Fifty Two Weeks / John 6

The 5000

There are only two miracles that are recorded in all four Gospels. One of them is the resurrection. The other is the Feeding of the 5000. We all know how important the resurrection is so that puts the Feeding of the 5000 in pretty select company.

While all four Gospels mentioned the Feeding of the 5000 Gospel of John gives us by far the most information. The additional information John gives us mostly concerns the aftermath of this miracle. That is where we are going to focus as well.

The Man Who Would Not be King?

The first thing we notice is that Jesus withdrew from the crowd because they were going to come and make him a king by force. Although Jesus certainly was, and is, a king there are several things wrong with this notion of the people making Jesus their king. 

We live in a democracy and are indoctrinated with the idea that the right to govern comes from the consent of those being governed. But this contradicts what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that all authority comes from God and that he raises up those who he is pleased to raise up. People they cast their votes but it is God who makes the selection. This does not mean that all rulers are godly or that they are righteous. This is simply an acknowledgment that all authority comes from God.

There were three problems with the concept of the people making Jesus their king at this time. First, they did not understand what kind of King Jesus was our what it meant to have Jesus as their king. Secondly, if the people have the authority to make Jesus their king then they also would have the authority to reject him as king at anytime. Finally, it was simply not yet time for Jesus to be revealed as king.

Jesus understood all of this but of course the people did not. All of this is evidenced by the extensive dialogue that John gives us between Jesus and people which took place on the day following this great miracle.

The Bread of Life

With the people found Jesus he told them that the only reason they were looking for him was because he had given them food. They were only seeking material things. They asked him how to do the work that God requires and Jesus gave them the Gospel, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”

Next the people asked one of the most ridiculous questions and all of Scripture, “What miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you?” The reason they were there was because Jesus instead over 5000 people with five loaves of bread and two fish. Yet here they are asking him to do a miracle. They even had a suggestion concerning what kind of miracle Jesus might too. Moses had fed people in the wilderness. Perhaps Jesus could do something like that? Of course Jesus had already done that and now it was time to move on.

Jesus declared himself to be the true Bread that came down from heaven which a man making and never die. He pointed out that even though Moses had given bread to their forefathers all of them have died. This was something greater than Moses. This was bread that a man or woman could eat and never die.

Transubstantiation?

Jesus words about “eating his flesh and drinking his blood” we’re greatly misunderstood by the crowd of people that day. These words are still misunderstood by many to this very day. The fact that Jesus was speaking in a metaphorical sense and not a literal sense is born out by his words in verse 63 where he said, “The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.” 

Jesus was speaking in metaphorical terms because that was a spiritual dimension that most of this crowd were missing. He knew that as long as there are lines and their hearts were focused on material things they would not be able to accept the much higher spiritual things that he had come to bring. This is still true today. Christianity is a revealed faith. This is why Jesus repeated the remarkable words that he had said earlier that no one can come to him unless the father had enabled them. 

One does not become a Christian by anything so literal as participation in a particular ritual, even a sacred one. Being a Christian is simply about believing in Jesus Christ whom the Father has sent. This is the work that God requires. Those who are looking simply with the carnal mind will not stay. Those who follow Christ are those who realize that He alone has the words of eternal life.