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?

John 5:19-29

19 Jesus gave them this answer: "Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed. 21 For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. 22 Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, 23 that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him.

24 "Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. 25 Very truly I tell you, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. 26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. 27 And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.

28 "Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice 29 and come out—those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned.



Dig Deeper

A few weeks ago I had to go into my eldest son's school for a regular yearly conference with his counselor. He is in his last year before starting high school so this conference focused a great deal on his portfolio and his future both in high school and beyond. One of the things that the students begin to do with their portfolios is to determine what they might want to do for a career and then start thinking about the types of classes, experiences, and college education that they might need to achieve that. As we were looking through his portfolio on the computer in the counselor's office, we came to the page that had a question concerning what career they might like to pursue as an adult. I was quite encouraged to see that my son had listed that he would like to be a biblical teacher and biblical scholar. In his mind, he wants to follow in the footsteps of his dad. That's a pretty uncommon thing in our world today, but it was the usual course of events in the ancient world. A son would take up the career of his father, watching him, mimicking him, and learning from him. Under those circumstances, the best way to get good at what your father did was to do exactly what the father did and to listen to his every instruction.

This idea of apprenticeship between a father and son is the common imagery upon which Jesus draws to explain why he was claiming to be sharing in the same work as the Father. What the Jewish leaders could only understand as blasphemy or the wild ravings of a lunatic were actually quite understandable. He was simply doing what most any son would do in their culture. He had learned His Father's way of doing things, and was now going about copying that, carrying out the work of His Father in the precise way that His Father would do it.

John tells us in verse 19 that Jesus gave them this answer, which seems a bit puzzling because he hasn't recorded any specific question in the previous verse. What John likely means is that there was a general question or misunderstanding which evoked a great deal of rage and anger about Jesus' claims to be doing the work of his Father. A claim that made himself equal to God in their eyes. His response is important, as John has set it up as the definitive reason for what he is doing. It is further emphasized by Jesus saying "Very truly I tell you." This was a claim to be telling the truth without need for a further witness, which in Jewish culture was something only God could rightly do.

So how could Jesus claim to be doing the same work that the Father was doing, which is another level above just doing what the Father sent him to do (he certainly was also doing that but there was more to it than just being a messenger)? Jesus could share in the same work and be exempt from Sabbath regulations because the son can do nothing by himself. Jesus wasn't just going around making up this Messiah stuff as he went along. He certainly wasn't acting according to his own will. He was doing the work of his Father. He was doing exactly what he had seen the Father do all throughout history (again John demonstrates as he did in the prologue that the Son and the Father share an essence and purpose but are still distinct beings from one another). So what is that the Son had seen his Father doing? Without pressing the point beyond its intention, it's likely that Jesus is referring to the work of reconciling the world back to God. Jesus had been right there as the Father set about to reconcile a world marred by sin back to Himself and restore the full image of God to men. Jesus was now here partaking in that same work.

They should not be amazed then when they see the Son doing incredible things and demonstrating the new creation. The Father, after all was the creator of the universe. He was the only one with the power to raise the dead and give them life (Deut. 32:39; 1 Sam. 2:6; 2 Ki. 5:7). Only the Father can give life to the dead, whether it be the physically dead or the spiritually dead (Ezek. 37). John has already made it clear in chapter 3, that the world stands condemned in darkness already because of their sin. In that sense, it could rightly be said that all have sinned (Rom. 3:23), all stand condemned already (3:18), and thus, all humans are dead in their sins (Eph. 2:1; Col. 2:13).

The Father has the power to raise the dead and give them life, and so does the Son. The Son has life in himself and gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. In this one short incredible explanation that Jesus gives in this passage, John gives us nearly every major theme of his entire Gospel. Jesus is the true Son of God that has replaced Israel (5:19; cf. 15:1), the faithless son (Ex. 4:22). It is he who serves as Jacob's ladder connecting the earthly life of the present age to the heavenly realm of the the life of the age to come, eternal life 5:24). This life, however, is available only to those who hear the logos (the word) of Jesus and believe (5:24). It is to those who believe in the logos who will enter into the life of Christ where life is found (5:26). Only those in Christ will share in the new creation that Jesus is bringing both now, in the present age, and in the resurrection that is yet to come (5:29).

The ministry of Jesus is all about bringing the dead to life. Those who hear his word and believes will have eternal life. If people believed in God, truly believed in Him according to His word and not their own vision of what He is and should be doing, then they will believe in the life that He has sent. Many people in our day view the concept of eternal life as something that happens to us after we die, as though we die, go off to another location called heaven, and then and only then do we experience everlasting life there. This is not exactly what Jesus means, however. Eternal life was the life of the age to come. It was the life of God's restored creation and His complete presence with His people. Those who enter into the life of Christ have that life available to us now, in the present age, pointing people ahead to the time when heaven and earth will be brought together completely forever (Eph. 1:10), which will happen when Christ appears and resurrects those in him.

Most Jews during the first century absolutely believed that God would one day bring an end to the present age. He would send the Messiah who would bring an end to evil in the world by defeating Israel's enemies and exalting Israel to her rightful place in the world. The righteous would be resurrected from the dead and would reign with God forever. This would be the end of the present age, the end of time, so to speak. In verses 28 and 29, then, when Jesus says that they should not be amazed at what he has just said because a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out. The righteous will rise to live while the unrighteous will receive their full condemnation, this was not the surprising part. It might sound a bit unusual or shocking to us, but this was the part that they all understood and believed in. Jesus describes their common belief in order to verify the shocking part for them that they were not expecting.

The shocking part that Jesus would reveal little by little was that this passage from death to life and entrance into the age to come was available now. The time was coming, they all knew that and believed that, but that the time has now come? Now that was hard to swallow. He was telling them that those who believed in the life of Christ and entered into could share in the life of the age to come now. How could that possibly be? How could that make any sense at all?

This is the great power of the new creation. It's not just some run-of-the-mill spiritual experience that someone can have. It is new life welling up inside of you from God's own Spirit. If everyone could believe in a future resurrection, then why could God not offer that in the present age? What Israel expected of all the righteous at the end of time would take place for the One righteous human in the middle of time. Israel would be exalted to rule the nations, but Jesus is the true Israel. The righteous would be resurrected and enter into the age to come, but Jesus is the only righteous one. Yet, he has made that life and that resurrection life available now to those who would only believe in his life, die to themselves, and enter in. The shocking thing for Jesus' original audience, and perhaps still for us in different ways, was that they could have that life in the present as it anticipated and guaranteed the full consummation of the resurrection life in the age to come.



Devotional Thought

People in the first century had a tendency to believe in God's future age more than they did of having spiritual life in the present age. Although we often have a much different conception of the age to come, we tend to focus much more on "going to heaven" than we do with realizing the life of the age to come in the present age. Are you truly doing your best to grab hold of eternal life now and demonstrate to the world around you what it looks like to live in a community that is reconciled to God.

John 5:9b-18

The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, 10 and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, "It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat."

11 But he replied, "The man who made me well said to me, 'Pick up your mat and walk.' "

12 So they asked him, "Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?"

13 The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.

14 Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, "See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you." 15 The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.

The Authority of the Son

16 So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him. 17 In his defense Jesus said to them, "My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working." 18 For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.



Dig Deeper

I had a wonderful childhood. I really did, and there's not too much I could even think to complain of, but I do remember one part of my childhood that was particularly traumatic. You see I had a rhythm to my week. I went to school all week and Sundays were set aside for church, but Saturdays were supposed to be different. To me, Saturday mornings were for nothing more than laying around and watching cartoons (this was back when they were still making good cartoons) from whenever I woke up until about noon. My dad seemed to be operating in a different world, though. He always wanted to get up early on Saturday mornings and do some work. That might sound bad enough, but what was even worse was the fact that he wanted to always bring me into his disturbed world of hard work and no cartoons. He was simply operating in a whole different reality than I was and it made me angry. Saturdays were about self-absorption not hard work. No matter how many times he tried to explain the whole theory behind doing work on Saturday mornings, it sounded like crazy talk because Saturdays were a completely different thing for a different purpose in my world than they were in his.

This seems to be something of the problem with Jesus and the leadership of the Jews. It wasn't so much that they didn't understand the things that he was doing, it was that they were living in a whole different world with a entirely different reality than Jesus. They still think that it's time to rest and wait around for God to something, but Jesus knows that that time has passed. It is time to get up and start working. God is doing something new and the time to be a part of it is right now. Waiting anymore would just be wasting time.

John has waited until verse 9 to give us a vital piece of information. Jesus has healed this man on the Sabbath. By Jesus' day, the Sabbath had become something far different than what is actually described in the Scriptures. It was intended to be a day of rest that both reminded the Jewish people of the fact that God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh and that pointed ahead to the true rest and healing that God would bring to the world one day. Israel, through time and tradition, however, had gone far beyond the call to keep God's day holy and focused on Him, and had added all kinds of rules and regulations that people had to follow. The Lord had told the Israelites not to work on the Sabbath and not to carry loads (Ex. 31:12-17; Jer. 17:12-17; Neh. 13:15-19) but tradition had defined that down to the point that you could not carry any object from one domain into another on the Sabbath, so you could carry a man on a mat, but not the mat itself. In reality, the man did not break any biblical Sabbath regulations, only the traditional oral law that attempted to interpret biblical passages.

The specific issue that Jewish leaders jump all over the man for is that he should not have been carrying his mat on the Sabbath. The man wants no part of this issue and does not attempt to defend Jesus in anyway. He seems more than happy to pass responsibility off to Jesus. He only carried his mat because Jesus told him to.

The question that we really need to ask though, is why would Jesus heal the man on this day? There were six other days in the week. This man had been in his condition for nearly forty years, why couldn't it wait for one more day and avoid all of the controversy. The answer is far more subversive than might at first appear. What seems to be happening is that Jesus is bringing the life of the new creation into a world that still wants to cling to the old creation. The old world still wanted to lay around and watch cartoons, the way they always had, but Jesus was already up and working. It was time to get moving, God's new creation was here. The new creation was replacing the old one for those who wished to follow Jesus but this simply made no sense to the Jewish leaders. Yet, this is precisely the picture that John has painted for us. From the first verse of the Gospel, he told us that this was an event of new creation. He has left clues all throughout, such as pointing out that Jesus' opening week of ministry was seven days, mimicking the seven days of creation. Everywhere Jesus went, he was bringing forth signs of the new creation (still wondering how many of those signs John will describe?).

As Jesus opens the veil separating heaven and earth further and further, the forces that stand opposed to the new creation react in increasing fiercer levels. The new creation was being unveiled further as John shows another instance of the angels ascending and descending on the son of man (cf. 1:51). The Sabbath was always a day to rest and remember the original creation week, but Jesus sees things quite differently. The Sabbath is no longer a time of rest, it's a time of opening up the world to the new creation. God was restoring things that were sick and broken and devastated by a world caught in sin. All humans are born into that world with no way out on our own. The only hope for the world was for God to do something. This is precisely what the new creation is all about. It is God fixing what sin has done to the world.

The man who was healed, though, is like so many of us. He had walked right into the new creation but he had no idea who Jesus was or what he was doing. In fact, we are never told that this man really ever understood the full implications of what Jesus had done. He had tasted of the new creation but still seemed far more in fear of being in trouble with the powers-that-be rather than standing boldly in the new reality which had reached out and touched him. When Jesus tells him to stop sinning or something worse may happen to you, he isn't necessarily implying that sin caused the man's condition (Jesus, in fact, denies that sin is a factor in cases like this is 9:3). Being stuck in a world of sin with no way out, even if part of your condition in that world is to be crippled, pales in comparison to the reality of being brought into the new creation and not embracing it. There is no place for sin in the age to come which is why Christians are called to enter into the sinless life of Christ and fully embrace it as we are transformed into his image (Col. 3:10). If this man continued to fail to realize what was going on and walked back into a life of sin, it would be far worse than being stuck there in the first place with no knowledge of the new thing God was doing. Those who have never entered the new creation, have hope. Those who have entered and then willingly walked away from it, have no hope (cf. Heb. 6:4-6). The fact was that the time for those in Israel to choose between the new thing being brought into the world through Christ and the old way was running short and if this man didn't embrace the new creation while he still had a chance, the prospects were dire. Having hope is always better, no matter how dire your circumstances, than having no hope.

Sadly, verse 15 seems to indicate that he still didn't get. Whereas the man healed of blindness (ch. 9) defended Jesus and would not distance himself from Jesus, this man was more than happy to distance himself. So, the anger and hatred of the leaders is quickly transferred from this man to Jesus. In response to the persecution of the Jewish leaders, Jesus said that his Father was always at His work, and so was he. In saying this, Jesus has pushed the door between heaven and earth open just a little bit farther, claiming that his work and the work of the Father were on an even plane. Jews of Jesus' day had understood that, although God rested from creation on the seventh day, he continued to work by sustaining the entire creation. They explained that since the entire universe was God's domain, He was not breaking any Sabbath ordinance by moving an object from one domain into another. In other words, only God could work on the Sabbath because the entire universe was His (this was all Jewish reasoning and tradition, not Scripture mind you). Jesus' point was that, just as God was above normal Sabbath regulations, so was he. There were only two possible responses when someone claimed equality with God in ancient Israel. Either he could be taken at his word, or he would be killed for blasphemy. Clearly, the Jewish leaders rejected Jesus' word. They did not want the logos that he was bringing. They wanted to remain in their old reality. They simply didn't want to get up and get to work, helping to bring about God's new creation. This meant that, in their eyes, Jesus had to go. He would have to be killed.



Devotional Thought

God's new creation is all about healing, forgiving, and bringing life and light into the darkness. What signs of God's new creation have you seen in your life? Take some time to really think and pray about signs of the new creation in your own life. This should not only fill you with gratitude but should also give you a determination to share with others what God has done in your life.

John 5:1-9a

The Healing at the Pool

1 Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. 2 Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. 3-4 Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. 5 One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, "Do you want to get well?"

7 "Sir," the invalid replied, "I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me."

8 Then Jesus said to him, "Get up! Pick up your mat and walk." 9 At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.



Dig Deeper

The Greek philosopher Plato told a story about a man in cave. The man was chained up in a cave and the only thing he had to look at was the shadows of cut-outs of trees and animals and various other objects. The objects were held up behind him and two other men who were also chained up and a the light from a fire reflected shadows of the objects on the wall in front of them. It was all of reality that they knew. After a time, one of the men escaped and made it out of the cave into the real world. He was amazed at the realities that he saw. They were overwhelming and breathtaking, far beyond anything he knew had existed. When all you know is shadow outlines, you cannot even imagine the depth and beauty of the real world. The man eventually decided to go back into the cave to tell the others about the real world that he had experienced, but they simply couldn't understand. They thought that he had gone mad and didn't want to hear any of what he had to say. Eventually the other men in the chains killed the man who came to free them because even the idea of the world he described was so frightening that they could do nothing other than to eliminate him.

John has given us, in many different ways, examples of people who were living with knowledge of mere shadows. They are living, to varying degrees, in the shadowy darkness of a world trapped in sin with no genuine knowledge of what God's created world is supposed to be like. John has described for how Jesus confronted each person he encountered with the reality of God's new creation and it is fascinating to watch the variety of responses. Some have grabbed on to the little bit they understood immediately, some have been a bit stand-offish at first, only then to embrace it finally. Some have not understood it at all, and seemed to reject the reality that Jesus is trying to showing them. In the end, some will reject it just like the two captives in Plato's cave, grabbing and killing the man that is trying to tell them that there is a whole new reality outside if they will just break free from their captivity and chains.

A pool that was near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem doesn't sound like a likely place for a prison, but human beings can find themselves enslaved and imprisoned almost anywhere, even in the most unlikely of situations. As Jesus approaches Jerusalem for the second time during his ministry (at least that John has recorded), he is going during an unnamed festival, although the original text implies that it was the Feast of Tabernacles as it calls it the "festival of the Jews," which was a common nickname for Tabernacles. As he enters into the city, Jesus encounters a man who had been crippled for thirty-eight years. As promising as the pool near the Sheep Gate sounds, John lets us know that this place has become a prison for this man.

Great lore, legend, and superstition had developed about this pool in Jerusalem. Apparently it was believed that from time to time the waters of this pool would get stirred up. This may have been the result of springs in the pool or some other natural phenomenon, but regardless of what caused the occasional stirring, a belief grew that angels were the cause. It was also believed that the first, and only the first person into the pool would be healed. Because of this belief, the pool would be surrounded daily with people who were ill and crippled waiting for their chance, although we are never told how often the waters were believed to have been stirred. (All of this is explained in verse 4, which is missing in most modern translations because it seems to have been a later explanatory addition to the original manuscripts and so, has been taken out).

All of this angels stirring the waters and selective healing business sounds much more like the pagan cults that surrounded Israel rather than authentic Judaism. In fact, apparently, just the Jews didn't regard this pool as a healing place. It appears that pagans also regarded it as a place of healing, and at one point, it was even dedicated to the healing god Ascelpius. Certainly the priests and Jewish officials didn't approve of this sort of superstitious behavior, yet they seemed to have turned a blind eye to it for the most part, due no doubt, to the negative public opinion that would come with ending such a practice that seemed to not harm anyone. Although it doesn't seem that this place was very successful. It was more legend than reality. The man described here had made it his life to come to this place everyday and it had never done anything for him.

This had become his reality, even his prison. He blindly clutched to the sliver of hope that this place really did have healing powers and he would be able to benefit from them. This is the sort of place that always winds up being the hope of the pagan world. Here it was the rumor that there might be healing powers in angel-agitated waters. Today it's that we can find happiness in wealth, possessions, power, or personal fulfillment. Whatever the promise is, it never seems to turn out to be what it is cracked up to be. That's why Jesus asked this man if he wanted to get well. Jesus wasn't implying that he didn't really want to get well. Nor was he insinuating that the man wasn't make a good enough effort to get into the water, so Jesus was now going to help him if he really wanted to.

This is not about effort, it's about coming out of the world of shadows. This man had bought into the the shadows that the pagan world clings to. The healing at this pool was a remote, rare, and random event at its best, but a fanciful dream at its worst. He no longer had to cling to the empty hopes of a world stuck in darkness. Jesus was about to do for him what the world could only promise but never seem to deliver. He could do what the pool only promised and all it would take was a word from the Word. This was a moment of new creation, demonstrating what it looks like when people are brought into the life of God's age to come. That doesn't mean that everyone who enters in will become physically healed in the present age, the healing was simply a sign of what everyone will experience in full one day when all things are restored (Matt. 19:28). What Jesus did in bringing to reality the shadowy wishes of the pagan world, he can do for everyone now.

We should note that this is another example of people understanding Jesus at an earthly level when he is speaking of heavenly things. When he asked the man if wanted to get well, it was an invitation to leave behind the world of shadows and enter into the new creation. The invalid, however, can as yet only think of his reality in the cave of his own experience. He does want to get healed and could only do so if he could get in that water. Similarly people in our day could be happy if they could only get that one thing that desire. He, and the people of our time, never stop to consider that perhaps the problem is not in their ability to get the thing they desire but the problem is that that thing can never deliver on what they truly need. Jesus can.

One word from the master was all it took for him to enter into the light. He was carried to the pool and laid down in his usual darkness, but today he got up and walked as he encountered the light. A word from the Light is all it ever takes. What is rendered "get up" by the TNIV is actually one word, egeiro, which means "rise." In that one word, John perhaps expects us to catch a glimpse of what the new creation will look like. The word can simply mean "to raise up," but it was a word that the early church of John's day used regularly to refer to the resurrection of the new creation. Jesus' word to him, then was much more than a simple command to get up off the ground. It was an invitation into the new world that he had just been invited. It was an invitation to come out of the cave and into the real world.

John doesn't tell us that this is the third sign, but he has already given us the first two. From here on out, we are on our own. Have you guessed yet how many signs John will give us in his Gospel?



Devotional Thought

Take a look at the people around you that are not Christians. What is their pool at the Sheep Gate? What are they holding to on, looking for healing, that will turn out to be nothing more than an empty hope? It is our job, given to us by Jesus, to share in relevant ways the availability of the new creation. It is only in God's new world, available in the life of Christ that people can find true healing of their souls. What are you doing to spread that message with those that need it most?