John 6 Commentary
The feeding of the five thousand men is a revelation of the God who fed Israel in the wilderness. Yes, five thousand men, never mind the more than five thousand women and children always attending such gatherings!
Look at this sign again. The LORD Jesus would speak and the five small barley loaves and two fish would be enough to feed five thousand men! Words. He is the Word. Many signs in John seem to underline Jesus’ creation power by mere words – by the Word.
“Have the people sit down”. Verse 10. A good church leader knows his task is to let the people sit down. Jesus does the rest. He feeds the people! He may be asked to distribute the food but he is not the one supplying the food. In fact, even the idea of feeding the people wasn’t born from his heart.
The feeding of the five thousand becomes a teaching aid. Just like men and women who ate manna eventually died, the more than five thousand men and women fed by Jesus would eventually die. It is a statement the LORD Jesus makes that neither manna nor barley/fish meal means much in the final scheme of things. The real bread is Jesus Himself.
Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself. Verse 15. That’s how desperate humans are for leadership! But the rule they seek isn’t the kind that the LORD God has ordained.
Jesus is the King. You receive His rule by obedience to His Word. You work for it; and “The work of God is this: to believe in the one He has sent”. Verse 29.
Jesus is the King we have always needed. He is the ruler that mankind has always needed. But let humans understand that His kingdom is not of this world.
There is a clear plan: On the last day, Jesus “shall raise them up”. This is the saint’s fuel!
By today’s standards, Jesus won’t have to campaign at all. It is a landslide victory! He probably won’t even have to file his nomination papers. People would force him into the White House! Not a military coup, but every citizen’s coup!
However, human concerns are God’s concerns only in part – that’s why the five thousand men are fed in the first place. The complete picture is that God wants dead individuals to live again. He shines His presence into a world of darkness so that men and women can live again. This life comes by eating the right food – the Body of Christ, (believing Jesus).
It shouldn’t take too long to understand that both this gospel and the Book of Revelation are written by the same author. They are all full of symbols! We have the Word, the Light, the Wine, the Water, and now Bread, among others. These symbolisms have expanded our view of God’s total package of salvation. It is actually the work of the Creator God, the LORD Jesus Christ as it was at the beginning of time.
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