Clough John Lesson 29

Feeding the Multitude – John 6:1-13

One of the great themes of the Gospel of John is the persistent process of judgment that Jesus Christ brings with Him, that wherever Jesus goes men are being judged; judged by their reaction to Him. As we have said before, it’s like the illustration of some novice walking into a museum of fine art and showing his ignorance by his reaction to the paintings. Well, the same thing is true of men’s reaction to Jesus Christ, they show their ignorance or their brilliance by their reaction to Him. In John 3:16 we have the definitive statement of God’s love to the world, and then it says that “God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might through Him be saved.” However it also says in verse 18, “He that believeth on Him is not condemned but He that believeth not has been condemned,” perfect tense in the Greek, he has been condemned at a point in the past with results which continue into the present, “because he has not believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God.” Verse 19, “And this is the condemnation that life has come,” perfect tense, “into the world,, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” This is the judgment.

In John 6, before us this evening, we’ll see that judgment begin to operate as we have not yet seen it operate in the Gospel. John 6 is at the peak of the popularity of Jesus ministry. Statistics wise John 6 begins at the top of the graph; by the time Jesus gets through teaching doctrine He is left with twelve people by the end of the chapter. It’s an obvious and a very beautiful chapter to show how doctrine drives people away. This always has been true and it always will be true. John 6 also, I have decided from studying it through this time ought to be filed along with 1 Samuel 8 as one of the great political documents of all time, for John 6 is an answer to the democratic concept of the power of the people. In John 6 Jesus denies the very foundation of democracy itself by assaulting the people; the people are shown to be the ridiculous crowd that they are in John 6. It is an assault, a wholesale attack upon the concept of the sovereignty of the people.

So this chapter has many, many themes and it all fits together if we think of how we have come so far in the Gospel. Beginning in John 2:12 through 3:36 we have Jesus Christ on the first Jerusalem trip. During that first trip He encountered an attack with the authorities over the issue of whether the temple would be raised. We showed in John 3 that this charge would come at His trial three years later. People remembered that day when He said, “destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” In John 4 we found Jesus Christ moving out to minister to the people in the round about areas, particularly in the area of Samaria. We find the Lord Jesus Christ being accepted by the people of a small village in Samaria and we find a nobleman’s son healed. By the way, the nobleman probably would be one of Herod Antipas’ officials.

Then in John 5 we have just finished the second Jerusalem trip in which Jesus goes to Jerusalem and the krisos or the judgment occurs from John 3, the light comes into the world and the light drives away darkness, and so in the second Jewish little trip a second confrontation occurs between Jesus Christ and the authorities. Last time it was over the temple, it’s over His claim for Sonship. Not only does Jesus claim to be the Son of God, He claims that His works are equal with God. He claims that every work He does is the work of the Father; every word He teaches is the word of the Father. He claims an ethical identity with the Father in everything. And so the people catch it and almost stone Him to death for claiming to be God, which He indeed was claiming to be.

Now in John 6 the scene shifts back to Galilee, back to the countryside, back to the people [small blank spot]. There is an oscillation in this Gospel between the heads of state and the people who you would say are the political establishment, the men who make the decisions that run the country. And then there is going back to the people. So John 3 is to the officials; John 4 back to the people; John 5 is the officials; John 6 back to the people, continually back and forth. John, therefore, shows that both leaders and people are deficient spiritually; not just the people, not just the leaders. And in so doing He concepts both the concept [small blank spot] government and democracy.

Now this chapter, chapter 6 is the fourth sign of John. This is just introduction which I’m showing you now to line up, get our sights focused in on this chapter. The first sign listed in John… this is not all the signs Jesus did as John himself tells us in John 20, but the signs that are recorded, the first recorded sign in John 2 shows the Messiah’s participation in human joy. The Messiah participates in a wedding feast, and He’s introduced as bringing joy into the world by virtue of His created word. What is that which symbolizes joy? Wine; wine was the symbol of joy among the Greeks who [can’t understand word], and wine is also a symbol among the Jews of blessing. Jesus creates the wine and brings joy to the world, and so the first sign is concerned with his identification with human joy.

The second sign is in John 4; the second sign shows His identification and participation in human anguish and illness, for there we have the healing of a nobleman’s son. Jesus identifies, not just with joy but also with illness and anguish. In John 5 Jesus Christ identifies with human helplessness, the paralyzed man who for thirty-eight years couldn’t walk; day after day after day after day experiencing defeat after defeat after defeat after defeat. And finally probably in his mentality he was a cripple as well as in his body, and Jesus identified with his helplessness.

Now in John 6 Jesus identifies again with a human need, the need of hunger. And so we have the feeding of the 5,000. That appears to be the chief subject of chapter 6; it is a topic covered in the other Gospels but again not quite the way John treats it. So let’s look at this, we’ll be on this chapter for a number of Sundays because this is one of the great addresses of this Gospel. It is one of the addresses that doom human viewpoint politics that rests on the power of the people.

John 6:1, “After these things Jesus went over the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias.” Now we want to go back to our slides and get a little background of what the terrain looked like, it does figure into this narrative. We have avoided the slides for a while because they were irrelevant to the issue since in John 5 we’re dealing with theology, not geography. But here if we get the scene before us we’re going to have to take up a little review in terrain. We’re concerned with the northern part of the Sea of Galilee. Again let’s point out some features of this Sea. It is a depression; all along the northeastern side you have the Golan Heights, high mountainous areas, sloping downward quite abruptly into the water. There’s a plain here, just to the northeast corner, Bethsada, and over here in the northwest is a place which also figure in, Capernaum. Capernaum was Jesus place where He rested; He had a place, sort of a retreat, where He and His disciples hung out in times when they weren’t ministering and it was Capernaum. Further along we have a city called, even today, Tiberius. That is what is mentioned here in John 6:1, it was there in Jesus’ day, named after the Caesar. All along here you have quite high hills.

Here are the plains of Bethsada; this is where Philip and Andrew came from; it’s in the northeast portion. Those hills you see in the background are the hills of northern Galilee; off to the left you’ll see the Sea of Galilee, obviously a fertile area, obviously good for farming and that was where there was, apparently in Jesus day a sizeable community. Now we’re going to travel to the north side of the lake; there is the plain Bethsada; here is where the Jordan River is flowing into the Sea of Galilee. At Capernaum you’ll see ruins of a synagogue, this is a 4^th century synagogue, a synagogue which has some very, very peculiar columns in it such as this one. On this column is written in Hebrew, Alphaeus, the son of Zebedee, the son of John made this column; may it be for him a blessing, 4^th century AD. Why is that column so intriguing. Well, the reason it’s intriguing is because the names Alphaeus, John and Zebedee are names familiar from the Bible. And in Jewish culture at this time the son would be named for his grandfather is his grandfather had died. And so it’s very conceivable that that column was built by a descendant of the Apostle John because John was the son of Zebedee. And here you have the same kind of sequence, the same names circulating in the family and it certainly raises suspicion about that particular family that made that particular column. But whether they are identical or not this is the area of the synagogue in which the address of John 6 took place; this synagogue being later but the site is generally the same. This is a millstone also located in this general community.

Here is Tiberius today, the hill in back of it looking out across the Sea of Galilee at the other side. Keep this view in mind as you read John 6, they go back and forth across the Sea of Galilee; it’s not that big and you can go across. That’s the general idea of how the Sea looks if you look across from west to east at the north end. To the south are some of the hills that are typical of those around the Sea. Keep these views in mind as you read John 6, it was on these kind of hills. Notice the houses down below here, it gives you an idea of the height of this hill. When they’re talking about mountains, they mean mountains. Here’s a view from on top of that mountain; by the way, for historic interest, on the side of that cliff you see holes; those caves are the place where the bad men stayed that Herod the Great became famous in the eyes of the Romans for clearing out. Herod took his soldiers up here and lowered flaming bushels on ropes and swung them into the holes and burned them alive inside there. And when he got through frying them there weren’t any more robberies on the caravans that used to go through this path. Here’s the view from the northwest, plenty of hills around so there’s no problem in finding a hill for John 6. Here’s how quickly it drops off. This is just to give you a flavor for where John 6 occurred. This is from the south side and gives you an idea of that cut through which you can see the Sea of Galilee.

Let’s look at John 6:1, “…over the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias.” It was named at this time for the city and for the Caesar for which it was named.

John 6:2, “And a great multitude followed Him, because they saw His miracles which He did on those who were diseased.” Verse 2 is the setting for the chapter. John 6:27 is the theology of the chapter, so let’s read verse 2 carefully and look at some details, we’ll skip to verse 27 and then we’ll come back and do some detail work. All the verbs in verse 2 in the Greek are imperfect tense. That means the action was continuous in times past. So the way we would read it if we wanted to emphasize the tense, “A great multitude was continually following Him, because they continually saw the miracles which He continually did on them that were diseased.” That gives you a setting for what kind of people are following the Lord Jesus Christ. Very, very popular at this time and He has popularity on His side. If Jesus Christ were ever to be elected, now would be the time; He has a grass roots movement, everything is going in His direction. And by the time John 6 ends everything is going against Him; He has lost His majority, He has disillusioned the people; in fact, the Lord Jesus Christ has rejected the people. And yet the chapter starts out with verse 2, the people continually followed Him.

Now John 6:27, “here’s the problem with the people, “Stop laboring for the meat which perishes, but for the meat which endures unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give you; for Him God the Father has sealed.” So there’s something wrong with the orientation of the people. Masses, yes; statistics, yes; possible votes, yes; correct orientation, absolutely none! The people are not always right and here is a glaring, glaring illustration.

Let’s look at what He does now, John 6:3, the people constantly following Him, constantly surrounding Him, Jesus considers this is the time for confrontation. “And Jesus went up into a mountain, and there He sat with His disciples.” Think of those high mountains, think of the view that I showed you from those mountains, you could look down and see those little houses down below. So Jesus goes up the mountain and there He sat with His disciples, teaching situation. The teaching situation, John says is there, he emphasizes the site, not the people yet, but the disciples are here.

And then He says in John 6:4, “And the Passover, a feast of the Jews, was near.” John is obsessed with the Jewish feasts. John designs his Gospel around the Jewish feasts because it’s the feasts that are fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now here’s a test, you who have had some doctrine, you know about the doctrine of judgment/salvation, and you know the event that you should have associated in your mind with the doctrine of judgment/salvation: one is the flood and the other one is the Exodus. Passover emphasizes the Exodus. Now the Passover spoke of judgment/salvation, the event of the Exodus. What was the doctrine of judgment/salvation. Let’s get that clear. Before there can be freedom there had to have been the Exodus. Now you miss the entire point of John 6 and get wound up into sacramentalism and what are we doing, eating the body and blood of Christ and all this stuff if you fail to catch John’s hint. John has structured this chapter very carefully and he’s throwing out the literary hints as to what he’s going to do and verse 4 is one of those keys. He says Passover was near.

Watch it, Passover was near! Now what does Passover speak of? Exodus and judgment/salvation. So John is trying to hint at “Passover is near,” we’d better take up his hint and prepare ourselves for what’s coming. In the doctrine of judgment/salvation as we have taught it over and over, summarizing in five points, we have grace before judgment. This is one of the themes, it’s true in Noah’s flood, it’s true in the Exodus, it is true in the Second Advent of Christ. Always grace before God lowers the boom. Then we have perfect discrimination; God perfectly discriminates between those who trust Christ and those who reject Him. And then we have one way of salvation; in the Passover the substitutionary blood atonement of the lamb of God. The fourth point is that it must be appropriated by faith, always faith. And the fifth thing is that nature and man are involved in the process. There in a nutshell is the doctrine associated with Exodus and with Passover. Passover orients man to God’s grace.

But since we work with a group of people we’re going to have to go a little further than that basic doctrine, the doctrine of judgment/salvation. We’re going to have to go back to the basic idea of Exodus itself. Exodus stands in world history, though of course this wouldn’t be mentioned in the classroom, but Exodus is THE political picture of freedom in the world. There are different ways to attain freedom. No people, no tribe, no country on the face of this earth has ever received its freedom the way Israel did at the Exodus. Exodus is the model; if you want the satanic counterpart of the Exodus it would be the French Revolution of 1789 and the Russian Revolution of 1817. This is order from chaos whereas the Exodus produces chaos out of a previous satanic order. It crushes the order that existed to produce God’s divine order, and it is done not by man, it is done by God. Who was it that freed the Jews from the political captivity of Egypt? Did the Jews have their own revolution; did they have their own communist party, did they have their own mob agitators that led the people to freedom or did God supernaturally intervene by grace? The lesson of the Exodus: freedom, true freedom comes about by God’s gracious intervention. And what is there that’s true about this particular way to freedom? Why grace? Because what did the Exodus have to do? If you watched that film carefully the head of the family pointed out that you had to have atonement.

Now here’s where we part company on the area of freedom. There are two ways, two kinds of freedom in the world, divine viewpoint and human viewpoint. Today everybody’s assembling under the banner of freedom but it’s human viewpoint kind of freedom, not divine viewpoint freedom. What distinguishes the two? Basically men want blessing and they want freedom of choice and so on; that’s not what distinguishes it. What distinguishes it is the means and the means to freedom on the divine viewpoint basis, you first must solve that which makes man a slave and that which enslaves man is not a political system. That which enslaves man is his sin nature, and his own sin and his judgment before a holy God. So if it’s that that basically threatens freedom then it’s that that has to be dealt with first. And so therefore in divine viewpoint you must deal with guilt and sin. Those must be dealt with by atonement first, then we can talk about freedom.

Man lost his freedom to subdue the earth. I was talking with [?] and we were speculating how much man had to subdue the plants to make them grow. Did man have an easier time in the Garden of Eden and I’m sure he did. Man had a wonderful time; he had freedom to produce and lots of spare time left over to enjoy his production. He had a tremendous amount of production. Why? Because he had freedom to work with nature efficiently. He could live out to the full realm of his creaturehood. And then came sin and then came God’s judgment upon sin. What happened to man’s freedom? Was he any longer free to produce effectively? No, because from this point forward in history every working man knows every time you go to produce something you have frustration; you have labor problems, you have material problems, you build a think you construct a thing, you get the job done right and then something goes wrong with it or you have somebody complaining about it; always hindrances to the system. All this came about by the curse. You obviously experience the result and the loss of freedom.

Man, then, has been brought into slavery and the only way out is by redemption or atonement. In fact, the word redemption means giving of freedom. So the theme that lies behind John 6 is the theme of freedom for the people. How will the masses attain their freedom; the masses come because they think Jesus is going to give them freedom, freedom, though, on their basis, freedom on the human viewpoint basis. And Jesus insists, you will get your freedom on My basis, divine viewpoint. And by the end the crowd leaves with their tails between their legs because they don’t want that freedom. They want their autonomy more than they want their freedom and so therefore when the freedom is offered under grace it’s not acceptable. Only freedom offered by works and by autonomy is acceptable to the people and so the people vote “no” for Jesus Christ.

Now Jesus builds up this throughout this entire thing, it’s a very complicated chapter, we’ve got a lot of cross-current themes. So I want to summarize in a few points how man loses his freedom and that this is the picture behind this doctrine of judgment/salvation. First, man loses his freedom because of the curse of Genesis 3. The Genesis 3 curse diminishes your freedom. What’s the most obvious illustration of how Genesis 3 disturbs your freedom. It takes you life away, you’re not free to live forever in your mortal body; everyone of you will die, die of an accident, die of sickness, die some way but you’re going to die. Your body is cursed and it must die and you’ve had the freedom to live your life the way you would really want to live it taken from you because of our mother and father in Adam.

But then we have lost our freedom because in our negative volition we demean the Word of God and since the Word of God contains wisdom, we demean the Word of God, we demean wisdom and that leads to foolishness. Where we can rule nature we do it foolishly because we do not take full advantage of all the doctrine that God offers in the words of Scripture. And so we behave like fools. For example, the energy crisis; there is no energy crisis, never has been an energy crisis and will never be an energy crisis. What we have is a moral crisis on how to use the resources we’ve got and a little creativity to develop new ways of using the energy. There’s enough energy that comes in by the sun on your roof to heat your home ten times over what you spend on gas, electricity, to do the job, but who is using the power that comes on their own roof to heat their house. Now, we use the old Arab sponsored fossil fuels. Well, let the Arabs have their fossils, let’s go on to new technology and use new systems of energy. We have constipation of thought, not of energy. So this is one obvious illustration of how we act as fools; fools because we do not appropriate the full wisdom of the Word of God. One of the most elementary doctrines of Scripture is that God created the human race to multiply across the face of the earth until such time that He rings the bell and says it’s all over. And He did not have men go out to live in an energy-less world. God never asks people to do what they cannot do. And so the command to subdue the earth and to multiply is a command that implies there is sufficient energy and will be until Christ returns. The question is whether man is stupid or wise in his use of energy. All energy problems can be solved.

The third way in which man has lost his freedom; he has lost his moral power, minus moral power. What things he knows to do right he does wrong, Romans 7. The frustration of knowing that you ought to do something and just at the crisis fail, that lack of moral power. There is an abridgement of freedom.

We have a fourth way we’ve lost our freedom by our rebellion and that’s spelled out for us in Romans 1, the cause/effect. We don’t even have the freedom to sin the way we’d like to because Romans 1 says the moment you begin to sin the way you want to, a process of degeneration sets in and you wind up frustrated even doing that. So Romans 1 illustrates it particularly with homosexuality and simply teaches something that has only recently been mentioned in the medical journals, that homosexuals are not born, they’re made. And who makes them? Themselves, for the very physical hormones of the male body have been measured and they change into a female balance if the boy acts like a girl. And so therefore that’s exactly what Romans 1 has said that you modify your own system and you destroy it and you tear it down by acting in sub-Biblical ways.

And we have finally a fifth way, besides the fact that sin degrades we have a fifth way and that is the state that comes in compounds foolishness; the state compounds foolishness. If one man is a fool that’s fine but when one man is telling 8,000,000 other people how to do it you’ve got 8,000,000 times the foolishness. The power of the state multiplies foolishness and so men lose their freedom.

So this is all in the background for John 6. We spent a lot of time orienting you to John 6 because if we don’t you will not understand why Jesus is so harsh; it seems He’s so popular, so on the verge of a breakthrough and then He turns everybody off; He does everything that you are told in seminary are not to do. Instead of improving His methods to attract more people He improves His methods to drive more people away from Himself. So what kind of ministry is this? It’s a God’s ministry, that’s what kind of ministry it is. Let’s watch what happens.

John 6:5, the scene opens when Jesus is up high on that hill, “When Jesus lifted up His eyes, and saw a great company coming toward Him,” remember those houses and how little they looked at the bottom, it would be very easy to stand up at the top and look down and see a great multitude coming, many of those hills are that way, if you look down you can see for miles and so there’s time for a little lesson. And so Jesus turns to Philip, and He now begins a little quiz. And the quiz sets the stage for what’s going to happen in the rest of the chapter. Jesus is going to drill His disciples on one particular doctrine; He wants this doctrine known, He wants it appropriated, He wants you it understood because the disciples are shortly going to be in a position where they’re going to have to minister using this point of doctrine, and if they don’t understand this point of doctrine then they can’t minister. And so He asks Philip, “[he saith unto Philip}, Where shall we buy bread that these may eat? [6] And He said this to test him; for He himself knew what He would do?”

What was the test? The test goes back to test whether Philip can use the faith technique. Philip, are you going to trust Me or not? Faith! In the progress of God’s revelation with Israel what was the first lesson He taught with Abraham? Faith! What was the lesson He taught before the Law? Faith! What is the lesson He taught from first to last in Scripture? Faith! What is the presupposition of salvation? Faith! Faith must be understood. And He asked Philip, by the way, in a very neat way and it shows you the Lord still does this to each one of us, He brings the questions into our lives phrased to they almost deliberately trip us up. Notice what Jesus asked Philip; He didn’t say, Philip, what are we going to do? He channeled Philip in the wrong direction, just deliberately to see how sharp Philip was. “Where shall we buy bread that these may eat?” See, He didn’t ask him what he was going to do? He wanted Philip to start thinking in the normal everyday term. Go ahead Philip, how are we going to buy bread. And what Philip ought to have done would be to say well, obviously we can’t buy bread, we’re going to have to do something different in the situation. But Philip doesn’t think that way, he thinks in terms of the sophomore statistician.

John 6:7, “Philip answered Him, Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them; that every one of them may take a little.” Now a pennyworth is a denarii’s or one day’s wage. So he’s talking about two hundred men’s wages; quite a bit. And he said this crowd is so fantastic that’s coming up here Lord Jesus Christ, it we got 200 people up here with an entire day’s wage we still couldn’t buy enough food. Philip, thinking in terms of normal process also forgot to note something else, there weren’t any stores in the mountains to buy the food from. But Philip, of course, was trapped in his naturalism, trapped in thinking of the situation as just another normal situation, oh Lord, how did we get into this one? Philip responds the way, I must say, most of us respond most of the time.

John 6:8-9, the second disciple; He may have quizzed more of them, I suspect He probably went around all twelve of them and asked questions. But John just repeats two, and so He quizzed Andrew. [8, “One of His disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said unto him.”] And Andrew said unto Him, [9] “There’s a lad here, who has five barley loaves and two small fishes; but what are they among so many?” At least Andrew improves a little, he thinks of something positive. Philip can only think of what can’t happen. Here’s a picture of the depressed Christian. Here comes a big crisis and so what do we start out, real positive, trusting the promises of God… No! What can’t happen, Lord, this can’t be, and we think negative. There’s Philip. Now Andrew comes along and he’s better because He at least poses a possible solution. It looks kind of ridiculous, five barley loaves and two small fishes. The word for “small fishes” is the word that was used for the dressing on the sandwich, it wasn’t a case you’ve seen in the Sunday school literature where the five barley loaves are over here and here’s this kind walking around with these fish. The point was that these loaves were split and the fish were used as a spread because the bread, this particular bread is very coarse to eat, so we’d say he has five peanut butter sandwiches is the way we’d put it. That’s the function of the fish to fill the sandwich. All right, so the kid has his lunch and Andrew suggests appropriating the boys lunch.

Now this is a very interesting situation right at this point because Jesus is going to assume command of the group but again, I have to stop and anticipate something that’s going to happen so I have to into all these sidetracks but the only way we can pick all these themes up. We have to ask ourselves what is so special about eating in Scripture. We have a joke around LBC, every time we fellowship we’re feeding our faces but at least we have some Scriptural basis for doing it. Eating was a sign of blessing. Turn to Exodus 24:11. Some of you weight watchers won’t agree but Exodus 24:11 gives the divine picture of eating. When God formalized His covenant with the nation, there was a moment of blessing and celebration. And in Exodus 24:11, “And upon the nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand,” this is talking about how God saved them, “the nobles of Israel” are the upper class rulers of Israel, they represent the national leadership at this point and they’re going into covenant. Modern archeology has understood much more clearly than in the past what’s happening in Exodus 24. It’s called a covenant feast and when treaties were signed everybody would get out and they’d have a feast to celebrate the signing of the treaty. And here is a covenant feast. “…and they saw God,” notice the juxtaposition, the nobles come up in the name of the nation, they look at God, and they “eat and drink.” And they weren’t drinking grape juice. They eat and they drank, there’s a banquet. The picture is a sign of blessing and fellowship with God.

Turn to Psalm 22:26, the Psalm that Jesus shouted out on the cross. See, all this John [small blank spot] so as we study the Gospel of John let’s know it, then we’ll get the blessing out of it that John intended. This Psalm depicts the crucifixion of Christ. Notice verse 12, 13 and 14; notice verse 16, “they have pierced My hands and My feet,” written by David a thousand years before Jesus Christ was crucified. Notice verse 17 and notice verse 18, “They part My garments among them, and cast lots for My vesture.” So it’s a description of the crucifixion. Verses 18, 20 and 21 is Christ’s petition for God to do something on the cross. And finally verse 22 and following is the resurrection and blessing. “I will declare thy name unto my brethren; in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee.” And then he goes on to describe certain things and in verse 26 the sign of blessing, “The meek shall eat and be satisfied; they shall praise the LORD that seek him; your heart shall live forever.” Notice the eating and the praising; “they shall eat and they shall be satisfied. It’s a picture of kingdom blessing.

Turn to Isaiah 55:1, tracing the theme of eating. There’s nothing wrong with eating and drinking; it’s excess that God condemns. Every once in a while you’ll have somebody who has a problem with alcoholism and that’s legitimate and in our particular country the alcoholic level of most hard liquor is way up beyond what it was in Biblical times and so that’s a problem. But I’ve never been able to understand the inconsistency of people. People will argue that it’s best not to take any drink because it’s going to be offensive to people, but since all the passages that deal with drinking also deal with eating… nobody ever makes that application. Strange how that works, the inconsistency of certain individuals. In Isaiah 55:1, what does Isaiah talk about but the kingdom, “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come to the waters, and he that has no money;” notice this and keep this promise in mind of John 6, “he that has no money, come, buy and eat; yea; come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” In other words, grace-given. [2] “Wherefore do you spend money for that which is not bread? And your labor for that which does not satisfy? Hearken diligently unto Me, and eat that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.” Again, the picture of blessing in God.

Now all of these signs in the Old Testament gradually grew and grew, and grew and grew and grew until in Jesus’ day in books like 2 Baruk 29:8 and other passages of the apocryphal literature, you have passages about the Messianic feasts. In the days of the coming Messiah, the people believed, Messiah would feed everyone, and He would give them His blessings in the form of physical food and just as the manna reigned down from the sky as God fed His people in the wilderness, so Messiah would cause a second manna fall from heaven and people would eat and be filed and be satisfied. Now keep in mind, this is going on in the background of the people; this is there in the first century; this is the setting for John 6 and what’s going to happen on that mountain and for the remarks that Jesus makes later on.

Turn to 1 Corinthians 10 for another point of background, continuing the same theme of eating. John won’t let us quickly handle the feeding of the 5,000; John demands that we concentrate our attention on these great doctrinal truths out of the Old Testament. All during the development of physical eating, the manna from heaven, “Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come, come and buy food that money can’t buy,” and the ridicule of the food that we do eat, why do you eat that which doesn’t satisfy, come to Me, says God. So though it’s true that the physical food is a picture of Messianic blessing and though it is true that Messiah literally, physically, is said to cause the food to multiply in the millennial kingdom, that wasn’t the spiritual truth that was involved, because remember in Isaiah 55, to whom do you come to get the food? You come to the Lord first, you don’t go to the food first, you come to the Lord first. So it was a primacy of the spiritual grace orientation and then the physical food.

So we come to 1 Corinthians 10:3, speaking of the people who ate the manna. Now did the people eat physical manna or not? They ate physical manna; the word “manna” means what is it. “Manna, manna,” walk out, what is this stuff. You know how kids get at the table, what’s this! That’s the word from which we get manna. And so God said you don’t like what I’m putting on the table, you say “What’s this!” all right, from now on, throughout all of history I’m going to make you people remember your remark when I served dinner and you didn’t like it, “What’s this!” You’re going to call it “What’s this!” because manna is “What’s this!” in Hebrew. So every time they had to talk about God’s blessings they had to talk about “What’s this!” God, in other words, had a very good sense of humor.

So in 1 Corinthians 10:3 Paul is saying, besides eating physically, which they did do, there was something more important in all this drama than just going out and picking up “What’s this!” off the grass. “And they all did eat the same spiritual meat,” he says, [4] “And they did all drink the same spiritual drink; for they drank of the spiritual Rock that followed them, an that Rock was Christ.” Now, who fed them in the wilderness? Christ fed them. But what were they feeding on while they were going out of their tent and picking up the stuff off the grass? They were being oriented to God’s grace, because their sustenance depends upon Him. And it was a total orientation to God’s gracious provision. And therefore they had trust, and therefore God was training them in the faith technique, trust Me, I’ll provide the food but primarily I’m not interested in filling your stomachs; I’m interested that I direct your faith toward my faith, that we have a personal relationship.

Now let’s come back to John 6. So He asked Philip and He asked Andrew where are we going to eat. And notice, as John so cleverly does at point after point in his gospel, he always has the disciples focus in on the physical completely oblivious to the spiritual truth. Remember what happened at the well? Jesus starts talking about eternal life as water; everybody starts…, water, water? where’s the water? And they don’t even see what He’s really talking about. The same thing here, He’s talking about food but remember John has introduced, it was the Passover near, the Passover speaking of God’s gracious blessing to the people and the giving of freedom and here they are all absorbed with just the physical. So the disciples we’d probably have to say flunked the exam.

So finally Jesus takes over in John 6:10, “And Jesus said, Make the men sit down.” That’s significant; two things, first it’s an order, “Make the men sit down.” In other words disciples, I want you to go out there, I want you to tell these people sit down, if they don’t sit down grab their tunic and pull it down, make them sit. Now why do you suppose the Lord was so insistent that everybody physically sit down? Because what is the position? It’s a position of rest. It’s not a position of activity and so therefore He says I want these people to relax; they are physically going to be placed in a position where they are going to illustrate faith. I’m going to do something here and I want every person to understand they’re not adding to what I’m doing; I am the One who is giving and you, He’s saying to the people, are the ones who are receiving. Don’t give a thing to Me, you let Me give to you, so sit down. It’s a picture of trust, “Make the men sit down. Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, in number about five thousand.”

Now doesn’t it strike you as John goes through this fantastic miracle, isn’t it interesting that he notes in passing there’s grass on the ground. Now why does John point out a little item like there’s grass on the ground? To show you the care for the Lord; He provides a place for them to sit that’s comfortable, there was grass on the ground. The picture of the shepherd on the hill, feeding His flock and now He’s about to feed 5,000 men, and He even provides… you saw on those slides there were some places that were grassy and some places that were rocky but Jesus chose exactly the place where they would be comfortable as they received His blessing. Comfort! Is Jesus Christ interested in human comfort? You bet! “So the men sat down, in number about five thousand.” But the word “men” in verse 10 is aner, the word for men in other places is anthropos, what’s the difference in these two Greek words. The second Greek word, used in this verse, means males; this word is used for male and female. So that does that tell us? There were five thousand males; this does not count the women and the children. So the feeding of the five thousand was not the feeding of the five thousand, the feeding of the five thousand was probably the feeding of the twelve thousand. There were probably twelve thousand people on that hill, that’s quite a few, and Philip is worried about buying some food with his no store with money that they didn’t have. But Jesus is going to feed them and so verse 11, watch His procedure.

John 6:11, “And Jesus took the loaves; and when He had given thanks, He distributed to His disciples,” given thanks for what? The kid’s sack lunch? No, He gave thanks in anticipation of what He knew God was going to do, because everything Jesus did, remember in John 5, everything that I do My Father does and everything My Father does I do, now Father I give You thanks for what You and I are going to do in this situation. We’re going to feed these people. And so this is the beautiful illustration of the faith technique in verse 11 that the disciples flunk in verse 5-9. See, 5-9 is a flunked examination, and so Jesus gets… apparently goes part way through the disciples and realizes not one of them has caught the point so let’s forget that and we’ll start in with a new tactic. So verse 10 He starts in. And verse 11 He says now gentlemen, this is the way you’re supposed to act in this kind of a situation. So in a position where He is obviously…all these people could focus in on them He demonstrated the faith technique, He gave thanks and “He distributed to the disciples,” now watch it and watch very carefully what’s happening in this miracle because it has a few details at the end that you don’t pick up unless you watch how He did it. He did not hand the people directly the food; instead He started with a sack lunch and He broke the bread, whether He broke it down where people couldn’t see it we don’t know, but He probably picked one of the barley loaves up, it had been split and the fish was there as a dressing and He broke it and He handed it to the disciple; the next disciple came up and He broke it and He handed it to him, and He kept on breaking it. And always handing it, never to the people, only to the disciples and then the people.

So He handed to the disciples, “and the disciples to them that were sitting down; and likewise the fishes as much as they would.” Remember what was the fish? The spread on the sandwich to make it taste good; watch the details, the grass on the field so the people have a comfortable place to sit down, the fish so they have a good tasting dressing on the sandwich. Is Jesus interested? Yes, here’s a picture, here’s a revelation of Jesus who is never interested in you personally, as we usually say in our times of being out of fellowship. Notice the end of verse 11, “as much as they wanted.” Come up for seconds, Jesus served them; come up for thirds, Jesus served them; some people may not have eaten for the whole day and they came up for four servings, Jesus fed them. He fed them “as much as they would.” What did you read before in Psalm 22? What should Messiah do when He gives His blessing? I will feed them that they may be satisfied. And this miracle is going to teach a spiritual truth and so to teach that spiritual truth that men will be satisfied He’s got to satisfy them completely physically. And so it’s very important that it wasn’t just a little piece, a crumb, it was as much as each man wanted. Some disciples probably passed through the crowd, they were like men, like they are now, oh no, I’m on a diet, only one. And somebody else was hungry, a teenager, you know, and took five or six. But whatever the amount was Jesus gave it to them.

John 6:12, “And when they were filled, He said to His disciples,” and I want you to notice because we’re going to close with these verses, 12-13, there are two points made at the conclusion of this phase of chapter 6 and these are going to come up again in the discourse. Remember John doesn’t waste any words or any observation, everything is important. “And when they were filled, He said to His disciples, Gather u the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.” Now the word “lost” is the word for perish; it’s the word rot, food rots. He says now I want you to gather it all up that nothing rots, that nothing perish. Now why that? Remember the contrast He made with the woman at the well? He said Lady, you drink this water and you’re going to thirst again; drink the water I give you and you’ll never thirst. And what He’s saying is this food that we’re now eating is perishable food; later on I’m going to talk to you about imperishable food and you don’t have to pick it up and worry about the ants, it’s not the imperishable food that I’m going to give you. So point one on the conclusion here of verse 12, He demonstrates the perishableness of human food; gather it up that it be not wasted or perish.

Now John 6:13, the second point, and this is what He wanted to demonstrate particularly to His disciples. “Therefore, they gathered them together, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of five barley loaves which remained over and above that which they had eaten.” Twelve baskets; I wonder how many disciples there were, probably about twelve at this time. Twelve baskets, twelve disciples. How had Jesus distributed the food? Directly to the people or through the disciples? Through the disciples. I would imagine, though John doesn’t say, that He had the disciples eat last and you can imagine their stomachs growling as they give this food, gee, I wonder if it’s going to run out before we get all these people fed. And so Jesus let them, all the food pass in front of the disciples with hungry stomachs, look, there it goes. Next, next, next, they had to watch every loaf go through their hands. And in the end, because they were in a position of service in giving and being oriented to grace, what had God provided them? A basket full, each one. Now the trick to understand what’s happened in verse 12 is to understand the word “basket.”

If you look that word up it’s not a big knapsack but it does have very interesting connotations. It was a basket that the Jewish people used because they koshered food, and when they would travel from one area of the country to another area they wouldn’t be assured they’d have kosher food so they’d take their food with them in this basket. The basket, then, was their sustenance on their travels. And so the particular basket the disciples mentioned here that the disciples pick up in is the basket that the need for the walk in life; they are filled. And so this particular basket is very important. Each disciple has his own basket full and he can travel and have his own food, it is sufficient for the journey.

Now He also says that this “remained over and above unto them that had eaten.” Why is this? Because He is showing the value of orientation to grace. If we are oriented to grace God will supply our every need and when we are ministering to other people who have needs we will always receive our choice; God always works that principle out; you can never out give God. Now I’m not talking about raising money for LBC’s budget so relax, I’m not talking about giving money, I’m just talking about the normal things of Christians service. You can never out give God; every time you do something by exercising your spiritual gift of helps, something that God has given to you to use, your gift of exhortation, your gift of teaching, your particular natural talent, and it’s exercised correctly, not just as a do-good system, but it’s exercised correctly as unto the Lord, the Lord always gives you a basketful in return. And it’s always some odd way, like this. This was a very odd way, first it looked like they were on the garbage collection route, just picking up the pieces that were left. Who wants the pieces? And it turns out these pieces were all very edible and they were sufficient. Notice it was only one basket for each disciple, not too much and not too little, just enough for the journey.

This stops this point in John 6, next week we’ll continue with what developed and came out of this episode.