but the concept is encountered elsewhere in the Old Testament (e.g., Ps 25:4-5; 94:12; Isa 2:3; Jer 16:21; Micah 4:2; Zeph 3:9; Mal 1:11; cf. 1 Cor 2:13). We see a wonderful interweaving of heavenly and human responsibility in the second part of the verse, everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me .

6:46-48. Only Jesus knows the Father and has seen him (see 1:14,18; cf. hope for the redeemed to see Jesus in his glory in 17:24, 1 John 3:2). In the course of this argument, Jesus knows what he is talking about based on intimate experience. The NIV translates ajmhÉn ajmhÉn levgw uJmi'n (amçn, amçn, legô hymin, amen, amen, I say to you) I tell you the truth . This is the third time in this section that John has used this clause (6:26,32,47, cf. 53).

The one believing has everlasting life - now! Verse 48 states the basis for this truth very succinctly, I am the bread of life . Jesus is Creator and the source of life!

6:49-51. Jesus is trying to get them to analyze the reason that their forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died . Just enjoying God's blessings did not save them. Neither was physical bread the answer. The miracle of manna was a powerful, supernatural demonstration of God's provision, but all the people who ate that bread died.

Jesus' claim is that I am the living bread . . . If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh . . . The language of Jesus at this point moves to terms that are more and more explicitly tied to our understanding of the Lord's Supper. In John's account of the Last Supper (chs. 13-17) he has no mention of the institution of the Lord's Supper . These sections of chapter 6 are both a foreshadowing of that event, and provide some of the theological basis for our understanding of the Eucharist.

Must we understand verse 51 and the verses that follow (53-58) in a sacramental way? In other words, is there something about the physical eating of the loaf and drinking of the cup on a weekly basis that guarantees our salvation? Or, on the other hand, if the church prohibits participation in the Lord's Supper to a person, is that person being denied salvation? Such understandings may be found in Roman Catholicism and other Christian traditions, but do not really seem to be the intent of the text here. Participation in the Lord's Supper is not an exercise in magic. The emblems of Communion are not " salvation pills" that must be taken weekly to ward off condemnation to hell. " Feeding on Jesus" (v. 57) equals believing in Jesus. As already demonstrated above, John's central message is that eternal life is the result of faith. There is no change in emphasis here. We are to believe so fully in Jesus that we have assimilated him into our life. We feast on him in the sense of " man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD" (Deut 8:3; Matt 4:4; Luke 4:4). Jesus' flesh (savrx [ sarx ], not sw'ma [sôma] as in Mark 14:22) that was sacrificed on the cross (Matt 20:28; Gal 2:20; Eph 5:2) is this bread.

6:52. Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves . . . another understatement in the NIV translation. The word used for argue (mavcomai, machomai ) sometimes meant to have a literal fight on the level of combat (Acts 7:26), but in the verbal sense means to have a heated contentious quarrel (cf. 2 Tim 2:24). The lines are being drawn between believers and unbelievers.

6:53. Jesus has no interest in backpedaling or softening his claims and demands. His hearers are offended even more when Jesus asserts, " unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood ." This is a serious claim that even the earliest Christians debated one another over - and still do. The Reformation battles over transubstantiation versus consubstantiation versus simple memorial have never been totally resolved in the larger Christian community. Yet it is easy to see that some churches have memorialized the Lord's Supper to the point that it has become an optional exercise, done monthly, quarterly, annually, or not at all. Surely this is an overreaction to the sacramental theology of Roman Catholicism. Participation in the Lord's Supper is a tangible means of fellowship with Jesus, whom we have believed upon for salvation.

In verse 63, Jesus says, " the words I have spoken to you are spirit and life." Compare this carefully with verse 53, which says , unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you . Yet verse 63 says, " the flesh profits nothing. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life." Notice that the flesh and blood did not produce life, but the words of Jesus did, and this is the real solution to the Eucharist controversy. What gives life are the words of Jesus. The heart of all his words, which he came to say and enact, was his death, burial, and resurrection. Even more to the core of the matter, what gives life is the person of Jesus himself, the Risen Lord. John says that the death and resurrection of Jesus is the source of life for all Christians. It is not a magical formula, nor an emotional phenomenon, nor a mystery that is incomprehensible, but it is the heart of the gospel that saves everyone who accepts it, namely the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.

Rejection and Acceptance of Jesus (6:60-71)

⁶⁰ On hearing it, many of his disciples said, " This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?"

⁶¹ Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, " Does this offend you? ⁶² What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! ⁶³ The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit ^a and they are life. ⁶⁴ Yet there are some of you who do not believe." For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. ⁶⁵ He went on to say, " This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him."

⁶⁶ From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

⁶⁷" You do not want to leave too, do you?" Jesus asked the Twelve.

⁶⁸ Simon Peter answered him, " Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. ⁶⁹ We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God."

⁷⁰ Then Jesus replied, " Have I not chosen you, the Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil!" ⁷¹ (He meant Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, who, though one of the Twelve, was later to betray him.)

^a 63 Or Spirit

In John 6 Jesus is at the height of his popularity. He has done a great feeding miracle (vv. 1-15). He has to escape from the large crowds, leading to the miracle of walking on water (vv. 16-21). The crowds seek him out to make him king (v. 15) and to have another free meal (vv. 25-26). This sets the scene for the famous " Bread of Life" discourse in which Jesus makes the greatest public claims he has made so far in the book.

6:60-71. The result is a defining moment for " would-be disciples." Who will stay, and who will leave? In what follows we may discern three types of disciples of Jesus, two who are false, and one who is a true disciple.

The first type of false disciple is the one who counts the cost and turns away (vv. 60,66). This disciple understands that being a follower of Jesus involves steadfast allegiance to him, even to his claims of deity and to being the one who gives eternal life. But this disciple refuses to accept these demands, and voluntarily withdraws from the ranks of disciples. He will accept free meals but will not submit to the Lordship of Jesus. He retains his integrity, but loses his soul.

Judas personifies the second type of false disciple (vv. 70-71). This disciple knows the cost and falsely stays. Such persons stay in the fellowship of disciples (the church), but refuse to submit fully to the Lordship of Jesus. They are like the false guest at the wedding feast (Matt 22:11-14) or the hypocrites that are so soundly condemned by Jesus.

Peter serves as the example of a true disciple in this text. He knows the cost of believing in Jesus, yet also knows that no one else has the words of eternal life (v. 68). Jesus alone has the " message that brings eternal life," the message that frees us from sin and alienation from God, the message of gracious truth that saves our souls from eternal destruction. There is no other way!

This chapter ends on a note of foreshadowing that one of the inner twelve disciples of Jesus would betray him (vv. 64,65,70,71). John tells us that person is Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot , introduced for the first time here in the Gospel of John. We learn a number of things about this enigmatic figure from John that are not found in the other Gospels. For example, we gain some clue to the meaning of Iscariot . This is apparently a family name, for Judas's father is Simon Iscariot . While the exact derivation of the name " Iscariot" is uncertain, a likely explanation is that it is a Hellenized form of the Hebrew phrase " man of Kerioth." If Judas were from Kerioth (a town in southern Judea) he would have been the only Judean among the twelve, for the rest were all Galileans. In verse 70 Jesus calls Judas a devil (diavbolo", diabolos ), perhaps better translated here as " adversary." Judas is the one who acts in the spirit of the Great Adversary, Satan, who opposes the work of Jesus by diabolical means. More often John refers to Judas as the " betrayer" (6:64; 12:4; 13:2; 18:2,5). In John 13:2 the connection between Judas and the betrayer and the Devil/Satan is stated explicitly.

With the end of chapter 6 the tone for John's Gospel is changed. Jesus is no longer the popular icon of the people, but rather the one whose life is in danger (7:1). To be a follower of Jesus means to accept his claim to deity, and to trust in him for salvation and eternal life. These are hard demands, and many would-be disciples have left. John has drawn the lines between believers and unbelievers more clearly than ever.

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

McGarvey: Joh 6:1

LXIII.
FIRST WITHDRAWAL FROM HEROD'S TERRITORY AND RETURN.
(Spring, A. D. 29.)
Subdivision A.
RETURN OF THE TWELVE AND RETIREMENT TO THE EAST SHORE OF GALILEE.
^aMATT. XIV. 13; ^bMARK VI. 30-32; ^cLUKE IX. 10; ^dJOHN VI. 1.

   ^b30 And the apostles gather themselves together unto Jesus; cwhen they were returned, band they told {cdeclared unto} bhim all things, whatsoever they had done, and whatsoever they had taught. [They had fulfilled the mission on which Jesus had sent them, and on returning each pair made to him a full report of their work.]  31 And he saith unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place [an uninhabited place], and rest a while. For there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat. [Need of rest was one reason for retiring to the thinly settled shores east of the lake. Matthew proceeds to give us another reason for his retiring.]  ^a13 Now  ^d1 After these things awhen Jesus heard it [Heard about John's death. The excitement caused by this event, and the efforts to use Jesus as a leader in revolt, as indicated at the close of the last section, constituted another reason why Jesus should withdraw from the multitude], che took them [the apostles], and withdrew athence capart  ^b32 And they went away in the {aa} boat, dto the other side of the sea of Galilee, which is the sea of Tiberias. cto a city called Bethsaida. bto a desert place apart. [They sailed to the northeastern shore of the lake to a plain lying near the city of Bethsaida Julius.] [374]

[FFG 374]

McGarvey: Joh 6:2-14

LXIII.
FIRST WITHDRAWAL FROM HEROD'S TERRITORY AND RETURN.
(Spring, A. D. 29.)
Subdivision B.
FEEDING THE FIVE THOUSAND.
^aMATT. XIV. 13-21; ^bMARK VI. 33-44; ^cLUKE IX. 11-17; ^dJOHN VI. 2-14.

   ^c11 But {aand} the multitudes heard thereof [heard of Jesus and his disciples crossing the lake],  ^b33 And they saw them going, and cperceiving it, bmany knew them,  ^d2 And a great multitude followed him, because they beheld the signs which he did on them that were sick. band they ran together there on foot from all the cities, and outwent them.  ^a14 And he came forth, and saw a great multitude, and had compassion on them, bbecause they were as sheep not having a shepherd cand he welcomed them, band he began to teach them many things. cand spake unto them of the kingdom of God, aand healed their sick. cand them that had need of healing he cured. [Jesus probably set sail from near Capernaum, and from thence across the lake to the narrow, secluded plain of El Batihah, where he landed is less than five miles. Seeing him start, the people followed him by running along the northern shore, and, though having a little farther to go, they traveled faster than the sailboat, and were waiting for him on the shore when he arrived.]  ^d3 And Jesus went up into the mountain, and there he sat with his disciples. [The level plain did not afford a good platform from which to address the people.]  4 Now the passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand. [This passover is computed to have been held on April 16, A. D. 29. This statement as to the time of year prepares us for his further statement that there was much grass in the plain. It also explains in part the gathering of a multitude in this secluded region. Pilgrims on their way to the passover would gladly go several miles out of their way to see the great Prophet perform a miracle. The excitement, due to the mission of the twelve and the death of the Baptist, also tended to swell the [375] crowd.]  ^c12 And the day began to wear away;  ^b35 And when the day was now far spent,  ^a15 And when even was come, bhis disciples cthe twelve bcame unto him cand said unto him, {asaying,} ^bThe place is desert, and the day is now far spent; aand the time is already past [the time to seek lodging and provisions had gone by, and therefore the multitude must act quickly];  ^b36 send them athe multitudes {cmultitude} away, that they may go into the villages and country around, and lodge, and get provisions: aand buy themselves food. bsomething to eat. cfor we are here in a desert place. [The apostles were the first to think of eating, and naturally enough, for they had started on empty stomachs, and their own discomfort made them anticipate the sad plight in which the multitude would soon find itself.]  ^a16 But Jesus said unto them, They have no need to go away;  ^d5 Jesus therefore lifting up his eyes, and seeing that a great multitude cometh to him, saith unto Philip, Whence are we to buy bread, that these may eat?  6 And this he said to prove him: for he himself knew what he would do.  7 Philip answered him, Two hundred shillings' worth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one may take a little. [Jesus tested Philip to see which way he would turn in his weakness. Jesus asked where the bread might be bought, knowing that power to feed the multitude resided in himself (Isa 55:1), but Philip wondered where the money was to be had to buy it.]  ^b37 But he answered and said unto them, Give ye them to eat. And they say unto him, Shall we go and buy two hundred shillings' worth of bread, and give them to eat? [The word translated shilling is the Roman denarius, worth about seventeen cents. The sum was not large, as we reckon money, but, considering the purchasing power of money in those days, it was an imposing sum, and it is to be doubted if the treasury-bag of Judas ever contained the fourth part of it. For a denarius was the regular price for a day's labor.]  38 And he saith unto them, How many [376] loaves have ye? go and see.  ^d8 One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, saith unto him,  9 There is a lad here, who hath five barley loaves, and two fishes: but what are they among so many? ^bAnd when they knew, they say, Five, and two fishes.  ^a17 And they say unto him, {csaid,} ^aWe have here but cno more than five loaves and two fishes; except we should go and buy meat for all this people.  14 For they were about five thousand men. [When sent to see what was in their larder, it appears that they had nothing at all. Andrew reports the finding of the boy's lunch while it was as yet the boy's property. Some of the others, having secured it from the boy, report it now at the disposal of Jesus, but comment on its insufficiency. Eastern loaves were thin and small, like good-sized crackers, and around the Sea of Galilee, the salting and preserving of small fish was an especial industry. These fish, therefore, were about the size of sardines. The whole supply, therefore, was no more than enough for one hungry boy. But each loaf had to be divided between a thousand, and each fish between twenty-five hundred men.]  ^a18 And he said, Bring them hither to me.  19 And he commanded the multitude to sit down ^cAnd  ^d10 Jesus said, cunto his disciples, Make them dthe people sit down. cin companies, about fifty each.  15 And they did so, and made them all sit down.  ^b40 And they sat down in ranks, by hundreds, and by fifties. ^dNow there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, in number about five thousand. [By thus arranging them in orderly companies, Jesus accomplished several things. He saved his apostles much time and labor in distributing the food. He insured that each one should be fed, and that the reality of the miracle could not be questioned, and he ascertained definitely how many men were fed.]  ^c16 And  ^d11 Jesus therefore took athe five loaves, and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, che blessed and brake them, band brake the loaves; dand having [377] given thanks, he distributed to them that were set down; aand gave the loaves to the disciples, and the disciples to the multitudes. {cand gave to the disciples to set before the multitude.} dlikewise also of the fishes as much as they would. band the two fishes divided he among them all.  42 And they all ate, cand were all filled. [He blessed the loaves and fishes by returning thanks for them. This and similar acts of Jesus are our precedents for giving thanks, or, "asking the blessing," at our tables]:  ^d12 And when they were filled, he saith unto his disciples, Gather up the broken pieces which remain over, that nothing be lost. [Christ is the economist of the universe. This command was in keeping with his laws which permit nothing to suffer annihilation. Ruin and destruction have no other effect than merely to change the form of things. Every atom of the material world which was here at the beginning of creation is here to-day, though it may have changed its form a million times in the progress of events.] So they gathered them up, cand there was taken {athey took} cup that which remained over to them of athe broken pieces, dand filled atwelve baskets full. {bbasketfuls,} dwith broken pieces from the five barley loaves, which remained over unto them that had eaten. band also of the fishes.  ^a21 And they that did eat {bate} the loaves were aabout five thousand men, besides women and children. [Considering the distance from any town, the women and children would not likely be numerous. They form no part of the count, for Eastern usage did not permit the women to sit with the men. They, with the little ones, would stand apart.]  ^d14 When therefore the people saw the sign which he did, they said, This is of a truth the prophet that cometh into the world. [That is to say, this is the Messiah, the prophet promised at Deu 18:15. Their desire to avenge the death of John made them feverishly anxious for the appearance of the Messiah, but this faith was inconstant.] [378]

[FFG 375-378]

McGarvey: Joh 6:22-71

LXIV.
DISCOURSE ON SPIRITUAL FOOD AND TRUE
DISCIPLESHIP. PETER'S CONFESSION.
(At the synagogue in Capernaum.)
^dJOHN VI. 22-71.

   ^d22 On the morrow [the morrow after Jesus fed the five thousand] the multitude that stood on the other side of the sea [on the east side, opposite Capernaum] saw that there was no other boat there, save one, and that Jesus went not with his disciples into the boat, but that his disciples went away alone  23 (howbeit there came boats from Tiberias nigh unto the place where they ate the bread after that the Lord had given thanks):  24 when [382] the multitude therefore saw that Jesus was not there, neither his disciples, they themselves got into the boats, and came to Capernaum, seeking Jesus. [This sentence is a complicated one, because it contains much in a condensed form. On the evening of the miracle the multitude had seen that there was but one boat, and that the disciples had gone away in it, leaving Jesus in the mountain. Jesus had dispersed the multitude, but many of them had not gone very far. On the morrow they came again to the scene of the miracle, and were perplexed at not finding Jesus. After some time they became convinced that he was not there, because if he had been, his disciples would have returned to seek him. In the meantime the keen-eyed boatmen about Tiberias, then the largest city on the lake, seeing the multitude on the farther shore, saw in their presence there an opportunity to earn a ferry fee, so they soon crossed the lake to accommodate the people. As Capernaum was the well-known headquarters of Jesus, the boatmen were directed to proceed thither that the multitude might find him.]  25 And when they had found him on the other side of the sea, they said unto him, Rabbi, when camest thou hither? [They found him at Capernaum in the synagogue, having but lately arrived from the land of Gennesaret. Though their question relates only to the time when Jesus crossed, it implies and includes a desire to know the manner also.]  26 Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily [his answer was as serious as their question was flippant], I say unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw signs [Jesus includes the healing of the sick as well as the feeding of the multitude], but because ye ate of the loaves, and were filled. [They did not seek Jesus because they saw in him a divine Friend who could satisfy the deep needs of the soul, but as a wonder-worker who could fill their bodies with food when occasion required.]  27 Work not for the food which perisheth [bodily food], but for the food which abideth unto eternal life [spiritual food], which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him the Father, even God, hath sealed. [In our land [383] a man consents to and makes a written instrument his own -- an expression of his will -- by signing it; but in the East he did this by affixing his seal to it (1Ki 21:8, Est 3:12, Est 8:10, Jer 32:10). The meaning of Jesus' words, therefore, is that God the Father had commissioned him as Messiah, and had authenticated his mission as such by the works which he had given him to do -- Joh 5:36.]  28 They said therefore unto him, What must we do, that we may work the works of God? [They wished to know what to do in order to earn the abiding food; that is, by what works they might so please God as to obtain it. Humanity, in seeking to answer this question, has invented pilgrimages, penances, fasts, mutilations and many other methods of self-punishment; not heeding the plain and decisive answer of Jesus.]  29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent. [Belief in Jesus as the Son of God is the one all-comprehensive work which pleases God (Heb 11:6). Jesus reiterates this important truth several times in this discourse; see Joh 6:35, Joh 6:36, Joh 6:40, Joh 6:47, etc., and the doctrine contained in it is elaborated in the epistles of Paul.]  30 They said therefore unto him, What then doest thou for a sign, that we may see, and believe thee? what workest thou?  31 Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, He gave them bread out of heaven to eat. [The trend of questions and answers in this discourse forms a close parallel to that at Joh 4:1-42., but with a different conclusion. There Jesus discoursed of life under the figure of water, and here under the figure of bread. There the woman vacillated between her good and evil impulses until her better nature triumphed. Here there was a like vacillation, terminating in opposite result. There the woman compared Jesus with Jacob, the well-digger (Joh 4:12); here the people compare him with Moses, the manna-giver -- each comparing him unfavorably.]  32 Jesus therefore said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, It was not Moses that gave you the bread out of heaven; but [384] my Father giveth you the true bread out of heaven.  33 For the bread of God is that which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. [In testing the claims of Jesus the Jews proceeded upon the hypothesis that the Messiah must be greater than all the prophets, and that this greatness must be authenticated or sealed by greater signs than those wrought by others. Proceeding under this method, they compared the miracle just wrought by Jesus with the fall of manna in the days of Moses and drew conclusions unfavorable to Jesus. They reason thus: "Moses fed many millions for forty years with bread from heaven, but Moses was less than Messiah. This man fed but five thousand for only one day and gave them barley bread. This man is even less than Moses, and consequently far less than the Messiah."]  34 Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread. [They readily recognized the insufficiency of manna and the possibility of God sending a better bread, and in a vague, wondering, half-credulous mood they asked for it just as the woman asked for water (Joh 4:15). In answer to each set of questions Jesus proceeded to reveal himself, and to show that the blessings sought were not external to himself, but were in himself and were obtained by belief in him. When Jesus stood thus self-revealed, the Samaritan woman believed in him and was satisfied; but these Jews at Capernaum disbelieved and murmured.]  35 And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall not hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. [Compare Joh 4:10, Joh 4:13, Joh 4:14.]  36 But I said unto you, that ye have seen me, and yet believe not. [The personality of Jesus was the great proof of his divinity, but the Jews, though familiar with that personality, refused to consider it, and kept clamoring for a sign. Hence Jesus states the hopelessness of the situation. If one refuses to believe in the sun when he sees its light, feels its heat and witnesses its life-giving power, by what sign will you demonstrate to him the existence of the sun?]  37 All that which the Father giveth me shall come unto me; [385] and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. [These words of Christ arise naturally out of the situation. The Jews, having wavered between belief and disbelief, had settled in a proud disbelief which was about to be expressed in murmuring and scorn. They were complacently self-satisfied, and felt that they had displayed great wisdom in arriving at this decision. But Jesus strikes at their pride by informing them that they are not his because God has rejected them as unworthy to be given to him. There is no suggestion or hint that the Father acts arbitrarily in selecting whom he shall give to Christ. The Son of God followed a prescribed course in the winning of men. If this did not win them, it was the Father's decree that they were not his. If this course did win them, Jesus in nowise rejected them, no matter how lowly their station, or how vile their past record.]  38 For I am come down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.  39 And this is the will of him that sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day.  40 For this is the will of my Father, that every one that beholdeth the Son, and believeth on him, should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. [It was the purpose of God the Father to offer to the sons of men an eternal life through the life-giving power of Jesus Christ. The power which was to work in men a fitness for this exalted honor was a belief in the Son. How could signs and wonders be wrought contrary to the Father's will? They ought to have believed for the signs and wonders he had already wrought, instead of pretending that he had wrought none that were conclusive of his claims.]  41 The Jews therefore murmured concerning him, because he said, I am the bread which came down oiut of heaven.  42 And they said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How doth he now say, I am come down out of heaven? [The Jews had entered with Christ upon a discussion as to whether he was a greater prophet than Moses, and as [386] they denied even this fact, it is not to be wondered that they murmured at the turn which the discussion had taken. In asserting that he came down from heaven, etc., he ascribed to himself a participation in the divine glory which entitled him to an absolute superiority over all men, prophets or others. This claim was to them insufferable, and they thought they had a sufficient answer to it in that they supposed themselves to be acquainted with his birth and parentage.]  43 Jesus answered and said unto them, Murmur not among yourselves.  44 No man can come to me, except the Father that sent me draw him. And I will raise him up in the last day.  45 It is written in the prophets [Isa 54:13, Jer 31:33, Jer 31:34, Joe 3:16, Joe 3:17], And they shall all be taught of God. Every one that hath heard from the Father, and hath learned, cometh unto me. [Jesus rebukes their murmuring as out of place. They thought themselves offended by what they believed to be an intolerable assumption on his part. But they were really offended in him for an entirely different cause, viz.: because they were not drawn by the Father. The Father had given the law as a tutor to draw to Christ (Gal 3:24), and he had also sent forth his prophets for the same purpose. Those who had availed themselves of this instruction, and had learned the Father's lessons, were ready to come to Christ. The sense of misery and desire of redemption begotten by the law drove one to Christ, and all the yearnings and aspirations inspired by the prophets attracted him thither. The Father had taught, but the people had not learned, just as their fathers had not learned; and Jesus accuses them in language kindred to the accusation of Moses when he says, "But Jehovah hath not given you a heart to know, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day" (Deu 29:4). In each case the people were to blame.]  46 Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he that is from God, he hath seen the Father. [The Jews might have construed the words of Jesus as indicating an immediate relation to the Father and of obtaining instruction directly from him. Such a doctrine would strike [387] at the mediation of Christ. Jesus therefore guards against this false apprehension by denying humanity's direct access to God the Father, and claiming it as his own exclusive right. The teaching of the Father which he spoke of was obtained through the Scriptures and (in earlier times) the prophets, who were the authors of the Scriptures.]  47 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.  48 I am the bread of life. [Jesus here reasserts the proposition to which the Jews had objected. Having paused to speak of the cause of their objections, he now asserts the main propositions, that he may enlarge upon them.]  49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. [Manna did not stay death. During the forty years' sojourn in the wilderness all the grown men who started from Egypt died save two.]  50 This is the bread which cometh down out of heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. [He quietly condescends to contrast the two breads. Manna simply sustained the body like any other natural food; it did no more. Jesus is supernatural food; he sustains the spirit unto eternal life.]  51 I am the living bread which came down out of heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread which I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world. [He had declared himself to be the bread of life, but bread must be assimilated. The assimilation of natural bread requires eating, but Jesus, the spiritual bread, is assimilated by believing on him. But he was not then perfected as the bread of life. It was necessary that he should sacrifice himself for our sins before sins could be forgiven, and it was necessary for sins to be forgiven before men could have life with God. By his sacrifice on the cross he opened the fountain of forgiveness. By raising his humanity from the dead and by taking it with him in his ascension into heaven, he showed the results which men may expect to accrue to them by his death upon the cross.]  52 The Jews therefore strove one with another, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? [They were not all of one mind with regard to Christ, and they [388] discussed from opposite sides the problem raised by these mysterious words.]  53 Jesus therefore said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have not life in yourselves. [He here expressed in words what he afterward expressed in symbols, when he gave the Lord's supper. The vital force of a disciple is proportioned to his belief in, remembrance of, and desire to assimilate the Christ.]  54 He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life. And I will raise him up at the last day.  55 For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. [The flesh to be eaten must be broken, and the blood, if it is to be drunk, must be poured out. Christ speaks of himself as the sacrifice given for the saving of the world, and one must appropriate to himself by faith this expiation and find in it reconciliation with God if he would live; but the Joh 6:56 enlarges the thought and shows that it includes more than the idea of expiation.]  56 He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth in me, and I in him. [The thought of drinking blood was startling to the Jew, for he was forbidden to taste even the blood of animals, and the reason assigned was very pertinent -- because the blood was the life of the animal (Gen 9:4, Lev 17:10-14). By insisting, therefore, on the drinking of his blood, Jesus has insisted that his very life be absorbed and assimilated. To be disciples of other teachers it is only necessary that we accept and follow their doctrine. But to be a disciple of Christ is to do more than this. His divinity permits us to have a spiritual communion and fellowship with him, an abiding in his presence, an indwelling of his Spirit, and a veritable assimilation of life from him. Were it otherwise he could not be food for the spirit -- bread of life. He had started to show to the Jews that he was to the spirit what bread was to the body. It was difficult to bring home to their carnal minds so spiritual a thought, and therefore Jesus clothed it in carnal metaphors and made it as plain as possible. Christians to-day, being more spiritually minded, and more used to spiritual [389] language, are somewhat confused by the carnal dress in which Jesus clothed his thought.]  57 As the living Father sent me, and I live necause of the Father; so he that eateth me, he also shall live because of me. [The result of our union or abiding with Christ is a perfect life. The life of the Father enters the soul of the disciple through the mediatorship of the Son. The Father, who is the fountain of life, sent forth the Son that he might bestow it upon all who believe in him and abide in him.]  58 This is that bread which came out of heaven: not as the fathers ate and died; he that eateth this bread shall live for ever. [Thus Jesus sums up the comparison which the Jews had thrust upon him between himself and the manna.]  59 These things said he in the synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum. [It was in the synagogue built by the centurion, which we have before mentioned. Pots of manna appear to have been engraved upon its walls, possibly upon the frieze, for Colonel Wilson says of it: "It was not without a certain strange feeling that, on turning over one of the blocks (in the ruins), we found the pot of manna engraved on its face, and remembered the words, 'I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.'"]  60 Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it?  61 But Jesus knowing in himself that his disciples murmured at this, said unto them, Doth this cause you to stumble?  62 What then if ye should behold the Son of man ascending where he was before? [If the prophecy of his sacrifice disturbed their dreams of a temporal kingdom, what would be the effect of his ascension on those dreams? The Book of Acts answers our Lord's question. In the very hour of the ascension the very apostles were still expecting the revival of the kingdom of David, with Jerusalem for its capital. But ten days later, at Pentecost, they had abandoned the earthly idea and looked upon Jesus as enthroned at the right hand of God -- Act 1:6, Act 2:32-36.]  63 It is the spirit that giveth life; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I [390] have spoken unto you are spirit, are are life. [Jesus here tells them plainly that his words relate to the spiritual realm, and to life in that realm. It is his Spirit in our spirit which gives eternal life. His flesh in our flesh would profit nothing, even were a priest able, by his blessing, to perform the miracle of transubstantiation. The life-principle of Jesus lay in his divinity, and his divinity lay in his Spirit, and not in his flesh. We would not come in contact with his divinity by eating that which represented his humanity.]  64 But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him.  65 And he said, For this cause have I said unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it be given unto him of my Father. [Jesus here distinguishes between those who were drawn to him by divine influences, and who were therefore ready to follow him as he really was, and those who were drawn to him by mistaken notions concerning him, and who would desert him as soon as they discovered that their conceptions of him were incorrect. He knew the reason which prompted each to become his disciple.]  66 Upon this many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. [He had sifted them, for their false following could be of no benefit either to them or to his kingdom.]  67 Jesus said therefore unto the twelve, Would ye also go away? [Jesus had sifted the outer circle of his disciples, and the loss, though prophetically anticipated, was not without its pang. In this sixty-seventh verse he proceeds to sift the innermost circle, and his words are full of pathos. By giving them an opportunity to depart he called forth from them an expression of loyalty which bound them more closely to him.]  68 Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.  69 And we have believed and know that thou art the Holy One of God.  70 Jesus answered them, Did not I choose you the twelve, and one of you is a devil?  71 Now he spake of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, [391] for he it was that should betray him, being one of the twelve. [We have seen from Joh 6:64 that Jesus has already had the betrayer in his mind. Here he speaks of him openly. In a discourse which forecasted his passion it was natural that he should allude to his betrayer, especially, when his presence enforced remembrance. But there was another reason to mention him at this time. He was an illustration of the truth that no man could be a real follower of Jesus unless he became such by the drawing of the Father.]

   NOTE. -- On the following page will be found a foot-note indicating a disagreement as to chronology. In the preparation of this work the senior editor preferred to let the junior editor be responsible for the harmonistic and chronological features of it, and hence his corrections as to these particulars are obliged to appear as foot-notes, since it is now impossible to readjust the work to suit them. -- P. Y. P. [392]

[FFG 382-392]

Lapide: Joh 6:1-71

CHAPTER 6

Ver. 1.— After this, &c. Tiberias is here named, because the desert in which Christ fed the five thousand was near to Tiberias.

After this, not immediately, but almost a year afterwards. For the healing of the paralytic, and the dispute of Jesus with the Jews consequent upon it, which John had related in the foregoing chapter, took place in the beginning of the second year of Christ's ministry. But the things which he relates in this sixth chapter took place at the close of the same year. This is plain because Christ healed the paralytic at the Passover (v. 1). But He did the things now to be related shortly before the Passover of the year following, as appears from the 4th verse. John therefore omits all that Christ did in the second year of His ministry, viz., His creation of Twelve Apostles, His Sermon on the mount, His sending His Apostles forth, as well as many other things. John omits them because they had been fully narrated by the other Evangelists. But he here inserts the narrative of the multiplication of the loaves, because, though related by the other Evangelists, it was the occasion of Christ's discourse concerning spiritual food, and the food of the Eucharist, which John here gives at length, and which was wholly passed over by them.

Ver. 3.— He saith unto Philip, &c. Observe, this was the order of what was done. Christ beholding from the mountain the crowd which followed Him, came down to them and received them kindly, taught them, and healed their sick until the eventide. The evening being at hand, His disciples asked Christ to dismiss the multitude, and refresh Himself with food. But Christ bade them first feed the hungry throngs. This, they said, was impossible, because 200 denarii worth of bread would not suffice for so many. By and by Christ proposed the same thing to Philip, probably because he had been most anxious in asking Christ to dismiss the multitude. Philip gave the same answer as the others with regard to the quantity of bread that would be required.

Ver. 11.— When He had given thanks to God the Father, looking up to heaven, He implored the help of God to multiply the loaves. Then He blessed them (as the other Evangelists relate), and the Syriac has here, He distributed to those who had sat down, miraculously multiplying the loaves during their distribution.  S. Dominic and S. Francis imitated Christ in this matter. When in the General Chapter of the Friars Minor there was nothing to eat, they being full of faith, said, "Let us go and pray to Almighty God, who satisfied five thousand men besides women and children in the desert. His power and His mercy are no less now than they were then, that we should despair of His goodness." They continued in prayer until they were assured concerning the Divine will. Then at the hour of dinner S. Francis bade the brethren sit down in the refectory. This done, they see enter twenty young men of noble appearance, girded, and prepared for service. These supplied bread, wine, and every kind of needful refreshment to the company, in number five hundred. When dinner was ended they bowed and saluted the brethren, and went out of the refectory two by two, to the admiration of the brethren, who praised God for His marvellous care and providence. (See Luke Wadding's Annals of the Friars Minor, A.C. 1219, num. 11.)  S. Dominic did the same thing at Rome at S. Sixtus'. When there was no food in the house he commanded the brethren to sit down to the table, and blessed it. Then lo, there came in two angels, having the appearance of beautiful youths, who placed before each one of the hundred brethren a very white loaf. Then they bowed their heads, and departed. (See the Life of Dominic, 3, c. 4.) I have visited and venerated the place at Rome where this was done, and seen a painting of it.

Ver. 15.— That they might take Him, &c. , i.e., the king Messiah, who, the Jews thought, would give them abundance of corn, wine and oil, gold and silver. This was why they wished to make Him a king, not for His advantage, but their own. Such is the Messiah, whom the foolish Jews expect even now, one like Solomon, to give them riches and plenty.

Ver. 21.— They wished therefore, &c. They wished Him, now that they recognised Him, whom they had before taken for a spectre, and been affrighted at. And immediately, i.e., by the power and virtue of Christ's presence, the ship was at the land. As Nonnus says, "By the Divine impulse the ship of her own accord touched at the distant port, as it were a soul with wings." This land was Genesar, as S. Matthew calls it (Mat 14:34), or Genesareth, as S. Mark (Mat 6:53). The ancient name was Cenereth, from the city so called, which was near Capharnaum. From this place the whole sea of Galilee was called the Lake of Cenereth, or Genesareth. Moreover the city of Capharnaum was situated in this land of Genesareth, to which, John says expressly, Jesus sailed with His disciples (vi. 17, 24, 25). Here was uttered His prolonged discourse concerning heavenly bread and the Eucharist. For the 6oth verse says expressly, These things He spake, teaching in the synagogue in Capharnaum.

Observe the expression, and immediately. From this it follows that Christ caused this ship to fly in a moment to the harbour of the city of Capharnaum. Thus it sped eight or nine miles in one moment. For this was the distance between Bethsaida and Capharnaum. For the disciples in sailing from the place where Christ fed the five thousand which was midway between Bethsaida and Tiberias, had gone twenty-five or thirty furlongs, or four or five miles (see Joh 6:19), and were about, or a little past Bethsaida, when Jesus, walking upon the sea came to them, and entering into the ship, caused it to fly from that spot, as it were, in a moment, and land at Capharnaum. Thus He caused the ship to traverse eight or nine miles, as it were, in a moment. Learn from this to accomplish all thine actions with Christ, having Christ for thy leader and guide. With Him thou wilt do great things, without Him nothing. Thus S. Peter, though he toiled all night, without Christ, caught no fish: but as soon as He came and bade him let down the nets, he caught an immense multitude of fishes. Therefore as Nazianzen says in his Poems, "Happy is the man who buys Christ with all that he has."

Ver. 22.— The next day, &c., across the sea, understand , in respect of the disciples, who had sailed to the other side of the lake. The meaning is,—The day after that on which Christ had fed the five thousand, the multitude who had been thus fed continuing in that place across the sea, when they knew that there was only one boat there, in which the disciples had embarked alone, Jesus being left on the land—they sought Jesus, must be understood. For they did not know that He had walked on the sea by night, and joined the ship.

Ver. 23.— But there came, &c. We can see from this verse that the place where Christ multiplied the loaves was near Tiberias, and therefore that those who sailed from thence to Bethsaida and Capharnaum must have sailed past Tiberias. The meaning is, the report of the miracle being spread abroad, many both from other places as well as Tiberias, came to the place where the miracle was wrought, that they might see and hear Jesus who had done such great things.

Ver. 25.— And when they had found Him . . . across the sea, that is to say in the synagogue of Capharnaum, as is plain from verse 59. When, and how camest Thou hither? "For we know that yesterday Thy disciples went into the ship by themselves at the desert of Bethsaida, and that Thou remainedst there on the land." They did not know that Jesus had walked upon the sea in the middle of the night.

Ver. 26.— Jesus answered, &c. Through modesty He did not answer their question directly, lest He should be forced to say that He had come walking upon the sea. He gave a reply therefore, which had more direct concern for His questioners, namely, that they were seeking food for their bodies rather than for their souls. "Ye ask Me, not because ye saw the miracles by means of which I labour to teach you faith and repentance, and the other evangelical virtues, by which ye may arrive at everlasting life. Ye seek Me, not that ye may receive of Me the food of the soul, but because ye did eat of the loaves, which I miraculously multiplied, and which I made pleasant to your taste, in order that ye may again have a like experience." For many are the lovers of the loaves and fishes rather than of Christ and eternal salvation. For the carnal have a taste only for carnal things, because they do not receive spiritual things.

Ver. 27.— Labour not, &c. Labour : Greek, ε̉ζγάςεσθε, i.e., strive with zeal and labour and sedulous care to get food, not that of the body which perisheth, but of the soul which perisheth not. Wherefore the Arabic translates, labour not on account of the food which perisheth, but on account of the food which endureth unto eternal life. As Euthymius says, "Labour with the whole mind, with all your care continually. He does not command to labour for the food of the soul only, but He admonished them to care for the food of the body by the way, but for that of the soul with their whole heart."

Christ rises and draws the multitude from that corporeal bread with which a little while before He had fed them in the desert, to the far better, and far more needful spiritual bread. As though He had said, "I have given you barley bread without any labour of yours, but work ye, and labour with all your might, that Ye may obtain spiritual bread, to nourish you, and bring you to everlasting life." In like manner, from the water of the well He led the Samaritan woman to spiritual water, that He might teach His faithful followers, and especially Priests and Religious, to do the same, so that in their colloquies they may lead the people from corporeal to spiritual things. Wherefore from this saying of Christ Cyril rightly says, "We must have no care for the flesh, but we must watch for things that are needful for eternity. For he who follows after bodily pleasures differs in no respect from the beasts, but he who cleaves to nature, and leads his life according to the spiritual law, and is wholly given up to those things which are given us by God, and prepare our way for the things above, such a one seems to me to know himself, nor to be ignorant that he is a reasonable being, made in the image of his Creator."

You will ask, what is that food enduring unto eternal life, which Christ bids us work for that we may gain it? The heretics called Massalians, or Euchites, i.e., Prayers, thought that it was prayer. As though Christ said, "Do not work with your hands, because work of the hands perisheth, but alway pray to God in your hearts because prayer is the food of the spirit, and remaineth for ever. These heretics said that we should not labour with our hands, but should pray always. See S. Chrysostom on this passage. But this is a heresy which S. Paul condemns (2Th 3:10), saying, "If any one will not work, neither let him eat."

I say then that this food which abideth is faith, charity, grace, good works, even all things which lead us to life everlasting, and especially the Eucharist, as we shall see in verse 54. So Maldonatus, Bellarmine, and others. For gradually does Christ ascend from minor and common things to those which are greater and of the highest importance, such as the Eucharist. As S. Augustine saith, "To believe in Him is to eat the food which endureth unto life eternal. Why do you make ready your teeth and organs of digestion? Believe, and thou hast eaten."

Secondly, more appositely, properly and precisely, this spiritual food is the Eucharist, as Christ fully explains (Joh 5:4). For He first generally ( in genere ), in the way of a proposition, speaks of this food as heavenly, and enduring unto eternal life. By and by in verse 35, He particularizes, determining what this food is, and asserts that It is He Himself. I am the Bread of Life. At length, in the 54th and following verses, He clearly unfolds the whole matter, and says that His Flesh and Blood in the Eucharist is this Bread and this Food. Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of man, and drink His Blood, ye have no life in you. And, My Flesh is meat indeed, and My Blood is drink indeed. For in the space of a year and a half, just before His death, He was about to constitute the Sacrament of the Eucharist, and in It to give us His own Flesh and Blood, as the spiritual meat and drink of the soul. But here in those intermediate verses He frequently exhorts to faith, because faith is a prime requisite in the Eucharist.

The meaning then is, Do the works of faith, believe in Me, give credit to My words, so shall ye seek, and shall indeed obtain the food of the Eucharist, which shall not only nourish your souls, but bring them to eternal life. For Christ distinguishes the work of faith from the food of the Eucharist, which was to be obtained by the work of faith; as the means is distinguished from the end to which it leads. Wherefore by and by, when the Jews ask about the work, that is, the way and the means by which they might gain this Bread, Christ answers (verse 29), This it the work of God, that ye should believe in Him whom He hath sent. So Theophylact says, "He calls the food which abideth the mystical reception of the Flesh of the Lord." And Rupertus, "He that endureth unto life eternal, that is, He who is eaten in this mortal life, is profitable to this end, that He should give everlasting life to the world"

For Him hath God the Father sealed. God, Greek, ό Θεὸς, the Heavenly Father, who is the Most High God. Signed, (Vulg.), Greek, ε̉σφζάγισε, sealed. This signing, or sealing of Christ, is threefold, the first of which is the cause of the second, the second of the third. The first is of Christ's Divinity, the second and third of His Humanity. In the first place then, Cyril thus expounds ( lib. 3, c. 29) , "To be signed is put for to be anointed (for He who was anointed was signed), and denoted by the word signing, that He was formed as to His nature after the form of the Father, so to speak, that He might appear to say, 'It is not difficult for Me to bestow upon you the enduring Food, by which ye may be brought to the unspeakable delights of eternal life.' For the Son is the character of the Hypostasis of God the Father: and the character by which He has been signed by the Father is nothing else but the very form and substance of the Godhead." Thus Cyril: so too, S. Paul (Heb. i. 3), "Who being the splendour of His glory, and the character of His substance." Whence S. Gregory Nazianzen speaks thus of the glory of the Son ( Orat. 42), "He is the Fountain of life and immortality; He is the expression," that is, the similitude, the seal, "of the Archetype: He is the immovable Seal," that which is not altered, or changed to any other form: "He is the Image in all respects like: He is the Term and Reason (Greek, όζος κάὶ λόγος ) of the Father." These two last expressions Nicetas takes as similar in meaning, that the Son is the Word of God the Father, i.e., the definition, the demonstration. For as a definition demonstrates that which it defines, so does the Son demonstrate, and as it were define the Father. Thus Nicetas.

2.  S. Hilary ( lib. 8, de Trin. ) more correctly and appositely; The Father, he saith, hath sealed the Son, not in the Divinity, by communicating to Him His own Godhead, but in the Humanity, since He hath united it to the Word, and hath communicated to it the Divinity of the Word. For a seal, he says, is wont to be impressed upon a different substance, which is called the impression. So the Humanity is sealed by the Divinity of the Son. So also Augustine: and from him Toletus saith, "Because the Son, who is the image and character of the Father is united to the Humanity, therefore the Humanity is said to have the seal and character of the Father."

3.  S. Chrysostom and many others say, The Father hath sealed the Son, i.e., by the voice from heaven at His baptism, This is My Beloved Son. He showed and demonstrated by His miracles, as seals, that He was His very Son. And He confirmed Him as the promised Messiah, who was able to impart convenient Food to all who desired eternal life. It comes to the same meaning if you interpret sealed to mean gave authority, because we are wont by impressing a seal to give credit and authenticity to letters.

This sense is easy and plain, but the second meaning is more solid and sublime. This third meaning flows from the second, and completes and perfects it. For the Father by His own voice and miracles, which are as it were His seals, has testified to man that He has sealed the Humanity of Jesus with the Divinity of the Word, and has impressed upon it the form of His own Divinity, that is, has testified that this Man Jesus is true God, and the Son of God, so that He may give and gain for Him among men, authority to teach, to enact laws, and to found a new Church. Wherefore the Gloss says, He hath sealed, i.e., He hath set Him apart from others by His own sign."

Ver. 28.— They said, &c. Cyril thinks that the Jews asked this from arrogance, as being angry with Christ because He would have reproved them as being careless about their souls. As though they said, "Thou reprovest us for seeking after earthly bread and despising the Food of the soul. Tell us then what new work of God Thou affordest, by which we may please God and feed our souls, in addition to those works which Moses gave us to do, and wrote in the Pentateuch."

But S. Chrysostom thinks they said these words out of gluttony, because they were again hungering after the loaves of Christ, with which they had been fed. That they asked what were the works of God, with which Christ wished them to feed their souls, not because they intended to do them, but because they would gain His good-will, and so invite Him to renew the multiplication of the loaves.

More correctly, S. Augustine and others think that the Jews spoke with a serious desire of doing these works. For many among them being stirred up by the doctrine of Christ, and stimulated by this miracle of the loaves, were desirous of salvation. Therefore they ask Christ what works they ought to work, by which they may obtain of God that enduring Food, which would nourish their souls, and bring them to eternal life. And Jesus answers sincerely their sincere question, and teaches them what were the works of God. This He would not have done, if they had not been in earnest.

They called then the works of God, not only those which were pleasing to God, nor those which are the food of the soul, nourishing it to eternal life, as Leontius thinks. For they knew by the Law of Moses what works were pleasing to God. But by the works of God they mean those which He especially appointed and sanctioned by Jesus, whom He sealed, that by them they might obtain that spiritual Food of which Jesus preached, which nourishes us, and brings us to eternal life. For when they had heard that this was the Food of life eternal, and that God had sealed Christ that He might give this Food, they rightly call the works of God those which it was necessary to work in order to obtain this Food. And what they were they ask of Jesus, not doubting that He who had been so powerful and liberal in nourishing their bodies, could be equally, or rather, more powerful and liberal, in teaching them what it was, and supplying the Food of the Soul.

Ver. 29.— Jesus answered, &c. Believe, i.e., in Myself, Who by so many arguments and miracles have proved that I am the Messiah sent by God. For the sake of modesty He speaks in the third person. As though He said, "That work by which ye will obtain Food from God to nourish the soul unto everlasting life, is to believe in Me. For I bestow this Food upon those who believe in Me. For I Myself am this Food." This He says (verse 35).

That ye may believe, and believing, may obey Me, and observe My law and doctrine, and fulfil it indeed. Under the term faith, as a root, Christ and Paul understand all the works of charity, penance, temperance, and all other virtues which faith-stirs up and generates. Wherefore Theophylact says, "Faith assuredly is a holy and perfect work, and satisfies those who possess it. For diligent faith leads to every good work, and good works preserve faith. For works are dead without faith, and faith is dead without works."

Ver. 30.— They said, &c. , i.e., those of the crowd who were bolder than the rest, who knew and thought less of Jesus. For they had seen the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves the day before, whereby Christ had fed five thousand men, but upon this they set small value, and ask for one still greater and more wonderful. As though they had said, "Thou, 0 Jesus, askest of us a great, nay a stupendous thing, namely that we should believe in Thee as the Messiah and the Son of God. But for this the miracle of the loaves which Thou wroughtest yesterday, does not suffice. For Moses did a similar, yea, a greater work. Show us therefore a heavenly and Divine and worthy sign, by which God may attest that Thou art His Son, and our Messiah." Therefore they add by way of explanation,

Ver. 31.— Our fathers . . . as it is written ( PS 78: 24). As though they said, "Moses fed our fathers in the desert, even more than six hundred thousand men, with heavenly and most sweet food, ever the manna, and that daily for forty years, which was a greater thing than Thy multiplication of the loaves yesterday: and yet Moses did no wish to be accounted, or believed to be Messiah, and the Son of God, Since then you, Jesus, desire to be so accounted of, it is necessary that you should work greater miracles than Moses." So SS. Augustine and Cyril. The latter adds, "Such was the sign they asked of Christ, and thinking it a small matter that they had been miraculously fed for one day, they ask for food for a long period without labour. On such terms they seem to promise that they will assent to His doctrine." As though they said, "Feed us all our lives, as Thou didst feed us yesterday, and as Moses fed our fathers for forty years. Then we will believe Thee when Thou declarest that Thou art Messiah, the Son of God." So reasoned the Jews, as being animal and carnal, when they ought rather to have reasoned according to the spirit, thus, "This Jesus has multiplied bread, He heals whatsoever sick persons He pleases, He casts out devils, He raises the dead, and does many other miracles which Moses did not do. And He does them with this very end and object, that He may by them prove that He is the Messiah sent by God: therefore He must be truly the Messiah." When Moses gave the manna, and showed other signs, he did not do them in order that he might prove that he was the Messiah, but only a leader of the people, and a lawgiver sent by God. Wherefore the people believed in him, and so accounted of him. "Do you therefore in like manner," saith Jesus; "believe in Me, and account Me to be such a one as I prove by My miracles that I am, even the Messiah."

Bread from heaven, i.e., heavenly, in heaven, or in the air, formed by angels, and raining down, or rather snowing and hailing from thence into the camp of the Hebrews. For the manna came down like small hailstones from the sky. The Hebrew of Psa 78:24 is דנן שכױם, degan scamaim, corn or wheat of heaven.

Ver. 32.— Jesus said therefore, &c. Christ here refutes the cavilling of the Jews, and shows that He is greater than Moses, and gives better bread than Moses gave in giving manna. He opposes therefore, and prefers His own bread, i.e., Himself in His Body in the Eucharist, as He Himself unfolds (Vers. 35, 51, 54, &c.) to the Mosaic manna, and this in three ways. (1.) The first is, because Moses, who was a mere man, gave the manna, and that only to Israel, i.e., to the Jews in the desert: but it is God the Father who gives this bread, and that to the whole world.

(2.) Because the manna was not really bread from heaven, but only from the atmosphere, coming down like dew, or hail. For it is only the bread of heaven by a figure of speech, as we say the birds of heaven, because they fly in the heaven, that is, in the air. But His bread, He said, really came down from the highest heaven, even from the Bosom of God the Father. Therefore It alone was truly heavenly and Divine, of which, in truth, the manna was only a type and shadow. So S. Chrysostom, &c.

(3.) The third way is consequent upon this—that the manna only fed the body for a time: but the Bread of Christ feeds and quickens both body and soul for ever. So SS. Chrysostom and Cyril. For though it be that Christ and the Eucharist do not remove temporal death from Christians who communicate devoutly, yet it is the cause that they will rise again from death, and after that die no more for ever. For the Resurrection is an effect of the Eucharist, as will appear from verse 50 (Joh 6:50).

(4.) Cyril ( lib. 3, c. 33) adds a fourth way: that Moses neither formed, nor gave the manna, but God gave it by angels at Moses' prayer: but Christ Himself forms, and verily gives this bread of the Eucharist. For He Himself by His own omnipotence, which, together with the Divine Essence, He has received from the Father, transubstantiates, transelements, and transforms bread and wine into His Body and Blood.

The true Bread from heaven : that is, truly heavenly and Divine, not only as regards locality, in that It descends from heaven, but also as regards Its nature and substance. For this Bread is Christ Himself, Who, because He is God, has a heavenly and Divine essence, yea, the same Deity as the Father. 2. The word "true" is said because of the manna, say Cyril, Chrysostom, and Augustine; for the manna was only a type of the Eucharist. In the Eucharist is reality ( veritas ), in the manna, the shadow of the reality. 3. True, in the sense of life-giving, because It gives life to the soul as well as the body, as Christ saith in the following verse. 4. True, i.e., perfect, excellent, in which there is all fulness, both of existence and nourishment. For all created existences, such as the manna, if they be compared with the uncreated Essence, or the Deity, such as Christ in the Eucharist, cannot be accounted of as realities, but only shadows. In God and Christ alone is there reality ( veritas ), i.e., solidity and plenitude of Being, and of feeding perfectly, like (true) Bread. This is what God spake to Moses, "I Am I who Am: thus shalt thou say to the sons of Israel, He who is hath sent me" (Exo 3:14).

Ver. 33.— For the Bread of God, &c. Christ proves that not the manna, but His own Bread, i.e., He Himself, is true Bread, i.e., truly heavenly and Divine, by two arguments. 1. Because He alone really came down from heaven. 2. Because He alone gives true life to the world, i.e., the blessed and eternal life, which only is true life. Observe: this Bread is called the Bread of God, because formed by God alone, and the property of God alone. Because God lives by Himself and His own Divinity: and because this Bread is truly the Son of God, and God Himself

Cometh down : not in the past, but the present tense. The Greek is καταβαίνων, the present participle. The expression therefore signifies the perpetual descent of Christ upon the Eucharistic altar even to the end of the world. For whensoever the priest consecrates the Eucharist, Christ, who after His death ascended into heaven, comes down from thence to the consecrated species of bread, and in them declares His presence ( Se presentem sistit et exhibet ).

Gives : verily Christ is the infinite gift, who is Life Itself, who quickens all the faithful who communicate rightly throughout the whole world, and who gives them the heavenly and Divine life of grace here, and hereafter the life of glory to all eternity.

Ver. 34.— They said therefore, &c. "Without labour, in pleasant ease let us eat joyfully this Bread, that It may prolong our life, like the tree of life in Paradise, that we may reach the years of Methuselah." For the carnal Jews did not yet understand that the Bread of Christ was spiritual, and thought only of earthly things. "As yet," says S. Chrysostom, "they were looking for something material, as yet they were expecting the satisfying of their appetite." As S. Augustine says, "Give us bread which may refresh, and never fail." For as Cyril says, "Although by many words the Saviour drew them away from the carnal sense, they profited nothing, nor at all drew back from carnality, for when they heard of the Bread which is given for the life of the world, they understood it of earthly bread. They were like that Samaritan woman, who, when she had heard a long discourse of Christ concerning the spiritual water, sank down to the remembrance of earthly streams, saying, Lord, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw."

Ver. 35.— Jesus saith . . . not thirst for ever. Syrian and Arabic, for eternity. Here Christ to the Jews who asked for bread to feed them unto life eternal, opens It out, and offers It, and declares that It is Himself. For He by His grace and Spirit, which He breathes into the faithful, so nourishes them that they may live always. But peculiarly He feeds them with the Eucharistic Bread, with which this whole discourse of Christ has to do. Hear Cyril: "In these words He sets forth the life and grace of His most Holy Body, whereby the essence ( proprietas ), i.e., the life of the Only-Begotten, enters and abides in us." For Christ in the Eucharist is rightly called Bread: (1.) Because by consecrating bread, He transforms it into His Body, which under the species of bread, the substance being annihilated, alone remains. (2.) Because like bread, It takes away hunger, it feeds and sustains life, satisfies and cheers. Hear Cyril: "For that was not the true manna, nor that the true heavenly bread: but He Himself, the Only-Begotten Son, is the true Bread : for since He is of the Substance of the Father, He is by nature all-quickening Life. For as this earthly bread has the quality of sustaining and preserving our weak flesh, so does He by the Holy Spirit quicken our spirits, and deliver our bodies themselves from corruption."

The Bread of life, i.e., living, vital, quickening, yea , life itself. There is allusion to the tree of life (Gen 3:9). For that wood, or tree of life, by its own fruit, would have given life to Adam in Paradise. And this life would have been (1.) a prolonged life, extending over some thousands of years, until God translated him without dying from Paradise to heaven. (2.) A healthy and strong life. (3.) One without disease, or old age. (4.) Joyful and glad, for it would have driven away all sadness and melancholy. So in all these respects does the Eucharist far excel. For It bestows upon communicants not only a prolonged, but an eternal life. Wherefore the tree of life was a type of the Eucharist, as S. Irenæus teaches ( lib. 3, c. 2). Moreover the Eucharist not only feeds and sustains the soul, but the body also, as theologians teach. Indeed, S. John the abbot, S. Catharine of Sienna, S. Maria Digniacensis, S. Elrulphus, Abbot, and many others, lived for a long time upon the Eucharist alone, without any other food. Moreover the emperor, Louis the Pious, during his last sickness fasted forty whole days, in which he partook of no food but the daily Eucharist, as is testified by a writer who was present.

He that cometh unto Me, &c. Because I will give him such bread as will take away all hunger, and such drink as will quench all thirst. Christ having said that He was the Bread of Life, here tells us the way to obtain this Bread. This way is that a man should come to Him, which means to believe in Him, as He by and by explains. For we come to Christ not by bodily footsteps (for so the unbelieving Jews, and His crucifiers came to Him), but by the steps of the soul, such as faith, obedience, and charity. Shall not hunger, "for ever;" for this "for ever" must be understood from the "for ever" after thirst. The meaning is, when the manna was eaten it appeased hunger, but only for a time, but I, who am the Bread of life, bestow upon him who eateth only once in the Eucharist such satisfying fulness that he will require no other food, yea, that he will never feel hunger more, because I bestow upon him the blessed and immortal life of grace and glory, which fulfils and satisfies every desire of man.

He that believeth . . . never thirst, because I will give him in the Eucharist the drink of My Blood, by which refreshed and satisfied, he shall never thirst. Hear Cyril: "What then does Christ promise? Surely nothing corruptible, but a blessing which we obtain by the communication of the Body and Blood of Christ. By this we shall be brought back to such a perfect state of incorruption as not to need corporeal food and drink. For the Body of Christ quickens us and by Its participation brings us to incorruption." For though it be that the faithful laity do not take or drink the Eucharist under the species of wine, as priests do, but eat of It under the species of bread only, still under that species of bread they not only eat the Body of Christ, but also drink His Blood, because the Blood cannot be separated from the Body of Christ, forasmuch as It is immortal and glorious. For in things spiritual to hunger and to thirst have the same meaning. And food and drink mean the same thing. " He that cometh to Me," saith Augustine, "is the same thing as, he that believeth in Me. He shall not hunger means also he shall never thirst. By both expressions is signified that eternal satisfying where there is no want." In fine, he shall never thirst is that which is said in Psa 35:9, "They shall be intoxicated from the fulness of Thy house, and from the torrent of Thy pleasure Thou shalt give them drink" ( Vulg. ) .

Ver. 36.— But I said, &c. Said, elsewhere, even if it had been nowhere recorded by S. John. So S. Chrysostom and others. Again said, i.e., sufficiently, and more than sufficiently, I have shown and proved to you, because ye have seen, i.e., have known, i.e., by the many signs and miracles which I have wrought, ye could and ought to have known Me. And yet through the obstinacy of your minds ye do not believe in Me. For ( c. v. v. 3, &c.) He at length confutes the Jews, because though they had seen so many signs they did not believe in Him. As Euthymius says, "Ye have seen Me, or ye have known who I am, both from the witness of John, and the miracles which I have wrought, and the witness of the Scriptures which I have unfolded to you; but voluntarily doing evil ye believe not."

Ver. 37.— Every thing, &c. There is an anticipation, thus, "Ye will object against Me, 'If Thou knewest that we would not believe Thy preaching, why dost thou preach to us?' I reply, 'Because there are some of you who will believe in Me, namely those whom the Father hath chosen, and hath given Me to be My disciples and children.'" By this He tacitly intimates that most of the Jews on account of their incredulity had not been given to Him, nor elected to the Faith by God, but that in their stead God had elected many others, especially of the Gentiles. Wherefore He saith, every thing, in the neuter gender, which the Father giveth Me, not the masculine, the rather to express the universality of all nations. Every thing ( omne ), i.e., all of every nation, every race, every age and sex, on whom the Father breathes the spirit of faith, that they may of their own free will believe in Me, these by faith shall come to Me, and become Christians and my disciples. Wherefore I will not repel them from Me, nor banish them from My house, i.e., my Church: but you, 0 ye unbelieving and rebellious Jews, I do repel from Me and My Church, and will banish you to hell: but those I will lovingly embrace, and take with Me to the Church triumphant in heaven.

Observe: when Christ here smites backward and terrifies the unbelieving and captious Jews, He rises to the secret will and predestination of God. For He means to teach that the faith which they lacked was God's gift. The Father therefore gives unto Christ the faithful from eternity by predestinating, and in time by calling them to the faith, after this manner and plan, that being called freely by God, they obey the call, and believe, and so come unto Christ. For this is the actual cause of faith, or why any one here and now in act believes in Christ. This cause, I say, is the grace of God stirring a man up to believe, when man of his own free will consents to the grace of God, and believes. Therefore the Father giveth us to Christ when by His prevenient and co-operating grace He causes us to be converted in act, and freely to believe in Christ. For as He here says Himself, every one who by the Father is given to Christ does in reality come to Christ. So SS. Augustine, Cyril and others.

Observe: Christ here speaks properly concerning predestination to faith and grace, not to glory, just as Paul does. There is an allusion to Psa 2:8. "Ask of Me, and I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance, and the ends of the earth for thy possession." Wherefore Christ speaks in the future tense shall come to Me, to intimate that the Gentiles by the preaching of the apostles would come to Him. Hear Cyril: "He signifies that the Gentiles were already about to come; and He threatens the loss of grace which the Jews were about to experience."

Moreover God the Father gives believers to Christ, because He merited this by His obedience and Passion. For the merits of Christ are the cause not only of the calling in time, but even of the eternal predestination of the faithful. For God on account of the foreseen merits of Christ predestined and chose the faithful, as Paul teaches (Eph. i. 4), saying, "He hath chosen us in Him (Christ), before the constitution of the world, that we should be holy." And presently, "He hath predestinated us to the adoption of sons, through Jesus Christ, unto Himself"

I will not cast out of My house : I will not drive him from Me, from My Church, My heaven, but with great care I will cherish him. There is an allusion to a host, who receives to His hospitality well-disposed travellers and friends. As Euthymius says, "Here I will not cast him away from My friendship, nor there from the heavenly kingdom." And Cyril says, "He shall not be disappointed, nor with shame cast out, neither shall he be deprived of my kindness, but he shall be stored in My garner, and shall rest in the heavenly mansions, and shall come whither the mind of man hath not even conceived."

Observe: SS. Chrysostom and Cyril ( lib. 3, c. 39) say that they who are given by the Father to the Son, are those who by a good use of their free-will have rendered themselves worthy of the vocation and grace of God. Pelagius afterwards crudely taking up this teaching, denied the necessity of grace, saying that free-will was sufficient for him to do good works. But this is an error which S. Augustine confutes. " To believe," he says, "is of the grace of God; to be able to believe, of nature." Wherefore Christ Himself here and elsewhere teaches that all indeed are able to believe, do good works, and be saved, because free-will in all is capable of receiving the grace of God, and often does receive from God grace sufficient for salvation: and yet that only those in act believe and are saved, to whom God gives efficacious or congruous grace, such indeed as He foresees will persuade free-will so that it will co-operate with Himself. On this more is said (ver. 44).

Ver. 38.— For I came down, &c Christ gives the reason why He will not cast out him whom the Father hath given Him, viz., because He Himself came in flesh, and into the world, for this end alone, that He might do the Father's will, which is, that those whom the Father wills to give to Him, and to save, Christ should accept and save. This is why He adds in explanation, This is His will, &c. Listen to S. Cyril in the Council of Ephesus, profoundly handling these things. "When He adds that He was accomplishing not His own, but His Father's will, He quells indirectly the madness of the Jews, who were always labouring to bring about their own will, and holding cheap the Divine laws, and making of no value what was pleasing to their Lord - whilst, I say, He here openly commends their prompt profession of obedience, He nevertheless darkly rebukes their rebellion."

Ver. 39.— But this is His will, &c. Everything, i.e., all altogether, of every nation, rank, age, or sex, as 1 have said, verse 37. I will not lose ( perdam ) , i.e., I will not suffer to perish. He explains what He had said, I will not cast out. This He expounds and completes by adding, but will raise it up at the last day, i.e., at the day of judgment, that I may admit (my servant) into heaven, and there bless him with immortality and glory both of body and soul for ever. Then indeed shall come to an end the motion of the heavens, and by consequence time, which is the measuring of their motion, shall cease. Wherefore then shall be the stay and the end of all days and months and years.

Ver. 40.— And this is the will, &c. He that seeth, Greek, θεωζω̃ν, i.e., who considers and contemplates the Son, seeing Him with the eyes not of the body, but of the mind, i.e., believing in Him, and obeying Him. Lactantius ( lib. 7, c. 9) observes out of Trismegistus that the word θεωζω̃ν, especially applied to Divine things.

And I will raise him up : the Greek α̉ναστήσω, may be translated either by the future indicative, I will raise ; or by the aorist conjunctive, that I may raise (as the Vulgate has it in ver. 39). Christ teaches the Resurrection because "the hope of Christians is the resurrection of the dead," as Tertullian says. Hear S. Chrysostom ( Hom. 46): "Everywhere He makes mention of life: for we are drawn by the desire of it, and there is nothing sweeter than not to die. In the Old Testament, indeed, long life and many days were promised: but now is promised not merely a long life, but endless life. At the same time also He wishes to show that He now revokes the punishment produced by sin, by remitting the sentence of death, and bringing in eternal life, contrary to the decree of the former times."

Ver. 41, 42.— The Jews therefore murmured, &c. Murmuring at benefits, says Cyril, is a sort of ancestral inheritance with the Jews, coming down from their fathers under Moses to Christ. Theophylact gives the cause of the murmuring, "Up to this point they thought He was speaking of material bread, and listened to Him cheerfully, but now when He revealed to them that He was speaking to them of spiritual bread, they despised Him, and murmured." They did not understand how Christ was Living Bread, and how He had descended from heaven, and how they might eat Him, for they craved for something for their throats.

Ver. 43.— Jesus therefore answered, &c... among themselves (Vulg. in invicem ). It is intimated that some were for Him, and others against Him: and through some attacking Him, and others defending Him, they murmured among themselves.

Murmur not : for I give you no occasion of murmuring; I tell you the simple truth, and if on account of its sublimity you do not receive it, it is ye who are in fault, both because ye carp at and rebel against Me, and do not ask Me for an explanation of My words; and also because ye do not ask God for light to understand My words: wherefore He subjoins,

Ver. 44. — No man can come to Me, &c. Observe, (1.) Christ might, as S. Chrysostom observes, have answered and said, "It is not wonderful that you, 0 ye Jews, neither understand nor believe the things which I say, namely, that I am the Bread of Life who came down from heaven : it is because ye are hard and carnal. But He prefers to answer more sweetly and divinely, thus, that no one could believe in Him unless it were given them of His Father; that so, those who believed might not contend against the others who did not believe; and that the unbelievers might acknowledge that they were in want of Divine light, as needful plainly to believe; and that they should ask for this by humble prayer to God in Christ and not murmur, or certainly they would be without the light of God which was offered to them.

The meaning therefore is, "Do not, 0 ye who believe in Me, murmur against the unbelieving, because they do not believe My doctrine, which is confirmed by so many miracles; for faith is the supernatural gift of God; neither can any one believe in Me except the Father draw him to believe. But those are not yet drawn of the Father. Do not therefore be indignant with them, but ask the Father to draw them as He has drawn you. For so will they equally with you believe in Me. You too, 0 ye unbelieving, do not murmur against Me, and My words, and those who do believe in Me. For the Father has drawn them to believe in Me. Rather, therefore, ask the Father that He may draw you also. For so will ye, equally with them, believe in Me, and will be of one mind with them in My faith, and doctrine, and Church. Say ye therefore with the Spouse, "Draw me after Thee," for those who are so drawn "will run in the odour of Thine ointment" (Song i. 3).

Observe, (2.) The word draw does not signify coercion, or necessity; nor is it opposed to free-will, as if it took it away from man, as the Lutherans and Calvinists suppose. Stones and wood are drawn in this way. But with men, it is a man's own pleasure, i.e., his liberty, not necessity, by which he is drawn. You show sugar to a child, you draw him towards you: you show a green branch to a sheep, you draw her towards you. Both are drawn by the enticement of food. In like manner the will of man is drawn, as iron by a magnet. Thus was S. Agnes drawn to Christ by the secret power of His love. "We are drawn," says Cyril, "by monition, doctrine, revelation, ineffably produced." Listen to S. Augustine in this passage ( Tract. 26). "Do not think that thou art drawn unwillingly: the mind is drawn also by love." And by and by, "How do I believe of my own will, if I am drawn? I say, it is too small a thing to be drawn by the will, thou art drawn by pleasure also. What is it to be drawn by pleasure? 'Delight thyself in the Lord, and He will give thee thy heart's desire!' There is a certain delight of the heart, to which that Bread of heaven is sweet. Now if the poet might say 'his own pleasure draws everyone,' it is not necessity, but pleasure which draws. It is not obligation, but delight. With how much greater force ought we to say that man is drawn to Christ who delights in the truth, who delights in blessedness, in justice, who delights in life everlasting, which is altogether Christ." And shortly afterwards, "Show me a lover; he feels what I say. Show me one who desires, who is hungry, one who wanders in the wilderness, and is thirsty, who sighs for the fountains of the eternal country; show me such a one, he knows what I say. But if I speak to one whose heart is cold, he knows not what I say." The same writes ( Serm. de Verb. Apost. ), "He said not, He will lead, but He will draw. That violence is done not to the flesh, but to the heart. Wherefore then dost thou marvel? Believe, and thou comest; love, and thou art drawn. Do not suppose that violence is rough and troublesome: it is sweet and pleasant, the very sweetness draws thee. Is not a hungry sheep drawn to the green grass? And I think it is not impelled by the body, but drawn by desire. So also do thou come to Christ; do not contemplate a long journey. Where thou believest, thither thou comest. For to Him who is everywhere, we come by loving, not by journeying."

The drawing then of God signifies the force and efficacy of grace. This drawing is sweet and mild, not compelling the free-will, but alluring, soothing, leading it to believe. It also signifies man's weakness, and vicious desires, which are repugnant to Christian faith and holiness, so that a man needs not so much to be led as dragged by the vehement impulse of God's grace to Christian faith and virtue This is what Christ saith (Mat 11:12), "The kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent seize it." For the drunkard ought to do violence to his gullet, the unclean to his lust, the avaricious to his avarice, the ambitious man to his ambition. Therefore the drawing of grace lifts to celestial things the will that is drawn down to the flesh. It allures the resisting, and strengthens the weak will. It makes cheerful the sorrowful, and animates the shrinking will to good. Wherefore the Latin Fathers with S. Augustine constantly use these words of Christ against the Pelagians to prove the necessity of grace. I do not say the same of the Greeks, as SS. Chrysostom and Cyril, and those who followed them, who wrote before Pelagius, and therefore speak sparingly concerning grace, that they may make much of man's free-will against the Manichees. Whence Theophylact from S. Chrysostom says upon this passage, "As the magnet attracts only iron, so God draws only those who are fit, those who by using their free-will aright render themselves worthy the grace of God." This is why S. Chrysostom upon this passage must be read with caution, when he says, that those who are drawn by God merit this by some foreseen good wish of free-will. For if you were to understand this of the first drawing of grace, and of simple free-will, it is Pelagianism. But if you understand it of a further drawing to greater faith and virtue, and concerning free-will already influenced and stirred up by previous grace, it is Catholic doctrine.

Observe, (3.) Some are drawn by God inchoately, or so far as God is concerned, and as far as is sufficient, that they may be converted. And yet these do not come to Christ, nor are they converted, because they are unwilling to follow God when He draws them. And without this drawing it is simply impossible to come to Christ, just as impossible as it is for a man to fly without wings. Concerning this drawing, says Maldonatus, if you ask why one man is drawn to Christ, another not, I answer, because the one was willing to follow Christ when He drew, the other was unwilling. Indeed some who were already believers in Christ taking offence at this eating of His Flesh drew back from Him, as John testifies, verse 67. And express mention is made of Judas the traitor, verse 71 (Joh 6:71) . Have I not chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil? But others are fully drawn by God, i.e., they are drawn wholly to Christ. These follow God when He draws them: and of such Christ here also speaks, as appears in the 37th verse. Every thing which the Father giveth Me shall come to Me. Every one that hath heard and learned of the Father cometh unto Me. For to be drawn of the Father means here the same thing as to hear, be taught, to learn of the Father. "What is to be drawn of the Father but to learn of Him?" says S. Augustine. So those are wholly drawn to whom God gives grace, not only prevenient, effectual, and congruous (for those of whom we have before spoken, who are drawn inchoately, have sufficient grace only), but also co-operating grace. Congruous grace is so called, because it is conformable to the disposition, affections, and character of those who are drawn. Wherefore God foresees that such persons will in fact freely consent and co-operate, and so be converted, believe, and do good works. Concerning those S. Augustine says, "If thou art not drawn, pray that thou mayest be drawn." And "why one man is drawn, another not, do not scrutinize, if thou wouldst not err."

Moreover, this effectual and congruous grace is necessary to conversion, faith, and salvation, not simpliciter, but upon the hypothesis of the foreknowledge of God, by which He foresees that this grace will persuade free-will, so that it shall turn itself to God: but that that other grace which is merely sufficient will not persuade it. Wherefore God equally foresees that we will freely consent to effectual and congruous grace, but that to sufficient and incongruous we shall not consent, and this of simple liberty of will. This is what Christ saith, No one can come to Me, except the Father draw him. Wherefore the great gift of perseverance even unto the end of life is congruous grace, and this is the cause of our eternal salvation, and therefore has not to do with merit, but is the peculiar and chief blessing of God, which He confers upon His predestinated and elect, and divides and distinguishes them from the non-elect and reprobate, as S. Augustine teaches at large ( de Predest. Sanct. c. 16), and S. Thomas and the Scholastics from him, and the Council of Trent ( Sess. 6, c. 13). Wherefore this grace of congruity ought to be constantly and most humbly asked of God, for on it our eternal salvation hinges, and God has promised that He will give us whatsoever we ask in Christ's name (Joh 15:16).

And I will raise, &c. Christ shows in this the fruit of this drawing of God the Father: "I will indeed give him who, drawn of the Father, shall come to Me, and believe in and obey Me, this reward, that I will raise him up to eternal life and glory, that is to say, if he persevere in faith and obedience until death."

Ver. 45.— It is written, &c. He quotes Isa 54:13, "All thy children shall be taught of the Lord." Jeremiah (Jer 31:33) has a similar prophecy, and Joel (Joe 2:28). Because what Christ said seemed strange to the Jews, No one can come to Me, except My Father draw him, Christ confirms it out of Isaiah and the Prophets, who assert that all the children or disciples of Christ would be taught of God. But to be taught by God is to be drawn by God, for this is the force of the Hebrew limmude.

Now, they will be taught by God in that He will at the external voice of Christ and His disciples teach their minds inwardly, illuminate and inspire them, to believe in and obey Him. Whereas previously in the ancient Law, God taught the people exteriorly rather than interiorly, by prophets, priests, and by the Holy Scriptures. Wherefore "where God is the Teacher," says S. Leo, "there are the lessons quickly learned." Hear S. Augustine ( in Epist 1 S. Jo. Tract. 3) "The sound of our words strikes the ear, the Master is within. I have spoken to all, but to whomsoever that unction speaketh not inwardly, whom the Holy Ghost teacheth not within, such depart untaught. The outward instructions and admonitions are some sort of aid; but it is He who sitteth in heaven who teaches the heart. Wherefore He saith Himself in the Gospel, 'Call no one your master upon earth, for one is your Master, Christ.' He indeed speaks to you inwardly when no mortal man is by. Where His inspiration, His unction is not, outward words are an empty breath."

Every one who hath heard . . . and learned, the Arabic adds, and knoweth. See how He explains the drawing of the Father. He is drawn by the Father who is inwardly taught by Him, i.e., whose understanding is illuminated by the Father, and his will inflamed, that he may believe in and follow Me. And he hath learned, or he does learn, that is, he receives My illumination in his intellect, and My impulse in his will: and he acquiesces, and freely consents. This man comes to Me, i.e., he believes in Me as the Messiah, and obeys Me. For the two feet, not of the body, but of the soul, by which she comes to Christ, are the understanding enlightened by God, and the will impelled and inflamed by Him. Hence S. Augustine ( de Predest. Sanc. c. 8) says, "If every one who hath heard and learned of the Father cometh, assuredly every one who cometh not, hath not heard, nor learned of the Father. For if he had heard and learned, he would come." He subjoins, "This school is far remote from fleshly sense, in which the Father is heard, and teaches us to come to the Son. There, too, is the Son Himself, because He is His Word, by whom He thus teaches us: and this He does not through the ears of the flesh, but of the heart. There also at the same time, is the Spirit of the Father and the Son. And He neither refrains from teaching, nor does He teach differently. For we have learned that the works of the Trinity are inseparable." And after an interval, "Why therefore does He not teach all to come to Christ, unless because all whom He teaches, He teaches in mercy? But whom He teacheth not, in judgment He teacheth them not. For He hath mercy upon whom He will, and whom He wills He hardeneth. But He is merciful, and doeth good, and when He hardeneth He requiteth justly. This grace therefore which is secretly given to human hearts by the Divine bounty, is rejected by no hard heart. For this reason is it given that the hardness of the heart may be first taken away. When therefore the Father is heard and teaches inwardly that we should come to the Son, He takes away the heart of stone, and gives a heart of flesh, as He promised by His prophet. For so He makes the sons of promise vessels of mercy which He has prepared for glory."

Ver. 46.— Not that any one, &c. "Lest the dense and ignorant Jews should imagine," says Euthymius, "that any one could hear or see the Father in a sensible manner, He saith not that any one, &c." We must understand, "But let a man hear God unseen, speaking in the soul, illuminating it, and persuading to the truth in Christ." God is the invisible Master. God is the Teacher, not of eyes and ears, but of hearts and minds.

Save Him who is of God, viz. Myself, who am the Son of God, born of Him, and most intimate with Him, who continually see and behold Him as He is in His essence. And as man I was indeed formed by Him without man's agency, and always enjoy the beatific vision of Himself. As Cyril says, "Being consubstantial with the Father, He will assuredly see Him from whom He is." And as Euthymius says, "Being of the same nature, substance and knowledge, He is in the bosom of the Father."

Ver. 47. Verily, verily, &c. Hath, by right and merit, or in certain hope, but not yet in fact. Christ goes back to verse 29, and again and again inculcates faith in Himself, because that is the beginning of all good: the root of salvation, and the necessary means for obtaining from Christ the Bread of Life, i.e., the Eucharist.

Eternal life : thus He impels those unwilling to faith by a firm hope of the reward. For what is better or sweeter than eternal life to those who fear death and corruption?

Ver. 48.— I am the Bread of life, nourishing those who eat Me unto life eternal. As though He said, "I give eternal life to those by whom I am eaten with true and living faith." He often repeats and confirms the same, that He might not seem to have spoken rashly, because to the Jews this thing seemed plainly impossible.

Ver. 49, 50 . — Your fathers, &c, in the desert, "signifying," says S. Chrysostom, "that the manna did not long continue

Commentary -- Other

Evidence: Joh 6:14

Messianic prophecy fulfilled : " The LORD your God will raise up to you a Prophet from your midst, of your brethren, like unto me; to him you shall hearken" ( Deu 18:15 ). See Joh 19:29 footnote.

Evidence: Joh 6:28

Most religions teach that certain works are required in order to be saved. Here God tells us the only " work" He considers: " believe on him whom he has sent."

Introduction / Outline

Robertson: John (Book Introduction)

THE Fourth Gospel

By Way of Introduction

Greatest of Books

The test of time has given the palm to the Fourth Gospel over all the books of the world. If Luke’s Gospel is the most beautiful, John’s Gospel is supreme in its height and depth and reach of thought. The picture of Christ here given is the one that has captured the mind and heart of mankind. It is not possible for a believer in Jesus Christ as the Son of God to be indifferent to modern critical views concerning the authorship and historical value of this Holy of Holies of the New Testament. Here we find The Heart of Christ (E. H. Sears), especially in chapters John 14-17. If Jesus did not do or say these things, it is small consolation to be told that the book at least has symbolic and artistic value for the believer. The language of the Fourth Gospel has the clarity of a spring, but we are not able to sound the bottom of the depths. Lucidity and profundity challenge and charm us as we linger over it.

The Beloved Disciple

The book claims to be written by " the disciple whom Jesus loved" (Joh_21:20) who is pointedly identified by a group of believers (apparently in Ephesus) as the writer: " This is the disciple which beareth witness of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his witness is true" (Joh_21:24). This is the first criticism of the Fourth Gospel of which we have any record, made at the time when the book was first sent forth, made in a postscript to the epilogue or appendix. Possibly the book closed first with Joh_20:31, but chapter 21 is in precisely the same style and was probably added before publication by the author. The natural and obvious meaning of the language in Joh_21:24 is that the Beloved Disciple wrote the whole book. He is apparently still alive when this testimony to his authorship is given. There are scholars who interpret it to mean that the Beloved Disciple is responsible for the facts in the book and not the actual writer, but that is a manifest straining of the language. There is in this verse no provision made for a redactor as distinct from the witness as is plausibly set forth by Dr. A. E. Garvie in The Beloved Disciple (1922).

A Personal Witness

It is manifest all through the book that the writer is the witness who is making the contribution of his personal knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ during his earthly ministry. In Joh_1:14 he plainly says that " the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory" ( etheasametha tēn doxan autou ). He here associates others with him in this witness to the glory of the Word, but in Joh_21:25 he employs the singular " I suppose" ( oimai ) in sharp distinction from the plural " we know" ( oidamen ) just before. The writer is present in nearly all the scenes described. The word witness ( marturě , marturia ) so common in this Gospel (Joh_1:7, Joh_1:8, Joh_1:19; Joh_3:11, Joh_3:26, Joh_3:33; Joh_5:31; Joh_12:17; Joh_21:24, etc.) illustrates well this point of view. In the Gospel of Luke we have the work of one who was not a personal witness of Christ (Luk_1:1-4). In the Gospel of Matthew we possess either the whole work of a personal follower and apostle or at least the Logia of Matthew according to Papias preserved in it. In Mark’s Gospel we have as the basis the preaching of Simon Peter as preserved by his interpreter John Mark. John’s Gospel claims to be the personal witness of " the disciple whom Jesus loved" and as such deserves and has received exceptional esteem. One may note all through the book evidences of an eyewitness in the vivid details.

With a Home in Jerusalem

It is not only that the writer was a Jew who knew accurately places and events in Palestine, once denied though now universally admitted. The Beloved Disciple took the mother of Jesus " to his own home" ( eis ta idia , Joh_19:27) from the Cross when Jesus commended his mother to his care. But this Beloved Disciple had access to the palace of the high priest (Joh_18:15.). Delff ( Das vierte Evangelium wiederhergestellt , 1890) argues that this fact shows that the Beloved Disciple was not one of the twelve apostles, one of a priestly family of wealth in Jerusalem. He does seem to have had special information concerning what took place in the Sanhedrin (Joh_7:45-52; Joh_11:47-53; Joh_12:10.). But at once we are confronted with the difficulty of supposing one outside of the circle of the twelve on even more intimate terms with Jesus than the twelve themselves and who was even present at the last passover meal and reclined on the bosom of Jesus (Joh_13:23). Nor is this all, for he was one of the seven disciples by the Sea of Galilee (Joh_21:1.) when Peter speaks to Jesus about the " Beloved Disciple" (Joh_21:20).

Only One John of Ephesus

It is true that an ambiguous statement of Papias (circa a.d. 120) is contained in Eusebius where the phrase " the Elder John " ( ho presbuteros Iōannēs ) occurs. The most natural way to understand Papias is that he is referring to the Apostle John by this phrase as he describes the teachings of the apostles by " the words of the elders" just before. This interpretation of the allusion of Papias has been rendered almost certain by the work of Dom John Chapman, John the Presbyter and the Fourth Gospel (1911). Not before Eusebius is the error found of two Johns in Ephesus, one the apostle, the other the so-called Presbyter. " Papias is no witness for the admission of two Johns of Asia Minor. Irenaeus, too, in any case, knows of but one John of Asia Minor. And this John was an eye-witness of our Lord’s Life" (Bousset, Die Offenbarumg des Joh. , p. 38, translation of Nolloth, The Fourth Evangelist , p. 63, note). Let this be admitted and much becomes clear.

No Early Martyrdom for the Apostle John

In 1862 a fragment of the Chronicle of Georgius Hamartolus, a Byzantine monk of the ninth century, was published. It is the Codex Coislinianus , Paris, 305, which differs from the other manuscripts of this author in saying that John according to Papias was slain by the Jews ( hupo Ioudaiōn anēirethē ) while the other manuscripts say that John rested in peace ( en eirēnēi anepausato ). The passage also quotes Eusebius to the effect that John received Asia as his sphere of work and lived and died in Ephesus. This same George the Sinner misquotes Origen about the death of John for Origen really says that the Roman king condemned him to the Isle of Patmos, not to death. Another fragment of Philip of Side, apparently used by Georgius, makes the same erroneous reference to Papias. It is therefore a worthless legend growing out of the martyrdom promised James and John by Jesus (Mar_10:39; Mat_20:23) and realized by James first of all (Act_12:1.). John drank the cup in the exile to Patmos. The correction to Peter in Joh_21:20-23 would have no meaning if the Apostle John had already been put to death.

The Author the Apostle John

Loisy ( Le Quatr. Evangile , p. 132) says that if one takes literally what is given in the body of the Gospel of the Beloved Disciple he is bound to be one of the twelve. Loisy does not take it " literally." But why not? Are we to assume that the author of this greatest of books is playing a part or using a deliberate artifice to deceive? It may be asked why John does not use his own name instead of a nom de plume . Reference can be made to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, no one of which gives the author’s name. One can see a reason for the turn here given since the book consists so largely of personal experiences of the author with Christ. He thus avoids the too frequent use of the personal pronoun and preserves the element of witness which marks the whole book. One by one the other twelve apostles disappear if we test their claims for the authorship. In the list of seven in chapter John 21 it is easy to drop the names of Simon Peter, Thomas, and Nathanael. There are left two unnamed disciples and the sons of Zebedee (here alone mentioned, not even named, in the book). John in this Gospel always means the Baptist. Why does the author so uniformly slight the sons of Zebedee if not one of them himself? In the Acts Luke does not mention his own name nor that of Titus his brother, though so many other friends of Paul are named. If the Beloved Disciple is John the Apostle, the silence about James and himself is easily understood. James is ruled out because of his early death (Act_12:1). The evidence in the Gospel points directly to the Apostle John as the author.

Early and Clear Witness to the Apostle John

Ignatius ( ad Philad . vii. 1) about a.d. 110 says of the Spirit that " he knows whence he comes and whither he is going," a clear allusion to Joh_3:8. Polycarp ( ad Phil . S 7) quotes 1Jo_4:2, 1Jo_4:3. Eusebius states that Papias quoted First John. Irenaeus is quoted by Eusebius (H.E. V, 20) as saying that he used as a boy to hear Polycarp tell " of his intercourse with John and the others who had seen the Lord." Irenaeus accepted all our Four Gospels. Tatian made his Diatessaron out of the Four Gospels alone. Theophilus of Antioch ( ad Autol . ii. 22) calls John the author of the Fourth Gospel. This was about a.d. 180. The Muratorian Canon near the close of the second century names John as the author of the Fourth Gospel. Till after the time of Origen no opposition to the Johannine authorship appears outside of Marcion and the Alogi. No other New Testament book has stronger external evidence.

The Use of the Synoptic Gospels

As the latest of the Gospels and by the oldest living apostle, it is only natural that there should be an infrequent use of the Synoptic Gospels. Outside of the events of Passion Week and the Resurrection period the Fourth Gospel touches the Synoptic narrative in only one incident, that of the Feeding of the Five Thousand and the walking on the water. The author supplements the Synoptic record in various ways. He mentions two passovers not given by the other Gospels (Joh_2:23; Joh_6:4) and another (Joh_5:1) may be implied. Otherwise we could not know certainly that the ministry of Jesus was more than a year in length. He adds greatly to our knowledge of the first year of our Lord’s public ministry (" the year of obscurity," Stalker) without which we should know little of this beginning (John 1:19-4:45). The Synoptics give mainly the Galilean and Perean and Judean ministry, but John adds a considerable Jerusalem ministry which is really demanded by allusions in the Synoptics. The Prologue (John 1:1-18) relates the Incarnation to God’s eternal purpose as in Col_1:14-20 and Heb_1:1-3 and employs the language of the intellectuals of the time ( Logos - Word) to interpret Christ as the Incarnate Son of God.

A Different Style of Teaching

So different is it in fact that some men bluntly assert that Jesus could not have spoken in the same fashion as presented in the Synoptics and in the Fourth Gospel. Such critics need to recall the Socrates of Xenophon’s Memorabilia and of Plato’s Dialogues . There is a difference beyond a doubt, but there is also some difference in the reports in the Synoptics. Jesus for the most part spoke in Aramaic, sometimes in Greek, as to the great crowds from around Palestine (the Sermon on the Mount, for instance). There is the Logia of Jesus (Q of criticism) preserved in the non-Markan portions of Matthew and Luke besides Mark, and the rest of Matthew and Luke. Certain natural individualities are preserved. The difference is greater in the Fourth Gospel, because John writes in the ripeness of age and in the richness of his long experience. He gives his reminiscences mellowed by long reflection and yet with rare dramatic power. The simplicity of the language leads many to think that they understand this Gospel when they fail to see the graphic pictures as in chapters John 7-11. The book fairly throbs with life. There is, no doubt, a Johannine style here, but curiously enough there exists in the Logia (Q) a genuine Johannine passage written long before the Fourth Gospel (Mat_11:25-30; Luk_10:21-24). The use of " the Father" and " the Son" is thoroughly Johannine. It is clear that Jesus used the Johannine type of teaching also. Perhaps critics do not make enough allowance for the versatility and variety in Jesus.

The Same Style in the Discourses

It is further objected that there is no difference in style between the discourses of Jesus in John’s Gospel and his own narrative style. There is an element of truth in this criticism. There are passages where it is not easy to tell where discourse ends and narrative begins. See, for instance, Joh_3:16-21. Does the discourse of Jesus end with Joh_3:15, Joh_3:16, or Joh_3:21? So in Joh_12:44-50. Does John give here a resumé of Christ’s teaching or a separate discourse? It is true also that John preserves in a vivid way the conversational style of Christ as in chapters 4, 6, 7, 8, 9. In the Synoptic Gospels this element is not so striking, but we do not have to say that John has done as Shakespeare did with his characters. Each Gospel to a certain extent has the colouring of the author in reporting the words of Jesus. An element of this is inevitable unless men are mere automata, phonographs, or radios. But each Gospel preserves an accurate and vivid picture of Christ. We need all four pictures including that of John’s Gospel for the whole view of Christ.

Historical Value of the Fourth Gospel

It is just here that the chief attack is made on the Fourth Gospel even by some who admit the Johannine authorship. It is now assumed by some that the Fourth Gospel is not on a par with the Synoptics in historical reliability and some harmonies omit it entirely or place it separately at the close, though certainly Tatian used it with the Synoptics in his Diatessaron , the first harmony of the Gospels. Some even follow Schmiedel in seeing only a symbolic or parabolic character in the miracles in the Fourth Gospel, particularly in the narrative of the raising of Lazarus in chapter John 11 which occurs here alone. But John makes this miracle play quite an important part in the culmination of events at the end. Clearly the author professes to be giving actual data largely out of his own experience and knowledge. It is objected by some that the Fourth Gospel gives an unnatural picture of Christ with Messianic claims at the very start. But the Synoptics give that same claim at the baptism and temptation, not to mention Luke’s account of the Boy Jesus in the temple. The picture of the Jews as hostile to Jesus is said to be overdrawn in the Fourth Gospel. The answer to that appears in the Sermon on the Mount, the Sabbath miracles, the efforts of the Pharisees and lawyers to catch Jesus in his talk, the final denunciation in Matt 23, all in the Synoptics. The opposition to Jesus grew steadily as he revealed himself more clearly. Some of the difficulties raised are gratuitous as in the early cleansing of the temple as if it could not have happened twice, confounding the draught of fishes in chapter John 21 with that in Luke 5, making Mary of Bethany at the feast of a Simon in chapter John 12 the same as the sinful woman at the feast of another Simon in Luke 7, making John’s Gospel locate the last passover meal a day ahead instead of at the regular time as the Synoptics have it. Rightly interpreted these difficulties disappear. In simple truth, if one takes the Fourth Gospel at its face value, the personal recollections of the aged John phrased in his own way to supplement the narratives in the Synoptics, there is little left to give serious trouble. The Jerusalem ministry with the feasts is a case in point. The narrative of the call of the first disciples in chapter John 1 is another. The author followed Simon in bringing also his own brother James to Jesus. John was present in the appearance of Christ before Annas, and Pilate. He was at the Cross when no other apostles were there. He took the mother of Jesus to his home and then returned to the Cross. He saw the piercing of the side of Jesus. He knew and saw the deed of Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. E. H. Askwith has a most helpful discussion of this whole problem in The Historical Value of the Fourth Gospel (1910).

Like the Johannine Epistles

Critics of all classes agree that, whoever was the author of the Fourth Gospel, the same man wrote the First Epistle of John. There is the same inimitable style, the same vocabulary, the same theological outlook. Undoubtedly the same author wrote also Second and Third John, for, brief as they are, they exhibit the same characteristics. In Second and Third John the author describes himself as " the Elder" ( ho presbuteros ), which fact has led some to argue for the mythical " Presbyter John" as the author in place of the Apostle John and so of First John and the Fourth Gospel. It is argued that the Apostle John would have termed himself " the Apostle John" after the fashion of Paul. But the example of the Apostle Peter disposes of that argument, for in addressing the elders (1Pe_5:1) he calls himself " your fellow-elder" ( ho sunpresbuteros ). In the Epistles John opposes Gnosticism both of the Docetic type which denied the actual humanity of Jesus as in 1Jo_1:1-4 and the Cerinthian type which denied the identity of the man Jesus and the aeon Christ which came on Jesus at his baptism and left him at his death on the Cross as in 1Jo_2:22. One of the many stories told about John is his abhorrence of Cerinthus when found in the same public bath with him. As Westcott shows, the Epistles of John prove his actual humanity while assuming his deity, whereas the Fourth Gospel proves his deity while assuming his humanity.

But Different from the Apocalypse

It should be said at once that the Johannine authorship of the Fourth Gospel does not depend on that of the Apocalypse. In fact, some men hold to the Johannine authorship of the Apocalypse who deny that of the Gospel while some hold directly the opposite view. Some deny the Johannine authorship of both Gospel and Apocalypse, while the majority hold to the Johannine authorship of Gospel, Epistles, and Apocalypse as was the general rule till after the time of Origen. The author of the Apocalypse claims to be John (Rev_1:4, Rev_1:9; Rev_22:8), though what John he does not say. Denial of the existence of a " Presbyter John" naturally leads one to think of the Apostle John. Origen says that John, the brother of James, was banished to the Isle of Patmos where he saw the Apocalypse. There is undoubted radical difference in language between the Apocalypse and the other Johannine books which will receive discussion when the Apocalypse is reached. Westcott explained these differences as due to the early date of the Apocalypse in the reign of Vespasian before John had become master of the Greek language. Even J. H. Moulton ( Prolegomena , p. 9, note 4) says bluntly: " If its date was 95 a.d., the author cannot have written the fourth Gospel only a short time after." Or before, he would say. But the date of the Apocalypse seems definitely to belong to the reign of Domitian. So one ventures to call attention to the statement in Act_4:13 where Peter and John are described as agrammatoi kai idiōtai (unlettered and private or unschooled men). It is curious also that it is precisely in 2Peter and the Apocalypse that we have so many grammatical solecisms and peculiarities. We know that the Fourth Gospel was reviewed by a group of John’s friends in Ephesus, while he was apparently alone in the Isle of Patmos. The excitement of the visions would naturally increase the uncouth vernacular of the Apocalypse so much like that in the Greek papyri as seen in Milligan’s Greek Papyri , for instance. This being true, one is able, in spite of Moulton’s dictum, to hold to the Johannine authorship of both Gospel and Apocalypse and not far apart in date.

The Unity of the Gospel

This has been attacked in various ways in spite of the identity of style throughout. There are clearly three parts in the Gospel: the Prologue, John 1:1-18, the Body of the Book, John 1:19-20:31, the Epilogue, John 21. But there is no evidence that the Prologue was added by another hand, even though the use of Logos (Word) for Christ does not occur thereafter. This high conception of Christ dominates the whole book. Some argue that the Epilogue was added by some one else than John, but here again there is no proof and no real reason for the supposition. It is possible, as already stated, that John stopped at Joh_20:31 and then added John 21 before sending the book forth after his friends added Joh_21:24 as their endorsement of the volume. Some scholars claim that they detect various displacements in the arrangement of the material, but such subjective criticism is never convincing. There are undoubtedly long gaps in the narrative as between chapters 5 and 6, but John is not giving a continuous narrative, but only a supplementary account assuming knowledge of the Synoptics. It is held that editorial comments by redactors can be detected here and there. Perhaps, and perhaps not. The unity of this great book stands even if that be true.

Original Language of the Book

The late Dr. C. F. Burney of Oxford wrote a volume called, The Aramaic Origin of the Fourth Gospel (1922) in which he tried to prove that the Fourth Gospel is really the first in time and was originally written in Aramaic. The theory excited some interest, but did not convince either Aramaic or Greek scholars to an appreciable extent. Some of the examples cited are plausible and some quite fanciful. This theory cannot be appealed to in any serious interpretation of the Fourth Gospel. The author was beyond doubt a Jew, but he wrote in the Koiné Greek of his time that is comparatively free from crude Semiticisms, perhaps due in part to the help of the friends in Ephesus.

The Purpose of the Book

He tells us himself in Joh_20:30. He has made a selection of the many signs wrought by Jesus for an obvious purpose: " But these are written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye may have life in his name." This is the high and noble purpose plainly stated by the author. The book is thus confessedly apologetic and this fact ruins it with the critics who demand a dull and dry chronicle of events without plan or purpose in a book of history. Such a book would not be read and would be of little value if written. Each of the Synoptics is written with a purpose and every history or biography worth reading is written with a purpose. It is one thing to have a purpose in writing, but quite another to suppress or distort facts in order to create the impression that one wishes. This John did not do. He has given us his deliberate, mature, tested view of Jesus Christ as shown to him while alive and as proven since his resurrection. He writes to win others to like faith in Christ.

John’s Portrait of Christ

No one questions that the Fourth Gospel asserts the deity of Christ. It is in the Prologue at the very start: " And the Word was God" (Joh_1:1) and in the correct text of Joh_1:18, " God only begotten" ( theos monogenēs ). It occurs repeatedly in the book as in the witness of the Baptist: " This is the Son of God" (Joh_1:34). It is in the charge of the Pharisees (Joh_5:18) and the claim of Christ himself (Joh_5:20-23; Joh_6:48; Joh_8:12, Joh_8:58; Joh_11:25; Joh_14:9; Joh_17:5) with the full and frank conviction of the author in Joh_20:31. He has made good his purpose. He has proven that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God. With some critics this purpose has vitiated the entire book. The effort has been made to show that Paul, Peter, the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Synoptics give a lower view of Christ without the term theos applied to him. In particular it was once argued that Q, the Logia of Jesus, used by Matthew and Luke (the non-Markan portions in both Matthew and Luke), gives a reduced picture of Jesus as on a lower plane than God, the Arian or Ritschlian view at any rate as answering for God to us though not God in actual nature. But in the Logia of Jesus we find the same essential picture of Jesus Christ as the Son of God and the Son of Man as I have shown in my The Christ of the Logia (1924). The only way to get rid of the deity of Christ in the New Testament is to throw overboard all the books in it as legendary or reflections of late theological development away from the original picture. The very earliest picture drawn of Christ that has been preserved to us, that in the Logia of Jesus (drawn W. M. Ramsay believes before Christ’s crucifixion), is in essential agreement with the fully drawn portrait in the Fourth Gospel. Each picture in the Four Gospels adds touches of its own, but the features are the same, those of the God-Man Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world. The brilliant blind preacher of Edinburgh, George Matheson, sees this clearly ( Studies in the Portrait of the Messiah , 1900; St. John’s Portrait of Christ , 1910).

JFB: John (Book Introduction)

THE author of the Fourth Gospel was the younger of the two sons of Zebedee, a fisherman on the Sea of Galilee, who resided at Bethsaida, where were born Peter and Andrew his brother, and Philip also. His mother's name was Salome, who, though not without her imperfections (Mat 20:20-28), was one of those dear and honored women who accompanied the Lord on one of His preaching circuits through Galilee, ministering to His bodily wants; who followed Him to the cross, and bought sweet spices to anoint Him after His burial, but, on bringing them to the grave, on the morning of the First Day of the week, found their loving services gloriously superseded by His resurrection ere they arrived. His father, Zebedee, appears to have been in good circumstances, owning a vessel of his own and having hired servants (Mar 1:20). Our Evangelist, whose occupation was that of a fisherman with his father, was beyond doubt a disciple of the Baptist, and one of the two who had the first interview with Jesus. He was called while engaged at his secular occupation (Mat 4:21-22), and again on a memorable occasion (Luk 5:1-11), and finally chosen as one of the Twelve Apostles (Mat 10:2). He was the youngest of the Twelve--the "Benjamin," as DA COSTA calls him--and he and James his brother were named in the native tongue by Him who knew the heart, "Boanerges," which the Evangelist Mark (Mar 3:17) explains to mean "Sons of thunder"; no doubt from their natural vehemence of character. They and Peter constituted that select triumvirate of whom see on Luk 9:28. But the highest honor bestowed on this disciple was his being admitted to the bosom place with his Lord at the table, as "the disciple whom Jesus loved" (Joh 13:23; Joh 20:2; Joh 21:7, Joh 20:24), and to have committed to him by the dying Redeemer the care of His mother (Joh 19:26-27). There can be no reasonable doubt that this distinction was due to a sympathy with His own spirit and mind on the part of John which the all-penetrating Eye of their common Master beheld in none of the rest; and although this was probably never seen either in his life or in his ministry by his fellow apostles, it is brought out wonderfully in his writings, which, in Christ-like spirituality, heavenliness, and love, surpass, we may freely say, all the other inspired writings.

After the effusion of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, we find him in constant but silent company with Peter, the great spokesman and actor in the infant Church until the accession of Paul. While his love to the Lord Jesus drew him spontaneously to the side of His eminent servant, and his chastened vehemence made him ready to stand courageously by him, and suffer with him, in all that his testimony to Jesus might cost him, his modest humility, as the youngest of all the apostles, made him an admiring listener and faithful supporter of his brother apostle rather than a speaker or separate actor. Ecclesiastical history is uniform in testifying that John went to Asia Minor; but it is next to certain that this could not have been till after the death both of Peter and Paul; that he resided at Ephesus, whence, as from a center, he superintended the churches of that region, paying them occasional visits; and that he long survived the other apostles. Whether the mother of Jesus died before this, or went with John to Ephesus, where she died and was buried, is not agreed. One or two anecdotes of his later days have been handed down by tradition, one at least bearing marks of reasonable probability. But it is not necessary to give them here. In the reign of Domitian (A.D. 81-96) he was banished to "the isle that is called Patmos" (a small rocky and then almost uninhabited island in the Ægean Sea), "for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ" (Rev 1:9). IRENÆUS and EUSEBIUS say that this took place about the end of Domitian's reign. That he was thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil, and miraculously delivered, is one of those legends which, though reported by TERTULLIAN and JEROME, is entitled to no credit. His return from exile took place during the brief but tolerant reign of Nerva; he died at Ephesus in the reign of Trajan [EUSEBIUS, Ecclesiastical History, 3.23], at an age above ninety, according to some; according to others, one hundred; and even one hundred twenty, according to others still. The intermediate number is generally regarded as probably the nearest to the truth.

As to the date of this Gospel, the arguments for its having been composed before the destruction of Jerusalem (though relied on by some superior critics) are of the slenderest nature; such as the expression in Joh 5:2, "there is at Jerusalem, by the sheep-gate, a pool," &c.; there being no allusion to Peter's martyrdom as having occurred according to the prediction in Joh 21:18 --a thing too well known to require mention. That it was composed long after the destruction of Jerusalem, and after the decease of all the other apostles, is next to certain, though the precise time cannot be determined. Probably it was before his banishment, however; and if we date it between the years 90 and 94, we shall probably be close to the truth.

As to the readers for whom it was more immediately designed, that they were Gentiles we might naturally presume from the lateness of the date; but the multitude of explanations of things familiar to every Jew puts this beyond all question.

No doubt was ever thrown upon the genuineness and authenticity of this Gospel till about the close of the eighteenth century; nor were these embodied in any formal attack upon it till BRETSCHNEIDER, in 1820, issued his famous treatise [Probabilia], the conclusions of which he afterwards was candid enough to admit had been satisfactorily disproved. To advert to these would be as painful as unnecessary; consisting as they mostly do of assertions regarding the Discourses of our Lord recorded in this Gospel which are revolting to every spiritual mind. The Tubingen school did their best, on their peculiar mode of reasoning, to galvanize into fresh life this theory of the post-Joannean date of the Fourth Gospel; and some Unitarian critics still cling to it. But to use the striking language of VAN OOSTERZEE regarding similar speculations on the Third Gospel, "Behold, the feet of them that shall carry it out dead are already at the door" (Act 5:9). Is there one mind of the least elevation of spiritual discernment that does not see in this Gospel marks of historical truth and a surpassing glory such as none of the other Gospels possess, brightly as they too attest their own verity; and who will not be ready to say that if not historically true, and true just as it stands, it never could have been by mortal man composed or conceived?

Of the peculiarities of this Gospel, we note here only two. The one is its reflective character. While the others are purely narrative, the Fourth Evangelist, "pauses, as it were, at every turn," as DA COSTA says [Four Witnesses, p. 234], "at one time to give a reason, at another to fix the attention, to deduce consequences, or make applications, or to give utterance to the language of praise." See Joh 2:20-21, Joh 2:23-25; Joh 4:1-2; Joh 7:37-39; Joh 11:12-13, Joh 11:49-52; Joh 21:18-19, Joh 21:22-23. The other peculiarity of this Gospel is its supplementary character. By this, in the present instance, we mean something more than the studiousness with which he omits many most important particulars in our Lord's history, for no conceivable reason but that they were already familiar as household words to all his readers, through the three preceding Gospels, and his substituting in place of these an immense quantity of the richest matter not found in the other Gospels. We refer here more particularly to the nature of the additions which distinguish this Gospel; particularly the notices of the different Passovers which occurred during our Lord's public ministry, and the record of His teaching at Jerusalem, without which it is not too much to say that we could have had but a most imperfect conception either of the duration of His ministry or of the plan of it. But another feature of these additions is quite as noticeable and not less important. "We find," to use again the words of DA COSTA [Four Witnesses, pp. 238, 239], slightly abridged, "only six of our Lord's miracles recorded in this Gospel, but these are all of the most remarkable kind, and surpass the rest in depth, specialty of application, and fulness of meaning. Of these six we find only one in the other three Gospels--the multiplication of the loaves. That miracle chiefly, it would seem, on account of the important instructions of which it furnished the occasion (John 6:1-71), is here recorded anew. The five other tokens of divine power are distinguished from among the many recorded in the three other Gospels by their furnishing a still higher display of power and command over the ordinary laws and course of nature. Thus we find recorded here the first of all the miracles that Jesus wrought--the changing of water into wine (Joh 2:1-11), the cure of the nobleman's son at a distance (Joh 4:43-54); of the numerous cures of the lame and the paralytic by the word of Jesus, only one--of the man impotent for thirty and eight years (Joh 5:1-9); of the many cures of the blind, one only--of the man born blind (Joh 9:1-12); the restoration of Lazarus, not from a deathbed, like Jairus' daughter, nor from a bier, like the widow of Nain's son, but from the grave, and after lying there four days, and there sinking into corruption (John 11:1-44); and lastly, after His resurrection, the miraculous draught of fishes on the Sea of Tiberias (Joh 21:5-11). But these are all recorded chiefly to give occasion for the record of those astonishing discourses and conversations, alike with friends and with foes, with His disciples and with the multitude which they drew forth."

Other illustrations of the peculiarities of this Gospel will occur, and other points connected with it be adverted to, in the course of the Commentary.

JFB: John (Outline)

• THE WORD MADE FLESH. (Joh 1:1-14)
• A SAYING OF THE BAPTIST CONFIRMATORY OF THIS. (Joh 1:15)
• SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. (Joh 1:16-18)
• THE BAPTIST'S TESTIMONY TO CHRIST. (John 1:19-36)
• FIRST GATHERING OF DISCIPLES--JOHN ANDREW, SIMON, PHILIP, NATHANAEL. (Joh 1:37-51)
• FIRST MIRACLE, WATER MADE WINE--BRIEF VISIT TO CAPERNAUM. (Joh 2:1-12)
• CHRIST'S FIRST PASSOVER--FIRST CLEANSING OF THE TEMPLE. (Joh 2:13-25)
• NIGHT INTERVIEW OF NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. (John 3:1-21)
• JESUS IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF THE BAPTIST--HIS NOBLE TESTIMONY TO HIS MASTER. (John 3:22-36)
• CHRIST AND THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA--THE SAMARITANS OF SYCHAR. (John 4:1-42)
• SECOND GALILEAN MIRACLE--HEALING OF THE COURTIER'S SON. (Joh 4:43-54)
• THE IMPOTENT MAN HEALED--DISCOURSE OCCASIONED BY THE PERSECUTION ARISING THEREUPON. (John 5:1-47)
• FIVE THOUSAND MIRACULOUSLY FED. (Joh 6:1-13)
• JESUS WALKS ON THE SEA. (Joh 6:14-21)
• JESUS FOLLOWED BY THE MULTITUDES TO CAPERNAUM, DISCOURSES TO THEM IN THE SYNAGOGUE OF THE BREAD OF LIFE--EFFECT OF THIS ON TWO CLASSES OF THE DISCIPLES. (John 6:22-71) These verses are a little involved, from the Evangelist's desire to mention every circumstance, however minute, that might call up the scene as vividly to the reader as it stood before his own view.
• CHRIST AT THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. (John 7:1-53)
• THE WOMAN TAKEN IN ADULTERY. (Joh 8:1-11)
• FURTHER DISCOURSES OF JESUS--ATTEMPT TO STONE HIM. (John 8:12-59)
• THE OPENING OF THE EYES OF ONE BORN BLIND, AND WHAT FOLLOWED ON IT. (John 9:1-41)
• THE GOOD SHEPHERD. (John 10:1-21)
• DISCOURSE AT THE FEAST OF DEDICATION--FROM THE FURY OF HIS ENEMIES JESUS ESCAPES BEYOND JORDAN, WHERE MANY BELIEVE ON HIM. (John 10:22-42)
• LAZARUS RAISED FROM THE DEAD--THE CONSEQUENCES OF THIS. (John 11:1-46)
• THE ANOINTING AT BETHANY. (Joh 12:1-11)
• CHRIST'S TRIUMPHAL ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM. (Joh 12:12-19)
• SOME GREEKS DESIRE TO SEE JESUS--THE DISCOURSE AND SCENE THEREUPON. (John 12:20-36)
• AT THE LAST SUPPER JESUS WASHES THE DISCIPLES' FEET--THE DISCOURSE ARISING THEREUPON. (John 13:1-20)
• THE TRAITOR INDICATED--HE LEAVES THE SUPPER ROOM. (Joh 13:21-30)
• DISCOURSE AFTER THE TRAITOR'S DEPARTURE--PETER'S SELF-CONFIDENCE--HIS FALL PREDICTED. (Joh 13:31-38)
• DISCOURSE AT THE TABLE, AFTER SUPPER. (John 14:1-31)
• DISCOURSE AT THE SUPPER TABLE CONTINUED. (John 15:1-27) The spiritual oneness of Christ and His people, and His relation to them as the Source of all their spiritual life and fruitfulness, are here beautifully set forth by a figure familiar to Jewish ears (Isa 5:1, &c.).
• DISCOURSE AT THE SUPPER TABLE CONCLUDED. (John 16:1-33)
• THE INTERCESSORY PRAYER. (John 17:1-26)
• BETRAYAL AND APPREHENSION OF JESUS. (Joh 18:1-13)
• JESUS BEFORE PILATE. (Joh 18:28-40)
• JESUS BEFORE PILATE--SCOURGED--TREATED WITH OTHER SEVERITIES AND INSULTS--DELIVERED UP, AND LED AWAY TO BE CRUCIFIED. (John 19:1-16)
• CRUCIFIXION AND DEATH OF THE LORD JESUS. (Joh 19:17-30)
• BURIAL OF CHRIST. (Joh 19:31-42)
• MARY'S VISIT TO THE SEPULCHRE, AND RETURN TO IT WITH PETER AND JOHN--HER RISEN LORD APPEARS TO HER. (John 20:1-18)
• JESUS APPEARS TO THE ASSEMBLED DISCIPLES. (Joh 20:19-23)
• JESUS AGAIN APPEARS TO THE ASSEMBLED DISCIPLES. (Joh 20:24-29)
• FIRST CLOSE OF THIS GOSPEL. (Joh 20:30-31)
• SUPPLEMENTARY PARTICULARS. (John 21:1-23)
• FINAL CLOSE OF THIS GOSPEL. (Joh 21:24-25)
• JESUS BEFORE ANNAS AND CAIAPHAS--FALL OF PETER. (Joh 18:13-27)

TSK: John (Book Introduction)

John, who, according to the unanimous testimony of the ancient fathers and ecclesiastical writers, was the author of this Gospel, was the son of Zebedee, a fisherman of Bethsaida, by Salome his wife (compare Mat 10:2, with Mat 27:55, Mat 27:56 and Mar 15:40), and brother of James the elder, whom " Herod killed with the sword," (Act 12:2). Theophylact says that Salome was the daughter of Joseph, the husband of Mary, by a former wife; and that consequently she was our Lord’s sister, and John was his nephew. He followed the occupation of his father till his call to the apostleship (Mat 4:21, Mat 4:22, Mar 1:19, Mar 1:20, Luk 5:1-10), which is supposed to have been when he was about twenty five years of age; after which he was a constant eye-witness of our Lord’s labours, journeyings, discourses, miracles, passion, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. After the ascension of our Lord he returned with the other apostles to Jerusalem, and with the rest partook of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, by which he was eminently qualified for the office of an Evangelist and Apostle. After the death of Mary, the mother of Christ, which is supposed to have taken place about fifteen years after the crucifixion, and probably after the council held in Jerusalem about ad 49 or 50 (Acts 15), at which he was present, he is said by ecclesiastical writers to have proceeded to Asia Minor, where he formed and presided over seven churches in as many cities, but chiefly resided at Ephesus. Thence he was banished by the emperor Domitian, in the fifteenth year of his reign, ad 95, to the isle of Patmos in the Agean sea, where he wrote the Apocalypse (Rev 1:9). On the accession of Nerva the following year, he was recalled from exile and returned to Ephesus, where he wrote his Gospel and Epistles, and died in the hundredth year of his age, about ad 100, and in the third year of the emperor Trajan. It is generally believed that St. John was the youngest of the twelve apostles, and that he survived all the rest. Jerome, in his comment on Gal VI., says that he continued preaching when so enfeebled with age as to be obliged to be carried into the assembly; and that, not being able to deliver any long discourse, his custom was to say in every meeting, My dear children, love one another. The general current of ancient writers declares that the apostle wrote his Gospel at an advanced period of life, with which the internal evidence perfectly agrees; and we may safely refer it, with Chrysostom, Epiphanius, Mill, Lev. Clerc, and others, to the year 97. The design of St. John in writing his Gospel is said by some to have been to supply those important events which the other Evangelists had omitted, and to refute the notions of the Cerinthians and Nicolaitans, or according to others, to refute the heresy of the Gnostics and Sabians. But, though many parts of his Gospel may be successfully quoted against the strange doctrines held by those sects, yet the apostle had evidently a more general end in view than the confutation of their heresies. His own words sufficiently inform us of his motive and design in writing this Gospel: " These things are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing, ye might have life through his name" (Joh 20:31). Learned men are not wholly agreed concerning the language in which this Gospel was originally written. Salmasius, Grotius, and other writers, have imagined that St. John wrote it in his own native tongue, the Aramean or Syriac, and that it was afterwards translated into Greek. This opinion is not supported by any strong arguments, and is contradicted by the unanimous voice of antiquity, which affirms that he wrote it in Greek, which is the general and most probable opinion. The style of this Gospel indicates a great want of those advantages which result from a learned education; but this defect is amply compensated by the unexampled simplicity with which he expresses the sublimest truths. One thing very remarkable is an attempt to impress important truths more strongly on the minds of his readers, by employing in the expression of them both an affirmative proposition and a negative. It is manifestly not without design that he commonly passes over those passages of our Lord’s history and teaching which had been treated at large by other Evangelists, or if he touches them at all, he touches them but slightly, whilst he records many miracles which had been overlooked by the rest, and expatiates on the sublime doctrines of the pre-existence, the divinity, and the incarnation of the Word, the great ends of His mission, and the blessings of His purchase.

TSK: John 6 (Chapter Introduction)

Overview

Joh 6:1, Christ feeds five thousand men with five loaves and two fishes; Joh 6:15, Thereupon the people would have made him king; Joh 6:16, but withdrawing himself, he walks on the sea to his disciples; Joh 6:26, reproves the people flocking after him, and all the fleshly hearers of his word; Joh 6:32, declares himself to be the bread of life to believers; Joh 6:66, Many disciples depart from him; Joh 6:68, Peter confesses him; Joh 6:70, Judas is a devil.

Poole: John 6 (Chapter Introduction)

CHAPTER 6

MHCC: John (Book Introduction)

The apostle and evangelist, John, seems to have been the youngest of the twelve. He was especially favoured with our Lord's regard and confidence, so as to be spoken of as the disciple whom Jesus loved. He was very sincerely attached to his Master. He exercised his ministry at Jerusalem with much success, and outlived the destruction of that city, agreeably to Christ's prediction, Joh 21:22. History relates that after the death of Christ's mother, John resided chiefly at Ephesus. Towards the close of Domitian's reign he was banished to the isle of Patmos, where he wrote his Revelation. On the accession of Nerva, he was set at liberty, and returned to Ephesus, where it is thought he wrote his Gospel and Epistles, about A. D. 97, and died soon after. The design of this Gospel appears to be to convey to the Christian world, just notions of the real nature, office, and character of that Divine Teacher, who came to instruct and to redeem mankind. For this purpose, John was directed to select for his narrative, those passages of our Saviour's life, which most clearly displayed his Divine power and authority; and those of his discourses, in which he spake most plainly of his own nature, and of the power of his death, as an atonement for the sins of the world. By omitting, or only briefly mentioning, the events recorded by the other evangelists, John gave testimony that their narratives are true, and left room for the doctrinal statements already mentioned, and for particulars omitted in the other Gospels, many of which are exceedingly important.

MHCC: John 6 (Chapter Introduction)

(Joh 6:1-14) Five thousand miraculously fed.

(Joh 6:15-21) Jesus walks on the sea.

(Joh 6:22-27) He directs to spiritual food.

(v. 28-65) His discourse with the multitude.

(Joh 6:66-71) Many of disciples go back.

Matthew Henry: John (Book Introduction)

An Exposition, with Practical Observations, of The Gospel According to St. John

It is not material to enquire when and where this gospel was written; we are sure that it was given by inspiration of God to John, the brother of James, one of the twelve apostles, distinguished by the honourable character of that disciple whom Jesus loved, one of the first three of the worthies of the Son of David, whom he took to be the witnesses of his retirements, particularly of his transfiguration and his agony. The ancients tell us that John lived longest of all the twelve apostles, and was the only one of them that died a natural death, all the rest suffering martyrdom; and some of them say that he wrote this gospel at Ephesus, at the request of the ministers of the several churches of Asia, in opposition to the heresy of Corinthus and the Ebionites, who held that our Lord was a mere man. It seems most probable that he wrote it before his banishment into the isle of Patmos, for there he wrote his Apocalypse, the close of which seems designed for the closing up of the canon of scripture; and, if so, this gospel was not written after. I cannot therefore give credit to those later fathers, who say that he wrote it in his banishment, or after his return from it, many years after the destruction of Jerusalem; when he was ninety years old, saith one of them; when he was a hundred, saith another of them. However, it is clear that he wrote last of the four evangelists, and, comparing his gospel with theirs, we may observe, 1. That he relates what they had omitted; he brings up the rear, and his gospel is as the rearward or gathering host; it gleans up what they has passed by. Thus there was a later collection of Solomon's wise sayings (Pro 25:1), and yet far short of what he delivered, 1Ki 4:32. 2. That he gives us more of the mystery of that of which the other evangelists gave us only the history. It was necessary that the matters of fact should be first settled, which was done in their declarations of those things which Jesus began both to do and teach, Luk 1:1; Act 1:1. But, this being done out of the mouth of two or three witnesses, John goes on to perfection (Heb 6:1), not laying again the foundation, but building upon it, leading us more within the veil. Some of the ancients observe that the other evangelists wrote more of the ta sōmatika - the bodily things of Christ; but John writes of the ta pneumatika - the spiritual things of the gospel, the life and soul of it; therefore some have called this gospel the key of the evangelists. Here is it that a door is opened in heaven, and the first voice we hear is, Come up hither, come up higher. Some of the ancients, that supposed the four living creatures in John's vision to represent the for evangelists, make John himself to be the flying eagle, so high does he soar, and so clearly does he see into divine and heavenly things.

Matthew Henry: John 6 (Chapter Introduction)

In this chapter we have, I. The miracle of the loaves (Joh 6:1-14). II. Christ's walking upon the water (Joh 6:15-21). III. The people's flocking after him to Capernaum (Joh 6:22-25). IV. His conference with them, occasioned by the miracle of the loaves, in which he reproves them for seeking carnal food, and directs them to spiritual food (Joh 6:26, Joh 6:27), showing them how they must labour for spiritual food (Joh 6:28, Joh 6:29), and what that spiritual food is (v. 30-59). V. Their discontent at what he said, and the reproof he gave them for it (Joh 6:60-65). VI. The apostasy of many from him, and his discourse with his disciples that adhered to him upon that occasion (Joh 6:66-71).

Barclay: John (Book Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO SAINT JOHN

The Gospel Of The EagleEye

For many Christian people the Gospel according to St. John is the most precious book in the New Testament. It is the book on which above all they feed their minds and nourish their hearts, and in which they rest their souls. Very often on stained glass windows and the like the gospel writers are represented in symbol by the figures of the four beasts whom the writer of the Revelation saw around the throne (Rev_4:7 ). The emblems are variously distributed among the gospel writers, but a common allocation is that the man stands for Mark, which is the plainest, the most straightforward and the most human of the gospels; the lion stands for Matthew, for he specially saw Jesus as the Messiah and the Lion of the tribe of Judah; the ox stands for Luke, because it is the animal of service and sacrifice, and Luke saw Jesus as the great servant of men and the universal sacrifice for all mankind; the eagle stands for John, because it alone of all living creatures can look straight into the sun and not be dazzled, and John has the most penetrating gaze of all the New Testament writers into the eternal mysteries and the eternal truths and the very mind of God. Many people find themselves closer to God and to Jesus Christ in John than in any other book in the world.

The Gospel That Is Different

But we have only to read the Fourth Gospel in the most cursory way to see that it is quite different from the other three. It omits so many things that they include. The Fourth Gospel has no account of the Birth of Jesus, of his baptism, of his temptations; it tells us nothing of the Last Supper, nothing of Gethsemane, and nothing of the Ascension. It has no word of the healing of any people possessed by devils and evil spirits. And, perhaps most surprising of all, it has none of the parable stories Jesus told which are so priceless a part of the other three gospels. In these other three gospels Jesus speaks either in these wonderful stories or in short, epigrammatic, vivid sentences which stick in the memory. But in the Fourth Gospel the speeches of Jesus are often a whole chapter long; and are often involved, argumentative pronouncements quite unlike the pithy, unforgettable sayings of the other three.

Even more surprising, the account in the Fourth Gospel of the facts of the life and ministry of Jesus is often different from that in the other three.

(i) John has a different account of the beginning of the ministry of Jesus. In the other three gospels it is quite definitely stated that Jesus did not emerge as a preacher until after John the Baptist had been imprisoned. "Now after John was arrested Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God" (Mar_1:14 ; Luk_3:18 , Luk_3:20 ; Mat_4:12 ). But in John there is a quite considerable period during which the ministry of Jesus over-lapped with the activity of John the Baptist (Joh_3:22-30 ; Joh_4:1-2 ).

(ii) John has a different account of the scene of Jesusinistry. In the other three gospels the main scene of the ministry is Galilee and Jesus does not reach Jerusalem until the last week of his life. In John the main scene of the ministry is Jerusalem and Judaea, with only occasional withdrawals to Galilee (Joh_2:1-13 ; Joh_4:35 through Joh_5:1 ; Joh_6:1 through Joh_7:14 ). In John, Jesus is in Jerusalem for a Passover which occurred at the same time as the cleansing of the Temple, as John tells the story (Joh_2:13 ); he is in Jerusalem at the time of an unnamed feast (Joh_5:1 ); he is there for the Feast of Tabernacles (Joh_7:2 , Joh_7:10 ); he is there at the Feast of Dedication in the winter-time (Joh_10:22 ). In fact according to the Fourth Gospel Jesus never left Jerusalem after that feast; after Jn 10 he is in Jerusalem all the time, which would mean a stay of months, from the winter-time of the Feast of the Dedication to the spring-time of the Passover at which he was crucified.

In point of fact in this particular matter John is surely right. The other gospels show us Jesus mourning over Jerusalem as the last week came on. "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!" (Mat_23:37 ; Luk_13:34 ). It is clear that Jesus could not have said that unless he had paid repeated visits to Jerusalem and made repeated appeals to it. It was impossible for him to say that on a first visit. In this John is unquestionably right.

It was in fact this difference of scene which provided Eusebius with one of the earliest explanations of the difference between the Fourth Gospel and the other three. He said that in his day (about A.D. 300) many people who were scholars held the following view. Matthew at first preached to the Hebrew people. The day came when he had to leave them and to go to other nations. Before he went he set down his story of the life of Jesus in Hebrew, "and thus compensated those whom he was obliged to leave for the loss of his presence." After Mark and Luke had published their gospels, John was still preaching the story of Jesus orally. "Finally he proceeded to write for the following reason. The three gospels already mentioned having come into the hands of all and into his hands too, they say that he fully accepted them and bore witness to their truthfulness; but there was lacking in them an account of the deeds done by Christ at the beginning of his ministry.... They therefore say that John, being asked to do it for this reason, gave in his gospel an account of the period which had been omitted by the earlier evangelists, and of the deeds done by the Saviour during that period; that is, of the deeds done before the imprisonment of John the Baptist.... John therefore records the deeds of Christ which were performed before the Baptist was cast into prison, but the other three evangelists mention the events which happened after that time.... The Gospel according to John contains the first acts of Christ, while the others give an account of the latter part of his life." (Eusebius, The Ecclesiastical History 5: 24.)

So then according to Eusebius there is no contradiction at all between the Fourth Gospel and the other three; the difference is due to the fact that the Fourth Gospel is describing a ministry in Jerusalem, at least in its earlier chapters, which preceded the ministry in Galilee, and which took place while John the Baptist was still at liberty. It may well be that this explanation of Eusebius is at least in part correct.

(iii) John has a different account of the duration of Jesusinistry. The other three gospels, on the face of it, imply that it lasted only one year. Within the ministry there is only one Passover Feast. In John there are three Passovers, one at the Cleansing of the Temple (Joh_2:13 ); one near the Feeding of the Five Thousand (Joh_6:4 ); and the final Passover at which Jesus went to the Cross. According to John the ministry of Jesus would take a minimum of two years, and probably a period nearer three years, to cover its events. Again John is unquestionably right. If we read the other three gospels closely and carefully we can see that he is right. When the disciples plucked the ears of corn (Mar_2:23 ) it must have been spring-time. When the five thousand were fed, they sat down on the green grass (Mar_6:39 ); therefore it was spring-time again, and there must have been a year between the two events. There follows the tour through Tyre and Sidon, and the Transfiguration. At the Transfiguration Peter wished to build three booths and to stay there. It is most natural to think that it was the time of the Feast of Tabernacles or Booths and that that is why Peter made the suggestion (Mar_9:5 ). That would make the date early in October. There follows the space between that and the last Passover in April. Therefore, behind the narrative of the other three gospels lies the fact that Jesusinistry actually did last for at least three years, as John represents it.

(iv) It sometimes even happens that John differs in matters of fact from the other three. There are two outstanding examples. First, John puts the Cleansing of the Temple at the beginning of Jesusinistry (Joh_2:13-22 ), the others put it at the end (Mar_11:15-17 ; Mat_21:12-13 ; Luk_19:45-46 ). Second, when we come to study the narratives in detail, we will see that John dates the crucifixion of Jesus on the day before the Passover, while the other gospels date it on the day of the Passover.

We can never shut our eyes to the obvious differences between John and the other gospels.

JohnSpecial Knowledge

One thing is certain--if John differs from the other three gospels, it is not because of ignorance and lack of information. The plain fact is that, if he omits much that they tell us, he also tells us much that they do not mention. John alone tells of the marriage feast at Cana of Galilee (Joh_2:1-11 ); of the coming of Nicodemus to Jesus (Joh_3:1-15 ); of the woman of Samaria Jn 4 ; of the raising of Lazarus (Jn 11 ); of the way in which Jesus washed his discipleseet (Joh_13:1-17 ); of Jesusonderful teaching about the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, which is scattered through Jn 14 Jn 15 Jn 16 and Jn 17 . It is only in John that some of the disciples really come alive. It is in John alone that Thomas speaks (Joh_11:16 ; Joh_14:5 ; Joh_20:24-29 ); that Andrew becomes a real personality (Joh_1:40-41 ; Joh_6:8-9 ; Joh_12:22 ); that we get a glimpse of the character of Philip (Joh_6:5-7 ; Joh_14:8-9 ); that we hear the carping protest of Judas at the anointing at Bethany (Joh_12:4-5 ). And the strange thing is that these little extra touches are intensely revealing. Johnpictures of Thomas and Andrew and Philip are like little cameos or vignettes in which the character of each man is etched in a way we cannot forget.

Further, again and again John has little extra details which read like the memories of one who was there. The loaves which the lad brought to Jesus were barley loaves (Joh_6:9 ); when Jesus came to the disciples as they crossed the lake in the storm they had rowed between three and four miles (Joh_6:19 ); there were six stone waterpots at Cana of Galilee (Joh_2:6 ); it is only John who tells of the four soldiers gambling for the seamless robe as Jesus died (Joh_19:23 ); he knows the exact weight of the myrrh and aloes which were used to anoint the dead body of Jesus (Joh_19:39 ); he remembers how the perfume of the ointment filled the house at the anointing at Bethany (Joh_12:3 ). Many of these things are such apparently unimportant details that they are inexplicable unless they are the memories of a man who was there.

However much John may differ from the other three gospels, that difference is not to be explained by ignorance but rather by the fact that he had more knowledge or better sources or a more vivid memory than the others.

Further evidence of the specialised information of the writer of the Fourth Gospel is his detailed knowledge of Palestine and of Jerusalem. He knows how long it took to build the Temple (Joh_2:20 ); that the Jews and the Samaritans had a permanent quarrel (Joh_4:9 ); the low Jewish view of women (Joh_4:9 ); the way in which the Jews regard the Sabbath (Joh_5:10 ; Joh_7:21-23 ; Joh_9:14 ). His knowledge of the geography of Palestine is intimate. He knows of two Bethanys, one of which is beyond Jordan (Joh_1:28 ; Joh_12:1 ); he knows that Bethsaida was the home of some of the disciples (Joh_1:44 ; Joh_12:21 ); that Cana is in Galilee (Joh_2:1 ; Joh_4:46 ; Joh_21:2 ); that Sychar is near Shechem (Joh_4:5 ). He has what one might call a street by street knowledge of Jerusalem. He knows the sheep-gate and the pool near it (Joh_5:2 ); the pool of Siloam (Joh_9:7 ); SolomonPorch (Joh_10:23 ); the brook Kidron (Joh_18:1 ); the pavement which is called Gabbatha (Joh_19:13 ); Golgotha, which is like a skull (Joh_19:17 ). It must be remembered that Jerusalem was destroyed in A.D. 70 and that John did not write until A.D. 100 or thereby; and yet from his memory he knows Jerusalem like the back of his hand.

The Circumstances In Which John Wrote

We have seen that there are very real differences between the Fourth and the other three gospels; and we have seen that, whatever the reason, it was not lack of knowledge on Johnpart. We must now go on to ask, What was the aim with which John wrote? If we can discover this we will discover why he selected and treated his facts as he did.

The Fourth Gospel was written in Ephesus about the year A.D. 100. By that time two special features had emerged in the situation of the Christian church. First, Christianity had gone out into the Gentile world. By that time the Christian church was no longer predominantly Jewish; it was in fact overwhelmingly gentile. The vast majority of its members now came, not from a Jewish, but an Hellenistic background. That being so, Christianity had to be restated. It was not that the truth of Christianity had changed; but the terms and the categories in which it found expression had to be changed.

Take but one instance. A Greek might take up the Gospel according to St. Matthew. No sooner had he opened it than he was confronted with a long genealogy. Genealogies were familiar enough to the Jew but quite unintelligible to the Greek. He would read on. He would be confronted with a Jesus who was the Son of David, a king of whom the Greeks had never heard, and the symbol of a racial and nationalist ambition which was nothing to the Greek. He would be faced with the picture of Jesus as Messiah, a term of which the Greek had never heard. Must the Greek who wished to become a Christian be compelled to reorganize his whole thinking into Jewish categories? Must he learn a good deal about Jewish history and Jewish apocalyptic literature (which told about the coming of the Messiah) before he could become a Christian? As E. J. Goodspeed phrased it: "Was there no way in which he might be introduced directly to the values of Christian salvation without being for ever routed, we might even say, detoured, through Judaism?" The Greek was one of the worldgreat thinkers. Had he to abandon all his own great intellectual heritage in order to think entirely in Jewish terms and categories of thought?

John faced that problem fairly and squarely. And he found one of the greatest solutions which ever entered the mind of man. Later on, in the commentary, we shall deal much more fully with Johngreat solution. At the moment we touch on it briefly. The Greeks had two great conceptions.

(a) They had the conception of the Logos. In Greek logos (G3056) means two things--it means word and it means reason. The Jew was entirely familiar with the all-powerful word of God. "God said, Let there be light; and there was light" (Gen_1:3 ). The Greek was entirely familiar with the thought of reason. He looked at this world; he saw a magnificent and dependable order. Night and day came with unfailing regularity; the year kept its seasons in unvarying course; the stars and the planets moved in their unaltering path; nature had her unvarying laws. What produced this order? The Greek answered unhesitatingly, The Logos (G3056), the mind of God, is responsible for the majestic order of the world. He went on, What is it that gives man power to think, to reason and to know? Again he answered unhesitatingly, The Logos (G3056), the mind of God, dwelling within a man makes him a thinking rational being.

John seized on this. It was in this way that he thought of Jesus. He said to the Greeks, "All your lives you have been fascinated by this great, guiding, controlling mind of God. The mind of God has come to earth in the man Jesus. Look at him and you see what the mind and thought of God are like." John had discovered a new category in which the Greek might think of Jesus, a category in which Jesus was presented as nothing less than God acting in the form of a man.

(b) They had the conception of two worlds. The Greek always conceived of two worlds. The one was the world in which we live. It was a wonderful world in its way but a world of shadows and copies and unrealities. The other was the real world, in which the great realities, of which our earthly things are only poor, pale copies, stand for ever. To the Greek the unseen world was the real one; the seen world was only shadowy unreality.

Plato systematized this way of thinking in his doctrine of forms or ideas. He held that in the unseen world there was the perfect pattern of everything, and the things of this world were shadowy copies of these eternal patterns. To put it simply, Plato held that somewhere there was a perfect pattern of a table of which all earthly tables are inadequate copies; somewhere there was the perfect pattern of the good and the beautiful of which all earthly goodness and earthly beauty are imperfect copies. And the great reality, the supreme idea, the pattern of all patterns and the form of all forms was God. The great problem was how to get into this world of reality, how to get out of our shadows into the eternal truths.

John declares that that is what Jesus enables us to do. He is reality come to earth. The Greek word for real in this sense is alethinos (G228); it is very closely connected with the word alethes (G227), which means true, and aletheia (G225), which means "the truth." The King James and Revised Standard Versions translate alethinos (G228) true; they would be far better to translate it "real." Jesus is the real light (Joh_1:9 ); Jesus is the real bread (Joh_6:32 ); Jesus is the real vine (Joh_15:1 ); to Jesus belongs the real judgment (Joh_8:16 ). Jesus alone has reality in our world of shadows and imperfections.

Something follows from that. Every action that Jesus did was, therefore, not only an act in time but a window which allows us to see into reality. That is what John means when he talks of Jesusiracles as signs (semeia - G4592). The wonderful works of Jesus were not simply wonderful; they were windows opening onto the reality which is God. This explains why John tells the miracle stories in a quite different way from the other three gospel writers. There are two differences.

(a) In the Fourth Gospel we miss the note of compassion which is in the miracle stories of the others. In the others Jesus is moved with compassion for the leper (Mar_1:41 ); his sympathy goes out to Jairus (Mar_5:22 ); he is sorry for the father of the epileptic boy (Mar_9:14 ); when he raises to life the son of the widow of Nain, Luke says with an infinite tenderness, "He gave him to his mother" (Luk_7:15 ). But in John the miracles are not so much deeds of compassion as deeds which demonstrate the glory of Christ. After the miracle at Cana of Galilee, John comments: "This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory" (Joh_2:11 ). The raising of Lazarus happens "for the glory of God" (Joh_11:4 ). The blind manblindness existed to allow a demonstration of the glory of the works of God (Joh_9:3 ). To John it was not that there was no love and compassion in the miracles; but in every one of them he saw the glory of the reality of God breaking into time and into human affairs.

(b) Often the miracles of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel are accompanied by a long discourse. The feeding of the five thousand is followed by the long discourse on the bread of life (Jn 6 ); the healing of the blind man springs from the saying that Jesus is the light of the world (Jn 9 ); the raising of Lazarus leads up to the saying that Jesus is the resurrection and the life (Jn 11 ). To John the miracles were not simply single events in time; they were insights into what God is always doing and what Jesus always is; they were windows into the reality of God. Jesus did not merely once feed five thousand people; that was an illustration that he is for ever the real bread of life. Jesus did not merely once open the eyes of a blind man; he is for ever the light of the world. Jesus did not merely once raise Lazarus from the dead; he is for ever and for all men the resurrection and the life. To John a miracle was never an isolated act; it was always a window into the reality of what Jesus always was and always is and always did and always does.

It was with this in mind that that great scholar Clement of Alexandria (about A.D. 230) arrived at one of the most famous and true of all verdicts about the origin and aim of the Fourth Gospel. It was his view that the gospels containing the genealogies had been written first--that is, Luke and Matthew; that then Mark at the request of many who had heard Peter preach composed his gospel, which embodied the preaching material of Peter; and that then "last of all, John, perceiving that what had reference to the bodily things of Jesusinistry had been sufficiently related, and encouraged by his friends, and inspired by the Holy Spirit, wrote a spiritual gospel" (quoted in Eusebius, The Ecclesiastical History 6 : 14). What Clement meant was that John was not so much interested in the mere facts as in the meaning of the facts, that it was not facts he was after but truth. John did not see the events of Jesusife simply as events in time; he saw them as windows looking into eternity, and he pressed towards the spiritual meaning of the events and the words of Jesusife in a way that the other three gospels did not attempt.

That is still one of the truest verdicts on the Fourth Gospel ever reached. John did write, not an historical, but a spiritual gospel.

So then, first of all, John presented Jesus as the mind of God in a person come to earth, and as the one person who possesses reality instead of shadows and able to lead men out of the shadows into the real world of which Plato and the great Greeks had dreamed. The Christianity which had once been clothed in Jewish categories had taken to itself the greatness of the thought of the Greeks.

The Rise Of The Heresies

The second of the great facts confronting the church when the Fourth Gospel was written was the rise of heresy. It was now seventy years since Jesus had been crucified. By this time the church was an organisation and an institution. Theologies and creeds were being thought out and stated; and inevitably the thoughts of some people went down mistaken ways and heresies resulted. A heresy is seldom a complete untruth; it usually results when one facet of the truth is unduly emphasised. We can see at least two of the heresies which the writer of the Fourth Gospel sought to combat.

(a) There were certain Christians, especially Jewish Christians, who gave too high a place to John the Baptist. There was something about him which had an inevitable appeal to the Jews. He walked in the prophetic succession and talked with the prophetic voice. We know that in later times there was an accepted sect of John the Baptist within the orthodox Jewish faith. In Act_19:1-7 we come upon a little group of twelve men on the fringe of the Christian church who had never gotten beyond the baptism of John.

Over and over again the Fourth Gospel quietly, but definitely, relegates John to his proper place. Over and over again John himself denies that he has ever claimed or possessed the highest place, and without qualification yields that place to Jesus. We have already seen that in the other gospels the ministry of Jesus did not begin until John the Baptist had been put into prison, but that in the Fourth Gospel their ministries overlap. The writer of the Fourth Gospel may well have used that arrangement to show John and Jesus in actual meeting and to show that John used these meetings to admit, and to urge others to admit, the supremacy of Jesus. It is carefully pointed out that John is not that light (Joh_1:8 ). He is shown as quite definitely disclaiming all Messianic aspirations (Joh_1:20 ; Joh_3:28 ; Joh_4:1 ; Joh_10:41 ). It is not even permissible to think of him as the highest witness (Joh_5:36 ). There is no criticism at all of John the Baptist in the Fourth Gospel; but there is a rebuke to those who would give him a place which ought to belong to Jesus and to Jesus alone.

(b) A certain type of heresy which was very widely spread in the days when the Fourth Gospel was written is called by the general name of Gnosticism. Without some understanding of it much of Johngreatness and much of his aim will be missed. The basic doctrine of Gnosticism was that matter is essentially evil and spirit is essentially good. The Gnostics went on to argue that on that basis God himself cannot touch matter and therefore did not create the world. What he did was to put out a series of emanations. Each of these emanations was further from him, until at last there was one so distant from him that it could touch matter. That emanation was the creator of the world.

By itself that idea is bad enough, but it was made worse by an addition. The Gnostics held that each emanation knew less and less about God, until there was a stage when the emanations were not only ignorant of God but actually hostile to him. So they finally came to the conclusion that the creator god was not only different from the real God, but was also quite ignorant of and actively hostile to him. Cerinthus, one of the leaders of the Gnostics, said that "the world was created, not by God, but by a certain power far separate from him, and far distant from that Power who is over the universe, and ignorant of the God who is over all."

The Gnostics believed that God had nothing to do with the creating of the world. That is why John begins his gospel with the ringing statement: "All things were made through him; and without him was not anything made that was made" (Joh_1:3 ). That is why John insists that "God so loved the world" (Joh_3:16 ). In face of the Gnostics who so mistakenly spiritualized God into a being who could not possibly have anything to do with the world, John presented the Christian doctrine of the God who made the world and whose presence fills the world that he has made.

The beliefs of the Gnostics impinged on their ideas of Jesus.

(a) Some of the Gnostics held that Jesus was one of the emanations which had proceeded from God. They held that he was not in any real sense divine; that he was only a kind of demigod who was more or less distant from the real God; that he was simply one of a chain of lesser beings between God and the world.

(b) Some of the Gnostics held that Jesus had no real body. A body is matter and God could not touch matter; therefore Jesus was a kind of phantom without real flesh and blood. They held, for instance, that when he stepped on the ground he left no footprint, for his body had neither weight nor substance. They could never have said: "The Word became flesh" (Joh_1:14 ). Augustine tells how he had read much in the work of the philosophers of his day; he had found much that was very like what was in the New Testament, but, he said: "e Word was made flesh and dwelt among us did not read there." That is why John in his First Letter insists that Jesus came in the flesh, and declares that any one who denies that fact is moved by the spirit of antichrist (1Jo_4:3 ). This particular heresy is known as Docetism. Docetism comes from the Greek word dokein (G1380) which means to seem ; and the heresy is so called because it held that Jesus only seemed to be a man.

(c) Some Gnostics held a variation of that heresy. They held that Jesus was a man into whom the Spirit of God came at his baptism; that Spirit remained with him throughout his life until the end; but since the Spirit of God could never suffer and die, it left him before he was crucified. They gave Jesusry on the Cross as : "My power, my power, why hast thou forsaken me?" And in their books they told of people talking on the Mount of Olives to a form which looked exactly like Jesus while the man Jesus died on the Cross.

So then the Gnostic heresies issued in one of two beliefs. They believed either that Jesus was not really divine but simply one of a series of emanations from God, or that he was not in any sense human but a kind of phantom in the shape of a man. The Gnostic beliefs at one and the same time destroyed the real godhead and the real manhood of Jesus.

The Humanity Of Jesus

The fact that John is out to correct both these Gnostic tendencies explains a curious paradoxical double emphasis in his gospel. On the one hand, there is no gospel which so uncompromisingly stresses the real humanity of Jesus. Jesus was angry with those who bought and sold in the Temple courts (Joh_2:15 ); he was physically tired as he sat by the well which was near Sychar in Samaria (Joh_4:6 ); his disciples offered him food in the way in which they would offer it to any hungry man (Joh_4:31 ); he had sympathy with those who were hungry and with those who were afraid (Joh_6:5 , Joh_6:20 ); he knew grief and he wept tears as any mourner might do (Joh_11:33 , Joh_11:35 , Joh_11:38 ); in the agony of the Cross the cry of his parched lips was: "I thirst" (Joh_19:28 ). The Fourth Gospel shows us a Jesus who was no shadowy, docetic figure; it shows us one who knew the weariness of an exhausted body and the wounds of a distressed mind and heart. It is the truly human Jesus whom the Fourth Gospel sets before us.

The Deity Of Jesus

On the other hand, there is no gospel which sets before us such a view of the deity of Jesus.

(a) John stresses the preexistence of Jesus. "Before Abraham was," said Jesus, "I am" (Joh_8:58 ). He talks of the glory which he had with the Father before the world was made (Joh_17:5 ). Again and again he speaks of his coming down from heaven (Joh_6:33-38 ). John saw in Jesus one who had always been, even before the world began.

(b) The Fourth Gospel stresses more than any of the others the omniscience of Jesus. It is Johnview that apparently miraculously Jesus knew the past record of the woman of Samaria (Joh_4:16-17 ); apparently without anyone telling him he knew how long the man beside the healing pool had been ill (Joh_5:6 ); before he asked it, he knew the answer to the question he put to Philip (Joh_6:6 ); he knew that Judas would betray him (Joh_6:61-64 ); he knew of the death of Lazarus before anyone told him of it (Joh_11:14 ). John saw in Jesus one who had a special and miraculous knowledge independent of anything which any man might tell him. He needed to ask no questions because he knew all the answers.

(c) The Fourth Gospel stresses the fact, as John saw it, that Jesus always acted entirely on his own initiative and uninfluenced by anyone else. It was not his motherrequest which moved him to the miracle at Cana of Galilee; it was his own personal decision (Joh_2:4 ); the urging of his brothers had nothing to do with the visit which he paid to Jerusalem at the Feast of Tabernacles (Joh_7:10 ); no man took his life from him--no man could; he laid it down purely voluntarily (Joh_10:18 ; Joh_19:11 ). As John saw it, Jesus had a divine independence from all human influence. He was self-determined.

To meet the Gnostics and their strange beliefs John presents us with a Jesus who was undeniably human and who yet was undeniably divine.

The Author Of The Fourth Gospel

We have seen that the aim of the writer of the Fourth Gospel was to present the Christian faith in such a way that it would commend itself to the Greek world to which Christianity had gone out, and also to combat the heresies and mistaken ideas which had arisen within the church. We go on to ask, Who is that writer? Tradition answers unanimously that the author was John the apostle. We shall see that beyond doubt the authority of John lies behind the gospel, although it may well be that its actual form and penmanship did not come from his hand. Let us, then, collect what we know about him.

He was the younger son of Zebedee, who possessed a fishing boat on the Sea of Galilee and was well enough off to be able to employ hired servants to help him with his work (Mar_1:19-20 ). His mother was Salome, and it seems likely that she was the sister of Mary, the mother of Jesus (Mat_27:56 ; Mar_16:1 ). With his brother James he obeyed the call of Jesus (Mar_1:20 ). It would seem that James and John were in partnership with Peter in the fishing trade (Luk_5:7-10 ). He was one of the inner circle of the disciples, for the lists of the disciples always begin with the names of Peter, James and John, and there were certain great occasions when Jesus took these three specially with him (Mar_3:17 ; Mar_5:37 ; Mar_9:2 ; Mar_14:33 ).

In character he was clearly a turbulent and ambitious man. Jesus gave to him and to his brother the name Boanerges, which the gospel writers take to mean Sons of Thunder. John and his brother James were completely exclusive and intolerant (Mar_9:38 ; Luk_9:49 ). So violent was their temper that they were prepared to blast a Samaritan village out of existence because it would not give them hospitality when they were on their journey to Jerusalem (Luk_9:54 ). Either they or their mother Salome had the ambition that when Jesus came into his kingdom, they might be his principal ministers of state (Mar_10:35 ; Mat_20:20 ). In the other three gospels John appears as a leader of the apostolic band, one of the inner circle, and yet a turbulent ambitious and intolerant character.

In the Book of Acts John always appears as the companion of Peter, and he himself never speaks at all. His name is still one of the three names at the head of the apostolic list (Acts 1:13). He is with Peter when the lame man is healed at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple (Act_3:1 ). With Peter he is brought before the Sanhedrin and faces the Jewish leaders with a courage and a boldness that astonished them (Act_4:1-13 ). With Peter he goes from Jerusalem to Samaria to survey the work done by Philip (Act_8:14 ).

In Paulletters he appears only once. In Galatians 2:9 he is named as one of the pillars of the church along with Peter and James, and with them is depicted as giving his approval to the work of Paul.

John was a strange mixture. He was one of the leaders of the Twelve; he was one of the inner circle of Jesuslosest friends; at the same time he was a man of temper and ambition and intolerance, and yet of courage.

We may follow John into the stories told of him in the early church. Eusebius tells us that he was banished to Patmos in the reign of Domitian (Eusebius, The Ecclesiastical History 3 : 23). In the same passage Eusebius tells a characteristic story about John, a story which he received from Clement of Alexandria. John became a kind of bishop of Asia Minor and was visiting one of his churches near Ephesus. In the congregation he saw a tall and exceptionally fine-looking young man. He turned to the elder in charge of the congregation and said to him: "I commit that young man into your charge and into your care, and I call this congregation to witness that I do so." The elder took the young man into his own house and cared for him and instructed him, and the day came when he was baptized and received into the church. But very soon afterwards he fell in with evil friends and embarked on such a career of crime that he ended up by becoming the leader of a band of murdering and pillaging brigands. Some time afterwards John returned to the congregation. He said to the elder: "Restore to me the trust which I and the Lord committed to you and to the church of which you are in charge." At first the elder did not understand of what John was speaking. "I mean," said John, "that I am asking you for the soul of the young man whom I entrusted to you." "Alas!" said the elder, "he is dead." "Dead?" said John. "He is dead to God," said the elder. "He fell from grace; he was forced to flee from the city for his crimes and now he is a brigand in the mountains." Straightway John went to the mountains. Deliberately he allowed himself to be captured by the robber band. They brought him before the young man who was now the chief of the band and, in his shame, the young man tried to run away from him. John, though an old man, pursued him. "My son," he cried, "are you running away from your father? I am feeble and far advanced in age; have pity on me, my son; fear not; there is yet hope of salvation for you. I will stand for you before the Lord Christ. If need be I will gladly die for you as he died for me. Stop, stay, believe! It is Christ who has sent me to you." The appeal broke the heart of the young man. He stopped, threw away his weapons, and wept. Together he and John came down the mountainside and he was brought back into the church and into the Christian way. There we see the love and the courage of John still in operation.

Eusebius (3 : 28) tells another story of John which he got from the works of Irenaeus. We have seen that one of the leaders of the Gnostic heresy was a man called Cerinthus. "The apostle John once entered a bath to bathe; but, when he learned that Cerinthus was within, he sprang from his place and rushed out of the door, for he could not bear to remain under the same roof with him. He advised those who were with him to do the same. t us flee,e said, st the bath fall, for Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is within."here we have another glimpse of the temper of John. Boanerges was not quite dead.

Cassian tells another famous story about John. One day he was found playing with a tame partridge. A narrower and more rigid brother rebuked him for thus wasting his time, and John answered: "The bow that is always bent will soon cease to shoot straight."

It is Jerome who tells the story of the last words of John. When he was dying, his disciples asked him if he had any last message to leave them. "Little children," he said, "love one another." Again and again he repeated it; and they asked him if that was all he had to say. "It is enough," he said, "for it is the Lordcommand."

Such then is our information about John; and he emerges a figure of fiery temper, of wide ambition, of undoubted courage, and, in the end, of gentle love.

The Beloved Disciple

If we have been following our references closely we will have noticed one thing. All our information about John comes from the first three gospels. It is the astonishing fact that the Fourth Gospel never mentions the apostle John from beginning to end. But it does mention two other people.

First, it speaks of the disciple whom Jesus loved. There are four mentions of him. He was leaning on Jesusreast at the Last Supper (Joh_13:23-25 ); it is into his care that Jesus committed Mary as he died upon his Cross (Joh_19:25-27 ); it was Peter and he whom Mary Magdalene met on her return from the empty tomb on the first Easter morning (Joh_20:2 ); he was present at the last resurrection appearance of Jesus by the lake-side (Joh_21:20 ).

Second, the Fourth Gospel has a kind of character whom we might call the witness. As the Fourth Gospel tells of the spear thrust into the side of Jesus and the issue of the water and the blood, there comes the comment: "He who saw it has borne witness--his testimony is true, and he knows that he tells the truth--that you also may believe" (Joh_19:35 ). At the end of the gospel comes the statement that it was the beloved disciple who testified of these things "and we know that his testimony is true" (Joh_21:24 ).

Here we are faced with rather a strange thing. In the Fourth Gospel John is never mentioned, but the beloved disciple is and in addition there is a witness of some kind to the whole story. It has never really been doubted in tradition that the beloved disciple is John. A few have tried to identify him with Lazarus, for Jesus is said to have loved Lazarus (Joh_11:3 , Joh_11:5 ), or with the Rich Young Ruler, of whom it is said that Jesus, looking on him, loved him (Mar_10:21 ). But although the gospel never says so in so many words, tradition has always identified the beloved disciple with John, and there is no real need to doubt the identification.

But a very real point arises--suppose John himself actually did the writing of the gospel, would he really be likely to speak of himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved? Would he really be likely to pick himself out like this, and, as it were, to say: "I was his favourite; he loved me best of all"? It is surely very unlikely that John would confer such a title on himself. If it was conferred by others, it is a lovely title; if it was conferred by himself, it comes perilously near to an almost incredible self-conceit.

Is there any way then that the gospel can be Johnown eye-witness story, and yet at the same time have been actually written down by someone else?

The Production Of The Church

In our search for the truth we begin by noting one of the outstanding and unique features of the Fourth Gospel. The most remarkable thing about it is the long speeches of Jesus. Often they are whole chapters long, and are entirely unlike the way in which Jesus is portrayed as speaking in the other three gospels. The Fourth Gospel, as we have seen, was written about the year A.D. 100, that is, about seventy years after the crucifixion. Is it possible after these seventy years to look on these speeches as word for word reports of what Jesus said? Or can we explain them in some way that is perhaps even greater than that? We must begin by holding in our minds the fact of the speeches and the question which they inevitably raise.

And we have something to add to that. It so happens that in the writings of the early church we have a whole series of accounts of the way in which the Fourth Gospel came to be written. The earliest is that of Irenaeus who was bishop of Lyons about A.D. 177; and Irenaeus was himself a pupil of Polycarp, who in turn had actually been a pupil of John. There is therefore a direct link between Irenaeus and John. Irenaeus writes:

"John, the disciple of the Lord, who also leant upon his breast,

himself also published the gospel in Ephesus, when he was living

in Asia."

The suggestive thing there is that Irenaeus does not merely say that John wrote the gospel; he says that John published (exedoke) it in Ephesus. The word that Irenaeus uses makes it sound, not like the private publication of some personal memoir, but like the public issue of some almost official document.

The next account is that of Clement who was head of the great school of Alexandria about A.D. 230. He writes:

"Last of all, John perceiving that the bodily facts had been made

plain in the gospel, being urged by his friends, composed a

spiritual gospel."

The important thing here is the phrase being urged by his friends. It begins to become clear that the Fourth Gospel is far more than one manpersonal production and that there is a group, a community, a church behind it. On the same lines, a tenth-century manuscript called the Codex Toletanus, which prefaces the New Testament books with short descriptions, prefaces the Fourth Gospel thus:

The apostle John, whom the Lord Jesus loved most, last of all

wrote this gospel, at the request of the bishops of Asia, against

Cerinthus and other heretics."

Again we have the idea that behind the Fourth Gospel there is the authority of a group and of a church.

We now turn to a very important document, known as the Muratorian Canon. It is so called after a scholar Muratori who discovered it. It is the first list of New Testament books which the church ever issued and was compiled in Rome about A.D. 170. Not only does it list the New Testament books, it also gives short accounts of the origin and nature and contents of each of them. Its account of the way in which the Fourth Gospel came to be written is extremely important and illuminating.

"At the request of his fellow-disciples and of his bishops, John,

one of the disciples, said: úst with me for three days from

this time and whatsoever shall be revealed to each of us, whether

it be favourable to my writing or not, let us relate it to one

another.n the same night it was revealed to Andrew that John

should relate all things, aided by the revision of all."

We cannot accept all that statement, because it is not possible that Andrew, the apostle, was in Ephesus in A.D. 100; but the point is that it is stated as clearly as possible that, while the authority and the mind and the memory behind the Fourth Gospel are that of John, it is clearly and definitely the product, not of one man, but of a group and a community.

Now we can see something of what happened. About the year A.D. 100 there was a group of men in Ephesus whose leader was John. They revered him as a saint and they loved him as a father. He must have been almost a hundred years old. Before he died, they thought most wisely that it would be a great thing if the aged apostle set down his memories of the years when he had been with Jesus. But in the end they did far more than that. We can think of them sitting down and reliving the old days. One would say: "Do you remember how Jesus said ... ?" And John would say: "Yes, and now we know that he meant..."

In other words this group was not only writing down what Jesus said; that would have been a mere feat of memory. They were writing down what Jesus meant; that was the guidance of the Holy Spirit. John had thought about every word that Jesus had said; and he had thought under the guidance of the Holy Spirit who was so real to him. W. M. Macgregor has a sermon entitled: "What Jesus becomes to a man who has known him long." That is a perfect description of the Jesus of the Fourth Gospel. A. H. N. Green Armytage puts the thing perfectly in his book John who saw. Mark, he says, suits the missionary with his clear-cut account of the facts of Jesusife; Matthew suits the teacher with his systematic account of the teaching of Jesus; Luke suits the parish minister or priest with his wide sympathy and his picture of Jesus as the friend of all; but John is the gospel of the contemplative.

He goes on to speak of the apparent contrast between Mark and John. "The two gospels are in a sense the same gospel. Only, where Mark saw things plainly, bluntly, literally, John saw them subtly, profoundly, spiritually. We might say that John lit Markpages by the lantern of a lifetimemeditation." Wordsworth defined poetry as "Emotion recollected in tranquillity ". That is a perfect description of the Fourth Gospel. That is why John is unquestionably the greatest of all the gospels. Its aim is, not to give us what Jesus said like a newspaper report, but to give us what Jesus meant. In it the Risen Christ still speaks. John is not so much The Gospel according to St. John; it is rather The Gospel according to the Holy Spirit. It was not John of Ephesus who wrote the Fourth Gospel; it was the Holy Spirit who wrote it through John.

The Penman Of The Gospel

We have one question still to ask. We can be quite sure that the mind and the memory behind the Fourth Gospel is that of John the apostle; but we have also seen that behind it is a witness who was the writer, in the sense that he was the actual penman. Can we find out who he was? We know from what the early church writers tell us that there were actually two Johns in Ephesus at the same time. There was John the apostle, but there was another John, who was known as John the elder.

Papias, who loved to collect all that he could find about the history of the New Testament and the story of Jesus, gives us some very interesting information. He was Bishop of Hierapolis, which is quite near Ephesus, and his dates are from about A.D. 70 to about A.D. 145. That is to say, he was actually a contemporary of John. He writes how he tried to find out "what Andrew said or what Peter said, or what was said by Philip, by Thomas, or by James, or by John, or by Matthew, or by any other of the disciples of the Lord; and what things Aristion and the elder John, the disciples of the Lord, say." In Ephesus there was the apostle John, and the elder John; and the elder John was so well-loved a figure that he was actually known as The Elder. He clearly had a unique place in the church. Both Eusebius and Dionysius the Great tell us that even to their own days in Ephesus there were two famous tombs, the one of John the apostle, and the other of John the elder.

Now let us turn to the two little letters, Second John and Third John. The letters come from the same hand as the gospel, and how do they begin? The second letter begins: "The elder unto the elect lady and her children" (2Jo_1:1 ). The third letter begins: "The elder unto the beloved Gaius" (3Jo_1:1 ). Here we have our solution. The actual penman of the letters was John the elder; the mind and memory behind them was the aged John the apostle, the master whom John the elder always described as "the disciple whom Jesus loved."

The Precious Gospel

The more we know about the Fourth Gospel the more precious it becomes. For seventy years John had thought of Jesus. Day by day the Holy Spirit had opened out to him the meaning of what Jesus said. So when John was near the century of life and his days were numbered, he and his friends sat down to remember. John the elder held the pen to write for his master, John the apostle; and the last of the apostles set down, not only what he had heard Jesus say, but also what he now knew Jesus had meant. He remembered how Jesus had said: "I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth" (Joh_16:12-13 ). There were many things which seventy years ago he had not understood; there were many things which in these seventy years the Spirit of Truth had revealed to him. These things John set down even as the eternal glory was dawning upon him. When we read this gospel let us remember that we are reading the gospel which of all the gospels is most the work of the Holy Spirit, speaking to us of the things which Jesus meant, speaking through the mind and memory of John the apostle and by the pen of John the elder. Behind this gospel is the whole church at Ephesus, the whole company of the saints, the last of the apostles, the Holy Spirit, the Risen Christ himself.

FURTHER READING

John

C. Kingsley Barrett, The Gospel According to Saint John (G)

J. H. Bernahrd, St. John (ICC; G)

E. C. Hoskyns (ed. F. M. Davey), The Fourth Gospel (E)

R. H. Lightfoot, St. JohnGospel: A Commentary (E)

G. H. C. Macgregor, The Gospel of John (MC; E)

J. N. Saunders (ed. B. A. Mastin), The Gospel According to Saint John (ACB; E)

R. V. G. Tasker, The Gospel According to Saint John (TC; E)

B. F. Westcott, The Gospel According to Saint John (E)

The SpeakerCommentary (MmC; G)

Abbreviations

ACB: A. and C. Black New Testament Commentary

ICC: International Critical Commentary

MC: Moffatt Commentary

MmC: Macmillan Commentary

TC: Tyndale Commentary

E: English Text G: Greek Text

Barclay: John 6 (Chapter Introduction)

The Loaves And Fishes (Joh_6:1-13)

The Meaning Of A Miracle (Joh_6:1-13 Continued)

The Response Of The Mob (Joh_6:14-15)

A Very Present Help In Time Of Trouble (Joh_6:16-21)

The Mistaken Search (Joh_6:22-27)

The Only True Work (Joh_6:28-29)

The Demand For A Sign (Joh_6:30-34)

The Bread Of Life (Joh_6:35-40)

The Failure Of The Jews (Joh_6:41-51)

His Body And His Blood (Joh_6:51-59)

His Body And His Blood (Joh_6:51-59 Continued)

The All-Important Spirit (Joh_6:59-65)

Attitudes To Christ (Joh_6:66-71)

Constable: John (Book Introduction)

Introduction

Writer

The writer of this Gospel did not identify himself as such in the text. This is true of all the Gospel evangelists. Nevertheless there is evidence within this Gospel as well as in the writings of the church fathers that the writer was the Apostle John.

The internal evidence from the Gospel itself is as follows. In 21:24 the writer of "these things" (i.e., the whole Gospel) was the same person as the disciple whom Jesus loved (21:7). That disciple was one of the seven disciples mentioned in 21:2. He was also the disciple who sat beside Jesus in the upper room when He instituted the Lord's Supper and to whom Peter motioned (13:23-24). This means that he was one of the Twelve since only they were present in the upper room (Mark 14:17; Luke 22:14). The disciple whom Jesus loved was also one of the inner circle of three disciples, namely Peter, James, and John (Mark 5:37-38; 9:2-3; 14:33; John 20:2-10). James died in the early history of the church, probably in the early 40s (Acts 12:2). There is good evidence that whoever wrote this Gospel did so after then. The writer was also not Peter (21:20-24). This evidence points to John as the disciple whom Jesus loved who was also the writer of this Gospel. The writer claimed to have seen Jesus' glory (1:14; cf. 1:1-4), which John did at the Transfiguration. There are several Johns in the New Testament. This one was one of Zebedee's sons who was a fisherman before Jesus called him to leave his nets and follow Him.

"To a certain extent each of the Gospels reflects the personality of its author, but in none of them is there a more distinctive individuality manifested than in John."¹

The external evidence also points to the Johannine authorship of the fourth Gospel. Irenaeus, the bishop of Lyons (c. 130-200 A.D.), wrote that he had heard Polycarp (c. 69-155 A.D.), a disciple of John. It was apparently from Polycarp that Irenaeus learned that, "John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon His breast, had himself published a Gospel during his residence in Ephesus in Asia."² Other later church fathers supported this tradition including Theophilus of Antioch (c. 180 A.D.), Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian of Carthage, and Tatian.³ Eusebius (fourth century) also specifically mentioned that Matthew and John among the apostles wrote the Gospels that bear their names.⁴

Some scholars have rejected this seemingly clear evidence and have refused to accept Johannine authorship. This criticism comes from those who hold a lower view of Scripture generally. Answering their objections lies outside the purpose of these notes.⁵

Place of Writing

Eusebius wrote that John ministered to the church in Ephesus, which Paul had founded (Acts 19:1-20), for many years.⁶ The Isle of Patmos where John spent some time in exile is close to Ephesus (cf. Rev. 1:9-11). As previously noted, Eusebius wrote that John composed his Gospel when he was at Ephesus.⁷ During the first century, that city was one of the largest centers of Christian activity in the Gentile world.⁸

Date

A few scholars believe John could have written this book as early as 45 A.D., the date when Saul of Tarsus' persecutions drove many Christians out of Jerusalem (cf. Acts 8:1-4).⁹ There are two main problems with such an early date. First, John seems to have assumed that the Synoptic Gospels were available to the Christian public. There is some doubt about this since it assumes an assumption, but most scholars believe, on the basis of content, that John selected his material to supplement material in the Synoptics. This would put the fourth Gospel later than the Synoptics. Second, according to early church tradition the Apostle John lived long into the first century. This would make a later date possible even though it does not prove a later date. Some students of the book believe that John 21:18-22 implies that Peter would die before John did, and Peter died about 67 A.D. In general, most authorities reject a date this early for these and other reasons.

Some conservatives date the Gospel slightly before 70 A.D. because John described Palestine and Jerusalem as they were before the Roman destruction (cf. 5:2).¹⁰ This may be a weak argument since John frequently used the Greek present tense to describe things in the past.¹¹ Some who hold this date note the absence of any reference to Jerusalem's destruction in John. However there could have been many reasons John chose not to mention the destruction of Jerusalem if he wrote after that event. A date of writing before the destruction of Jerusalem is also a minority opinion among scholars.

Many conservative scholars believe that John wrote his Gospel between 85 and 95 A.D.¹² Early church tradition was that John wrote it when he was an older man. Moreover even the early Christians regarded this as the fourth Gospel and believed that John wrote it after the Synoptics. It is not clear if John had access to the Synoptic Gospels. He did not quote from any of them. However, his choice of material for his own Gospel suggests that he probably read them and chose to include other material from Jesus' ministry in his account to supplement them.¹³

The latest possible date would be about 100 A.D. Some liberal scholars date this Gospel in the second century. The Egerton papyrus that dates from early in the second century contains unmistakable allusions to John's Gospel.¹⁴ This seems to rule out a second century date.

It seems impossible to identify the date of writing very exactly, as evidenced by the difference of opinion that exists between excellent conservative scholars. A date sometime between 65 and 95 A.D. is probable.

Characteristic features and purpose

John's presentation of Jesus in his Gospel has been a problem to many modern students of the New Testament. Some regard it as the greatest problem in current New Testament studies.¹⁵ Compared to the Synoptics that present Jesus as a historical figure, John stressed the deity of Jesus. Obviously the Synoptics present Jesus as divine also, but the emphasis in the fourth Gospel is more strongly on Jesus' full deity. This emphasis runs from the beginning, with the Word becoming flesh (1:1, 14), to the end, were Thomas confessed Jesus as his Lord and God (20:28). John's purpose statement (20:30-31) explains why he stressed Jesus' deity. It was so his readers would believe that He is the Christ, the Son of God, and thereby have eternal life.

The key word in the book is the verb "believe" (Gr. pisteuo), which appears 98 times. The noun form of the word (Gr. pistis, "faith") does not occur at all. This phenomenon shows that John wanted to stress the importance of active vital trust in Jesus. Other key words are witness, love, abide, the Counselor (i.e., the Holy Spirit), light, life, darkness, Word, glorify, true, and real.¹⁶ These words identify important themes in the Gospel.

John's unique purpose accounted for his selection of material, as was true of every biblical writer. He omitted Jesus' genealogy, birth, baptism, temptation, exorcizing demons, parables, transfiguration, institution of the Lord's Supper, agony in Gethsemane, and ascension. He focused on Jesus' ministry in Jerusalem, the Jewish feasts, Jesus' private conversations with individuals, and His preparation of His disciples (chs. 13-17). John selected seven signs or miracles that demonstrate that Jesus was the divine Messiah (chs. 2-12). He also recorded the discourses that Jesus gave following these signs that explained their significance. Moreover he stressed Jesus' claims that occur in the unique "I am" statements (6:35; 8:12; 10:7, 9, 11, 14; 11:25; 14:6; 15:1, 5).

About 93% of the material in John's Gospel does not appear in the Synoptics.¹⁷ This fact indicates the uniqueness of this Gospel compared with the other three and explains why they bear the title "Synoptic" and John does not. All four Gospels are quite similar, though each of them has its own distinctive features. John, on the other hand, is considerably different from the others. Specifically it stresses Jesus' deity stronger than the others do. It is, I believe, impossible to determine for certain whether or not John used or even knew of the Synoptic Gospels.¹⁸ I suspect that he did.

Another difference between the Synoptics and the fourth Gospel is the writers' view of eschatology. They all share the same basic view, namely that the Jews' rejection of their Messiah resulted in the postponement of the messianic kingdom. However the Synoptic writers stressed the future aspects of eschatology more than John who put more emphasis on the present or realized aspects of eschatology. This is not to say that John presented the kingdom as having begun during Jesus' first advent. He did not. He did stress, however, the aspects of kingdom life that Christians currently enjoy as benefits of the new covenant, which Jesus ratified by His death. These include especially the Holy Spirit's ministries of indwelling and illuminating the believer. Such a shift in emphasis is understandable if John wrote later than the other Gospel evangelists. By then it was clear that God had postponed the messianic kingdom, and believers' interest was more on life in the church than it was on life in the messianic kingdom (cf. chs. 13-17).

"It is . . . quite possible that one of John's aims was to combat false teaching of a docetic type. The Docetists held that the Christ never became incarnate; everything was seeming.'¹⁹ That the docetic heresy did not appear in the first century seems clear, but certain elements that later were to be embodied in this heresy seem to have been quite early."²⁰

"We have suggested that the Fourth Gospel was addressed to two groups within the Johannine community, each of which represented an extreme interpretation of the nature of Jesus: one which did not accept him as God, and the other which did not accept him as man (see the introduction, xxiii; also Smalley, John, 145-48). The perfectly balanced christology of the Fourth Gospel was intended, we believe, to provide a resolution of this theological crisis: to remind the ex-Jewish members of the group, with their strong emphasis on the humanity of Jesus, that the Christ was divine; and to insist, for the benefit of the ex-pagan members (with their docetic outlook), that Jesus was truly human."²¹

The context of Jesus' ministry accounts for the strong Jewish flavor that marks all four Gospels. Yet John's Gospel is more theological and cosmopolitan than the others.

"It has . . . a wider appeal to growing Christian experience and to an enlarging Gentile constituency than the others.

"The Synoptics present him for a generation in process of being evangelized; John presents him as the Lord of the maturing and questioning believer."²²

As a piece of literature, John's Gospel has a symphonic structure.

"A symphony is a musical composition having several movements related in subject, but varying in form and execution. It usually begins with a dominant theme, into which variations are introduced at intervals. The variations seem to be developed independently, but as the music is played, they modulate into each other until finally all are brought to a climax. The apparent disunity is really part of a design which is not evident at first, but which appears in the progress of the composition."²³

Tasker described the fourth Gospel as "the simplest and yet the most profound of the Christian Gospels."²⁴

Original recipients

The preceding quotation implies that John wrote primarily for Christians. This implication may seem to be contrary to John's stated purpose (20:30-31). Probably John wrote both to convince unbelievers that Jesus was the Son of God and to give Christians who faced persecution confidence in their Savior. The word "believe" in 20:31 may be in the present tense implying that Christian readers should continue believing. It could be in the aorist tense suggesting that pagan readers should believe initially. An evangelistic purpose does not exclude an edification purpose. Indeed all 66 books of the Bible have edifying value for God's people (2 Tim. 3:16-17). John's purpose for unbelievers is that they might obtain eternal life, and his purpose for believers is that we might experience abundant eternal life (10:10).

John explained Jewish customs, translated Jewish names, and located Palestinian sites. These facts suggest that he was writing for Gentile readers outside Palestine. Furthermore the prologue seems addressed to readers who thought in Greek categories. John's inclusion of the Greeks who showed interest in seeing Jesus (12:20-22) may also suggest that he wrote with them in view. Because of John's general purposes it seems best to conclude that the original readers were primarily Gentile Christians and Gentile unbelievers.²⁵

"By the use of personal reminiscences interpreted in the light of a long life of devotion to Christ and by numerous episodes that generally had not been used in the Gospel tradition, whether written or oral, John created a new and different approach to understanding Jesus' person. John's readers were primarily second-generation Christians he was familiar with and to whom he seemed patriarchal."²⁶

The writer did not indicate the geographical location of the original recipients of his Gospel. This was undoubtedly intentional since the message of John has universal appeal. Perhaps its first readers lived in the Roman province of Asia the capital of which was Ephesus.

Summary of Gospel Introductions
Gospel	Matthew	Mark	Luke	John
Date	40-70probably 40s	63-70probably 60s	57-59probably 50s	65-95probably 90s
Origin	Palestine	Rome	Caesarea	Ephesus
Audience	Jews	Romans	Greeks	Gentiles
Emphasis	King	Servant	Man	God

Message²⁷

In one sense the Gospel of John is more profound than the Synoptics. It is the most difficult Gospel for most expositors to preach and to teach for reasons that will become evident as we study it. In another sense, however, the fourth Gospel is the easiest Gospel to understand. Leon Morris wrote that it is a pool in which a child can wade and an elephant can swim.²⁸ It is both simple and profound. It clarifies some things that the Synoptics leave as mysteries.

What are these mysteries? Matthew presents Jesus as the King, but it does not articulate the reason for Jesus' great authority. John does. Mark presents Jesus as the Servant, but it does not account for His depth of consecration to God. John does. Luke presents Jesus as the perfect Man, but it does not explain His uniqueness from the rest of humankind. John does.

The Gospel of John reveals answers to the mysteries about Jesus that the Synoptics leave hidden. It is therefore an apocalypse, an unveiling similar to the Book of Revelation in this respect. The Book of Revelation is the climax of biblical Christology. The Gospel of John plays that part among the Gospels. It is a revelation of the person of Jesus Christ more than any of the others. John told us that it would be this in his prologue (1:1-18).

The statement of the message of this Gospel occurs in 1:18: "No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him." John claimed that Jesus was the explanation of God the Father. This Gospel presents Jesus as the One who manifested God to humankind. This book then stresses the revelation of the truth about God.

Mankind has constantly sought to represent God in some way. We want to know what God is like. Ideas about God that do not come from the revelation of Himself in Jesus Christ are idolatrous. They create a false view of God. Typically human beings without divine revelation have imagined God as being an immense version of themselves, a projection of human personality into cosmic proportions. God's revelation of Himself, however, involved the limitation of Himself to humanity, the exact opposite approach. This is what God did in the Incarnation. God's revelations are often the exact opposite of what one would expect.

John presented Jesus as the Son of God. He wanted his readers to view Jesus and to see God. In the tears of Jesus, we should see what causes God sorrow. In the compassion of Jesus, we should see how God cares for His own. In the anger of Jesus, we should see what God hates.

What do we learn about God from Jesus in John? The prologue gives us the essential answer, and the body of the book explains this answer with various illustrations from Jesus' ministry. The prologue tells us that Jesus has manifested the glory of God by revealing two things about Him: His grace and His truth (1:14). All that Jesus revealed about God that this Gospel narrates is contractible into these two words. Notice first the revelation of grace in this Gospel.

The Gospel of John presents God as a gracious person. Behind His gracious dealings lies a heart of love. There are probably hundreds of evidences of God's love resulting in gracious action in this book. Let us note just the evidence of these qualities in the seven signs that John chose to record.

The miracle of changing water into wine (ch. 2) shows God's concern for marital joy. The healing of the official's son (ch. 4) shows God's desire that people experience family unity. The healing of the paralytic (ch. 5) shows God's grace in providing physical restoration. The feeding of the 5000 (ch. 6) shows God's love in providing material needs. The miracle of Jesus walking on the water (ch. 6) shows God's desire that people enjoy supernatural peace. The healing of the man born blind (ch. 9) illustrates God's desire that we have true understanding. The raising of Lazarus (ch. 11) shows God's grace in providing new life. All these miracles are revelations of God's love manifesting itself in gracious behavior toward us in our various needs. These are only the most obvious manifestations of God's grace in this book.

This Gospel also reveals that God is a God of truth. Another one of God's attributes that we see revealed in this Gospel lies behind the truth that we see revealed in this Gospel. That attribute is His holiness. The figure that John used to describe God's holiness is light. Light is a common figure for God's holiness in the Old Testament too. The principle of God's holiness governs the passion of His love.

Jesus' great works in John reveal God's love and His great words reveal God's truth. Let us select seven of the great "I am" claims of Jesus as illustrations of the various aspects of the truth that Jesus revealed about God. All these claims point to God as the source and to Jesus as the mediator of things having to do with truth.

The bread of life claim (ch. 6) points to God as the source of true sustenance. The light of the world claim (ch. 9) points to God as the source of true illumination. The door claim (ch. 10) points to God as the source of true security. The good shepherd claim (ch. 10) points to God as the source of true care. The resurrection and the life claim (ch. 11) points to God as the source of true life. The way, the truth, and the life claim (ch. 14) points to God as the source of true authority. The vine claim (ch. 15) points to God as the source of true fruitfulness. All of these claims pointed directly to Jesus as the mediator, but they also pointed beyond Him to God the Father. They were revelations of the truth concerning God.

These are all further revelations of the character of God introduced first in Exodus 3 where God began to reveal Himself as "I am." The Law of Moses was an initial revelation about God. The revelation that Jesus Christ brought was a further, fuller, and final revelation of the grace and truth that characterize God (1:17). These revelations find their most comprehensive expression in the fourth Gospel.

What are the implications of the revelation in this Gospel? First, such a revelation calls for worship.

In the Old Testament, God revealed Himself and dwelt among His people through the tabernacle. In the Incarnation, God revealed Himself and dwelt among His people through His Son (1:14). The tabernacle was the place where God revealed Himself and around which His people congregated to worship Him in response. The Son of God is the person through whom God has now given the greatest and fullest revelation of Himself and around whom we now bow in worship.

Second, such a revelation calls for service. Under the old Mosaic economy, worship prepared God's people to serve Him. Their service consisted of carrying out His mission for them in the world. The revelation of God should always result in service as well as worship (cf. Isa. 6:1-8). When we learn who God is as we study this Gospel, our reaction should not only be worship but service. This is true of the church as a whole and of every individual believer in it. Thomas' ascription of worship (20:28) was only preliminary to his fulfilling God's mission for him (20:21-23). Worship should never be an end in itself. Even in heaven we will serve as well as worship God (Rev. 22:3).

As recipients of this revelation of God, our lives too should be notable for grace and truth. These qualities should not only be the themes of our worship. They should also be the trademarks of our service. Truth and holiness should mark our words and motives. Graciousness should stamp our works as we deal with people. If they do not, we have not yet comprehended the revelation of God that Jesus came to bring to His own. Sloppy graciousness jeopardizes truthfulness, and rigid truthfulness endangers graciousness. Jesus illustrated the balance.

This Gospel has a strong appeal to the unsaved as well. John wrote it specifically to bring the light of revelation about Jesus' true identity to those who sit in spiritual darkness (20:30-31). The knowledge of who Jesus really is is the key to the knowledge of who God really is. Therefore our service must not only bear the marks of certain characteristics, namely grace and truth, but it must also communicate a specific content: who Jesus is. People need to consider who Jesus is. There is no better way for them to do this than by reading this Gospel. Remember the stated purpose of this book (20:30-31). Use it as an evangelistic tool.

Constable: John (Outline)

Outline

I. Prologue 1:1-18

A. The preincarnate Word 1:1-5

B. The witness of John the Baptist 1:6-8

C. The appearance of the Light 1:9-13

D. The incarnation of the Word 1:14-18

II. Jesus' public ministry 1:19-12:50

A. The prelude to Jesus' public ministry 1:19-51

1. John the Baptist's veiled testimony to Jesus 1:19-28

2. John the Baptist's open identification of Jesus 1:29-34

3. The response to John the Baptist's witness 1:35-42

4. The witness of Philip and Andrew 1:43-51

B. Jesus' early Galilean ministry 2:1-12

1. The first sign: changing water to wine 2:1-11

2. Jesus' initial stay in Capernaum 2:12

C. Jesus' first visit to Jerusalem 2:13-3:36

1. The first cleansing of the temple 2:13-22

2. Initial response to Jesus in Jerusalem 2:23-25

3. Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus 3:1-21

4. John the Baptist's reaction to Jesus' ministry 3:22-30

5. The explanation of Jesus' preeminence 3:31-36

D. Jesus' ministry in Samaria 4:1-42

1. The interview with the Samaritan woman 4:1-26

2. Jesus' explanation of evangelistic ministry 4:27-38

3. The response to Jesus in Samaria 4:39-42

E. Jesus' resumption of His Galilean ministry 4:43-54

1. Jesus' return to Galilee 4:43-45

2. The second sign: healing the official's son 4:46-54

F. Jesus' second visit to Jerusalem ch. 5

1. The third sign: healing the paralytic 5:1-9

2. The antagonism of the Jewish authorities 5:10-18

3. The Son's equality with the Father 5:19-29

4. The Father's witness to the Son 5:30-47

G. Jesus' later Galilean ministry 6:1-7:9

1. The fourth sign: feeding the 5,000 6:1-15

2. The fifth sign: walking on the water 6:16-21

3. The bread of life discourse 6:22-59

4. The responses to the bread of life discourse 6:60-7:9

H. Jesus' third visit to Jerusalem 7:10-10:42

1. The controversy surrounding Jesus 7:10-13

2. Jesus' ministry at the feast of Tabernacles 7:14-44

3. The unbelief of the Jewish leaders 7:45-52

[4. The woman caught in adultery 7:53-8:11]

5. The light of the world discourse 8:12-59

6. The sixth sign: healing a man born blind ch. 9

7. The good shepherd discourse 10:1-21

8. The confrontation at the feast of Dedication 10:22-42

I. The conclusion of Jesus' public ministry chs. 11-12

1. The seventh sign: raising Lazarus 11:1-44

2. The responses to the raising of Lazarus 11:45-57

3. Mary's anointing of Jesus 12:1-8

4. The official antagonism toward Lazarus 12:9-11

5. Jesus' triumphal entry 12:12-19

6. Jesus' announcement of His death 12:20-36

7. The unbelief of Israel 12:37-50

III. Jesus' private ministry chs. 13-17

A. The Last Supper 13:1-30

1. Jesus' washing of the disciples' feet 13:1-20

2. Jesus' announcement of His betrayal 13:21-30

B. The Upper Room Discourse 13:31-16:33

1. The new commandment 13:31-35

2. Peter's profession of loyalty 13:36-38

3. Jesus' comforting revelation in view of His departure 14:1-24

4. The promise of future understanding 14:25-31

5. The importance of abiding in Jesus 15:1-16

6. The warning about opposition from the world 15:17-27

7. The clarification of the future 16:1-24

8. The clarification of Jesus' destination 16:25-33

C. Jesus' high priestly prayer ch. 17

1. Jesus' requests for Himself 17:1-5

2. Jesus' requests for the Eleven 17:6-19

3. Jesus' requests for future believers 17:20-26

IV. Jesus' passion ministry chs. 18-20

A. Jesus' presentation of Himself to His enemies 18:1-11

B. Jesus' religious trial 18:12-27

1. The arrest of Jesus and the identification of the high priests 18:12-14

2. The entrance of two disciples into the high priests' courtyard and Peter's first denial 18:15-18

3. Annas' interrogation of Jesus 18:19-24

4. Peter's second and third denials of Jesus 18:25-27

C. Jesus' civil trial 18:28-19:16

1. The Jews' charge against Jesus 18:28-32

2. The question of Jesus' kingship 18:33-38a

3. The Jews' request for Barabbas 18:38b-40

4. The sentencing of Jesus 19:1-16

D. Jesus' crucifixion 19:17-30

1. Jesus' journey to Golgotha 19:17

2. The men crucified with Jesus 19:18

3. The inscription over Jesus' cross 19:19-22

4. The distribution of Jesus' garments 19:23-24

5. Jesus' provision for His mother 19:25-27

6. The death of Jesus 19:28-30

E. The treatment of Jesus' body 19:31-42

1. The removal of Jesus' body from the cross 19:31-37

2. The burial of Jesus 19:38-42

F. Jesus' resurrection 20:1-29

1. The discovery of Peter and John 20:1-9

2. The discovery of Mary Magdalene 20:10-18

3. The appearance to the Eleven minus Thomas on Easter evening 20:19-23

4. The transformed faith of Thomas 20:24-29

G. The purpose of this Gospel 20:30-31

V. Epilogue ch. 21

A. Jesus' appearance to seven disciples in Galilee 21:1-14

B. Jesus' teachings about motivation for service 21:15-23

C. The writer's postscript 21:24-25

Constable: John

John

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_____. The Gospel According to St. John: The Greek Text with Introduction and Notes. 2 vols. London: John Murray, 1908.

Wiersbe, Warren W. The Bible Exposition Commentary. 2 vols. Wheaton: Scripture Press, Victor Books, 1989.

Wilkinson, John. Jerusalem as Jesus knew it: Archaeology as Evidence. London: Thames and Hudson, 1978.

Witmer, John A. "Did Jesus Claim to Be God?" Bibliotheca Sacra 125:498 (April-June 1968):147-56.

Yamauchi, Edwin M. "Cultural Aspects of Marriage in the Ancient World." Bibliotheca Sacra 135:539 (July-September 1978):241-52.

Zerwick, Maximilian. Biblical Greek Illustrated by Examples. Translated by Joseph Smith. Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1963.

Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible. Edited by Merrill C. Tenney. S.v. "Jacob's Well," by R. L. Alden.

_____. S.v. "Spikenard," by W. E. Shewell-Cooper.

Copyright 2003 by Thomas L. Constable

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Haydock: John (Book Introduction)

THE

HOLY GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST,

ACCORDING TO ST. JOHN.

INTRODUCTION

St. John, the evangelist, a native of Bathsaida, in Galilee, was the son of Zebedee and Salome. He was by profession a fisherman. Our Lord gave to John, and to James, his brother, the surname of Boanerges, or, sons of thunder; most probably for their great zeal, and for their soliciting permission to call fire from heaven to destroy the city of the Samaritans, who refused to receive their Master. St. John is supposed to have been called to the apostleship younger than any of the other apostles, not being more than twenty-five or twenty-six years old. The Fathers teach that he never married. Our Lord had for him a particular regard, of which he gave the most marked proofs at the moment of his expiring on the cross, by intrusting to his care his virgin Mother. He is the only one of the apostles that did not leave his divine Master in his passion and death. In the reign of Domitian, he was conveyed to Rome, and thrown into a caldron of boiling oil, from which he came out unhurt. He was afterwards banished to the island of Patmos, where he wrote his book of Revelations; and, according to some, his Gospel. Tota antiquitas in eo abunde consentit, quod Domitianus exilii Joannis auctor fuerit. (Lampe. Proleg. lib. i. cap. 4.) --- In his gospel, St. John omits very many leading facts and circumstances mentioned by the other three evangelists, supposing his readers sufficiently instructed in points which his silence approved. It is universally agreed, that St. John had seen and approved of the other three gospels. (St. Hier. [St. Jerome,] de vir. illust. Eusebius, lib. iii, chap. 24.) --- St. Luke, says a learned author, seems to have had more learning than any other of the evangelists, and his language is more varied, copious, and pure. This superiority in style may perhaps be owing to his longer residence in Greece, and greater acquaintance with Gentiles of good education. --- St. Denis, of Alexandria, found in the gospel of St. John, elegance and precision of language, not only in the choice and arrangement of expressions, but also in his mode of reasoning and construction. We find here, says this saint, nothing barbarous and improper, nothing even low and vulgar; insomuch, that God not only seems to have given him light and knowledge, but also the means of well clothing his conceptions. (Dion. Alex. [Denis of Alexandria] apud Euseb. lib. vii, chap. 25.) --- Our critics do not join with St. Denis. They generally conceive St. John, with respect to language, as the least correct of the writers of the New Testament. His style argues a great want of those advantages which result from a learned education: but this defect is amply compensated by the unexampled simplicity with which he expresses the sublimest truths, by the supernatural lights, by the depth of the mysteries, by the superexcellency of the matter, by the solidity of his thoughts, and importance of his instructions. The Holy Ghost, who made choice of him, and filled him with infused wisdom, is much above human philosophy and the art of rhetoric. He possesses, in a most sovereign degree, the talent of carrying light and conviction to the mind, and warmth to the heart. He instructs, convinces, and persuades, without the aid of art or eloquence. --- St. John is properly compared to the eagle, because in his first flight he ascends above all sublunary objects, and does not stop till he meets the throne of the Almighty. He is so sententious, says St. Ambrose, that he gives us as many mysteries as words. (De Sacram. lib. iii, chap. 2) --- From Patmos our saint returned to Ephesus, where he died. (Euseb. lib. iii. hist. eccles.) --- It is said that the original gospel was preserved in the church of Ephesus till the seventh age [century], at least till the fourth; for St. Peter, of Alexandria, cites it. See Chron. Alex. and manuscript fragment. de paschate apud Petav. et Usher. --- Besides the gospel, we have of St. John three epistles and the Book of Revelations; and though other productions have been palmed on the world under the name of our evangelist, the Catholic Church only approves of those above specified. Ancient Fathers have given him the name of the Theologian: a title his gospel, and particularly the first chapter, deserves. Polycratus, bishop of Ephesus, tells us that St. John carried on his forehead a plate of gold, as priest of Jesus Christ, to honour the priesthood of the new law, in imitation of the high priests of the Jews. (Polycr. apud Euseb. liv. v, chap. 24.) --- This gospel was written in Greek, about the end of the first hundred years from Christ's nativity, at the request of the bishops of the Lesser Asia [Asia Minor], against the Cerinthians and the Ebionites, and those heretics, or Antichrists, as St. John calls them, (1 John iv. 3.) who pretended that Jesus was a mere man, who had no being or existence before he was born of Joseph and Mary. The blasphemies of these heretics had divers abettors in the first three ages [centuries], as Carpocrates, Artemon, the two Theodotus, Paul of Samosata, Sabellius, and some others; on whom, see St. Irenæus, St. Epiphanius, St. Augustine, &c. To these succeeded, in the beginning of the fourth century, Arius, of Alexandria, and the different branches of the blasphemous Arian sect. They allowed that Jesus Christ had a being before he was born of Mary; that he was made and created before all other creatures, and was more perfect than any of them; but still that he was no more than a creature: that he had a beginning, and that there was a time when he was not: that he was not properly God, or the God, not the same God, nor had the same substance and nature, with the eternal Father and Creator of all things. This heresy was condemned by the Church in the first General Council, at Nice, ann. 325. --- After the Arians rose up the Macedonians, who denied the divinity of the Holy Ghost; and afterwards the Nestorians, Eutychians, &c. In every age pride and ignorance have produced some heresies; for, as the Apostle says, (1 Corinthians xi. 19.) there must be heresies. Towards the beginning of the sixteenth age [century] Luther, Zuinglius, Calvin, &c. set themselves up for reformers, even of that general and Catholic faith which they found every where taught, and believed in all Christian Churches. Luther owns that he was then alone, the only one of his communion, (if so it may be called); yet none of these called in question the mysteries of the Trinity, or of the Incarnation. --- But not many years after, came the blasphemous sect of the Socinians, so called from Lælius and Faustus Socini. These, and their followers, renewed the condemned errors of the Arians. We scarce find any thing new in the systems of these men, who would pass for somebody, like Theodas, Acts v. 36.; or who, like Simon, the magician, and first heretic, would be looked upon as great men, and great wits, by daring to be free-thinkers, and thereby bold blasphemers. --- To do justice to Calvin, he did not think these Socinians fit to live in any Christian society: and therefore he got Michael Servetus burnt alive at Geneva, ann. 1553; and Valentinus Gentilis, one of the same sect, was beheaded at Berne, ann. 1565. I must needs say, it seems an easier matter to excuse the warm sharp zeal of Calvin, and his Swiss brethren, in persecuting to death these Socinians with sword and faggot, than to shew with what justice and equity these men could be put to death, who followed the very same principle, and the only rule of faith; i.e. Scriptures expounded by every man's private reason, or private spirit; which the pretended Reformers, all of them, maintain with as much warmth as ever, to the very day. --- Heretics in all ages have wrested the sense of the Scriptures, to make them seem to favour their errors: and by what we see so frequently happen, it is no hard matter for men who have but a moderate share of wit and sophistry, by their licentious fancies and arbitrary expositions, to turn, change, and pervert Scripture texts, and to transform almost any thing into any thing, says Dr. Hammond, on the second chapter of St. John's Revelation. But I need not fear to say, this never appeared so visibly as in these last two hundred years; the truth of which no one can doubt, who reads the History of the Variations, written by the learned bishop of Meaux. --- These late Reformers seem to make a great part of their religion consist in reading, or having at least the Bible in their mother-tongue. The number of translations into vulgar languages, with many considerable differences, is strangely multiplied. Every one rashly claims a right to expound them according to his private judgment, or his private spirit. And what is the consequence of this; but that as men's judgments and their private interpretations are different, so in a great measure are the articles of their creed and belief? --- The Scriptures, in which are contained the revealed mysteries of divine faith, are, without all doubt, the most excellent of all writings: these divers volumes, written by men inspired from God, contained not the words of men, but the word of God, which can save our souls: (1 Thessalonians ii. 13. and James i. 21.) but then they ought to be read, even by the learned, with the spirit of humility; with a fear of mistaking the true sense, as so many have done; with a due submission to the Catholic Church, which Christ himself commanded us to hear and obey. This we might learn from the Scripture itself. The apostle told the Corinthians, that even in those days there were many who corrupted and adulterated the word of God. (2 Corinthians ii. 17.) St. Peter gives us this admonition: that in the Epistles of St. Paul, are some things hard to understand, which the unlearned and the unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, to their own destruction. --- It was merely to prevent and remedy this abuse of the best of books, that it was judged necessary to forbid the ignorant to read the Scriptures in vulgar languages, without the advice and permission of their pastors and spiritual guides, whom Christ appointed to govern his Church. (Acts xx. 28.) The learned University of Paris, 1525, at that time, and in those circumstances, judged the said prohibition necessary: and whosoever hath had any discourses with persons of different religions and persuasions in our kingdom, especially with Anabaptists, Quakers, and such as pretend to expound the Scriptures, either by their private reason or by the private spirit, will, I am confident, be fully convinced that the just motives of the said prohibition subsist to this very day. Ignorant men and women turn Scripture texts to the errors of their private sects, and wrest them to their own perdition; as the very best of remedies prove pernicious and fatal to those who know not their virtues, nor how to use them, and apply them. --- They might learn from the Acts of the Apostles, (Chap. xv.) that as soon as a doubt and dispute was raised, whether the Gentiles converted by the apostles, were obliged to observe any of the ceremonies of the law of Moses, this first controversy about religion was not decided by the private judgment, or private spirit, even of those apostolical preachers, but by an assembly or council of the apostles and bishops, held at Jerusalem; as appears by the letter of the council sent to the Christians at Antioch. It hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, &c. to us, whom Christ promised to direct by the Spirit of truth; with whom, he assured us, he would remain to the end of the world. --- The very same method, as it is evident by the annals of Church history, hath been practised to the very time, and will be to the end of the world. It is the rule grounded on the command and promises of Christ, when he founded and established the Christian Church. All disputes about the sense of the Scriptures, and about points of the Christian belief, have been always decided by the successors of St. Peter, and the other apostles; even by general councils, when judged necessary: and they who, like Arius, obstinately refused to submit their private judgment to that of the Catholic Church, were always condemned, excommunicated, and cut off from the communion of the Church of Christ. --- Nor is this rule and this submission to be understood of the ignorant and unlearned only, but also of men accomplished in all kind of learning. The ignorant fall into errors for want of knowledge, and the learned are many times blinded by their pride and self-conceit. The sublime and profound mysteries, such as the Trinity, the Incarnation of the eternal Son of God, the manner of Christ's presence in the holy sacrament, are certainly above the reach of man's weak reason and capacity; much less are they the object of our senses, which are so often deceived. Let every reader of the sacred volumes, who pretends to be a competent judge of the sense, and of the truths revealed in them, reflect on the words which he finds in Isaias: (Chap. lv. 8, 9) For my thoughts are not your thoughts; nor your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are exalted above the earth, so are my ways exalted above your ways, and my thoughts above your thoughts. How then shall any one, by his private reason, pretend to judge, to know, to demonstrate, what is possible or impossible to the incomprehensible power of God? --- A self-conceited Socinian, big with the opinion he has of his own wit and knowledge, will boldly tell us, that to say or believe that three distinct persons are one and the same God, is a manifest contradiction. Must we believe him? Or the Christian Catholic Church, in all ages? That is, against the greatest authority upon earth: whether we consider the Church as the most illustrious society and body of men; or whether we consider the same Church as under the protection of Christ and his divine promises, to teach them all truth to the end of the world. Besides this, experience itself should make the said Socinian distrust his own judgment as to such a pretended contradiction, when he finds that the brightest wits, and most subtle philosophers, after all their study and search of natural causes and effects, for so many hundred years, by the light of their reason could never yet account for the most common and obvious things in nature, such as are the parts of matter, and extension, local motion, and the production of numberless vegetables and animals, which we see happen, but know not how. See the author of a short answer to the late Dr. Clark and Mr. Whiston, concerning the divinity of the Son of God, and of the Holy Ghost. An. 1729. --- The latest writers among the pretended Reformers hesitate not to tell us, that what the Church and its councils have declared, as to Christ's real presence in the holy sacrament, is contradicted by all our senses; as if our senses, which are so often mistaken, were the supreme and only judges of such hidden mysteries. Another tells us, that for Christ to be truly and really present in many places, in ten thousand places at once, is a thing impossible in nature and reason; and his demonstrative proof is, that he knows it to be impossible. With this vain presumption, he runs on to this length of extravagant rashness, and boldly pronounces, that should he find such a proposition in the Bible, nay, though with his eyes he should see a man raise the dead, and declare that proposition true, he could not believe it: and merely because he knows it impossible: which is no more than to say, that it does not seem possible to his weak reason. I do not find that he offers to bring any other proof, but that it is contrary to his senses, and that God cannot assert a contradiction. And why must we take it for a contradiction, only because he tells us, he knows it to be so? It was certainly the safest way for him, to bring no reasons to shew it impossible to the infinite and incomprehensible power of the Almighty: this vain attempt would only have given new occasions to his learned antagonist, the author of the Single Combat, to expose his weakness even more than he has done. --- May not every Unitarian, every Arian, every Socinian, every Latitudinarian, every Free-thinker, tell us the same? And if this be a sufficient plea, none of them can be condemned of heresy or error. Calvin could never silence Servetus, (unless it were by lighting faggots round him) if he did but say, I know that three distinct persons cannot be one and the same God. It is a contradiction, and God cannot assert a contradiction. I know that the Son cannot be the same God with the Father. It is a contradiction, and therefore impossible. So that though I find clear texts in the Scriptures, that three give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one: though Christ, the Son of God, tells us, that he and the Father are one, or one thing; nay, though I should with my own eyes, see men raise the dead to confirm these mysteries, (as many are recorded to have done) and declare them to be revealed divine truths, I cannot believe them, because I know them to be false, to be nonsense, to be contradictions to reason and nature. The like the Free-thinker may tell us, with the Pelagians, as to the existence of original sin, that all men should become liable to eternal death for Adam's sinning; with the Manicheans, that men cannot have free will to do, or abstain from, sinful actions, and yet God know infallibly from eternity what they will do; with the Origenists, that God, who is infinite goodness itself, will not punish sinners eternally, for yielding to what the inclinations of their corrupt nature prompt them. They have the same right to tell all Christendom, that they know these pretended revealed mysteries to be nonsense, impossibilities, and contradictions. And every man's private judgment, when, with an air of confidence, he says, I know it, must pass for infallible; though he will not hear of the Catholic Church being infallible, under the promises of our Saviour, Christ. --- But to conclude this preface, already much longer than I designed, reason itself, as well as the experience we have of our own weak understanding, from the little we know even of natural things, might preserve every sober thinking man from such extravagant presumption, pride and self-conceited rashness, as to pretend to measure God's almighty and incomprehensible power by the narrow and shallow capacity of human understanding, or to know what is possible or impossible for Him that made all things out of nothing. In fine, let not human understanding exalt itself against the knowledge of God, but bring into a rational captivity and submission every thought to the obedience of Christ. Let every one humbly acknowledge with the great St. Augustine, whose learning and capacity, modestly speaking, were not inferior to those of any of those bold and rash pretenders to knowledge, that God can certainly do more than we can understand. Let us reflect with St. Gregory of Nazianzus (Orat. xxxvii. p. 597. C.) that if we know not the things under our feet, we must not pretend to fathom the profound mysteries of God. [1] --- And, in the mean time, let us pray for those who are thus tossed to and fro with every wind and blast of different doctrines, (Ephesians iv. 14.) that God, of his infinite mercy, would enlighten their weak and blinded understanding with the light of the one true faith, and bring them to the one fold of his Catholic Church. (Witham)

____________________

[1] Naz. Orat. xxxvii. Greek: Mede ta en posin eidenai dunamenoi ... me theou bathesin embateuein.

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Gill: John (Book Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO JOHN

The author of this Gospel is John, the son of Zebedee and Salome, the brother of James the greater; he outlived the rest of the disciples, and wrote this Gospel after the other evangelists; and in it many things are recorded, which are not in the other Gospels; as various discourses of Christ, and miracles done by him; several incidents in his life, and circumstances that attended his sufferings and death: the occasion of it is generally thought to be the errors of Ebion and Cerinthus, who denied the divinity of Christ, asserted he was a mere man, and that he did not exist before his incarnation; and the design of it is to confute them: and it is easy to observe, that he begins his Gospel with the divinity of Christ; asserts him to be God, and proves him to be truly and properly so, by the works of creation, which were wrought by him, as well as shows that he was really man. Clemens ^a calls this Gospel of John, pneumatikon euaggelion "a spiritual Gospel", as indeed it is; consisting of the spiritual discourses of our Lord, on various occasions, both at the beginning, and in the course of his ministry, and especially a little before his sufferings and death: and the same writer observes, that John, the last of the evangelists, considering that in the other Gospels were declared the things relating to the body of Christ, that is, to him, as he was after the flesh; to his genealogy and birth as man; to what was done to him, or by him, in his infancy; to his baptism, temptations, journeys, &c. at the request of his familiar friends, and moved by the Spirit of God, composed this Gospel. Moreover, it is observed by some ^b, that the other three evangelists only record what was done by Christ, in one year after John the Baptist was cast into prison, as appears from Mat 4:12 wherefore John, at the entreaty of his friends, put these things into his Gospel, which were done or said by Christ, before John was cast into prison. He was called very early by Christ, though young; and was with him throughout the whole of his ministry, and was an eye and ear witness of what he here relates, and his testimony is to be received; he was the beloved disciple, he leaned on the bosom of Jesus, and had great intimacy with him; and might be privy to some things, which others were not acquainted with; and though he was a Galilean, and an unlearned man, Act 4:13 yet being endowed with the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, he was abundantly qualified to write this book: for what some ancient writers ^c say of him, that he was a priest, and wore a plate, that is, of gold upon his forehead, cannot be true, since he was not of the tribe of Levi; and besides, only the high priest wore that upon his mitre; unless they mean, as seems most likely, that he was a Christian bishop: perhaps the mistake may arise from John the Baptist, who was of the priestly order, and is called by some Jewish writers ^d, John the high priest. When and where this Gospel was written, is not certain; some say in ^e Asia, after he had wrote his Revelation in Patmos; and others say particularly, that it was wrote at Ephesus; the title of it in the Syriac version, signifies much, which runs thus;

"the holy Gospel, the preaching of John, which he spoke and published in Greek at Ephesus.''

And to the same purpose is the title of it in the Persic version;

"the Gospel of John, one of the twelve apostles, which was spoken in the city of Ephesus, in the Greek Roman tongue.''

College: John (Book Introduction)

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

Even the casual reader of the New Testament will notice that the first three accounts of Jesus' life are generally similar in their overall story line, whereas the fourth Gospel (John) is quite different. Scholars refer to Matthew, Mark, and Luke as the Synoptic Gospels (Synoptic = "seen together" or "as parallel") because of their similarities, but John is called, well . . . John (no special name). It is part of the New Testament collection known as the Johannine Writings (John, 1, 2, 3 John, and Revelation).

The differences between the Synoptic Gospels and the Gospel of John are readily apparent to the alert reader. For example the Synoptics all present one major trip of Jesus from Galilee to Jerusalem, whereas John portrays Jesus as being in Judea and Jerusalem often. Indeed, for John the primary ministry of Jesus seems to be in Judea rather than the Galilean setting of the Synoptics. Another difference is seen in John's lack of true parables in his recorded teachings of Jesus. In the Synoptics, parables are the characteristic form of Jesus' teaching, with the often repeated introduction, "Jesus told them a parable, saying, 'the kingdom of God is like this . . . .'" John is also loaded with characters we do not find in the Synoptics: Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman at the well, and Lazarus, just to name a few. Furthermore, some of our most memorable Gospel phrases are not found in the Synoptics, but only in John: "In the beginning was the Word." "Behold the Lamb of God!" "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son." "I am the way, the truth, and the life." "I am the vine." "What is truth?" "It is finished!" "So send I you." By some estimates about 90% of the material found in John is not found in the Synoptic Gospels.

Christian scholars have noticed these differences from ancient times. Clement of Alexandria, writing approximately AD 185, called John the "spiritual Gospel." By this, Clement did not mean that John was nonhistorical, but that John was more concerned with internal, spiritual matters. In the more recent past overly critical scholars have pronounced the differences between John and the Synoptics to be irreconcilable and concluded that John is, in effect, the first commentary on the Gospels. This assumption (that John is historical fiction) exists in many commentaries of previous generations and is still held by some today. In general, though, current scholarship is much less certain about the nonhistorical character of John. In this commentary we assume that John relates a historically reliable version of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, albeit quite different from that of the Synoptic Gospels. These differences are part of what makes the study of this book so fascinating and will be discussed at the appropriate places through the commentary.

WHO IS THE AUTHOR?

We have been writing as if we knew for sure that John was the author of this Gospel. But this begs the question, how do we know for sure that John wrote it, and if so, which John was this? To answer the first question in complete honesty, we do not know for sure who wrote this book, for it was published anonymously in line with the publishing standards of the ancient world. We do have some very early witnesses to John as the author, however. The so-called "Muratorian Canon" (date disputed, but probably AD 150-200) says, "John, one of the disciples, wrote the fourth book of the Gospel." An early church leader by the name of Irenaeus (AD 185) is also an important witness. Tradition claims that Irenaeus was a student of Polycarp of Smyrna, and that Polycarp was a student of John himself. This means that Irenaeus is only one generation of believers removed from John, which gives added weight to what he writes. Irenaeus states in no uncertain terms that John was the author of the Fourth Gospel (in his book Against Heresies 3.1.1).

Some scholars have suggested, however, that the author of the Fourth Gospel was indeed a man named John, but not John the Apostle. It is true that there were other early Christian leaders named John, and it is possible that one of them is the true author of the Fourth Gospel. This issue may be addressed by determining the identity of the so-called "beloved disciple" within the book of John.

In John 21:20-24 the "disciple whom Jesus loved" is said to be the author of the book. If we work backwards through the book, we encounter the beloved disciple in other places. He is the one who recognizes Jesus after the resurrection during the miraculous catch of fish (21:7). Jesus entrusts the care for his mother, Mary, to this disciple while hanging on the cross (19:26-27). This disciple reclines next to Jesus at the Last Supper (13:23, 25). The beloved disciple is intended to be seen in some places where he is simply called the "other disciple." He is the one who races Peter to the tomb on Easter morning, and arrives first (20:3-5, probably indicating that he was younger than Peter). It is the "other disciple" who gains entrance for Peter and himself into the high priest's courtyard during the interrogation of Jesus (18:15-16). The "other disciple" may also be the unnamed disciple of John the Baptist who, along with Andrew, is pointed to Jesus by the Baptist himself (1:35-40).

The intimacy the beloved disciple has with Jesus points to one of the inner circle of disciples. In the Synoptic Gospels, this "inner circle" is pictured as Peter, James, and John. Peter is clearly not the author of the Fourth Gospel, because he is often portrayed as being with the "beloved disciple." James is an unlikely candidate, because he suffers early martyrdom at the hands of Herod Agrippa I (Acts 12:2). This leaves only John the Apostle, the son of Zebedee, the brother of James. This case is somewhat strengthened by the fact that the Apostle John is named nowhere in the Fourth Gospel (nor is James, the only reference being to the "sons of Zebedee" at 21:2). It is not easy to understand why any other early Christian writer would have omitted the name of such a prominent Apostle. The solution to the mystery is that we are intended to see John himself as the author, and that he does not mention himself except as the "beloved disciple" or the "other disciple." We should also note that this is not an expression of pride (he "loved me best"). It is an expression of deep humility, wonderment, and thankfulness on the part of the author: Jesus loved me, even me?!

WHEN AND WHERE WAS IT WRITTEN?

Many locations have been suggested as the place of composition for the Gospel of John, but the traditional site is the city of Ephesus. The ruins of Ephesus are in southwestern Turkey, near the modern city of Kusadasi. Ephesus was one of the largest and most important cities of the Roman Empire in the first century. Ephesus was the site of the Temple of Artemis (sometimes incorrectly called the Temple of Diana, see Acts 19:28). This temple was recognized as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world according to the Greek geographer, Strabo. This large city (perhaps as many as 500,000 inhabitants) had a very mixed population. There was a strong Christian community in Ephesus, for Paul had a three-year ministry there in the AD 50s. The presence of the Temple of Artemis shows that there was also a strong pagan community, dedicated to the worship of the ancient Greek gods. Overall it was a large, cosmopolitan city, with a well-developed Greek culture. The common language of the city would have been Greek, the language of the New Testament.

Although it cannot be proven, there is strong tradition that the Apostle John, along with Mary the mother of Jesus, made his way to Ephesus sometime after the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. John, at least, was probably in Ephesus during the reign of Emperor Domitian (AD 81-96). After a few years, Domitian seems to have actively persecuted the Christian community, and this atmosphere of persecution probably forms the background for the Fourth Gospel, written sometime between AD 85-95. Also, by this time, the Jewish synagogue community had solidified in its opposition to the Christians, and Jews had to make a choice between the two. Jews who chose to believe in Jesus were "thrown out of the synagogue," a circumstance mentioned by John (9:22; 16:2).

This makes John one of the last books of the New Testament to be written, and certainly the last of the Gospels. If we theorize that John was about 20 when Jesus was crucified (AD 30), then he would have been 75-85 years old when this book was written, a very old man in the ancient world. For this and other reasons, it is likely that John had quite a bit of help in writing this book. Some scholars want to speak of the "Johannine community" or the "community of the beloved disciple" as the author, and there is some merit to this (cf. 21:24, "we know his testimony in true"). For our purposes, however, we will assume that the Apostle John, an eyewitness to many of the Gospel events, is the primary author of this book.

WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERISTICS OF JOHN?

First, we would say that the style of John's writing is simple, but its thought is profound. John is written in some of the simplest Greek in the New Testament, although this does not mean it is "bad" Greek. It uses many common words, many monosyllabic words, and relatively short sentences. Yet the message of the book is profound. Fred Craddock notes that this is a Gospel in which "a child can wade and an elephant can swim."

A second characteristic of John is that he has laid out the bulk of the book as a series of lengthy accounts of works followed by words. We can characterize these combinations as miraculous signs followed by discourses or sermons of Jesus. John has only seven miracles, five of which are not found in the Synoptic Gospels. The story of each of these miracles is told at some length, and the material of the sermon that follows is primarily material not found in the Synoptics.

A third characteristic of the Fourth Gospel is the emphasis upon the personal ministry of Jesus. John relates several one-on-one situations (e.g., Jesus with Nicodemus, chapter 3), which teach us that Jesus had an active private ministry. It was not all public preaching, although this was important, too. In John we see a Jesus who cares for people and has time for them. This has another side, however. Sometimes it emphasizes the aloneness of Jesus. He often seems to be by himself without the support of the disciples or anyone else, a solitary figure.

Fourthly, John has a highly developed theological interest. He is particularly concerned with the matter of Christology, explaining who Jesus is in relation to God. John lays stress on the divinity of Jesus, often referring to him as the Son or the Son of God. He also stresses the humanity of Jesus: he is thirsty at Sychar and weeps at the tomb of Lazarus. John develops the theme of Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, the one God sent to his people.

John also explores the nature of God the Father, particularly through the Father-Son relationship between Jesus and God. John emphasizes that faith for the Christian must be in both the Father and in the Son. And John also has a great deal of discussion about the Holy Spirit. This is found throughout the book, but particularly in the Farewell Discourses of chapters 13-17. Here the Holy Spirit is portrayed as the coming Paraclete or Advocate for the community of believers.

A fifth characteristic might also be called the purpose of John. This purpose is strongly evangelistic, to bring the readers to faith. There is a constant contrast in the Fourth Gospel between believers and unbelievers, between faith and unfaith. Toward the end of the book John lays out his purpose in very straightforward language, "These [things] are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name" (20:31).

HOW WILL THE STUDY OF JOHN

BE APPROACHED?

There are many possible ways to study John, but it is helpful to know what the primary emphasis will be in this commentary. Our main focus will be to listen carefully to what John is saying to us, to understand his intended message. This is not as easy as it may seem at first glance, for John is far removed from twentieth century English speakers. We want to know the general story, to pick up on the nuances, to be sensitive to the theological implications John is drawing out. For the most part we will not be concerned with evaluating the historical nature of John's account. When we bring historical data into the mix, it will be to help the reader understand the background of John's story, not to judge his accuracy. This is a modified narrative approach, an attempt to understand John's story as it is intended to be understood. While some may find this intolerably naïve, it is certainly the first and necessary step to a full appreciation of this marvelous book. If we can get you to listen to John carefully and hear his message, we will have succeeded in what we set out to do.

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Note: There are many, many commentaries and other books related to the study of John. Dr. Bryant's favorites were the ones by Rudolf Bultmann, Barnabas Lindars, and Raymond Brown (even though he had sharp disagreements with all of them). Bultmann has a great deal of excellent material, although his theological bent makes him difficult for less advanced students. Lindars is excellent in technical discussion, but spiritually dry. Brown is wordy, but often gives great insights. I think the finest commentary on John is that of D.A. Carson. While Carson may be too conservative for some, he never avoids the hard questions and takes the time necessary to do thorough exegesis. Other outstanding choices for the more advanced student include the commentary of C.K. Barrett and George Beasley-Murray's commentary in the Word Biblical Commentary series. For the less advanced student the commentary by Paul Butler contains a wealth of accessible material, although written for an earlier generation.

Abbot, Ezra, Andrew P. Peabody, and J.B. Lightfoot. The Fourth Gospel: Evidences External and Internal of Its Johannean Authorship . London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1892.

Ashton, John. Understanding the Fourth Gospel . Oxford: Clarendon, 1991.

Bacon, Benjamin W. The Fourth Gospel in Research and Debate: A Series of Essays on Problems Concerning the Origin and Value of the Anonymous Writings Attributed to the Apostle John . New York: Moffatt, 1910.

. The Gospel of the Hellenists . New York: Holt, n.d., c.1933.

Barclay, William. The Gospel of John . The Daily Study Bible Series. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1956.

Barrett, C.K. The Gospel according to St. John . Second Edition. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978.

. The Gospel of John and Judaism . Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975.

Bauer, Walter. Das Johannesevangelium . Tübingen: Mohr, 1925.

Beasley-Murray, George R. John . Word Biblical Commentary 36. Waco: Word, 1987.

Bernard, John H. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to St. John. 2 volumes. International Critical Commentary. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1928.

Blomberg, Craig L. Jesus and the Gospels. Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1997.

Boice, James M. Witness and Revelation in the Gospel of John . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978.

Borchert, Gerald L. John 1-11 . The New American Commentary 25A. Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1996.

Bowman, John. The Fourth Gospel and the Jews: A Study in R. Akiba, Esther, and the Gospel of John . Pittsburgh: Pickwick, 1975.

Brown, Raymond E. The Community of the Beloved Disciple. New York: Paulist, 1979.

. The Death of the Messiah: From Gethsemane to the Grave . 2 volumes. New York: Doubleday, 1994.

. The Gospel according to John . 2 volumes. The Anchor Bible 29A-B. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966-70.

Bruce, F.F. The Gospel of John . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983.

Bultmann, Rudolf. The Gospel of John . Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971.

Burney, Charles F. The Aramaic Origin of the Fourth Gospel . Oxford: Clarendon, 1922.

Butler, Paul. The Gospel of John . 2 volumes in 1. Bible Study Textbook Series. Joplin, MO: College Press, 1961.

Carpenter, Joseph E. The Johannine Writings: A Study of the Apocalypse and the Fourth Gospel. London: Constable, 1927.

Carson, D.A. The Gospel According to John. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991.

Charlesworth, James H., editor. John and Qumran . London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1972.

Colwell, Ernest C., The Greek of the Fourth Gospel: A Study of Its Aramaisms in the Light of Hellenistic Greek . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, n.d., c. 1931.

Craddock, Fred B. John . Knox Preaching Guides. Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1982.

Cullmann, Oscar. The Johannine Circle . Philadelphia: Westminster, 1975.

Culpepper, R. Alan. The Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel: A Study in Literary Design . Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983.

. The Gospel and Letters of John . Interpreting Biblical Texts Series. Nashville: Abingdon, 1998.

Dodd, C.H. Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963.

. The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953.

Drummond, James. An Inquiry into the Character and Authorship of the Fourth Gospel. New York: Scribner, 1904.

Eisler, Robert. The Enigma of the Fourth Gospel . London: Methuen, 1938.

Erdman, Charles R. The Gospel of John . Philadelphia: Westminster, 1917.

Fortna, Robert T. The Gospel of Signs: A Reconstruction of the Narrative Source Underlying the Fourth Gospel . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970.

Foster, R.C. Studies in the Life of Christ . Grand Rapids: Baker, 1985. Reprint, Joplin, MO: College Press, 1996.

Gardner-Smith, Percival. St. John and the Synoptic Gospels . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1938.

Gnilka, J. Johannesevangelium . Neue Echter Bibel. Würzburg: Echter, 1983.

Godet, Frederic. Commentary on the Gospel of John . Translated by Timothy Dwight. 2 volumes. New York: Funk & Wagnall, 1886.

Haenchen, Ernst. A Commentary on the Gospel of John . Hermeneia Series. 2 volumes. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984. (German ed., 1980.)

Hendriksen, William. Exposition of the Gospel according to John . 2 volumes. New Testament Commentary Series. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1954.

Hengel, Martin. The Johannine Question . Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1989.

Higgins, A.J.B. The Historicity of the Fourth Gospel . London: Lutterworth, 1960.

Hoskyns, Edwyn C. The Fourth Gospel. 2 volumes. London: Faber, 1940. Revised. ed. in one vol., 1947.

Howard, Wilbert F. Christianity According to St. John . Philadelphia: Westminster, 1946.

. The Fourth Gospel in Recent Criticism and Interpretation . London: Epworth, 1931.

Howard, Wilbert F., and Arthur J. Gossip. "The Gospel According to St. John." In Interpreter's Bible 7:437-811. Nashville: Abingdon/ Cokesbury, 1952.

Hunter, Archibald M. According to John . The Cambridge Bible Commentary. London: SCM Press, 1968.

. The Gospel According to John . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965.

Jauncey, James H. The Compelling Indwelling [Studies on John 15]. Chicago: Moody, 1972.

Jeremias, Joachim. New Testament Theology. Old Tappan, NJ: Scribners Reference, 1977.

Jervell, Jacob. Jesus in the Gospel of John . Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984.

Kysar, Robert. The Fourth Evangelist and His Gospel . Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1975.

. John . Augsburg Commentary on the New Testament. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1986.

. John's Story of Jesus . Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984.

. John, the Maverick Gospel . Atlanta: John Knox, 1976. Reprinted Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1993.

Lee, Edwin Kenneth. The Religious Thought of St. John . London: S.P.C.K., 1950.

Lenski, R.C.H. Interpretation of John's Gospel . Columbus: Lutheran Book Concern, 1936.

Leon-Dufour, Xavier. Dictionary of the New Testament . New York: Harper & Row, 1980.

Lightfoot, Robert H. St. John's Gospel . Edited by C.F. Evans. Oxford: Clarendon, 1956.

Lindars, Barnabas. The Gospel of John . New Century Bible Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972.

MacGregor, George H.C. The Gospel of John . The Moffatt New Testament Commentary. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1928.

MacGregor, George H.C., and A.Q. Morton. The Structure of the Fourth Gospel. Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1961.

Maier G. Johannes-Evangelium . BKNT 6. Neuhausen-Stuttgart: Hänssler, 1984.

Marsh, John. The Gospel of St. John . Westminster Pelican Commentaries. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1968.

Martyn, J. Louis. History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel . New York: Harper & Row, 1968.

. The Gospel of John in Christian History: Essays for Interpreters . New York: Paulist, 1979.

McGarvey, J.W., and P.Y. Pendleton. The Fourfold Gospel or a Harmony of the Four Gospels . Cincinnati: Standard, 1914.

Michaels, J.R. John . San Francisco: Harper, 1984.

Moloney, Francis J. The Gospel of John. Sacra Pagina. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1998.

Montefiore, C.G., and H. Loewe. A Rabbinic Anthology. New York: Schocken Books, 1974.

Morris, Leon. The Gospel according to St. John . The New International Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971.

. Reflections on the Gospel of John . 4 volumes. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1986.

. Studies in the Fourth Gospel . Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1969.

Murray, John O.F. Jesus according to St. John . London: Longmans, 1936.

Nicol, W. Semeia in the Fourth Gospel . Leiden: Brill, 1972.

Nolloth, Charles F. The Fourth Evangelist: His Place in the Development of Religious Thought. London: J. Murray, 1925.

O'Neill, J.C. Who Did Jesus Think He Was? Leiden: Brill, 1995.

Odeberg, Hugo. The Fourth Gospel: Interpreted in Its Relation to Contemporaneous Religious Currents in Palestine and the Hellenistic-Oriental World . Amsterdam: B.R. Grüner, 1968.

Pack, Frank. The Gospel according to John . Living Word Commentaries. Austin: Sweet, 1975.

Palmer, Earl F. The Intimate Gospel . Waco: Word, 1978.

Plummer, Alfred. The Gospel according to St. John. Cambridge Greek Testament. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1890.

Rainsford, Marcus. Our Lord Prays: Thoughts on John XVII . London: 1873; reprint Chicago: Moody, 1950.

Redlich, Edwin B. An Introduction to the Fourth Gospel . London: Longmans, 1939.

Ridderbos, Herman N. The Gospel of John: A Theological Commentary . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997.

Rigg, William Harrison. The Fourth Gospel and Its Message for Today . London: Lutterworth, 1952.

Robinson, John A.T. The Priority of John . London: SCM Press, 1985.

Sanday, William. The Authorship and Historical Character of the Fourth Gospel . London: Macmillan, 1872.

. The Criticism of the Fourth Gospel . New York: Scribner, 1905.

Sanders, J.N. The Fourth Gospel in the Early Church . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1943.

Sanders, J.N., and B.A. Mastin. The Gospel according to St. John . Black's New Testament Commentaries. London: A.& C. Black, 1968.

Schlatter, Adolf. Der Evangelist Johannes . Stuttgart: Calwer, 1948.

Schnackenburg, Rudolf. The Gospel according to St John . 3 volumes. Translated by Cecily Hastings, et al. New York: Crossroad, 1982.

Sidebottom, E.M. The Christ of the Fourth Gospel . London: SPCK, 1961.

Sloyan, Gerard S. John . Interpretation Commentary Series. Atlanta: John Knox, 1988.

Smith, D. Moody. The Composition and Order of the Fourth Gospel . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1965.

. John . Proclamation Commentaries. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976.

Smith, D. Moody, C. Clifton Black, and R. Alan Culpepper, eds. Exploring the Gospel of John: In Honor of D. Moody Smith . Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1996.

Smith, Jonathan R. The Teaching of the Gospel of John . New York: Revell, 1903.

Stevens, George B. The Johannine Theology: A Study of the Doctrinal Contents of the Gospel and Epistles of the Apostle John . New York: Scribner, 1894.

Strachan, Robert H. The Fourth Evangelist: Dramatist or Historian? London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1925.

. The Fourth Gospel: Its Significance and Environment . 3rd Revised Edition. London, S.C.M. Press, 1941.

Tasker, Randolph V.G. The Gospel according to St. John . Tyndale New Testament Commentaries. London: Tyndale, 1960.

Temple, William. Readings in St. John's Gospel . 2 volumes. London: Macmillan, 1939-40; one volume edition, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1955.

Tenney, Merrill C. "The Gospel of John." In The Expositor's Bible Commentary , 93-203. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1981.

. John: the Gospel of Belief . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans (1948), 1954.

Turner, George A., and Julius R. Mantey. The Gospel according to John . The Evangelical Commentary on the Bible. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964.

Wead, David. The Literary Devices in John's Gospel . Basel: Komm. Friedrich Reinhardt, 1970.

Weber, Gerard P. and Robert Miller. Breaking Open the Gospel of John . Cincinnati: St. Anthony Messenger Press, 1995.

Westcott, Brooke F. The Gospel according to St .John . London: John Murray, 1882.

. The Gospel according to St. John; the Greek Text with Introduction and Notes . 2 volumes. London: John Murray, 1908. Reprinted in 1 volume, Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980.

Wiles, Maurice F. The Spiritual Gospel: The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel in the Early Church. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960.

Witherington, Ben, III. John's Wisdom: A Commentary on the Fourth Gospel. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1995.

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

ABBREVIATIONS

BAGD A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament by Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich, and Danker

BDB A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament by Brown, Driver and Briggs

BDF A Greek Grammar of the New Testament by Blass, Debrunner and Funk

BJRL Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester

CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly

DNT Dictionary of the New Testament

HTR Harvard Theological Review

ICC International Critical Commentary

IDB Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible

JAMA Journal of the American Medical Association

JBL Journal of Biblical Literature

JETS Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society

KJV King James Version

LSJ Greek-English Lexicon by Liddell, Scott and Jones

NASB New American Standard Bible

LXX Septuagint

NIV New International Version

NLT New Living Translation

NovT Novum Testamentum

NRSV New Revised Standard Version

NT New Testament

OT Old Testament

TDNT Theological Dictionary of the New Testament by Kittel and Friedrich

ZNW Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

College: John (Outline)

OUTLINE

A good outline is more than half the battle in one's understanding and remembering the contents of any book. There is more than one way to break up and organize the materials in the Gospel according to John. Most students have observed two large divisions in its structure: (1) chapters 1-12 and (2) chapters 13-21. These larger units include a prologue (1:1-18) and an epilogue (chapter 21). Perhaps the easiest way to organize the materials of the book for commentary purposes might be to number the larger units of thought in the book (over fifty such units) and comment successively on these from the beginning of the book to the end. One may endeavor, however, to organize the materials of the Fourth Gospel in some kind of elaborate outline, structured under the two large divisions noted above. We follow this latter procedure below:

I. JESUS MANIFESTS HIMSELF TO THE WORLD - 1:1-12:50

A. The Prologue - 1:1-18

1. The Logos before Time - 1:1-4

a. His Relationship to Deity - 1:1-2

b. His Relationship to the World - 1:3-4

2. The Logos Manifested in History - 1:5-18

a. John the Baptist's Initial Testimony to the Logos - 1:5-13

b. The Logos in Flesh - 1:14-18

B. The Testimony of John the Baptist and of Jesus' First Disciples - 1:19-51

1. The Testimony of John the Baptist - 1:19-34

a. The Testimony of John to the Jewish Leaders - 1:19-28

b. The Testimony of John to the Jewish People - 1:29-34

2. Jesus' Calling and the Testifying of His First Disciples - 1:35-51

a. John the Baptist's Disciples Follow Jesus - 1:35-42

b. Jesus' Calling of Philip and Nathanael - 1:43-51

C. Jesus' First Signs - 2:1-25

1. Jesus Changes Water into Wine - 2:1-12

2. Jesus Cleanses the Temple - 2:13-22

3. Summary of Response to Jesus - 2:23-25

D. Jesus and Nicodemus - 3:1-36

1. The New Birth - 3:1-10

2. The Son of Man - 3:11-21

3. The Further Testimony of John the Baptist - 3:22-30

4. The Son's Testimony - 3:31-36

E. Jesus and the Samaritans - 4:1-42

1. Introduction - 4:1-4

2. Jesus and the Woman of Samaria - 4:5-30

a. The Setting - 4:5-6

b. Jesus' Request for Water - 4:7-9

c. Living Water - 4:10-15

d. The Woman Revealed - 4:16-19

e. Jesus Reveals Himself - 4:20-26

f. Reactions to Jesus - 4:27-30

3. Jesus and the Samaritans - 4:31-42

a. Jesus and the Testifying of His disciples - 4:31-38

b. Firsthand and Secondhand Testimony - 4:39-42

F. Jesus' Healing of the Nobleman's Son, the Second Sign at Cana - 4:43-54

1. Introduction - 4:43-45

2. The Healing of the Nobleman's Son - 4:46-54

G. Jesus and the Major Jewish Festivals - 5:1-12:50

1. A Feast, the Sabbath, and Jesus' Healing at the Pool in Jerusalem - 5:1-47

a. The Healing on the Sabbath - 5:1-9a

b. Violations of the Sabbath and the Healed Man's Defense - 5:9b-15

c. Violations of the Sabbath and Jesus' Defense - 5:16-18

d. Jesus' Discourse on the Sabbath and His Work - 5:19-29

e. Jesus' Defense and the Four Witnesses - 5:30-47

2. The Passover and Jesus' Explanation of the Exodus - 6:1-71

a. The Background - 6:1-4

b. Jesus' Feeding of the Five Thousand - 6:5-13

c. Jesus, Not That Kind of King - 6:14-15

d. Jesus' Walking on the Sea of Galilee - 6:16-21

e. The Crowds' Search for Jesus - 6:22-25

f. Two Discourses on the Bread of Life - 6:26-34, 35-40

g. Conflict Concerning Bread from Heaven and Flesh and Blood - 6:41-59

h. Rejection and Acceptance of Jesus - 6:60-71

3. Jesus at Tabernacles - 7:1-52

a. Introduction: Question If Jesus Would Go to This Feast - 7:1-13

b. Jesus' Discourses Spoken during the Feast - 7:14-36

c. Jesus' Discourses Spoken on the Last Day of the Feast and the Audience's Response to it - 7:37-52

d. Textual Parenthesis: The Woman Taken in Adultery - 7:53-8:11

4. The Light of Tabernacles and Jesus' Great Confrontation with the Jews - 8:12-59

a. Jesus Discourse at the Temple Treasury: Jesus the Light of the World and the Authority of His Testimony to Himself - 8:12-20

b. Jesus' Attack on the Jews Who Disbelieved and the Origin of His Testimony and the Problem of Who He Is - 8:21-30

c. Truth, Sin, Freedom, and the Children of Abraham - 8:31-59

5. Healing of the Man Born Blind - 9:1-41

a. The Setting - 9:1-5

b. The Healing - 9:6-7

c. Interrogations of the Man - 9:8-34

(1) Questions Posed by the Neighbors and Friends - 9:8-12

(2) Preliminary Quizzing by Some Pharisees - 9:13-17

(3) The Man's Parents Questioned by the Jews - 9:18-23

(4) The Man Questioned a Second Time by the Jews, and Excommunicated - 9:24-34

d. Who Sees and Who Is Blind? Jesus' Answer - 9:35-41

6. The Feast of Dedication and the Shepherd Analogy - 10:1-42

a. Jesus, the Sheepgate, and the Shepherd - 10:1-21

(1) Figures from Shepherd Life - 10:1-6

(2) Explaining the Figure - 10:7-18

(a) Jesus is the Sheepgate - 10:7-10

(b) Jesus is the Good (or Model) Shepherd - 10:11-18

(3) Response to Jesus' Explanation: Rejection of Jesus by the Jews - 10:19-21

b. Jesus at the Feast of Dedication - 10:22-39

(1) Jesus the Messiah - 10:22-31

(a) Setting and Questions: "Is Jesus the Messiah?" - 10:22-24

(b) Jesus' Reply - 10:25-30

(c) Reaction: Attempt to Stone Jesus - 10:31

(2) Jesus the Son of God - 10:32-39

(a) The Question: Is Jesus Making Himself Equal with God - 10:32-33

(b) Jesus' Response - 10:34-38

(c) Reaction: Attempt to Arrest Jesus - 10:39

c. Jesus in Retrogression and Progression Simultaneously - 10:40-42

7. Lazarus and the Passover Plot - 11:1-57

a. Lazarus - 11:1-44

(1) Setting - 11:1-6

(2) Jesus' Discussion with the Disciples - 11:7-16

(3) Jesus and Martha: Jesus the Resurrection and the Life - 11:17-27

(4) Jesus and Mary and the Grieved - 11:28-37

(5) Jesus' Raising of Lazarus - 11:38-44

b. The Passover Plot to Kill Jesus - 11:45-53

c. Retreat of Jesus - 11:54-57

8. Preparation for Passover and Death - 12:1-50

a. Mary's Anointing of Jesus - 12:1-11

b. Jesus' Triumphal Entry - 12:12-19

c. Gentiles Prompt Jesus' Announcement of His Hour - 12:20-36

d. The Tragedy of Unbelief, Past and Present - 12:37-43

e. The Call to Faith Still Stands - 12:44-50

II. JESUS' MANIFESTATION OF HIMSELF IN HIS DEATH AND RESURRECTION - 13:1-21:25

A. Jesus' Manifestation of Himself to His Disciples in His Farewell Discourses - 13:1-17:26

1. At the Last Supper - 13:1-38

a. Jesus' Washing of His Disciples' Feet - 13:1-17

b. Jesus' Prediction of Judas' Betrayal - 13:18-30

c. Jesus' Prediction of Peter's Denial; The New Commandment (13:34) - 13:31-38

2. Promises of Jesus - 14:1-31

a. Promises of an Abode where Jesus Is Going - 14:1-4

b. Jesus the Way to the Father - 14:5-12

c. Doing Greater Works than Jesus; Asking in Jesus' Name - 14:13-14

d. Jesus' Departure and the Spirit's Coming - 14:15-31

3. More Commands and Promises of Jesus - 15:1-27

a. Jesus, the Vine; the Disciples, the Branches; The New Commandment Given (15:13) - 15:1-17

b. Hatred from the World - 15:18-25

c. The Spirit's Mission Like That of the Disciples: to Bear Witness to Jesus - 15:26-27

4. Still More Promises and Commands - 16:1-33

a. The Works of Disbelief - 16:1-4

b. The Works of the Spirit - 16:5-15

c. Joy Greater than Trouble - 16:16-33

5. Jesus' Prayer - 17:1-26

a. For His Glorification - 17:1-5

b. For His Disciples - 17:6-19

c. For Those Who Will Believe - 17:20-26

(1) For Unity - 17:20-23

(2) For Seeing Jesus' Glory - 17:24-26

B. Jesus' Trial and Crucifixion - 18:1-19:42

1. Jesus' Arrest - 18:1-11

2. Jesus' Trial before Annas - 18:12-14

3. Peter's First Denial of Jesus - 18:15-18

4. Jesus Interrogated before Annas - 18:19-24

5. Peter's Second and Third Denials of Jesus - 18:25-27

6. Jesus' Trial before Pilate - 18:28-19:16

a. Pilate Doubtful of the Prosecution - 18:28-32

b. Pilate Examines Jesus - 18:33-38a

c. Barabbas - 18:38b-40

d. The Flogging of Jesus and Delivering Over of Him to the Jews by Pilate - 19:1-16

7. The Crucifixion of Jesus - 19:17-30

8. Piercing Jesus' Side - 19:31-37

9. Jesus' Burial - 19:38-42

C. The Resurrection of Jesus - 20:1-21:25

1. Peter and John at the Empty Tomb - 20:1-9

2. Jesus' Appearance to Mary - 20:10-18

3. Jesus' Appearance to the Disciples with Thomas Absent - 20:19-23

4. Jesus' Appearance to his Disciples with Thomas Present - 20:24-29

5. The Purpose of this Gospel - 20:30-31

6. Jesus' Appearance to Seven Disciples and the Great Haul of Fish - 21:1-14

7. Jesus' Admonition to Peter about Peter - 21:15-19

8. Jesus' Admonition to Peter about John - 21:20-23

9. Testimony to the Truthfulness of the Contents of the Fourth Gospel - 21:24

10. The Selective Nature of the Contents of the Fourth Gospel - 21:25

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

Lapide: John (Book Introduction)

NOTICE TO THE READER.

Gospel of John Intro

——o——

AS it has been found impossible to compress the Translation of the Commentary upon S. John's Gospel into one volume, it is now given in two, of which this is the first. The second volume comprises the remainder of the Gospel, and the Commentary of À Lapide upon S. John's Epistles.

It is with great pleasure I present this portion of this great Commentary to the English reader. Admirable as Cornelius à Lapide almost invariably is in his exposition of Holy Scripture, on the Gospel of S. John he seems to me to surpass himself. Beginning from the Incarnation of the Divine Word, nothing can be more masterly, nothing more magnificent, than the way in which he shows that the whole sacramental system of the Catholic Church of Christ is the necessary consequence and complement, as well as the extension of the Incarnation, Divinely planned and ordained for the eternal salvation of the whole human race. Granted the truth of the Incarnation as an objective fact, dealing with realities both in the spiritual and immaterial universe, and also in the material and physical universe, in this world of time and sense, as we call it, I do not see how it is possible to dispute our author's conclusions, taken as a whole.

The translation of Vol. 1. is by myself as far as the end of the 6th chapter. From the 27th verse of 6th chapter to the end, I have translated practically without any abridgment or omission, and also with greater literalness than I sometimes do, on account of the surpassing importance of the doctrine treated of, and the controversies resulting from it. Chapters vii.-x. are by the Rev. James Bliss, Rector of Manningford Bruce. For the last chapter, the 11th, I am indebted to the Rev. S. J. Eales, M.A., D.C.L., lately Principal of S. Boniface's College, Warminster, and now Principal of the Grove College, Addlestone, Surrey.

In Volume II. the Translation of chap. xiii. is by a young scholar, Mr. Macpherson. The remainder of the Gospel is by my most kind friend, Mr. Bliss, and myself.

Of S. John's Epistles, the first three chapters of the First Epistle are by Mr. Bliss, the remaining two chapters, and the Second and Third Epistles, are by myself.

T. W. Mossman.

THE PREFACE

TO

S. JOHN'S GOSPEL

——o——

S. JOHN the Apostle, the son of Zebedee and Salome, wrote this Gospel in Asia in the Greek language, towards the end of his life, after his return from Patmos, where he wrote the Apocalypse.

His reasons for writing were two. The first was that he might confute the heretics Ebion and Cerinthus, who denied Christ's Divinity, and taught that He was a mere man. The second was to supply the omissions of Matthew, Mark and Luke. Hence S. John records at length what Christ did during the first year of His ministry, which the other three had for the most part passed over.

Listen to S. Jerome in his preface to S. Matthew. "Last was John, the Apostle and Evangelist, whom Jesus loved the best, who lay on the Lord's bosom, and drank of the purest streams of His doctrines. When he was in Asia, at a time when the seeds of the heresies of Cerinthus, Ebion and the rest, who denied that Christ had come in the flesh, those whom in his Epistle he calls Antichrists, and whom the Apostle Paul frequently refutes, he was constrained by well nigh all the bishops who were at that time in Asia, and by the deputies of many other Churches, to write of the deep things of the Divinity of our Saviour, and to 'break through,'^* as it were, to the Word of God by a kind of happy temerity. Whence also we are told in ecclesiastical history that when he was urged by the brethren to write, he agreed to do so, on condition that they should all fast, and pray to God in common. When the fast was ended, being filled with the power of revelation, he burst forth with the preface coming straight from above, In the beginning was the Word , and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. "

Others add that S. John's beginning to write was preceded by lightnings and thunderings, as though he had been another Moses, who thus received the Law of God (Exod. xix.)

Baronius shows that S. John wrote his Gospel in the year of Christ 99, or sixty-six years after the Ascension. This was the first year of the reign of Nerva, and the twenty-seventh after the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus.

As then Isaiah surpassed all the rest of the Prophets in sublimity, so did John the other Evangelists. Last in time, he is first in dignity and perfection. Thus in the first chapter of Ezekiel he is compared to an eagle flying above all other birds. Thus his dignity and special excellence, as well as his consequent obscurity, may be considered under three heads.

First, his matter and scope.  S. John alone of set purpose treats of the Divinity of Christ, of the origin, eternity, and generation of the Word, of the spiration of the Holy Spirit, of the unity of the Godhead, and of the Divine relations and attributes. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are concerned with the actions of Christ's humanity. This is why the Fathers derive almost all their arguments against the Arians, Nestorians, Eutychians and such like heretics from S. John.

The second is the order of time. We know that the Church, like the dawning of the day, advanced by the succession of time to the perfect day of the knowledge of the mysteries of the faith. Thus the sacred writers of the New Testament, the Apostles and Evangelists, write far more clearly concerning them than do Moses and the Prophets of the Old Testament. John was the last of all, and his Gospel was his last work. He composed it therefore as a sort of crown of all the sacred books.

The third is the author.  S. John alone was counted worthy to win the laurels of all saints. For he is in very deed a theologian, or rather the prince of theologians. The same is an apostle, a prophet and an evangelist. The same is a priest, a bishop, a high priest, a virgin, and a martyr. That S. John always remained a virgin is asserted by all the ancient writers, expressly by Tertullian ( Lib. de monogam .) and S. Jerome ( Lib. 1 contra. Jovin .). To him therefore as a virgin Christ from His cross commended His Virgin Mother. For "blessed are the clean in heart, for they shall see God," as the Truth Itself declares.

The Only Begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, made known to this His most chaste and beloved friend, who reclined upon His breast, the hidden things and sacraments of the Divinity, which had been kept-secret from the foundation of the world. John hath declared the same to us, as a son of thunder, thundering and lightening the whole world with the Deity of the Word. As with a flaming thunderbolt "he hath given shine to the world;" and with the fire of love he hath inflamed it. Let that speech of Christ, His longest and His last, bear witness, which He made after supper (S. John xiii. &c.), which breathes of nothing but the ardour of Divine love.

See more to the same effect in S. Cyril, S. Augustine, and S. Chrysostom ( Præm. in Joan .). Indeed, S. Chrysostom dares to say that S. John in his Gospel hath taught the angels the secrets of the Incarnate Word, such as before they knew not, and that therefore he is the Doctor of the cherubim and the seraphim. He proves this from the passage of S. Paul in Ephesians iii., "that there might be made known to the principalities and powers in heavenly places by the Church the multiform wisdom of God." "If," he says, "the principalities and powers, the cherubim and seraphim, have learned these things through the Church, it is very evident that the angels listen to him with the deepest attention. Not slight therefore is the honour which we gain in that the angels are our fellow-disciples in the things that they knew not.

CANONS THROWING LIGHT

upon the

INTERPRETATION OF S. JOHN'S GOSPEL.

——o——

JOHN has a style peculiar to himself, entirely different from that of the other Evangelists and sacred writers. For as an eagle at one time he raises himself above all, at another time he stoops down to the earth, as it were for his prey, that with the rusticity of his style he may capture the simple. At one time he is as wise as the cherubim, at another time he burns as do the seraphim. The reason is because John was most like Christ, and most dear to Him; and he in turn loved Christ supremely. Therefore at His Last Supper he reclined upon His breast. From this source, therefore, he sucked in, as it were, the mind, the wisdom, and the burning love of Christ. Wherefore, when thou readest and hearest John, think that thou readest and hearest Christ. For Christ hath transfused His own spirit and His own love into S. John.

2. Although John by the consent of all wrote his Gospel in Greek for Greeks, yet because he himself was a Hebrew, and from love of this primeval language, which was his native tongue, he abounds above the rest in Hebrew phrases and idioms. Hence to understand him we require a knowledge of two, or indeed of three languages—Hebrew, Greek and Latin. Thus he Hebraizes in his frequent use of and for like as ( sicut ) as Solomon does in Proverbs, where he compares like with like by means of the conjunction and .   And in such instances is a mark of similitude, and has the same meaning as like as ( sicut ). On the other hand, he Grecizes in his use of perchance ( forsitan ) for surely . In John viii. 19 the Greek particle άν expresses affirmation, not uncertainty. So also in viii. 43 ού δύνασθε, ye are not able, is put for ye are not willing. He likewise constantly duplicates the Hebrew Amen , when the other Evangelists only express it once. The reasons for this diversity are examined in chap. iii. 2.

3. John abounds more in the discourses and disputations of Christ with the Jews than in the things that were done by Him. Not that he relates all the discourses and disputations of Christ, but such as were of greater importance. Especially he gives a compendious account of those in which Christ proved that He was God as well as man.

4. In S. John Christ speaks sometimes as God, and sometimes as man. There is need therefore of a careful examination of contexts to distinguish one from the other.

5. When Christ says, as He often does in S. John, that He "does, or says nothing of Himself," or that "not He, but the Father, does, or says this, or that" there must be understood "originally" and "alone." As thus, "neither alone, nor as man perform I these things: nor yet as God am I the first originator of them; but it is God the Father, who together with His Divine essence communicates to Me omniscience and omnipotence, even the power of doing all things."

6. Although the Apostles and other saints wrought miracles, yet Christ in S. John's Gospel often proves that He is the Messiah and God by the miracles which were done by Him. This proof is a true and effectual one; first, because He Himself made direct use of it. For a miracle as the work of God, and the Voice of the prime Verity, is an infallible proof of that which it is brought forward to confirm. Second, because Christ wrought them by His own power and authority, which He could not have done unless He had been God of God. Thus then He did them that they might appear to proceed from Him as from God, the original source of miracles. For the saints do not work miracles by their own authority, but by the invocation of the name of God, or Christ. Let us add that the miracles which were done by Christ were foretold by Isaiah and the other prophets, that they might be indices and marks of the Messiah, as will appear in chap. xi. 4.

7. Matthew, Mark, and Luke record for the most part the acts of the last year, and the last but one of Christ's ministry, that is to say, what He did after the imprisonment of S. John the Baptist. But S. John's Gospel for the most part gives an account of the two preceding years. This consideration will solve many seeming discrepancies between S. John and the other Evangelists. So S. Augustine in his preface.

8. There is frequently in S. John both great force as well as obscurity in the adverbs and conjunctions of causation, influence, connection, and so on, in such a manner that a single particle will often include and point out the entire meaning of a passage. Hence these particles must be most carefully examined and weighed, as I shall show in each place.

9. The particles that , wherefore , on account of which , and the like do not always signify the cause, or the end intended, but often only a consequence or result. This is especially the case if an event has been certainly foreseen, and therefore could not happen otherwise. This is plain from chap. xii. 38, 39, where it said, They believed not on Him , that the saying of Isaias might be fulfilled : and shortly afterwards, Wherefore they could not believe , because Isaias said again , He hath blinded their eyes. For the reason why the Jews would not believe in Christ was not the prediction of Isaiah foretelling that they would not believe ( non credituros ), but the hardness of heart and malice of the Jews, which as a sort of objective cause preceded Isaiah's prophecy. For Isaiah foretold that the Jews were not about to believe, because in truth they themselves through their own malice and obstinacy were not going to do so. So S. Chryostom and others.

10. By the Jews S. John sometimes means the rulers only, sometimes the people only. Thus he represents the Jews at one time as opposing, at another time as favouring Christ. For the people were His friends, the rulers were His adversaries.

11. By a He braism the present tense often signifies not an action issuing in a result, but a force, or power of nature, or the act (in the sense of will or intention, Trans .) of the agent, even in cases where the effect is opposed by the subject, or in some other way. Thus in i. 9 it is said that Christ by His advent gave light to the world. That means, so far as He was concerned. For many, like the Jews, refused to receive this light, as he immediately adds, and continued in the darkness of their unbelief.

12. The particles as if , so as , and the like, because they correspond to the Hebrew caph , do not always signify likeness, but the truth of a fact, or assertion. Thus in i. 14, we have seen His glory , as of the Only Begotten , means, "we have seen the glory of the Only Begotten to be truly such, and so great as became Him who was indeed the Only Begotten Son of God the Father." So S. Chrysostom and others.

13. John, following the Hebrew idiom, sometimes takes words of inceptive action to signify the beginning of something that is done; but sometimes to signify continuation, that a work is in progress; and sometimes, that a work has been perfected and accomplished. Thus we must not be surprised, if sometimes that which increases, or is being perfected, is spoken of as if it were just commencing, and vice versa. An example of inceptive action is to be found in xvi. 6, where Peter, resisting Christ desiring to wash his feet, says, Lord , dost Thou wash my feet ? Dost Thou wash ? that is, "Dost Thou wish, prepare, begin to wash?" There is an example of continued action in ii. 11 , where, after the miracle of the conversion of water into wine, it is added, And His disciples believed in Him : that is, they went on believing, they increased, and were confirmed in faith. For they had already before this believed in Christ, for if they had not believed in Him, they would not have followed Him as His disciples. There is an example of a perfected action in xi 15, where Christ, when about, at the close of His life, to raise up Lazarus, said, I am glad for your sakes , that ye may believe. That is, " that by means of this My last and greatest miracle ye may be altogether made perfect in your belief in Me." Again, in xx. 17, Jesus appearing after His resurrection to Mary Magdalene, who had fallen at His feet, said, Touch Me not . That is, "Do not delay, and waste time in touching My feet, but go quickly, and tell the Apostles, who are very sorrowful because of My death, that I have risen again."

14. John, after the Hebrew idiom, asserts and confirms over again what he had already asserted, by a denial of the contrary. This is especially the case when the subject matter is of importance, and is doubted about by many, so that it requires strong confirmation. Thus in i. 20 , when John the Baptist is asked by the Jews if he were the Christ, he confessed , and denied not , but confessed , I am not the Christ. And in i. 3, All things were made by Him , and without Him was not anything made that was made.

15. John delights in calling Christ the Life , and the Light , for reasons which I will give hereafter. He has several other similar and peculiar expressions. For instance, he often uses the word judgment for condemnation which takes place in judgement. In other places he uses judgment for the secret judgments and decrees of God, because they are just. Sins he calls darkness. The saints he calls sons of light. That which is true and just he calls the truth. In vi. 27, for procure food , or labour for food he has ε̉ζγάεσθα βζω̃σιν. In the 9th chap., when Jesus is asked by the Jews, Who art Thou? He answers, The Beginning, who also am speaking unto you.

16. John relates that Christ said previously certain things, the when and the where of His saying which He had not previously mentioned. For studying brevity, he considered it sufficient to relate them once. Thus in the 11th chap. he says that Martha said to her sister Mary, The Master is come, and calleth for thee. Yet he had not previously related that Christ bade Martha to call Magdalene; for his mentioning that Martha, by Christ's command, called her sister was sufficient to show that Christ had so commanded. In the same chapter Christ saith to Martha, Said I not unto thee, that if thou wouldest believe, thou wouldest see the glory of God? Yet there is no previous account of Christ saying this. Also in vi. 36, Christ says, But I said unto you, that ye also have seen Me and believe not. Yet we nowhere recall that Christ previously so said.

17. The miracles of Christ which John alone records are as follows:- The conversion of water into wine, chap. ii. The first expulsion of the sellers from the Temple, in the same chapter. The healing of the sick child of the nobleman, iv. 47. The healing of the paralytic at the pool in the sheep-market, chap. v. Giving sight to the man born blind, chap. ix. Raising Lazarus from the dead, chap. xi. The falling of Judas and the servants to the earth, when they came to take Jesus, xviii. 6. The flow of blood and water from the side of Christ after He was dead, xix. 34. The multiplication of the fishes, xxi. 6.

COMMENTATORS

Very many persons have written commentaries upon the Gospel of S. John, and among them the principal Greek and Latin Fathers. Among the Greeks, after Origen, who composed thirty-two tomes, or books, upon this Gospel, were S. Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria, who has written a learned and very excellent commentary. He has written a didactic work, and is especially able and skilful in expounding the literal sense.  S. Cyril's commentary on S. John's Gospel consisted originally of twelve books. But of these the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth have perished. Their loss has been supplied, by Clictovæus, a doctor of Paris, whose work has been mistaken by many learned men for the original of S. Cyril.

A second commentator is S. Chrysostom, who seems to have been imbued with the very spirit of S. John himself. He wrote eighty seven homilies on this Gospel.

A third is Theophylact, and a fourth Euthymius. They, as is usual with them, follow S. Chrysostom. Theophylact is the more diffuse of the two.

A fifth commentator is Nonnus Panopolitanus, an Egyptian, and a very eloquent writer, who, as Suidas says, explained the virgin theologian, that is, John the Evangelist, in heroic verses. Although the commentary of Nonnus can properly only be called a paraphrase, nevertheless in many places he points out and illustrates the meaning of the Evangelist in pithy sentences.

Among the Latins the first and chief commentator is S. Augustine, who has written systematically upon the whole Gospel in one hundred and twenty-four tractates.

The second is Venerable Bede, who follows S. Augustine passim, and often word for word.

A third commentary is what is called the Gloss. Where observe that the Gloss is tripartite. The first is the Interlinear Gloss, so called because written between the lines of the sacred text. For that reason it is brief, but pithy, and treats many things in the Gospel learnedly and usefully. The second is the Marginal Gloss, because written on the margin of the text. To this is subjoined the Gloss of Nicolas Lyra. This Nicolas was called Lyra from a village in Normandy. He was a Jew by birth, and was converted to Christianity. He entered the Franciscan Order, and taught scholastic theology, A.D. 1320. He was a learned man, and skilled in Hebrew. He wrote his Gloss upon S. John and the other sacred writers, expounding them literally, and became so celebrated that it has passed into a proverb—

"If Lyra's hand had erst not swept his lyre,

  Our theologians had not danced in choir."

However, we must keep this in mind, that he is too credulous with regard to Jewish fables and puerilities, giving too much heed to writers of his own nation, to the Rabbin, and especially to R. Salomon, who is a great retailer of fables.

In later ages, and especially in our own day, many commentaries have been written upon this Gospel. Pre-eminent among them are Maldonatus, of the Society of Jesus, who is copious, acute, elegant, and learned: Cornelius Jansen, who is exact, solid, and to be depended upon: Frank Toletus, who displays a sound judgment, especially in the application of metaphors and similitudes. Sebastian Barradi has written a good literal commentary, mingling with it moral reflections. He is useful to preachers in affording materials for sermons, and showing how to treat them. Frank Ribera is brief, but as usual excellent and learned. Frank Lucas is entirely literal, but he uses the letter to draw the reader to pious affections.

Among the heretics, Martin Bucer, Wolfgang Musculus, Bullinger, Brentius, Calvin, and Beza have written upon S. John's Gospel. Of all these authors Augustinus Marloratus has made a catena, which I read through and refuted when I was in Belgium.

^* (Cf. Exod. xix. 21, Trans.) Return to the place.