The Bread of Life. 2 Kings 4:42-44
The famine in the northern kingdom is used to depict the spiritual famine that is existing in the land because of the people’s rejection of God because of their negative volition. So there is the episode where the sons of the prophets are making a stew, and one of them had gathered some gourds to put in the stew and they poisoned the stew. There was death in the pot and they called upon Elijah to do something. He sprinkled flour into the pot and that then resulted in the death in the pot being exchanged to life. The flour comes from grain and this is used as a picture in the Scriptures as the life which God produces and there is a connection there through the symbolism of the event.
Now we have another
miracle that takes place reinforcing the same theme, and that is that man’s
religions and man’s philosophies can only produce death. No matter how much
stimulation there may be, no matter how good one might feel from various
religious activities or mystical exercises that reinforce our own subjective
emotions, no matter what immediate effects there might be, there is no good
long-term effect. They all end in death, as Solomon said: “There is a way that
seems tight to man but the end thereof is death.” The only solution is God’s
solution and that begins with grace. That is the theme that we see throughout
this entire section of Elisha’s ministry—the grace of God and that God has
given us everything that we need for life and godliness. In this next episode
we see the emphasis again on grain and on food. The focus is that God is the
only one who can provide the right spiritual food for man.
2 Kings
4:42-44 NASB “Now a man came from Baal-shalishah, and
brought the man of God bread of the first fruits, twenty loaves of barley and
fresh ears of grain in his sack. And he said, ‘Give {them} to the people that
they may eat.’ His attendant said, ‘What,
will I set this before a hundred men?’ But he said, ‘Give {them} to the people
that they may eat, for thus says the LORD, ‘They shall eat and have {some} left over.’ So he
set {it} before them, and they ate and had {some} left over, according to the
word of the LORD.” This is a time of famine, many people are on the
verge of starvation, and now they have twenty loaves of barley bread, which
isn’t a tremendous amount of bread. It’s better than nothing but is not enough
when you are dealing with large numbers of people who don’t have food. Elisha’s
servant—who suffers from foot and mouth disease constantly as we go through
these episodes—says this is hardly going to provide anything. Elisha’s response
is a picture of the sufficiency of God’s grace, that we can never ever exploit
the grace of God too much. We are never going to outdo it; there is always an
abundance because God is the one who provides the resources.
The teaching element in
these three verses focuses back on the grace of God; God provides the spiritual
nourishment for His people. But they have rejected Him and again and again God
is setting forth His grace, His offer of provision to
The context goes back to
chapter five, and in John 5:24 NASB “Truly, truly, I say to you, he
who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not
come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.” Notice that in this
verse Jesus gives only one condition for salvation and that is believing in
Him. That believing in Him is a response to the hearing of His Word, the
hearing of the gospel message. What gave rise to this statement in verse 24? In
this chapter Jesus is in
There are three kinds of
believers in Scripture: those who are squared away and going forward; the weak believer
who is confused, easily distracted—and we are to be very careful in the way we
deal with things around the weaker, younger believers; and the third is the
Pharisee. The Pharisee has made up his mind that legalism is right and grace is
wrong, and Jesus is always in their face, always confronting them and throwing
their legalism up in their face, and He never tries to soften the situation.
Not only does He heal on the Sabbath but he then begins to talk about who He is
as being identical to the Father. This really irritates them and they begin to
conspire even more to kill Him.
He makes the statement in
verse 24 and then in verse 39 He goes on to develop this. NASB “You
search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it
is these that testify about Me.” There are two elements that are being
emphasized here. The first has to do with the Word, the message from God. The
second has to do with believing in Him as the one who can give them eternal
life. So the focus is on the Word, the message, and the response to the Word.
In verse 40 NASB “and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you
may have life.” He is saying that the reason they are hostile to Him as that
they have made a choice. He says they are the ones who have made this decision,
they are not willing to come to Him that they might have life. Then in vv.
45-47, “Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; the one who
accuses you is Moses, in whom you have set your hope.
This is what Jesus was
teaching in
So the masses are
following Him. John 6:4 NASB “Now the Passover, the feast of the
Jews, was near.” John doesn’t just throw that in there because it is a nice
little chronological note; he wants us to be thinking about what goes on at
Passover. Passover is actually the first day of a seven-day feast, the feast of
unleavened bread. So bread is a central issue at the feast of Passover. The
bread really comes out of the Old Testament and there bread focused on two
aspects of doctrine. The unleavened bread focuses on the person of the Lord
Jesus Christ as being without sin. Leaven frequently depicts sin in the
Scripture because it permeates everything; sin affects and permeates
everything. The second thing that comes out of bread in relationship to the
exodus event was that as the Jews were moving from
It was in this context
that we have the statement in Deuteronomy chapter eight. As Moses summarized
some of this he said: “Deuteronomy 8:1 NASB “All the commandments
that I am commanding you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live
and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the LORD swore {to give} to
your forefathers.
Jesus is going to give a
practical lesson in John chapter six as the people are gathered around Him.
John 6:5 NASB “Therefore Jesus, lifting up His eyes and seeing that
a large crowd was coming to Him, said to Philip, ‘Where are we to buy bread, so
that these may eat?’” The real issue is: Philip, have you learned the lesson
that we go to the Lord to solve our problems and don’t try to do it out of our
own efforts? [6] “This He was saying to test him, for He Himself knew what He
was intending to do. [7] Philip answered Him, ‘Two hundred denarii worth of
bread is not sufficient for them, for everyone to receive a little.’” In other
words, this is a huge crowd and we can’t afford to feed them all. He has some
idea that Jesus can do something but is not sure what. Then Jesus gave
instructions and had the disciples pass out the loaves and the fish. There were
5000 men there, so when the women and children were added there would have been
ten or twelve thousand people there. John
As the chapter goes on we see another couple of lessons that take place. There is one where Jesus is walking on the water where He is going to teach them about faith, but then as they go to the next day (v. 22) the people have discovered where He is and come over to His location. There He is going to give another lesson. Here He points out that the only reason they are there is because of the miracles and because He is going to feed them.
John 6:27 NASB
“Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to
eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you, for on Him the Father,
God, has set His seal.” This is the doctrinal heart of the whole episode. This
is a priority issue: what are you putting your effort into? [28] “Therefore
they said to Him, ‘What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God?’”
Notice how the word “works” is showing up. [29] “Jesus answered and said to
them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.’”
Believing isn’t a work in the sense that Paul uses that phrase in Ephesians
2:8, 9 – that we are not saved by works, i.e. by trying to impress God with our
goodness or good deeds. Work here is used in a more generic sense of just
something that one does, whether it is meritorious or non-meritorious.
Believing in non-meritorious. That is, there is no merit in us because we
believer’ the merit is all in Jesus Christ on the cross.
John
John
The focus here is not on
God pre-selecting who He is going to call—the Calvinist doctrine of efficacious
grace. That comes into play here in verse 44 NASB “No one can come
to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the
last day.” Most people stop reading the verse there, and they think that what
this means is that no one can believe unless first the Father draws them in
some sort of mystical internal calling of the Holy Spirit and if you don’t have
that then you really can’t come to Jesus. So, according to that, it is not an
issue of your volition, it is an issue of God’s selection. However, that
ignores the next verse which is a quote from Isaiah 45:13: NASB “It
is written in the prophets, ‘AND THEY
SHALL ALL BE TAUGHT OF GOD.’ Everyone who
has heard and learned from the Father, comes to Me.” The emphasis in Isaiah 45
is God’s message to the people is rejected. How does God draw people? His Word!
It is the proclamation of His Word. It is through the teaching of God’s Word
that people are called and people hear the gospel and are drawn to Jesus. It is
not some invisible spiritual hook where God reaches down inside of people that
says, I am drawing this person; I’m not drawing that person. The drawing comes
from the information of the gospel so that all who will may come. That is why
Jesus said in v. 40 that everyone who
believes will have eternal life.
John
This is the theme that Jesus states again and again through John chapter six and the upper room discourse in order to emphasize the fact that He is the only one who provides life, the only one who provides the nourishment for spiritual life. That is the same thing that Elisha is trying to show to the apostate generation of his day.