The Gospel According to John

Biblical Research Monthly
May, 1956
Dr. David L. Cooper
(Installment Sixteen)

THE FEEDING OF THE FIVE THOUSAND MEN AND JESUS WALKING ON THE WATER

In our study today we have two extraordinary events that occurred in the life of our Lord. Miracles, as a rule, are unique and attract attention; but the continuation of miracles and manifestation of the supernatural, though they attract attention for the time being, do not sustain faith. This fact is seen by an examination of Numbers 14:11,12. From this passage we see that, though God constantly performed miracles in behalf of the Hebrew people when he brought them out of Egypt and led them through the wilderness, the manifestations of divine guidance, protection, and preservation ceased to have their initial gripping effect upon the people. They misunderstood the nature of God's presence and interpreted it as the common and ordinary; hence their faith was not sustained by the many and miraculous manifestations which characterized that special era. These facts refute the idea that, if we could only see miracles performed today, we would believe. We would not believe; we would conjure up some way of explaining the supernatural upon the basis of the natural. It is the Word of God alone that can create and sustain faith. This principle is especially true in regard to the honest, conscientious truth-seeker who is willing to sacrifice everything in order to obtain the truth of God and to be in the center of His Holy directive will.

Stage Setting

By most conservative scholars, the feast of the Jews mentioned in John 5:1 was a passover. If this interpretation is correct, the festival was the second passover that occurred in the ministry of our Lord. The third one is mentioned in John 6:4 and is, upon the hypothesis just assumed, the third passover during His ministry. The fourth is found in John 12, which was the last in His lifetime, the one at which He was crucified.

On two occasions Jesus fed the multitudes. In Matthew 14:13-33 we have the writer's account of the first of these miracles, the feeding of the five thousand men besides women and children. In 15:32-39 we have an account of His feeding four thousand men besides women and children. Although the sacred writer clearly differentiates these two miracles, doubters and skeptics today deny that there were two such miracles, but assert that Matthew made a mistake. A reading of the account of these miracles by Matthew makes the impression upon the honest truth-seeker that there were actually two feedings of the multitudes. In a conversation which Jesus had with His disciples later, He referred to the two miracles. See Matthew 16:9,10. Mark mentions the feeding of the five thousand in chapter 6:30-52. Luke also records the same miracle in chapter 9:10-17.

In John 6:1 we are told that Jesus went across the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. This body of water was called in the Hebrew the Sea of Galilee. In the Roman period, the town of Tiberias was built on the west side of the sea and gave its name to this body of water, the Sea of Tiberias. It was also called the Sea of Chinnereth.

In John 6:2 the Apostle tells us that the multitudes followed Jesus, "… because they beheld the signs He did on them that were sick." The Lord Jesus, during His personal ministry, healed many people, but healing the physically sick was not the primary object of His labors. His chief consideration was teaching and preaching and bringing people to a saving knowledge of Himself. Sometimes a situation arose that demanded His healing the sick who were present. On certain occasions when Jesus healed a person, He strictly charged him to tell no man. His acting thus was done as a precautionary measure. When it became known in a given community that He had healed a person or persons, rumors began to spread quickly. The people came out and brought their sick to be healed. Thus they did not come primarily because they wanted to be saved, but simply because they wanted to be healed physically. An examination of the records of our Lord's life and the activities of the apostles, as revealed in the New Testament, shows that neither Jesus nor the apostles conducted any healing campaigns, such as we hear about today. After Jesus had departed to heaven, He conferred upon the apostles the ability to heal. They, in turn, on certain occasions, by the laying on of their hands, bestowed upon others the "gifts of healings." This expression implies that those who were thus set apart and spiritually endowed with the ability to heal sicknesses were given power for healing a given case and no more. There was no permanent gift of healing ever mentioned in the Apostolic church. Paul, for instance, had the gifts of healings. When he had an occasion for using this power of healing, God conferred upon him, for that special occasion, the ability to heal the case in hand. When another occasion arose, God conferred upon him the same power for healing. The expression "the gift of healing" is not known in the New Testament. If today one has such a gift, he has something that is different from that which we see in the New Testament.

We are told in John 6:3 that Jesus went up into the mountain and there sat with His disciples. The language is somewhat similar to that which is found in Matthew 5:1. Let us not confound these two incidences, for they are entirely different. The one in Matthew, chapters 5-7, the Sermon on the Mount, occurred between six months and a year before the one which we are studying on this occasion (John 6:1-14). We are told in verse 4 that the passover was at hand. The passover, as John explains, was the feast of the Jews. It stood out in Jewish thinking to the extent that it was called the feast of the Jews. If anyone is not familiar with the facts regarding the passover, he should read carefully Exodus, chapters 12 and 13, for in this passage we read of the establishment of this principal feast of the Jews.

When Jesus was seated with His disciples, He saw the multitudes gathering. Knowing what He was going to do, He tested Philip by asking him, "Whence are we to buy bread, that these may eat?" This question, in some ways, was a test of his faith, which doubtless was lacking very materially. Our Lord proves our faith from time to time.

Life is an unbroken series of miracles—acts of God being wrought in our behalf. God is truly feeding the teeming millions of earth today as much as Jesus fed the five thousand men and the four thousand of His day. This fact is asserted by the Apostle Paul in the following declaration: "24 The God that made the world and all things therein, he, being Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; 25 neither is he served by men's hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he himself giveth to all life, and breath, and all things. 26 and he made of one every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed seasons, and the bounds of their habitation; 27 that they should seek God, if haply they might feel after him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us: 28 for in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain even of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring" (Acts 17:24-28).

In this passage we see that God existed from all eternity. At a certain epoch He created the material universe. After He had prepared the earth as a suitable place, He created the various types of life. Moreover, He created man—Adam—from whom have descended all men. "… and he [God] made of one, every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth …" He determined their appointed seasons and the bounds of their habitation that they should seek after God and find Him, "for in Him we live and move and have our being." Our life, moment by moment, is dependent upon Him. Should He withdraw His spirit from us for one moment, we no longer could exist.

In a speech at Lystra, the same Apostle sounded the same note of our living and having our being in God. When the people of that heathen city wanted to worship Paul and Barnabas, the former restrained them saying, "15 We also are men of like passions with you and bring you good tidings, that ye should turn from these vain things unto a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all that in them is: 16 who in the generations gone by suffered all the nations to walk in their own ways. 17 And yet he left not himself without witness, in that he did good and gave you from heaven rains and fruitful seasons, filling your hearts with food and gladness. 18 And with these sayings scarce restrained they the multitudes from doing sacrifice unto them" (Acts 14:15-18).

In the Sermon on the Mount the Lord Jesus declared that God makes the sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. He acts thus in order to give us food and all necessary nourishment so that we can continue to live and serve Him. It is God who, therefore, is feeding all people every day of their lives. Having seen that it is God who feeds the people of the world all of the time, we now wish to note, particularly, the Lord Jesus Christ's feeding the five thousand men beside women and children, the account of which forms our subject of investigation in this study.

Jesus was in a desert place on the east shore of the Sea of Galilee. The people thronged about Him in large numbers and had continued with Him for some hours. An emergency had arisen. Knowing that they could not purchase the food necessary in such a place as that, Jesus therefore, told the disciples for them to feed the multitude. Their faith staggered under such a command as this one.

When, however, the disciples had seated the crowds on the green grass, the Lord Jesus took the loaves and the fishes, blest and broke them, all the time handing out the food, as it multiplied in His hands, to the disciples, who, in turn distributed it to the multitudes. When the crowd had been satisfied with the food which Jesus had provided—doubtless the very best—the Lord instructed His disciples to pick up the fragments in order that there might not be any waste. This command they carried out.

The loaves and fishes were multiplied in the hands of Jesus or in those of the disciples. We cannot be dogmatic, but every indication would point to the fact that the food was multiplied when it was still in His hands. Although He had only the five loaves and the two fishes, He kept handing out food until the five thousand were satisfied.

God feeds the multitudes all the time by gathering the elements from air, and water; and, in the proper proportions, He compounds them in the plants over the growing season of the grain. Men harvest their crops, mill their grain, and make bread, which sustains life. In this way God usually feeds men. On the occasion of which we are studying, the Lord Jesus had a rush order. By His omnipotent power and wisdom He gathered the elements from earth, air, and water, put them through some process analogous to the baking of bread, and then handed out the food to the multitudes.

Christ's feeding the multitude was a rush order which met the emergency of the occasion. Today God's feeding the people daily is a miracle likewise, but it is wrought in an unobtrusive way, so that people, as a rule, cease to see and recognize the fact of His providing for our needs. What God does regularly and what Christ did in feeding the multitudes are both supernatural activities of the Deity.

Men of Violence attempt To Make Jesus King

When Jesus fed the five thousand, certain men, unregenerated, unsaved, thought that they saw in Jesus the possibility of a king who by his miraculous power would throw off the Roman yoke and establish a government under which He would feed the people so that they would not have to work. Many of the lesser Roman emperors doled out food to the masses in Rome. By so doing, they corrupted the people and produced more evils than they cured, using extravagant and unethical means.

When man was banished from the Garden of Eden, the Lord told him that he would have to eat his bread by the sweat of his face. God intends that men and women should work. We have been told that idleness is the devil's workshop. When people are unemployed, they become restless and turn to evil. The inspired Apostle Paul said that, if man will not work, neither shall he eat.

The Lord Jesus was born King of the Jews. He came into the world, at His first advent, to suffer and die and to make atonement for man's sins. In fulfillment of predictions in the Old Testament, when He arose from the dead, He ascended to the right hand of the throne of God where He awaits Israel's repenting of the national sin of rejecting Him and pleading for Him to return. Whenever the nation of Israel, as a people, thus repudiate their national sin, confess it (Hosea 5:15), and plead for Him to return, He will do so. Then He will take the governments of the world into His mighty hand and establish a reign of righteousness which will extend from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth. Christ's reign over the earth, therefore, is contingent upon Israel's repudiation of the national sin and pleading for His return.

Jesus Walking on the Water

On a former occasion Jesus stilled the tempest which arose and was about to destroy the boat in which He and the apostles were crossing the lake (Matt. 8:23-27).

When the men of violence came and tried to force the issue to make Christ king, He withdrew and went up into a mountain alone. The apostles had already entered the boat and were rowing to the west side of the sea. A storm arose and the apostles were battling with the waves. When they were struggling in the storm, suddenly they saw Jesus walking on the water and approaching the boat. They became fearful, but He allayed their fears by saying to them, "It is I; be not afraid."

According to Matthew's account of this incident, Peter asked the Lord to allow him to walk on the water. Jesus granted his request. Peter started walking, but suddenly the waves became very threatening and his faith failed him. Then he began to sink. At that moment, he cried out to the Lord to save him. The Lord did so (Read the parallel account in Matthew 14:13-33.)

When Jesus got into the boat, the apostles worshipped Him saying, "Of a truth thou art the Son of God."