John 7:14-24

Jesus Teaches at the Festival

14 Not until halfway through the Festival did Jesus go up to the temple courts and begin to teach. 15 The Jews there were amazed and asked, "How did this man get such learning without having been taught?"

16 Jesus answered, "My teaching is not my own. It comes from the one who sent me. 17 Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own. 18 Whoever speaks on their own does so to gain personal glory, but he who seeks the glory of the one who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him. 19 Has not Moses given you the law? Yet not one of you keeps the law. Why are you trying to kill me?"

20 "You are demon-possessed," the crowd answered. "Who is trying to kill you?"

21 Jesus said to them, "I did one miracle, and you are all amazed. 22 Yet, because Moses gave you circumcision (though actually it did not come from Moses, but from the patriarchs), you circumcise a boy on the Sabbath. 23 Now if a boy can be circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses may not be broken, why are you angry with me for healing a man's whole body on the Sabbath? 24 Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly."



Dig Deeper

I once had a friend that led the singles ministry in his church. We were having a long conversation about different aspects of the ministry especially as it related to working with single people. He pointed out that one of the constant complaints that he heard from the young men in his ministry was that there just weren't any single ladies available in their particular Christian community to date. He thought this was an odd complaint because there were actually a lot of incredibly spiritual single women that were available and willing to enter into a dating relationship with Christian men. He said that all of the men claimed that they wanted to find someone who was especially spiritual, but he just didn't believe that that was the case. I thought that perhaps he was being a little hard on the young men until he recounted a bemusing incident. A young lady that had left God and their church quite a while before had begun to come back into the fellowship. She was still going through a lot of spiritual struggles but she was officially welcomed back into the community one Sunday. The thing about this young lady was, that despite her spiritual struggles, she was extremely beautiful. My friend chuckled as he recounted how all the single men in the church nearly tripped over one another as they made their way to "encourage" this sister by asking her out on a date. They had all claimed that they wanted to date spiritually strong and focused women, but they failed to notice sisters like that all around them, because that really wasn't what they wanted, truth be told.

Jesus has stressed over and again that he is only doing what the Father has sent him to do. He does not do his own work, he doesn't testify about himself, and he doesn't even speak his own words. Everything that he does comes directly from the Father. Just as surely as the Father sent him, people can only come to him if the same Father testified about him and sent people to him through his word. This is exactly what Jesus said the Father had done. Yet, there was a problem. The people of Israel had waited for God to send his Messiah. They said that that was what they wanted. Now he was here, but they were soundly rejecting him. The reality was that, despite their claims, they didn't really want and weren't really looking for what God was doing. If they did, they would accept his teachings. What they claimed to have wanted was right there in their midst, but that wasn't really what they wanted, truth be told.

Jesus finally did go up to the festival in Jerusalem but he intentionally did not go with the pilgrims and did not go as a public part of his ministry. He began to teach, presumably in one of the outer porticoes of the Temple but probably not in the Temple itself where the festival of Tabernacles was still being observed. As Jesus enters into Jerusalem and begins to teach, there are two concerns or questions that are raised. The first was brought up in verse 12. Jesus was a teacher that was deceiving the people. This doesn't sound like a significant charge, but it was in Judaism. Beginning in Deuteronomy 13, and continuing throughout the Old Testament, Israel was warned that false teachers and prophets would come, testing them to find out whether they truly loved the Lord their God. They were to adamantly reject these false teachers and anyone associated with them. They were, in fact, to destroy the false teachers with impunity. Deceiving God's people was a serious charge, worthy of death, and would not be tolerated.

The other issue at hand is how did this man get such learning without having been taught. It would not have been unique for a Jewish man to know the Scriptures well, in fact that would have been expected. What was disconcerting to the Jewish leaders was how Jesus could apparently teach the Scriptures and ask pointed questions the way only a well-trained rabbi or Pharisee could. He hadn't been trained by anyone that they knew of, so where did all of this ability and knowledge come from? In addition to that, no Jewish teacher or rabbi would ever claim that his knowledge was original to himself. They would always appeal to other authorities or rabbis but Jesus did not offer any such verification except to say that he was telling the truth and had come from the Father.

Yet, his teachings were not his own. In the Judaism of his time, Jesus would have been immediately rejected if he had made such a claim. He had no mentor or rabbi to appeal to, his teachings came directly from God. Thus, Jesus was claiming that his teachings were not those of another rabbi but was direct knowledge from the Father himself. He was no false teacher, they were deceived listeners.

You see, it all comes down to the will of the Father. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve chose, at the behest of the Serpent, to do their own will rather than God's. When you boil it all down, sin is simply doing our own will rather than God's. The long, sad history of a sinful world is the history of human beings doing their own will rather than doing the will of the God who made us. Verse 17 is the key to what Jesus is saying here. Those who really are interested in doing the will of the Father rather than their own will, will accept Jesus' teachings and recognize that they come from the Father. Those who reject Jesus' teachings, do so because, when it comes right down to it, they would rather do what they will rather than God's will. It should come as no surprise that the motto of one of the most sinister and evil (yet also one of the most well-followed with self-proclaimed disciples from the members of the Beatles to Timothy Leary who began the drug revolution in America) Satanists of the 20th century, Alesiter Crowley, was "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law."

The reality is that when people do their own will, they are doing for their own personal gain or glory. When people reject God by rejecting Jesus, they were exalting their own desires and will over that of the Father's. In contrast, nothing Jesus did was out of his own will. His brothers wanted him to be exactly the kind of religious leader that gained personal glory and did things that were beneficial to him. Jesus wanted none of that. He was not doing things that were personally beneficial, quite the opposite. False prophets and teachers almost always engage in teachings that benefit them personally. Jesus, though, was doing things that benefited the Father and followed His will. In fact, any version of Christian or religious teachings that are based mostly on benefiting the individual, with only a thin veneer of doing God's will, will be clearly false to those who truly seek the will of God rather than their own benefit.

The main problem with clinging to our own will and things that are comfortable to or benefit ourselves, is that when we put a value on things of this age, we discount the values of the things of the new creation. Jesus' critics could not recognize the new creation that the Father was enacting through Jesus' words because they were holding too tightly to the old. One simply must die to themselves and their own will in order to recognize, appreciate, and embrace the values of the age to come and the will of God when we encounter it.

They have so embraced the old to the exclusion of the new that they have failed to accurately see that they have never, and never truly could uphold the law. The leaders themselves have demonstrated that they are incapable of keeping the law by the fact that they have plotted to kill Jesus. Moses gave them the law, they have not kept it, but now they want to kill him for supposedly breaking it (we can infer that this conversation has to do with the controversy still boiling over the man from chapter 5 that Jesus healed). The crowd, made up of primarily pilgrims, claim to know nothing of this plot and accuse Jesus of the blind ramblings of a demon-possessed man.

Jesus puts the whole issue in perspective by appealing all the way back to Moses. He had given two commandments that could apparently come into contradiction. Jews were supposed to keep the Sabbath but also circumcise their sons on the eighth day. What if those days coincided? It had been decided that it was permissible to perform the circumcision because it was the greater good. How then could they argue against healing a man completely on the Sabbath? They were clinging so tightly to the old order of doing things, that when a moment of the new creation broke in as Jesus healed this man, they simply refused to comprehend the truth. If they had judged the situation correctly they would have realized that Jesus was fulfilling the purposes of God not breaking them. This demonstrates the truth that it is quite possible to hold so tightly to faulty ideas, as religious as they might sound, that we can miss the truth, even when it is right in front of our face.



Devotiional Thought

Have you ever been tempted to be like the Jewish leaders here and emphasize a rule or tradition over the greater good of enabling God's new creation to break through in someone's life? Standards and beliefs are good but they must be tempered, balanced and placed in proper relation to God's overall purposes of reconciling people to Himself through His community of those who have entered into the life of Christ.

John 7:1-13

Jesus Goes to the Festival of Tabernacles

1 After this, Jesus went around in Galilee. He did not want to go about in Judea because the Jewish leaders there were looking for a way to kill him. 2 But when the Jewish Festival of Tabernacles was near, 3 Jesus' brothers said to him, "Leave Galilee and go to Judea, so that your disciples there may see the works you do. 4 No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world." 5 For even his own brothers did not believe in him.

6 Therefore Jesus told them, "My time is not yet here; for you any time will do. 7 The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that its works are evil. 8 You go to the Festival. I am not going up to this Festival, because my time has not yet fully come." 9 Having said this, he stayed in Galilee.

10 However, after his brothers had left for the Festival, he went also, not publicly, but in secret. 11 Now at the Festival the Jewish leaders were watching for Jesus and asking, "Where is he?"

12 Among the crowds there was widespread whispering about him. Some said, "He is a good man."

Others replied, "No, he deceives the people." 13 But no one would say anything publicly about him for fear of the leaders.



Dig Deeper

It was a special day and the bride and groom couldn't just go walking around on the stage once the guests started arriving. They had been up there earlier quite a bit for different reasons to get ready for the wedding, but once everything was set, timing was everything. This was especially true of the bride. Imagine the disappointment of all of the honored guests if the bride had suddenly sauntered out to adjust some flowers on the stage or to go over one more time where she would stand. Other people, even people in the wedding party, could and did go down the aisle and even up on the stage for various reasons and nobody much cared or noticed but the bride simply could not do that. When she came down the aisle it meant something. When the time was right, though, the attendants proceeded down the aisle, everyone took there places, and then with a dramatic pause, the music began. The time was now. The doors swung open and the bride appeared. Everyone knew that the wedding had officially begun. All the signs were in place and now the bride had arrived.

Although this isn't a perfect analogy, they never are, it does help to keep this concept in mind as we read through this passage. Jesus wasn't just running around Israel making things up as he went along. He had a plan, and there was specific timing and specific symbolism involved. It just wouldn't do for him to saunter into Jerusalem, get the Jewish leaders angry, and be put to death. Nothing In Jesus' life just happened without forethought and meaning. He carefully followed the will of the Father. There was a timing and a reason to everything he did, and whether or not he would go to Jerusalem during the festival of the Tabernacles was included in that. There were many things about this festival that did point to the Messiah and John will make that fairly clear, but the ultimate timing involved Passover. The death of the Lamb of God had a Passover flavor to it, not the festival of Tabernacles. When the Messiah arrived in Jerusalem with all of the attention and fanfare that demonstrated that what he was going to do was at that moment, must hap[pen during Passover. Here is the major difference between the wedding analogy and what we see here. The bride remains safely hidden from the eyes of the guests until the wedding begins. Jesus would go to Jerusalem this time, but in a way that made it very clearly that this was not the big moment. The time for that simply hadn't come yet.

John's, "after this", doesn't mean it happened immediately. In fact, the time period that passed between Passover (6:4) and this incident would have been about six months. This demonstrates that John isn't writing a complete blow-by-blow history of Jesus' ministry but recording what is necessary so that people might come to faith in Jesus as the Messiah (20:31). John doesn't tell us precisely what Jesus had been doing during this time, but he does stress that Jesus had stayed out of Judea, for the most part, because the Jewish leaders were constantly seeking to kill him. John does tell us that he "went around" in Galilee, using a word that indicated the actions of a rabbi or sage walking among the people and teaching. Since Galilee was ruled by Herod Antipas and Judea by the Roman Governor, staying in Galilee would have provided Jesus a certain amount of protection.

As this scene unfolds, it is obvious that there is a basic conflict between Jesus and his brothers. They simply don't understand what he is doing. Whether they thought he might be the Messiah or not, they certainly didn't understand what sort of Messiah he was going to be, so John uses their misunderstanding to show us exactly what shape his Messiahship will take. His brothers want him to go to Jerusalem for the festival. If he is truly going to be a public figure, a public Messiah, then the issue must be settled in Jerusalem. That's where he is going to really gain the most attention and the most followers. It's quite possible, in fact, that his group of followers remained relatively small since the events of chapter 6. He has been doing some incredible things, which his brothers seem to accept that he has, but how will anyone know? How can he truly be the Messiah of the whole nation if he continues in the relative secrecy of Galilee? They disapproved of Jesus' handling of the situation. If he was the Messiah, then he needed to step up and prove it in the only place that mattered for such things. They simply could not conceive of a Messiah that would be largely unpopular. In that sense, his brothers, to this point, have the same attitude as the crowd of 6:15 who wanted to make Jesus king, or even Satan who tried to lure Jesus into a form of Messianic fulfillment that would be self-aggrandizing (Mt. 4:5-7).

They didn't understand the full impact of what they were asking Jesus to do. If he was going to do something, it might as well be now. But they had no divine mission. They had no commission from God to fulfill a specific role. The world wouldn't reject them (hate them) because they were very much of the world. They were still stuck in the same small pattern of expectations that the world was, so it would have no reason to reject them. Jesus, though, had opposed the values and reality of the world with everything that he had said and done, and the world would simply not accept that.

Jesus tells his brothers to go to the Festival whenever they like, because what they do is not that important in the grand scheme of things. If they went up with the regular band of pilgrims, it would not mean anything (we get the idea from Luke 2 that these pilgrim caravans could be quite large as it took Joseph and Mary an entire day to figure out that the twelve-year old Jesus was not with the group). Jesus, however had a specific time. His work had to be completed and his time had not yet fully come. John doesn't explain explicitly why this would not yet qualify as his time, but he has already given us several hints that Jesus' hour would be at Passover time, not the festival of Tabernacles. Like a bride coming down the aisle, the timing and attention were of vital importance. Jesus simply could not make a spectacle of traveling to Jerusalem in a Messianic fashion yet. The timing was not right. He had more of the Father's work to complete.

This leaves us with a bit of puzzle, though. Jesus appears to say that he is not going to Jerusalem, but then he turns right around and does exactly what he seemingly just said he was not going to do. What Jesus appears to be declining, however is the option of going up with the regular band of pilgrims. He will not go with the caravan, making their way to Jerusalem to observe the festival of Tabernacles in the traditional manner. Jesus will not do that. He will not meet the expectations of the public and the Jewish leaders, who were evidently expecting that he would make the most of this very public opportunity.

Rather than doing what might have been expected, Jesus waits. He goes by himself, in relative secrecy (that doesn't imply that he snuck around or wore a disguise, simply that he did not go publicly with a great deal of fanfare). We could almost say that Jesus won't be making an "official Messianic" visit to the holy city of God. He will go and he will teach but it is not yet time for the new Exodus that Luke will describe as Jesus quite deliberately and publicly makes his way to Jerusalem before the Passover which would mark his death.

John tells us that the crowds were quite split on their perceptions of Jesus. Some thought he was a good man, while others charged him with deceiving people, in essence, making him a false prophet, a charge worthy of death in ancient Israel. Regardless of how they felt, however, no one wanted to say much of anything publicly. The risk was simply too great.

What John has given us as this scene opens is a picture of a Messiah who is on a very specific mission. He is not being tossed around, back and forth, by the whims and wills of the Jewish leaders, the Romans, or even Satan. The Word has become flesh to do only what the Father has sent him to do. His mission is not a haphazard one of random teachings and miraculous signs that resulted in his tragic and untimely death. No, everything he was doing was pointing to his death. The new creation was coming, but it would somehow come, strangely enough, through his own death (this is precisely the point that so many of his own disciples simply could not understand). Jesus would complete his work and go to his death, but that would not happen until his hour had come. His life would not be taken until he laid it down.



Devotional Thought

Does Jesus' careful thought, planning, and timing inspire you at all? Do you carefully think through your spiritual life and growth or even opportunities to evangelize the lost in your life the way that Jesus did? We certainly don't have the same type of specific commission from God that Jesus did, but we do all share a commission to demonstrate a life reconciled to God and to call others to that life. Make some efforts this week to consider the careful thought that went into each of Jesus' actions and learn and apply what you can to your own life.

John 6:60-71

Many Disciples Desert Jesus

60 On hearing it, many of his disciples said, "This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?"

61 Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, "Does this offend you? 62 Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! 63 The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life. 64 Yet there are some of you who do not believe." For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. 65 He went on to say, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them."

66 From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

67 "You do not want to leave too, do you?" Jesus asked the Twelve.

68 Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69 We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God."

70 Then Jesus replied, "Have I not chosen you, the Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil!" 71 (He meant Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, who, though one of the Twelve, was later to betray him.)



Dig Deeper

When I was still in college, I found what seemed to be an incredible job opportunity. It was working for a company that made and sold very high quality but also very expensive knives. The cool thing seemed to be in the fact that it wasn't a store. All of the sales were made through in-home demonstrations. This meant there were no set hours, I could make my own schedule, and I would be making straight commission, which could be rather lucrative with the price of these knives. After a little research I discovered that this place was legitimate and that there were a lot of people who had made a lot of money working in sales for this corporation. It seemed perfect for the first few weeks. I went and did demonstrations in the homes of my friends and family members and made quite a few sales and quite a bit of money. Then I went to a sales conference and heard what it was really going to take to be successful in the long term in this corporation. It would take me gathering names and phone numbers from my friends and family members and calling people I didn't know at all and making appointments with them and trying to sell to them. It would, they told us, take a total dedication to selling knives. That must become the most important thing to us if we really wanted to be successful. I recall leaving that conference and telling our supervisor as we traveled home that I was done. I just didn't understand, I told him. He wanted to know what I didn't understand, and it was then that I explained that it wasn't that I didn't comprehend, it was that I didn't understand why someone would want to commit like that to selling knives. I knew perfectly well what they were calling us to do, I just wanted no part of it. It was way too demanding.

This whole discourse that continues on through the end of this chapter began with the crowds looking for Jesus. Well, they've certainly found him. Only he isn't giving them the sorts of signs and teachings that they particularly wanted. They want something that would benefit them and meet their expectations, but now he is talking about being from heaven and hinting that he is going to suffer and die and that they will have to benefit from that and find him as their whole source of sustenance if they want eternal life. This is not at all what they were looking for. Oh, they understand the important aspects of what Jesus is saying (even if they don't understand every detail) but most of them wanted no part of it. It was way too demanding.

We find out in verse 60 that the ones arguing about Jesus' words here and now the ones that are grumbling openly (an act which connects them once again to the people of the Exodus who complained and grumbled against Moses' leadership and, ultimately, against God) about it. They complain that what Jesus has just told them is a hard teaching. They language here, in the original Greek, does not mean that they couldn't comprehend what Jesus was saying, it is actually more along the lines of saying, "this is an offensive teaching." How could he stand there and call Jews that were loyal to God and the Torah (Scriptures) and tell them that everything they needed for life would come through him? They wanted some kingly leader that would throw off the oppression of the Romans, not some guy who was talking of his own death and saying that they would have to benefit from it somehow in order to be part of the resurrection and the age to come.

Jesus knew they were grumbling, just as God knew the hearts of the Israelites in the wilderness, and asks them if they are offended. The issue is basically that they do not understand who it is that has been speaking to them. They were unwilling to surrender control of their lives to Jesus, but that is because they were unwilling to accept who he might really be. What if they were to see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before? Would that convince them or would it just offend them more? Where was he before? In God's presence in the realm of heaven. When Christ returns there through his death, resurrection and ascension, which is often viewed by John as one theological event, what will their response be then? If they could only humble themselves to the fact that the one they have been following really is from heaven and really will return there, they might be convinced.

They are so focused on their earthly expectations and demands that they are missing the spiritual truths being laid out before them. Jesus is speaking of things that can only come through understanding things at a spiritual rather than natural level. His words are full of spirit and life but their hearts are full of the flesh and death. The implication is that they will not accept the things of the Spirit and the life he is offering because they will not accept the Spirit. When they reject Jesus' teachings, they are rejecting God's Holy Spirit.

All of this comes as no surprise to Jesus, however, John tells us. He knew from the beginning that that some would not believe and that some would betray him. John is not telling us that Jesus was just really insightful and discerning. He means to relay to us that behind Jesus' statement "there are some of you who do not believe," there was divine insight. Jesus knew all along who would believe and who would not. This does, however, imply that these people did not have free will or the choice to believe or not believe. The fact that God has foreknowledge of all things does not mean that they are predetermined or that humans have no free will.

Jesus has already stated and now reiterates the fact that no one can come to him unless the Father has enabled them. All humans are slaves to sin and stuck in that slavery without the real possibility of coming to God or reconciling ourselves to him on our without Him taking initiative. This is, of course, the whole point. The Father has enabled all to come to him, but they have chosen not to. The responsibility for their unbelief does not lie with God, it is with them.

It is at this point, that many of Jesus' disciples turned back and no longer followed him. These weren't just part of the crowd that had stayed and watched from the periphery. These were people who had counted themselves among his disciples. They had followed Jesus and were prepared to recognize him as the Messiah. The demands that he had made on them, namely laying down their own agendas and relying on nothing other than the bread of life available in the life of Jesus, were just too much for them. They understood precisely what Jesus was saying to them, but wanted nothing to do with it. This is instructive for those of us who have experienced times when we have shared the message of the gospel of Jesus with someone, only to be disappointed as they have walked away and not accepted it. We then begin to blame ourselves as if we had just presented it better or done something differently they would have listened. The fact is, some simply will not. They will hear the demands of laying down their life and want nothing to do with it. It has little to do with the presentation and everything to do with the willingness to be obedient to the Word.

Many of those who had supposed to be his disciples simply leave Jesus and fall away. This is not the Messiah they wanted and they will no longer follow him. With the migration of many of his disciples, Jesus turns to the Twelve, the men into whom he has poured the most time and training. Will they leave too? The question is worded, in the Greek, in such a way that demonstrates that Jesus expects a positive response. Peter, in his usually impetuous manner, takes up as spokesman for the group. He addresses Jesus as Lord, a word that could mean anything from a respectful "sir" all the way to the name used for God in the Greek translation of the Old Testament that most Jews used in the first century (Septuagint). It is likely that Peter means to use this term in the highest possible sense. He is the Holy One of God. He is the one who speaks the words of eternal life, meaning that he doesn't just speak of the age to come, but his very words actually are in the process of bringing the new creation into reality.

It is fitting that they recognize this because they have a high calling. They have been chosen, just as Israel was chosen as God's people. Yet one of them was a devil. Just as Jesus knew who would and who would not believe in him, he knew that Judas would betray him. The point is clear. Jesus was the one whose very words were bringing God's new creation into existence, but some just were not ready for that and would not embrace it, regardless of what Jesus said or did. Some would enter into eternal life because they believed while some would refuse to believe and refuse to enter into that life.



Dig Deeper

You probably wouldn't be reading this if you weren't willing to follow Jesus at some level. Yet, there is still a challenge out there for us in a passage like this. Are there any areas of your life in which you read the words of Jesus but just simply aren't too interested in following them? Have you truly laid down your life in every area and grabbed hold to the eternal life that is available to all of those in Christ or have you walked away from certain aspects of Jesus' teaching?

John 6:47-59

47 Very truly I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. 50 But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which people may eat and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."

52 Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"

53 Jesus said to them, "Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. 57 Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever." 59 He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.



Dig Deeper



I had one basketball coach in my past that stands out from all of the others that I had. I didn’t play for him for very long but he was particularly tough. He would demand the very best effort out of us in everything that we did, including things that weren’t seemingly directly related to basketball like grades. He would come to our dorm rooms and make sure that we went to classes, he would drive alongside of us when he sent us on long runs, and he would stand behind us and scream at us to work harder in whatever drills or activities we might be engaged in. He demanded maximum effort and got it most of the time. I remember after one particularly challenging practice I passed the dean of students in the cafeteria and he asked how basketball was going at that stage when we were practicing but had yet to play any official games. I told him that the coach was "sucking us dry." This, of course, is a bit of a veiled reference to vampire imagery, drawing on the lore of vampires sucking all of the blood from their victims. It was, in fact, a colorful figure of speech. Figures of speech can mean very real and important things, but can also be easily misunderstood if we attempt to inappropriately take those words to be literal. Can you imagine the misunderstanding that would have ensued if he had truly thought that I was being literal.

Almost every human culture that I have ever heard of, uses figures of speech in some form or another, and the Jewish people were no different. In fact, they used some of the most colorful idioms and imagery in the history of the world. Jesus was a man of his times and culture and used many of those idioms. Sometimes those images could be misunderstood, but usually other Jews clearly understood what Jesus meant. It is often the readers of his words, hundreds of years later who read some of the things that Jesus said and completely misunderstand what he was saying. We must, in situations like those, take special effort to understand Jesus’ words in the context and culture in which they were spoken so we can clearly comprehend his meaning.

Jesus begins this passage by summarizing what he has already stated. He is the bread of life and anyone who believes will possess the life of the age to come, eternal life. In the Jewish way of thinking, bread was the very sustenance of life. It stood for the thing that was needed in order to live. But the kind of life that he is talking about is not the typical sort of physical life that the Jews were so interested in. When Jesus began speaking of bread, they wanted the kind of bread that would keep them supplied forever. They wanted more manna. Think, after all, of all the resources you could save if God sent manna once again. The problem is that manna kept Israel sustained physically in the wilderness, but those people died. That manna had it’s limitations because its purpose was limited.

His life is the true bread that comes down from heaven. Jesus is not just referring to the source of the bread, because presumably the manna also came from God, but he is referring to the nature of the sustenance. The manna came from God but was limited to physical benefits. Yet, this is all the Israelites can think of. Shouldn’t they know better? Shouldn’t they want something more? This bread comes directly from the presence of God and will usher those who partake of it into eternal life. Whoever eats of this bread will have eternal life both now in the present age and, of course, the promise of the age to come. This bread is Jesus’ life, his very flesh that he will give for the life of the world. "Flesh" is a striking word that stands apart from "my body" or "myself." It focuses on the fact that Jesus will (notice the future tense) give his physical flesh and body so that the world might have life. Truly the kernel of wheat must fall and die (Jn. 12:24) before life can be granted to the world. Jesus would die, in other words, so that whosoever would could enter into his life and live. This is not just an idea or simple imagery. He is using the imagery of bread as the very sustenance of life to make the very real point that he would be the only way for the world to have life.

It seems unlikely that the Jews have so missed Jesus’ point that they think he is actually urging them to cannibalism. That would have been detestable to the Jew to the point that there would be no argument from any of those present. John tells us that they began to argue amongst themselves, indicating that at least some, perhaps just the twelve, were taking Jesus’ side. We can’t seriously think that even the disciples would argue in favor of Jesus if they thought he was speaking of literally eating his flesh. The crowd well understands what Jesus is saying, but how can he provide the type of sustenance that he is talking of? How could his life, and even more puzzling, hi death possibly feed them spiritually for eternity? They simply could not wrap their minds around such a thing.

But Jesus says plainly that unless people eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, they have no life in them. Many people think, at first glance, that Jesus was speaking of the coming institution of communion, the Lord’s Supper here, but that simply cannot be the case. It is possible that, as John was writing this down years later, he saw echoes and foreshadowing of the communion ritual, but in its direct form, Jesus is simply not referring to the communion meal. This is clear by the entire context but most notably by his assertion in verses 53 and 54 that the eating of the flesh and the drinking of his blood are the only means to eternal life. Even those who read this passage in a woodenly literal fashion and argue that this is about communion where believers literally eat the flesh and drink the transubstantiated blood of Jesus, would not argue that partaking in the communion is the only means to eternal life. This makes it clear that Jesus is referring to his own sacrifice and life rather than the communion meal.

But what about the talk of drinking the blood? Drinking blood was strictly forbidden in the Old Testament, but again, Jesus is speaking metaphorically. In 1 Chronicles 11:16-19, we are told of an account where David, embroiled in battle, desires a drink of water from the well near Bethlehem. After three of his bravest soldiers broke through Philistine lines to retrieve water from that very well, David "poured it out to the LORD," saying, "God forbid that I should do this! Should I drink the blood of these men who went at the risk of their lives?" This demonstrates the type of figure of speech that Jesus uses here. David refers to the act of benefiting from the sacrifice or even death of others as drinking their blood. This is Jesus’ point, and it is similar to his point of the need to eat his flesh. Not only would they need to find sustenance from his very flesh, they would, in some way yet unknown to them, benefit directly from his sacrifice and death.

Those who embrace the need to eat his flesh, being sustained by the life of Christ, and drink his blood, benefiting from the sacrifice and death of Jesus, will remain in him. They are the ones who truly believe in his life, truly die to themselves, and truly remain in his life. They in turn will find that he will remain in their lives for eternity, transforming them into his own image. Truly the only thing that can separate us from the life of Christ is our own decision to walk away from it.

Jesus’ words were challenging but clear to his hearers. They wanted the Messianic signs that they were expecting. They didn’t want something new. They were hoping for another manifestation of manna from God, but, in the process, they were selling themselves short. Their ancestors ate manna and died, but those who feed on the life of Christ will live forever.



Devotional Thought



We are trained, by the world around us, throughout our lives to believe that we need many different thing in order to truly have and enjoy life. We must, we are told, be well-rounded. Yet, Jesus says that in order for us to have eternal life, the only thing we must do is eat his flesh and drink his blood. Is the life of Christ enough for you or are you constantly tempted to look to other things for enjoyment, comfort, and security? What changes, if any, would have to be made in your life in order for you to truly eat nothing but his flesh and drink nothing but his blood?

John 6:36-46

36 But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. 37 All whom the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. 38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 40 For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day."

41 At this the Jews there began to grumble about him because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven." 42 They said, "Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, 'I came down from heaven'?"

43 "Stop grumbling among yourselves," Jesus answered. 44 "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. 45 It is written in the Prophets: 'They will all be taught by God.' Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me.46 No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father.



Dig Deeper

We thought that we were going for a fun evening of dance lessons. At least that's what my wife had told me. She had received a flyer about a swing dance event that was happening in our town. On the flyer it mentioned, she said, that there would be a time of free swing dance lessons for anyone who wanted them and then there would be a time of open dancing. This all sounded horrible to me but she wanted to go, so I agreed. When we got there, we found out that it was not at all what we were expecting. In fact there were no lessons at all. In reality, it was a local swing dance competition between swing dance schools. This was all on the flyer, but my wife had missed all of that. All she had noticed was the bold writing that mentioned free swing dance lessons. She assumed that this would take place during this evening but had missed the smaller writing at the bottom that explained that in order to get the dance lessons you had to go to the studio that was sponsoring the event and then you got one free lesson. We went to this event thinking it was something else entirely, and complained about it at first, until she pulled the original flyer out and we looked at it and realized that the details had been there all along, we had just missed them.

In a somewhat similar manner, the Jews had been reading the Old Testament their entire lives and had certain expectations. The details often varied, but there was an overall agreement on what they could expect when the Messiah came. The problem was, when he got there, he wasn't at all what they were expecting. He was something completely different but he was still, nonetheless, calling them to believe that he was from the Father and claiming that he, himself was the new sustenance from the Father. He was, according to him, the new thing that the Father had promised all along. How could they possibly believe all of this? Especially when he wouldn't do the sorts of signs that they expected and demanded of a Messiah. He demanded belief. He refused to meet their expectations, but instead insisted that they go back and read the Scriptures again. If they did that with humility and a desire for the truth rather than to be right, they would see that the Father had been pointing to him and drawing them towards him all along.

Many have supposed Jesus to be saying in this passage that only certain people can come to God. God has chosen some to come to him in belief and the others will simply not have that opportunity because they have not been sent or drawn to him by the Father. This is simply not the case, however, and doesn't really work if we continue to consider the full context of this passage and the Gospel as a whole throughout this passage.

John stated in 3:16 that whoever would believe in the life of Christ would have eternal life. Jesus has just finished saying as much by stating in verse 35 that whoever comes to him will never go spiritually thirsty or hungry again. This is an offer, not a statement that only some can come. He is offering them the life of the new creation. They have seen him and the signs that he has offered but they still do not believe. Jesus is not trying to take any credit for attracting people to himself. If he had done that he would be serving as his own testimony which he has already clearly rejected as an option (5:31). Those that are coming to Jesus are not coming as a result of his own testimony or acts but as a clear result of the Father pointing the way. Jesus continues to stress throughout this passage that is he is not about his own will or actions. He is the apprentice, sharing in the works that the Father has already been doing for a long time.

Jesus says in verse 44 that no one can come to him unless the Father who sent him draws them, and in verse 37 that all whom the Father gives him will come to Jesus. His point is not that the Father has chosen only certain people to come to faith in Jesus. His point is well in keeping with the tenor of John's Gospel that salvation is available to whosoever will (it would not, for instance, make much sense if, in 3:16, John says that God loved the whole world so much that he sent Jesus so that only some have eternal life). Jesus is saying that all who do come to him in faith are there because the Father enabled it. He worked through Moses and the prophets to point to Jesus. Everything in the Old Testament pointed to Jesus. The Father has made this available to all, so when someone does come to Jesus in faith, it is because the Father has pointed and drawn him rather than Jesus testifying to himself. The whole thrust of the argument here is that Jesus' work is really a continuation of the work of the Father rather than something new altogether.

It is, after all, the will of the Father that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life. It is not that only some will be caused to look and believe in Jesus. It is God's will that all men be saved (1 Tim. 2:4; 2 Pet. 3:9; cf. 1 Jn. 2:1), but only those who believe in the Son will have eternal life. In other words, God wants all men to be saved and has made the life of His Son available to all humans but it is also His will that only those who enter into that life will, in fact be saved. Those who come to belief in Jesus and take up His life, will not be lost. They will be raised up, but raised up to what?

Jesus makes clear here what he and John have alluded to throughout the Gospel thus far. Eternal life and resurrection are two sides of the same coin. As we have discussed previously, most Jews believed in the age to come, eternal life, and the fact that this would be the time of resurrection when God would dwell with His people. What they couldn't fathom was that Jesus was announcing that eternal life was available now. It was a share in that life that Jesus came to announce. Eternal life doesn't just mean that it goes .. death, it describes what kind of life it is now. In order for one to grab hold of it, though, they must first lay down their own life and enter into his. Eternal life doesn't mean what so many people today envision when they hear this term, that of a disembodied spirit floating off to some non-physical location forever. It is the realization of the life of Christ (and the process of being transformed into his image) now. This is a process that continues in the present age when someone believes in the life of Christ and will eventually take the form of the resurrection when Christ does return to restore all things (Matt. 19:28). Those who share in Christ's life now, will surely be raised up at the last day. So, eternal life does have to do with eternity, but it also has to do with the quality and source of life now.

Once the Jews heard all of this they began to act just like the Israelites in the wilderness who did not like how God was working, so they began to grumble. How could Jesus be claiming all of this and that he came down from heaven when they knew very well who his father and mother were? Once again, John gives us a picture of humans stuck in the earthly way of thinking who are simply unwilling to look beyond the normal limitations to the deeper spiritual truth.

They were grumbling for the same simple reason the Israelites of the Exodus grumbled. They didn't think that God should be working like this. Jesus was saying that what he was doing was what God was doing. They didn't like this train of thought one bit and began to rebel against Jesus just as the Exodus generation rebelled against God. Yet, Jesus makes clear that the Father has indeed sent them to Jesus. This is what the Father is doing, they need not complain or remain in their unbelief. Jesus quotes from Isaiah 54:13 in verse 45 which stands in testimony to the point he has been making. When God did do his new thing, they will all be taught by God. What Jesus is claiming, what he is teaching them, comes from the Father. It is He who is at work bringing His people back from exile. Anyone who has truly and humbly read the Scriptures with a heart to learn what the Father was teaching, will realize that Jesus is the fulfillment of all that they say. The passage in Isaiah goes on in 55:1 to invite all those who are thirsty and hungry to come and get their full. These are the very people Isaiah was speaking of, and if they will just believe that God is the author of everything that Jesus says, they will enter into eternal life. Jesus, is after all, the only one who has seen the Father, because he is the only one that is truly from God.



Devotional Thought

Eternal life is something that is available to Christians now. As Paul says in 1 Timothy 6:12: "Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses." Have you taken hold of that eternal life? Do you live the life of the age to come for all those who are lost in the present age to see?

John 6:26-35

26 Jesus answered, "Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. 27 Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval."

28 Then they asked him, "What must we do to do the works God requires?"

29 Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."

30 So they asked him, "What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? 31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'"

32 Jesus said to them, "Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world."

34 "Sir," they said, "always give us this bread."

35 Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.



Dig Deeper

Sometimes when you get a glimpse of your real self, it's not pretty, in fact, it's pretty ugly. I had been studying the Bible for a while but I had not yet become a true disciple of Jesus Christ. I was learning what that meant, though. During that time, I started playing in a basketball league that the church hosted and put on for disciples and those that were coming out to church. During one game, I got frustrated because the guys who were refereeing that game were not, in my biased opinion, doing a very good job. With each perceived slight I began to get angrier and angrier, and even convince myself that they were intentionally not giving me calls because I wasn't someone important in the church. Then a play happened where I thought I got fouled but no foul was called but as we ran down to the other end of the court, a foul was called on me, even though I didn't feel that I had fouled anyone. That was too much. I lost my temper. I screamed at the ref who gave me a technical foul, but I didn't stop there. I stomped off of the court, yelling the whole time, I threw my duffle bag, I kicked open the gym doors that opened into the hallway, and I threw my water bottle down the hall. How could this happen? I had played sports my whole life and had always been taught that sports built character. This incident, however, revealed a very real truth. Sports don't build character, they reveal it. They bring out certain emotions and responses that tend to show what is truly in your heart and character.

We tend to think that signs and miracles build faith. How many of us before we became Christians declared that if we could just see some sort of biblical-style miracle, then we would believe. That's all it would take for us. But is that really true? Nearly everywhere that Jesus went, he performed signs and wonders that pointed to the coming of the new creation of God, but yet many did not believe. In fact, many who saw those signs reacted in quite the wrong manner. They paid more attention to the spectacle of the signs than to what they were really pointing to. True faith comes from the humility of recognizing and embracing truth, it simply cannot come from being amazed. Signs won't create the faith in us, they can only offer an opportunity for our true characters and faith to be shown for what they are. This is because just as sports reveal rather than build character, signs and miracles reveal faith rather than build it.

We are told in the previous passage that the crowds were searching for Jesus and wanted to know when he arrived, apparently shocked or confused at how he got there so quickly. Jesus completely ignores there question and gets right to the heart of the matter. He's not at all flattered by the fact that they were searching for them, he's quite disturbed by it in fact. They weren't seeing the true sustenance and bread in the sign, all they were seeing was the show and the sign in the bread that Jesus multiplied. They weren't searching for the truth of the Word, they wanted more of a spectacle. Like the women at the well who wanted a fresh supply of physical water rather than realizing the spiritual truths of which Jesus was speaking. Jesus challenges them on working for earthly food that spoils rather than seeking the eternal life that was available through the Son of Man, who has been shown to be truly from heaven by the seal of approval that God the Father has placed on him.

To truly comprehend the exchange that is about to take place we need to understand a few things. The first thing is the Jewish assumption that God required certain works of the law in order for His people to stand in the right place and be considered righteous before God. The second thing is that there was a common Jewish Messianic expectation that when the Messiah finally returned he would usher in the age to come and the resurrection with him and would renew the miracle of supplying God's people with manna. These two assumptions lie behind the inability or unwillingness of the crowds here to accept what Jesus is saying.

The first of these two assumptions leads to the crowd's question of verse 28. Jesus has urged them to stop seeking more bread to fill up their stomachs and to search for eternal life, which for first century Jews meant their place and share in the age to come. So when they asked him, "what must we do to do the works God requires," it's a pretty natural question. In their mind a place in the age to come came to those who were righteous based on their adherence to the works of the law. So, when Jesus speaks of eternal life, they naturally want to know what works in particular that God is going to require of them. Jesus answers this question but changes their assumption of "works" to a singular "work." They were confident that they could meet the requirements of God if he would but tell them what they are, but the only requirement they need is to believe in the one he has sent. We, of course, understand this to mean that we must believe in his life. There is nothing that anyone can do to earn the eternal life that God has offered. We must enter into the life of Christ and there is nothing that we can do on our own to achieve that, except to die to our own life.

Jesus has just, in no uncertain terms, set himself up as the standard by which anyone gains access to the life of the age to come. The crowd responds with a demand, which in the original Greek makes clear that they have no belief that he will actually be able to do so. They want a sign, but haven't they already seen a pretty incredible sign of Jesus feeding multitudes with five loaves and two fish? Jews considered a sign done from heaven to be the highest form of legitimizing one's claim. It's not that they are denying that Jesus did a sign but it wasn't enough to convince them, nor was it the kind of sign they were looking for. We might think feeding a crowd of nearly twenty-thousand people with a few scraps is impressive, but in their minds Moses fed the people with manna that was from heaven for forty years. That's what they want to see. They want to see manna, then they will believe. They have certain expectations of what a Messiah is going to do and they are basically demanding that Jesus meets those expectations in order for them to believe. He had done something quite amazing, but could he prove that he was worthy of their belief by producing manna?

Their demand for a sign like the manna shows not that they are close to coming to faith but instead reveals that they do not have faith at all. They are missing the point entirely. Moses did not give them the bread from heaven, it is God who does that. It was God who gave them the manna, but that manna was not the true bread from heaven. The manna was temporary and to be given over and over again. It was given only to Israel. The bread of which Jesus speaks is far greater and far different from that bread. It is eternal and gives life to the world. The bread of which Jesus speaks is the sustenance of the age to come that can only come from heaven. Perhaps it should not surprise us that John refers to the bread that came down from heaven seven times in this discourse. John is again showing us that this is an act of new creation. Jesus did not come to concern himself with meeting the Messianic and materialistic expectations of the crowds, he came to usher those who believe in him into the new creation. This would take a totally rethinking on their part about who the Messiah was and what he came to do.

The crowds are ready for bread, but probably in the same sense that the woman at the well wanted the water. She initially wanted the water so that she wouldn't have to be bothered with going back to the well over and over again and being confronted with people. Similarly, Jesus seems to be referring to the fact that they want something easy and attractive. They don't want the bread that he has speaking of. They'll believe in him if he will only show them something that rivals the manna of Moses.

To their request to always give them this bread, Jesus makes a bold claim that will set up some of his hard teachings later in this discourse. He is the one who fulfills the Messianic expectations to satisfy hunger and thirst (Isa. 55:1-2; 49:10). He will not just facilitate the coming of this bread, nor will he merely tell them what to do to get the bread. He is the bread of life. This is the first of, you guessed it, seven "I am" statements that Jesus makes in the Gospel of John (the others will come in 8:12 & 9:5; 10:7, 9; 10:11; 11:25; 14:6; 15:1). The bread of life, living water, it's all him. To get these things every human must come to him. It's not about what we can go do. We must come to him and believe that he is the source and sustenance of life. In fact, as Jesus will state clearly in 11:25 and 14:6, he is the life. Until they, and we, recognize that he is the true bread of life, we will have a hunger that continues in us that can never be satiated.



Devotional Thought

Do you ever fall into the trap of thinking that we must do the works that God requires in order to find salvation? As noble as this might sound, it is simply another way to try to satisfy our hunger by our own efforts. Do you truly trust that the life of Christ is the only genuine bread of life? Spend some time meditating on that truth today.

John 6:16-25

Jesus Walks on the Water

16 When evening came, his disciples went down to the lake, 17 where they got into a boat and set off across the lake for Capernaum. By now it was dark, and Jesus had not yet joined them. 18 A strong wind was blowing and the waters grew rough. 19 When they had rowed about three or three and a half miles, they saw Jesus approaching the boat, walking on the water; and they were frightened. 20 But he said to them, "It is I; don't be afraid." 21 Then they were willing to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the shore where they were heading.

22 The next day the crowd that had stayed on the opposite shore of the lake realized that only one boat had been there, and that Jesus had not entered it with his disciples, but that they had gone away alone. 23 Then some boats from Tiberias landed near the place where the people had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. 24 Once the crowd realized that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats and went to Capernaum in search of Jesus.

Jesus the Bread of Life

25 When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, "Rabbi, when did you get here?"



Dig Deeper

Who doesn't love Christmas time as a kid? It was always my favorite time of year. I loved everything about Christmas including the music, the decoration, and days spent smelling and eating the baked goodies that mom was making. And, of course, there was the great hope of Santa coming and brining gifts. Before we went to sleep on Christmas Eve we would make all kinds of special preparations for Santa's arrival. The most important components of that preparation were the milk and cookies that were left out for Santa to give him a little extra energy on his long trip that night. We would then go to bed every Christmas Eve so full of anticipation and adrenalin that was it was difficult to actually sleep that night. I remember one year in particularly waking up and going downstairs and getting so excited. He had been there! Santa was in our house. Oh, I didn't actually see him, but I knew. How you may ask? Because someone had done things that only Santa could do. The glass door on the fireplace was open, the milk and cookies were gone, and the ground underneath the Christmas tree was full of presents. These were not things that some mere mortal could do, I reasoned in my young mind. Clearly this was evidence of Santa himself. Of course, now I know better, but at that time, it seemed pretty clear.

It's not too difficult to fool a young child into thinking that things had been done that only Santa Claus could do, but as I get older and have more time to reflect on those things, I understand how silly my reasoning and logic were. What is perhaps amazing is that as the early Christians had time to reflect upon the things that they saw and heard Jesus do, they begin to understand even more deeply who he was and what he was doing, rather than realize that they were somehow fooled and that he was just an ordinary human after all. No, they understood that this wasn't a situation of them being fooled like a child believing in Santa Claus. This was a man who was doing things that only Israel's God could do. Time after time, he said things that only God would say, and even more impressively, he did things only God could do.

Compared to many of the people around them, the Israelites were never a sea-faring people. If anything, they were a sea-fearing people. Oh, there were plenty of fishermen and people who made their living on the sea, but for the most part, they stayed away from the sea. Going back to ancient times, the sea became one of the most powerful symbolic elements in all of the Jewish culture. Going all the way back to the dark abyss of pre-creation in Genesis 1 when the earth was void and filled with water, and the Egyptians drowning in the Red Sea in the book of Exodus, the sea became a symbol for evil and destruction. It was the place the evil came from or would be sent to be destroyed. (Is. 17:12; Is. 23:4, 11; Is. 27:1; 42;10; 57:20; Jer. 6:23; 50:42; 51:42; Ezek. 26:3; 27:32-34; Dan. 7, etc.; See also Rev. where the Beast comes from the sea and things like the great millstone are cast into the sea to be destroyed.) The sea was wild untamable only fit for evil, symbolically speaking. God's people would not go near the sea for only God could handle chaos and evil of that magnitude.

No one could tame the seas except for YHWH Himself, the creator and ruler of the world. When the Israelites were trapped on the precipice of the sea, with the Egyptians bearing down on them, it was only the arm of the Lord that could part the sea, allow them to pass through, and then cover over the Egyptians with water. The evil hordes, in the eyes of the Israelites, went back to where they belonged. It was God along who controlled the seas. "The seas have lifted up, LORD, the seas have lifted up their voice; the seas have lifted up their pounding waves. Mightier than the thunder of the great waters, mightier than the breakers of the sea—the LORD on high is mighty (Ps. 93:3-4)." No human being, regardless of how great they might have been could be thought to control the great abyss of the sea. It was only the Lord God who "gathers the waters of the sea into jars; he puts the deep into storehouses (Ps. 33:7)."

When I was a kid, I thought there were certain things that only Santa could do. Accounts like this one of Jesus miraculously walking on water are quite different from that. First of all, I only thought that certain things, like someone coming down the chimney were done, but I was wrong. Jesus really did walk on water, and there is simply no way that this is anything other than a sign of the new creation (During the first creation, the Spirit hovered above the waters, but now the son will physically walk across them). Many have tried to find logical explanations for this event but they simply won't do. Jesus wasn't walking on a sand bridge, nor were the disciples simply seeing him on land but thought he was out in the sea. This brings us to the second difference. I didn't actually see Santa or any of the things I thought had happened. John was there. He saw and he testified that it was fact.

The disciples went down to the lake and set off across the lake for Capernaum without Jesus. The fact that they left without Jesus seems to indicate that Jesus had told them to leave if he didn't join them right away. Jesus knew what was coming and he knew what he was going to do. A strong wind blew up as they can do quickly in this part of the world which made the waters rough. This is when they saw Jesus approaching the boat. Mark's account of this story fills in the details that they were afraid when they saw Jesus because they thought he was a ghost of some type. When they realized that it was him, they were left with a real quandary. This was not, perhaps, something that they could come to grips with immediately, but with later reflection they had to face reality. Jesus had tamed the sea. He was "mightier than the thunder of the great waters" and had put the sea "into jars." Who could do this but God alone? This was no ordinary man. This was no ordinary Messiah (if there is such a thing). He was doing things that only the God of Israel could do. He didn't just have the ability to control the seas, but he could control the forces of evil and chaos that the seas represented as well. John clearly wants his readers to take this all in and reflect upon the fact that this is the same God who controls the seas and made a world out of watery chaos. This is that same God, and this is another moment of creation, the new creation when God is setting about restoring the world to the way things were supposed to be.

Verse 21 presents an interesting end to this sign. Was there another aspect of this miracle? All the text tells us is that they were willing to take him into the boat, but not that he ever got in. Then it says that immediately the boat reached the shore where they were heading. The word rendered "immediately" can also be translated "instantly." It seems that it could indicate that the boat miraculously and instantly reached the land after they recognized that it was Jesus. The synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) tell nothing of this aspect of Jesus' walking on water, but they may have simply chosen not to include it. Ultimately, we do not have enough material to determine definitively whether or not there was a miraculous landing, but it is a very distinct possibility.

John gives us a fair amount of detail to make the point that the crowd was every bit as puzzled by what had happened as we might expect. They likely didn't know exactly what had happened, as did his disciples, but they apparently did figure out that he had somehow arrived in Capernaum quicker than would have been expected, especially considering that they were all aware that he had not gotten on the boat with the disciples. What we will discover in the next section is that Jesus leaves them confused, in a sense, with an answer that is far more profound challenging than they could have ever imagined.



Devotional Thought

Have you ever had times in your life when you feel like you are on a wind and wave-swamped boat? Sometimes during rough spots like that, Jesus' presence can initially be more disconcerting than comforting. We should remember his words to his disciples to not be afraid. If we are willing to trust him and let him climb him aboard, we might find that the storm abates and we get to our desired destination faster than we had hoped. It is, after all, only God who can truly handle those kinds of situations.

John 6:1-15

Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand

1 Some time after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee (that is, the Sea of Tiberias), 2 and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the signs he had performed by healing the sick. 3 Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples. 4 The Jewish Passover Festival was near.

5 When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, "Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?" 6 He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.

7 Philip answered him, "It would take almost a year's wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!"

8 Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, spoke up, 9 "Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?"

10 Jesus said, "Have the people sit down." There was plenty of grass in that place, and they sat down (about five thousand men were there). 11 Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish.

12 When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, "Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted." 13 So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.

14 After the people saw the sign Jesus performed, they began to say, "Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world." 15 Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.



Dig Deeper

When I was a high school basketball coach, I was also the president of the athletic conference of which we were a part. This was usually a hectic but fairly enjoyable job. One year, though, it became a major headache. We had had a problem with one team for years. They simply would not live up to the expectations of a team in our conference. Their fans were very poorly behaved and caused constant security problems, everything from rowdy behavior, to major fights, to one of them pulling a gun on me in the parking lot because I had escorted him out of the gym. It didn't stop there, however. We constantly had to warn the cheerleaders for performing lewd routines, which caused their faculty advisor to scream at me for being prudish. On top of that, we had to sanction the coach several times for unsportsmanlike behavior and for intentionally using ineligible players. As the new season began, the entire school was on probation. They were warned about what was going to happen if they didn't fall in line with the expectations, but that didn't seem to deter them much, even after a meeting with the principle of their school who claimed that the problem was our expectations rather than their behavior. Two games into the season, their fans caused a major disturbance after the game and it was discovered that the star player on their team was actually a twenty-two year-old security guard who had been given fake paperwork and a fake report card by the school. With that, we removed the school from our conference. We had a waiting list of schools that were independent at the time but that wanted to join our conference. Because of the unusual action of having to remove a team from the conference, we took the equally unusual step of asking the top school on that list to join our conference. They completely took the place of the old school on the schedules and in every other way. For that season they became, in essence, the wayward school and fulfilled the obligations that were supposed to belong to the other team.

In a similar, but far more profound way, Israel had been given a role to play. They were God's covenant people but they failed to meet the expectations of that covenant over and over again. God warned them all along what would happen if they continued to fail in meeting their obligations. One thing was for sure; they had consistently and willingly failed. God did, in some sense, what we did with that failed basketball team. He didn't just boot Israel out, but He sent a replacement. He sent a true Israel that would fulfill the role and obligations that had been intended for Israel all along. What they had failed to do, Jesus would do. He would be the true Israel. This, in fact, is one of the major themes of the Gospel of John that is woven throughout the entire book. Jesus did not just come to be the Messiah to Israel, he came to be the true Israel. John will show us this reality in many ways as he depicts Jesus fulfilling roles, types, expectations, and surpassing figures and elements of Israel. Each of those instances add up to the clear conclusion that Jesus is the fulfillment of the people of God.

The list of ways that John demonstrates that Jesus is the new Israel is impressive. Israel was called God's son (Ex. 4:22-23), but John has made it clear that His true and unique Son is Jesus (1:49; 3:16; 5:25; 11:27; 19:7; 20:31). Israel was designed to be the light of the world (Isa. 42:6; 49:6; 51:4), but had systematically failed in that endeavor, so Jesus is described repeatedly as the true light (1:4-9; 3:19-21; 8:12; 9:5; 12:35-36, 46). Jesus said it as clearly as one could, when he took one of Israel's primary names and images from the Old Testament, God's vine (Ps. 80:8-9; Hos. 10:1; Isa. 5:1; Jer. 2:21; Ezek. 15:6)) and boldly declared himself to be the "true vine" (15:1-7). But it wasn't just the names of Israel that John wants us to see now apply to Jesus. Elisha fed the masses miraculously (2 Ki. 4:42-44) and the Israelites were fed by God in the wiilderness (Num. 11) but Jesus far surpassed that as the true manna (ch. 6). Moses led the Israelites across the Red Sea (Ex. 14) but Jesus walked on water (6:17-24). Wisdom was the source of proverbial wisdom (1 Ki. 3:9-12) but John applies many of the features of wisdom from the book of Proverbs to the Word that has become flesh (1:1-18). Moses lifted up the bronze serpent but that merely pointed to what Jesus would do (3:14-15). Jesus was the new and complete Jacob's ladder (1:51); He was God's Temple, the place of God's presence (2:19-21); he was the new Passover (1:29, 36; 2:23; 4:45; 6:4; 11:55; 12:1; 13:1; 18:28, 39; 19:14; 6:60-71; 13:1-11; 18:38-40; 19:31). He was the Prophet that Moses had predicted and everyone was expecting one day (6:14). He was the one on whom God's Spirit would remain, and of course, it was no small coincidence that Jesus chose twelve apostles (John 6:70) to replace the twelve tribes of Israel.

More than anything else, John wants us to see in this passage, the image of God feeding His people. This is precisely what God had done with Israel in Numbers 11 and now this is what Jesus is doing in this passage. Just as god provided for manna in the wilderness and Elisha fed a hundred men miraculously (2 Ki. 4:42-44), Jesus will provide for the masses that are following him. He is again doing things that only God could do, demonstrating that he and those who follow him are the true Israel.

The problem as we begin this scene, however, is that most of the crowds following Jesus seem more like the old Israel than the new Israel. They are following Jesus because of the signs that he performed and following Jesus' incredible feeding miracle here, they are about to jam Jesus into their own God-shaped boxes as they will try to make him become the sort of king that they imagined the Prophet would be. They are, in reality, following Jesus because of the signs rather than faith.

John doesn't waste details, though, and so we need to ask why he stresses here that this is Passover time. This is now the second of three Passovers that we, his readers will spend with Jesus. Here we have the crowds that seem to be a good representative of all of Israel coming to Jesus who will feed them in a manner quite reminiscent of Numbers 11 when God provided for the Israelites with manna. But John also wants us to see this as a new Passover. This is far more than God providing food for His people, though. The Passover was the ultimate event in Israel's history when God freed Israel from slavery and bondage. That is where this is all going. Jesus will not just provide bread for the people, he is the bread (which he will make clear later in the chapter) that will provide freedom from the true bondage of slavery to sin and separation from God.

The disciples like so many others in John's Gospel don't quite grasp the heavenly proportions of what Jesus is doing yet. They're still thinking firmly in earthly terms as Philip can't possibly imagine how he could answer Jesus' query about how to feed all these people. Philip has apparently already forgotten that Jesus has bread that they don't know about. He has bread that comes from heaven and that, like the living water, will never run out. His bread is to do God's will. To demonstrate that, he will feed a crowd of five thousand men (which might mean there were about twenty thousand, including the women and children). Heaven has opened up through Jacob's ladder once again. This is what it looks like when the Word becomes flesh. So, Jesus takes up five small barley loaves and two small fish and turns them into a feast for as many as twenty thousand people (This is now the fourth sign that John has given us. Are you still counting?). This should serve as a great reminder for us that when we offer up the smallest of our resources and bring them to Jesus, there's no telling what he will do with them, but it's almost always incredible, if we truly give them over to him.

When they are all done eating, Jesus orders his disciples to gather the pieces that were left over which was customary Jewish practice to ensure that no food would be wasted. As they gather up the food, it is enough to fill twelve baskets. John has been so cognizant of showing us imagery that Jesus was the new Israel and gathering followers into him that would make up this new Israel, that we can't help but think that he intends us to see more of the imagery in the fact that there were twelve baskets, a number that was highly symbolic of the twelve tribes of Israel.

Truly this is the new Israel, the Father's unique representative who is feeding the children of Israel in the wilderness once again. The new creation was breaking into their own world, if they would only look and see it. The same could be said of us. Have you seen the new creation? Have you entered into it? Do you actively point to it and call those around you to it?



Dvotional Thought

Imagine for a moment what the young man in this account must have been feeling when he was first brought to Jesus. He had virtually nothing to offer in comparison to the problem facing them, yet he gave it to Jesus nonetheless. The boy did nothing more than give what he had to Jesus. Are you willing to do the same? What small resources or gifts or talents do you have that you have withheld because you didn't think that it would do any good? Try turning it over to Jesus and see what he can do with it.

John 5:39-47

39 You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you possess eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me to have life.

41 "I do not accept glory from human beings, 42 but I know you. I know that you do not have the love of God in your hearts. 43 I have come in my Father's name, and you do not accept me; but if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him. 44 How can you believe since you accept glory from one another but do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?

45 "But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. 46 If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. 47 But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?"



Dig Deeper

My first several years coaching high school basketball were always a bit challenging. The main challenge for us to be competitive was that we simply didn't have the kind of talent that the other teams in our conference had. We were always shorter, slower, and less physically talented than the other teams we were playing. Because of this, I developed a coaching style that caused our team to be very physical, focus on defense, and really try to slow the game down. We did this well and we were never a great team but we were always difficult to play, difficult to score on, and always had the potential to upset anyone on any given night. A few years later, though, we suddenly had some incredibly talented players. In fact, we may have had the most talented and deep team in the league. We started winning games, but not as many as our talent might dictate. We started the season winning four games but losing three. This would have been great for the previous teams, but not this one. We were simply too talented. At halftime of our eighth game, it took one of my players to make me realize what the problem was. He told me that the slow-down style and rugged physical defense that I had always coached simply didn't work for the players we had. He was right. I had forced them to play my system rather than adjusting my system to the players I had. My preconceived notions of how we should play limited us from playing as well as we should have. At that moment we changed everything. We opened the game up and let the players use their athletic ability to make it a fast-paced game. We went from a four-point lead to a forty-point win and we did not lose another game during the regular season of that year.

The Jews of Jesus' day were well known for their commitment to studying the Scriptures. They had built the whole life of their country, in many ways, around it. They took the study of the Torah very seriously and had very rigid systems in place for how it should be studied and lived out. Yet, they had also created a very rigid system of how those same Scriptures were to be read and understood. So much so that they had a religious system that was just exactly the way they liked it and they shaped God to fit their system. Rather than seeking the way of God and then adjusting their own beliefs and practices according to His will, they worked out their own patterns and system of religious observance and the tried to fit God into that. The result was not just that they kept God from realizing His full potential the way I had with my basketball team. The result was that they missed God altogether.

There is an old saying that talks about not being able to see the forest through the trees. The point of that saying is something along the lines of it being possible to so focus on details that we forget or fail to see the larger truth or point. The Jewish leaders of Jesus' time pored over every possible detail of the Scriptures. They knew them inside and out. They knew every little detail and they were quite good at filling in all of the blanks where Scripture might have left some things up to interpretation. They certainly, above all else, knew who wasn't following Scriptures to the jot and tittle. They were, we must understand though, quite serious and sincere about all of this. But the problem was that they lost sight in most respects as to who this was all about.

Human beings are more than capable of getting obsessed with the wrong things, and this was certainly the case with the Jewish leaders that Jesus was so apt to criticize. They had lost sight of the fact that all of this study of Scripture should have been about God and seeking out His will. Instead it had become all about themselves. They became far more interested in impressing one another and being important than they were in genuinely finding God's will in the Scriptures. They quickly became fare more interested in reading the Scriptures like a rule book and setting themselves up as the rule keepers rather taking part in God's plan to reconcile His creation back to himself. This is exactly the problem that God, through the prophet Hosea, pointed out to the Israel of Hosea's day, when he declared that He desired "mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings" (Hos. 6:6). In other words, God wanted a people that care about the letter of the law but not to the point of ignoring the spirit.

The Jewish leaders studied the Scriptures diligently, believing that the study and knowledge of Scripture itself was what would set them apart as people who would gain the life of the age to come. Yet, they missed the larger whole, because the study of Scriptures does not get us anywhere if we do not apply and embrace the heart and action of the Scripture. This is why James declared, "Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says" (James 1:22). The charge that Jesus is leveling is that they have held so woodenly to the letter of the Scriptures that they have absolutely missed what the Scriptures were all about. If they had been more concerned with fitting themselves to God's agenda rather than fitting Him inside of theirs, they would have realized that all the Scriptures of the Old testament were pointing to the Messiah. They were all about Jesus.

This should all stand as a stern warning for us who can so easily fall prey to the same thing. Certainly doctrine is important, but doctrine that is not stressed for its own ends. It is easy to get so obsessed with the letter of New Testament doctrines and Scriptures that we can lose sight of the overall intention. We cannot become so focused on individual convictions and doctrines that we do damage to the overall heart of the New Testament which is forming a community that teaches the world how to live in a state of reconciliation with God. The Scriptures are always about Jesus brining life to a dead world not about excluding people who fail to meet every rule and standard. This is not to say that we just throw out doctrine or the things that the Scriptures say. It means that we must find a balance between studying the Scriptures diligently and living them out in the real world. We must never lose the heart or the spirit of the Scriptures because we are holding so tightly to the letter of the law.

These leaders in fact, claimed Jesus, were so enamored with following rules and excluding those that didn't that this was evidence that they did not really have the love of God in their hearts. They might assert that Jesus is claiming that they have missed the heart of the Scriptures, though, because it is in his own self-interest to do so. Jesus anticipates that and says that this is not the case. He has come in His Father's name, which meant his way of life and in His authority. They failed to see that, though, because they would rather fit God into their box rather than fitting themselves into His. Because of this, they do not accept him. Why? Because they do not truly want to fulfill God's agenda. God's agenda is often uncomfortable for the most religious among us, because He shows such grace and mercy to the unlovable. They far prefer false prophets who come in their own name because those types came from their world and appealed to the things that appealed to them. Jesus, on the other hand has come from heaven and speaks the things of heaven. They fell into the classic danger of desiring the glory that comes from other humans rather than the glory that comes from the only God.

If Jesus has come from the Father, will he return to the Father and accuse them before Him? He doesn't need to do that because Moses will stand as their accuser. It is true that all humans will stand and be judged according to the Word one day, but Jesus is making a point here. They have held tightly to the writings of Moses but they have missed the fact that Moses wrote about Jesus. Jesus is not claiming that if you scour through the writings of Moses, you can find a passage or two that predict the coming of the Messiah. His point is that everything that Moses wrote pointed to the coming of the Messiah. The entire witness of the Old Testament, in fact, was pointing people towards Jesus. But they were so worried about who was and who was not following the law, that they missed God's entire plan. If they wouldn't adjust their own preconceived notions and conceptions of what Moses said, someone whom they claimed to revere, then they certainly weren't going to believe what Jesus was saying. He knew the true purpose of the law, they didn't, so when he talked of the true purposes of God, they simply would not recognize it.

It's easy to begin to approach the Scriptures in a purely academic fashion or to become so attracted to the "rules" of the Bible that we miss the heart of what God is doing in the world. This is where we must constantly make efforts to find the tension between studying the text of the sacred Scriptures but making sure that we allow that knowledge to turn into personal experience, passion, adoration, and genuine worship. That passion and adoration should, in turn, cycle back around and inspire us to gain even more knowledge which will further fuel our passion. It is only when find the proper balance between the head and the heart that we will find the true will and agenda of the living God.



Devotional Thought

Do you ever get so committed to the "rules" that you lose sight of the reconciliation that God wants to bring about for the entire world through His people, the community formed in the life of Christ? What steps can we take to make sure that God's agenda is our agenda?

John 5:30-38

30 By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.

Testimonies About Jesus

31 "If I testify about myself, my testimony is not true. 32 There is another who testifies in my favor, and I know that his testimony about me is true.

33 "You have sent to John and he has testified to the truth. 34 Not that I accept human testimony; but I mention it that you may be saved. 35 John was a lamp that burned and gave light, and you chose for a time to enjoy his light.

36 "I have testimony weightier than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to finish—the very works that I am doing—testify that the Father has sent me. 37 And the Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me. You have never heard his voice nor seen his form, 38 nor does his word dwell in you, for you do not believe the one he sent.



Dig Deeper

Many years back I was still trying to decide where I wanted to go to college. Mind you, I didn't use the kind of criterion that normal people should use like the academic strength of the university or the reputation of the professors. No, I was judging solely on where I thought I might like to play basketball. So, I went and visited a college in Indiana to meet the coach and the players. I took a friend with me who was also out of high school and was considering going to college somewhere, although she wasn't really considering that college in Indiana as her first choice. We were in the gym warming up and playing around a little bit, and the fact was, I was a decent player, but she was a phenomenal women's player. She could, in fact, hold her own with most guy players. As we were shooting around, the women's coach walked through and saw her playing. She immediately began to come over and recruit my friend. She asked her all kinds of questions and began to judge whether or not she could play for that school. Eventually she offered her a full scholarship on the spot. What was interesting is that the coach thought all along that she was judging my friend and giving her an opportunity to possibly come to that school. What was really happening, though, was that the whole time she was really judging the coach and the school to see if they would match up to her expectations. In reality, they needed her a lot more than she needed them. They thought the issue was whether or not my friend measured up, but in the end, she decided that they did not measure up.

Throughout his Gospel, John almost seems to be presenting a court case of sorts. The Jewish leaders certainly thought that when they went to confront Jesus, they were in the position of judging Jesus. They wanted to determine who he was, what he thought he was doing, and whether he was the sort of Messiah that they were waiting for. In fact, John has recorded all of these events in such a way that we too can evaluate who Jesus is and come to believe that he is the Son of God (20:31). What we will find out, though, is the same surprising truth that Jesus hints at here to the Jewish leaders. All the while that they think they are judging him, it is Jesus' words that are really judging them. This is the startling reality. Jesus is not really the one on trial, we all are.

The concept of witnesses was very important to the Jewish culture. Old Testament passages like Deuteronomy 17:6 and 19:15 laid out clearly the need for two or three witnesses in order to establish something as true or someone as trustworthy. If someone were claiming to be something or someone important, they needed to have another witness. Going simply by their own word would just not be acceptable. Jesus knows this which is why he says that if all he can muster up is testimony about himself, then everyone can rest assured that his testimony is not true. This is an interesting concept that should not be overlooked in our day. Nearly every major religion or Christian offshoot such as Islam, Jehovah's Witnesses, or the Mormon church are all belief systems that are established by one witness making claims about their own revelation. They have no way to verify whether their claims of Godly revelation are authentic or not.

With Jesus, however, that is not the case. He did not expect anyone to take his own testimony alone, nor does he try to give one without verification. Although, since everything Jesus says and does is the will of the Father, if he would have offered a self-testimony, then we can know that it would have come from God. There is another who testifies in his favor. At first glance, it might appear that Jesus is referring, in verse 32, to John, but verse 34 makes it clear that that is not the case. Jesus' other witness is none other than his Father. It is quite likely that Jesus refers to his baptism with John with this. John's Gospel seems to assume that his readers are already familiar with what happened at that baptism and so merely alludes to the fact that God declared that Jesus was His beloved Son with whom He was well pleased. Since Jesus was claiming to perfectly represent the will of the Father, his witness would only be true if it was supported by the Father. The moment of his baptism was just such an occasion.

When it comes down to it, the testimony of the Father is the only that he cares about. Solely for the benefit of the Jews who did not receive this witness or would have a difficult time comprehending it, though he mentions that they did have another witness, a powerful human witness so that they would have no excuse. John was a powerful prophet that was sent to them by God and he also testified to the truth. Jesus didn't himself base his convictions or the truth of his message on the human testimony of John, but John's witness could lead them down the path to find the testimony that really mattered, that of the Father. If they would but only listen to John's testimony, they would truly find the way as some of John's disciples already had.

John was, after all, a lamp. Jesus uses the past tense in verse 35 which might indicate that John was already in prison or dead. Ultimately, however, the point was that John's witness was temporary. John was a lamp but was not the light himself. Lamps in Jesus day didn't burn indefinitely the way they do today. They burned for a short time and then went out. John was a lamp that burned for a short time to show people the way. He pointed down the right path but people didn't like the path he was illuminating. Many of them liked the idea of having a genuine Old Testament style prophet among them during their lifetimes, but they didn't like the direction that he was pointing to.

John's testimony would hopefully point them down the road of salvation, but it was simply a pointer. The truly weighty testimony came from God. But in verse 36 Jesus says that that testimony is the works that he was doing? Isn't this him testifying to himself? How could his works be considered the testimony of the Father? Because the works that he was doing were works that only the Father could do. He was, after all, the apprentice Son, doing exactly what he had seen the Father doing. The works that Jesus were doing were not something that an ordinary human could do on their own volition. They were the works that the Father had given him to do. He was bringing about the signs of the new creation, something that only God could do. One need only look at what someone is doing to see where it is that they are truly coming from. When people saw Jesus doing the works of heaven on earth, then it stands to reason that Jesus had come from the very presence of the Father.

Jesus knows that he has come from the Father and that the Father has testified concerning him because he is the one that has heard God's voice. He has seen his form. God's word does dwell in him. Jesus is not worried by the lack of support or the opposition of humans because he has the witness of the Father. Despite the witness of the Father, the Jews will in large part reject it. They have never heard God's voice as Moses had (Ex. 33:11), but they have failed to be true followers of Moses. They had never seen the form of God as Jacob had (Gen. 32:30-31) but they have failed to be true descendants of Jacob. They do not have God's word dwelling in them the way the Psalmist did (Ps. 119:11), but they have failed to be true followers of the word. For all of these reasons they do not believe the one that was sent by the Father. They have, in nearly every respect, failed to be true Israelites, but John points out once again, that Jesus has. He is the true Israel.

It all comes down to the fact that Jesus was sent by the Father and does exactly what the Father wants him to do. He can do nothing by himself. He has come to bring the judgment of the word of the Father and to please him. All along, the Jewish leaders thought that they were judging the veracity of Jesus, and they certainly do need to make a decision whether they will believe in him or not, but in reality, they were not the ones doing the real judging. The Son was the one that has come in judgment. He is the one that will carry out God's work and His just judgment (v. 30). Jesus is not the one that is really on trial here. God has already spoken and vindicated him. The ones listening to Jesus' words and witnessing his works but are rejecting him are the ones that are on trial. We are the ones that will have to answer according to his word. The question for us is when the time comes will we accept the testimony of the Father through the life of the son or will we be like Belshazzar in Daniel 5, having been weighed, measured, and found wanting?



Devotional Thought

We can often approach the word of God as though the role of judge belongs to us. Will we follow this aspect of God's word or obey that part? Has God made a good enough case in our minds to be worthy of being followed? The reality, however, is that we are the ones on trial. What will you do with the word of God? Do you obey it or do you weigh it like it's evidence in a case in which you are the judge?