Jesus points to the love and unity of himself and God and explains it as both a love that Christians are invited into and an evangelistic tool that the church has in reaching the world. The Church is the place where all are welcome to worship the living God and that is meant to be a community where all can feel loved and welcomed.
Tag: gospel
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Sermon: Paradigm Shift – John 16:23-33
Jesus has given glimpses of what life will be like for the disciples – and ultimately for the church – after his death and resurrection. But in this passage, Jesus will give further clarification on the dramatically new paradigm that awaits. Jesus will point to a new way to pray, a new revelation, and a new type of peace.
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The ministry of John the Baptist. Studying John 1:23-28
This post is a continuation of a study of John the Baptist in the Gospel of John. John the Baptist is found in all four gospels and is a figure who was prophesied in the Old Testament and who would come as a forerunner to Jesus. He discusses that divinely given ministry in John 1:23-28. But before we study that passage, it’s helpful to look at the context of the preceding section.
19 And this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” 20 He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Christ.” 21 And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the Prophet?” And he answered, “No.” 22 So they said to him, “Who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”
-John 1:19-22
While John isn’t answering in the affirmative to any of his questions, that does not mean he’s insignificant.
Verse 23: He said, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said
That text from Isaiah 40 is applied to John in all four of the gospels. Isaiah 40 is a passage talking of a future time of deliverance for the people of God. It’s an incredibly hopeful passage. It talks of God’s faithfulness to his people in spite of their sin. It talks of God’s restoration.
The heart of what this is getting at for John is that his purpose is to call people to repentance and preparation for the coming Messiah. They ask John about his baptism.
25 They asked him, “Then why are you baptizing, if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”
Baptism was instituted in the New Testament for followers of Jesus. But baptism was not a foreign idea prior to that time.
In the first century, when non-Jews would convert to Judaism, they would sometimes do something similar to baptism which was meant to be a cleansing ritual to symbolically wash away impurity and sin.
A difference with John was that he administered baptism. The leaders question his authority. Hhe responds by turning the question right back to his purpose in the world. John 1:26-27:
26 John answered them, “I baptize with water, but among you stands one you do not know, 27 even he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.”
John says that it points to someone who’s shoes he’s not worthy to untie. In other words, he’s unworthy of even doing the most menial and humiliating task. John would need a promotion in order to be worthy of untying Jesus’ sandals.
John has authority to baptize because it’s been given to him by God but that baptism is meant to point to something greater.
A once in history ministry
John the Baptist had a ministry to do for a time in history. He was not perfect. He was just a man. He lived a shorter life than Jesus. Much of his life was spent in seclusion. But he was faithful. Yes, we don’t have the ministry that John the Baptist had. He had a once in history ministry. He was the forerunner to Jesus.
But just because someone has a different ministry or a different way to serve, that doesn’t mean that the ways you can serve the Lord are insignificant. No one would know who John the Baptist was without Jesus. Jesus is the thing that gives relevance and meaning to his life.
But for anyone who’s a follower of Jesus, that’s the case. It’s Jesus who gives meaning.
John’s ministry was to point people to Jesus. But that’s the ministry in which every follower of Jesus still shares in. Pointing people to Jesus in word and deed. Following where the Lord leads. Walking in faith. Standing up for the truth of God.
Those things are a call which all Christians share.
In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus talks of John the Baptist and says:
I tell you, among those born of women none is greater than John. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he” (Luke 7:28).
No one before John was greater than he. Yet Jesus says that for those who come after, the one who is least in the Kingdom of God is greater. The reason isn’t because we have anything great in ourselves. It’s because we have a fuller picture of who Jesus is and a fuller picture of God’s revelation to the world.
John did have a once in history ministry to fulfill but he didn’t live long enough to see the fruition of Jesus’ ministry. He never heard about the resurrection or saw the risen Christ.
What are you doing to serve the Lord today? It can be tempting to think that we don’t have what it takes to serve God. It’s not about your own abilities and your own power. John the Baptist was an effective minister without a lot of resources.
You don’t have to have a lot of money to serve God faithfully. John the Baptist certainly did not have that. He came from the wilderness. Other gospels tell us that John wore a garment made of camel’s hair. You don’t have to have all of the degrees and credentials. John the Baptist didn’t have that….he came. from. the wilderness.
You might think you’re too old. John the Baptist had a ministry that was shorter than Jesus’s. His public ministry was incredibly short lived. You don’t have to have decades of ministry to have a ministry that matters.
You just have to follow the Lord, to love the Lord, to serve the Lord.
What are you doing to serve the Lord? What are you living for?
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Sermon: Sin no more – John 7:53-8:11
Sin no more
John 7:53-8:11
53 They went each to his own house, 1 but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. 3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst 4 they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. 5 Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” 6 This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7 And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. 9 But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. 10 Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11 She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”
Prayer
Our heavenly Father,
We continue to pray for our nation in these tumultuous times.
Lord, may we look to you as our rock and salvation.
Lord, may we not be burdened by this election cycle, but may we be focused on you.
Lord, regardless of what happens, may we continue to pray for revival around the world, in our nation, and in our community.
May we reach people with the love of Christ and with your gospel.
May that be a burden on our hearts.
May we be dawn to you and greater holiness. May we be sanctified by you and have greater love for you and for your people.
Lord, I also pray for our community as we’ve seen increases in Covid cases recent weeks.
Lord, by your grace, we have never had significant issues with Covid in this church. We praise you for that. Lord, we continue to ask for your protection. Lord, may we exercise wisdom in our decisions.
For people who are infected with this virus, we pray for them and their recovery.
Lord, we also pray for our medical care providers who have spent months on the front lines battling Covid. We pray for them and for their safety.
Lord, we ask that you bless our time in your word this morning. May our hearts and minds be focused on you, your Word, and on worshipping you, our great God.
In Jesus’ name, amen.
Introduction
Your Bible probably has brackets around this section with a note that says something to the effect that this passage was not part of the earliest manuscripts.
There’s a lot that could be said about this subject but I wanted to begin this morning by giving a few notes on how we got our Bibles and why we can trust our Bibles.
The printing press was invented in the year 1440.
So you have a gap of more than 1,400 years between the time of Christ and the invention of the printing press where there is one – and only one – way to copy a text. You had to write it out by hand.
Now in the couple of generations after Jesus died, you had the books of the New Testament written.
And they were copied. And the copies were copied.
Thousands of fragments and copies of the New Testament from ancient times. The earliest pieces we have are verses from books, not entire books.
Now for the scribes who did the copying, we owe them a tremendous debt of gratitude. They had an incredibly tedious job.
But the scribes were just men and they were not perfect. And so sometimes mistakes were made.
The encouraging fact is that the vast majority of scribal variations – or variants – is that they’re over minor issues. Maybe there’s a switch where they say Jesus Christ when it should have been Christ Jesus. Greek uses the word “the” a lot, maybe they accidentally added or omitted a usage of that. Maybe they forgot a word. Maybe they spelled a word differently.
None of those changes make significant differences in the meaning of a text.
And the good news is that there are no major doctrines of the Christian faith which are seriously called into question due to manuscript variations.
That should be an encouragement to the trustworthiness of the Bibles that we read.
We have this long scribal tradition of people who took the work very seriously.
They put tremendous care into the copying of the texts.
In the 19th century, scholars began comparing all of the known Biblical manuscripts.
They considered the age of the manuscripts, and the weight of manuscript evidence in favor of any given verse, among other criteria.
And from that, they produced a New Testament that was a product of all of the existent sources.
The work has been updated over the last century plus, but it is that work and Greek New Testament which is the basis for all major modern translations of the New Testament, with the exception of the King James and New King James Versions.
With that, we come to our passage in John 8.
There are several reasons why most translations are so specific in blocking off this section and making a note about the text.
Let’s consider them briefly.
- This passage is absent from all manuscripts of John prior to the fifth century.
- When the early church theologians comment on this overarching section of John 7 and 8, this passage is never mentioned.
- From the Eastern Orthodox Church Fathers, none of them ever mention this passage prior to the tenth century.
- When the story does start to appear, it’s located in several different places in the gospels.
- The story doesn’t fit into this section.
-By that I mean that John 7 is at the Feast of Booths. When we left off, Jesus is speaking and it’s the last day of the feast. This story totally interrupts that story and changes the day. But when we get back to verse 12, Jesus is again at the Feast of Booths.
- Greek scholars point out that some of the language in this passage is not consistent with the rest of John.
And the conclusion of many of the finest Biblical scholars in the world is that there is overwhelming evidence that this story is not original to John.
All of that being said, many scholars do believe that it’s an event that really did happen during the ministry of Jesus.
But is it original? And if it’s not original, is it scripture?
(pause)
I think it should also be said that there are people on both sides of this issues: was it original, was it not, there are people on both sides who love God, who love the Bible, and who are sincerely trying to be accurate in their approach to God’s Word.
But it leaves us with a question. How do we approach a text like this?
Some pastors won’t even preach this passage.
I like the approach John Piper has taken. Let’s look at the passage and the points that it makes but then support those points from other places in the scripture. Because this passage is teaching truth.
So with that, we’ll jump into this well known event in the ministry of Jesus.
7:53 into chapter 8:
They went each to his own house, 1 but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them.
The beginning of the passage is setting this scene, but as Jesus is teaching, he’s interrupted.
3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery
And this is the first point we want to focus on this morning. The woman caught in adultery.
The first thing that’s noteworthy is that in the story, they bring a woman who was caught in adultery.
Something’s missing. They didn’t bring the woman whom they had heard committed adultery.
They brought the woman who was caught in adultery…
So she was in caught in the act, but there’s an issue…
Where’s the man?
In Jewish Law, capital adultery charges were not based on rumor or hearsay. You had to be caught in the act.
But the fact that the it’s just the woman and not the man leads to one of two possibilities.
To borrow from D.A. Carson, who I think was half-joking: either the man was a faster runner than the woman.
Or the more common view is that this woman was setup by some of the ruling authorities who had hatched a plot to catch her.
And they do this, not because of a desire for justice or because they’re primarily concerned with holiness, or because they’re really even concerned with this woman.
But it’s because they hate Jesus and want to try to use this situation to make a mockery of Christ.
What do I mean?
Let’s continue reading.
Verses 4-5: they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. 5 Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?”
Adultery is certainly a very serious sin against God and against one’s spouse.
And it is serious in this passage.
It’s a sin which completely undermines the sacred bond of marriage. It’s destroyed marriages and families. It’s a sin of lust, of weakness, and of selfishness.
I said this a moment ago, but in the Old Testament, adultery was a capital offense.
Or again in Deuteronomy 22:22: “If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel.
And so the people who had caught this woman point to the Law and that the appropriate punishment for this woman is death.
And they come to Jesus asking for his input in the situation.
It’s a trap.
They’re seeking here to undermine Jesus.
They’ve created a theological dilemma for Jesus.
He could pass the buck and have them take the woman before the Jewish court.
If he says he should be forgiven, they’ll accuse him of being soft on the Law. If he says she should be stoned, they’ll say he’s contradicted his own message of grace and forgiveness.Our passage establishes that in verse 6: This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him.
Jesus responds first without words, but with an action.
Second part of verse 6: Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.
What he was writing has been the subject of much speculation.
Some think he was writing the Ten Commandments, others think he was writing sins of the accusers, others think he was writing other Old Testament legal commands.
Ultimately, we don’t know.
I mentioned in the beginning that many scholars don’t believe the story is original to John. But I’ll say again, that many believe it happened. I believe it happened. And this writing in the dirt is part of why I believe it happened.
Tim Keller brings up this point.
But why is that included in the story?
Jesus is writing in the ground, we never find out what. It contributes nothing to the story.
If you were to make up a story, why would you have a detail of the story be absolutely meaningless to the story?
Instead, I believe that it really happened and the writing in the dirt is mentioned because the person who wrote this story saw it happen.
Verse 7: And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. 9 But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.
So it appears to be a combination of what Jesus was writing and his words that have totally flipped the script.
Couple of things to consider about this story.
When Jesus says “let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone” is he saying that to judge her sin, you have to be morally perfect?
Again, that’s often the way people interpret the story.
Everyone knows this verse.
Everyone knows the Bible says “let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”
And the verse everyone knows, almost everyone gets wrong.
And not just this verse. Our society knows lots of Bible verses that mention judgment.
Matthew 7:1: “Judge not, that you be not judged.
Same passage. Matthew 7:4: how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye?
We like verses that speak against judgment. Because our society has decided that the absence of judgment is love.
And to judge someone is seen as unloving.
Is it a sin to judge someone?
Consider those passages in Matthew:
how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye?
But then the following verse also says: You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.
What these verses are saying is that everyone of us is a work in progress and that we need to also work on ourselves and our own holiness as we help challenge and exhort others to holiness.
It is not saying that we can never make a moral judgment at any time.
In the previous chapter, Jesus had said:
24 Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.”
The Bible clearly teaches, in multiple ways, that we are to have moral discernment and views on the world, influenced by the Word of God.
There are Bible verses that talk about avoiding sin which imply an awareness of what is and is not sinful so that we can avoid sin.
2 Thessalonians 3:6: Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us.
There are Bible passages that serve as warnings of false teachers in the church. To recognize a false teacher, you have to have opinions on the Biblical validity of someone’s message.
Matthew 7:15-17: Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16 You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit.To be able to do that requires us to have a moral understanding which is grounded in the truth of God.
We have Bible verses about exhorting people to live up to Biblical standards.
Hebrews 10:24-25: And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works,1 Thessalonians 5:11: Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.
This requires us to have a sense of what is and is not sin.
Now, there are some guiding principles.
Because, we should never judge someone for its own sake. It should always be in the hope of seeing a person repent. Love should undergird everything we do.
And it can be done in a loving way.
The Biblical worldview is that sin is not arbitrary but sin is sin because it is an affront to God and it is an action against God’s righteousness, holiness, and truth. The best way to live life is in accordance with God’s truth.
When we sin, we are living against his truth and that is therefore not a path that leads us to flourishing.
But we should want that both for ourselves and for others.
Again, it’s a challenge. Grace and law.
Because I think most of us have a tendency to lean more on one side or the other with that.
Some of us are rule followers. Rule enforcers. More on the side of the law. And for that person, the temptation is to be puffed up and self-righteous. We can forget our own sinfulness and need for grace when we do that.
But if we go exclusively on the side of grace, we can forget about God’s call for holiness in our lives and have a worldview that is generally apathetic to sin.
Both extremes are problematic.
Back in our passage. Jesus has been writing. He says “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.
We always think that this is a story about grace.
But is that what’s really happening here?
John and Paul Feinberg have a fascinating analysis of this passage in their book “Ethics for a Brave New World” where they look at this passage in light of Old Testament laws.
This trial is illegal.
For starters, Old Testament standards for capital offenses were very stringent. It wasn’t a matter of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. You had to have total certainty.
Capital punishment for adultery was probably actually very rare in Israel. Because clearly an accusation can be made. But you needed to have multiple witnesses.
Deuteronomy 17:6: On the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses the one who is to die shall be put to death; a person shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness
And the witnesses would be cross-examined and their stories had to corroborate with each other.
Also it should be noted that in the Old Testament: perjury about a capital offense was itself a capital offense.
We see both of these ideas. Cross-examination and punishment for perjury in Deuteronomy 19:
16 If a malicious witness arises to accuse a person of wrongdoing, 17 then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the Lord, before the priests and the judges who are in office in those days. 18 The judges shall inquire diligently, and if the witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely, 19 then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother. So you shall purge the evil from your midst
And as a reminder, the Law required that in cases of adultery, both of the guilty parties needed to be executed.
Leviticus 20:10: “If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.
The law required a public trial, here it’s a mob bringing the woman to Jesus.
The law also required right motives in a trial. And this was a matter of the heart, but you weren’t supposed to accuse someone out of malice.
Exodus 23:1: You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness.
Also entrapment would have been sinful. The Israelites were supposed to help keep the people in their community from sin, not lie and wait so you can catch someone.
(pause)
So let’s summarize all of this. We like to look at this story as the supreme example of grace in the Bible.
It’s a story about court procedural violations!
The religious leaders want to come to Jesus with a legal case and we see that Jesus follows the law even more radically than the conspirators.
Jesus didn’t come to abolish the Law but to fulfill the Law. He says that himself in the Sermon on the Mount.
Jesus never says the woman doesn’t deserve death.
But when he says: “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her:
Jesus has exposed the sins or sinful motivations of these accusers and they leave.
Did she commit adultery?
Probably. There’s never an indication that that was untrue.
But Jesus has intervened in this mistrial.
He will later be a victim himself of an improper trial. We’ll talk about it more when we get there, but there was illegalities with the trial of Jesus.
But unlike this woman, Jesus would be illegally convicted and he would not have an advocate.
But it’s because Jesus died as an innocent man that the guilty could be forgiven.
That’s the gospel.
Back in our passage. Those who oppose Jesus have thought they had such a brilliant trap for him. And it fails. They leave. They don’t care about the woman.
So they leave and Jesus and the woman remain.
10 Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11 She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”
Now, we do see grace from Jesus.
Jesus’ purpose for coming into the world was salvation.
John 3:17 says:
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
Jesus doesn’t bring the hammer down.
Throughout the gospels, we see people coming to Jesus in their sins, or Jesus showing awareness of their sins.
The main point of the passage is the law and Jesus’ adherence to the Law and his honor for the law.
But that doesn’t mean that grace is absent from the story.
Because Jesus is gracious to sinners.
And we too should be.
It can be so easy to be cynical about the world, about sin, about people. It can be so easy to judge others, to judge their hearts and their motivations, when we don’t know people’s hearts and motivations, and experiences.
We need to ask ourselves when we’re tempted to feel judgmental about someone.
Is it out of pride? Is it to feel better about ourselves and our own sinfulness?
Or is it out a righteous desire to see God honored? Is it out of a righteous love for what is just and right? Is it out of a righteous love for sinful people and desire to see their salvation, repentance, and sanctification?
We should ask ourselves those questions.
Because it can be easy to just be snarky and critical.
Is judgment sinful?
It is when we feel like we’re better than someone or look down on them.
It is when it blinds us to our own sinfulness.
It’s not when we see a person’s life isn’t honoring Christ and bringing them to God.
At the end of the passage, Jesus says to the woman: “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”
He doesn’t condemn her, but he calls her to holiness.
From now on, sin no more.
Jesus is gracious. But he never, ever affirms sin.
He never celebrates sin, he never says sin is good or doesn’t matter.
His death shows that it matters. He didn’t die for us because our sins weren’t that big a deal.
He is gracious when we sin, and we should rejoice in that. But Jesus also calls us to holiness, and for that, we should also rejoice. Because a righteous life, a life dedicated to God is the best way to live.
There is forgiveness when we sin because we have a savior.
Our world likes to think the absence of judgment is love.
Jesus shows love. He gives his life to redeem sinners.
Jesus shows us love, because he points us to real life, and in pointing to the life to which he has called us, Jesus desires our holiness.
Because he loves us.
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Sermon: Our Eternal bread – John 6:1-15; 22-59
Prayer
Our heavenly Father,
You are the mighty God from whose presence earth and sky flee. Your awesomeness and immensity is that great. We praise your great and glorious name.
Lord God, we come to you as fallen people in a fallen world, but may we be reminded of your gospel that though we are sinful and fallen, though you are holy and hate sin, you loved us enough to send your son.
Let us rejoice that there is eternal life through what Christ has done.
Lord, we pray for our missionaries today. We pray for the work to which you have called them in various parts of our nation and throughout the world. As parts of the world become increasingly hostile to the gospel, as parts of the world and parts of our nation become less receptive to the truth of the gospel, Lord God, we pray for their work, we pray for their safety, we pray for their families and the balance of family and ministry. Lord, we thank you for people we’ve partnered with who are committed to doing your work and serving your kingdom.
But may we also be a church that has a burden for our own community and the surrounding communities to serve, to share the Good News, to connect with new people, to push ourselves outside of our comfort zones.
Lord, we ask that you bless our time in your word. May we be pointed to truth and life that is only found in Jesus Christ Our Lord.
In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.
Introduction
We’re resuming our series in the Gospel of John this morning.
I’ve loved studying this book with you all and I hope that it’s been a blessing to you.
As we go verse by verse, it does take time and I know that’s time well spent but I also think it’s good to sometimes break away, which is why we did our Forensics of Faith series. But happy to be back in John chapter 6 this morning.
Certainly, that was a long passage that we just read. Part of this passage we’ve already preached.
Today we’re going to be looking at a long section of John 6. Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be a 90 minute sermon or anything.
But I think it’s helpful sometimes to get the 30,000 foot view of a passage and look at how a section works together.
And so we’re going to be looking at the passage this morning in three scenes.
Certainly part of this passage we’ve talked about before, but I think it’ll be helpful considering the whole section as we build up to Jesus profound statement in verses 53-54: Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.
So we’re going to look at three scenes and each of the scenes, we will see bread as a focal point in the story, we will see allusions to the Old Testament, we will see people misunderstanding who Jesus is, and we will see Jesus progressively revealing his nature to the crowds.
First scene – Jesus feeding the multitude
Jesus feeding the multitudes is the catalyst for everything else which follows in this chapter.
To remind us of the passage, Jesus has been teaching and he’s near the sea of Galilee and a large crowd comes to him to hear his teaching.
The passage tells us that the group included 5,000 men, not including wives and children so it could easily have been 15,000-20,000 people.
They’re in a remote area, and as Jesus is teaching, they run into a logistical problem.
How are these people going to eat?
They find a boy who had five barley loaves and two fish.
And then John records the miracle in verses 11-13: Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted. 12 And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, “Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost.” 13 So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten.
Illustration – 70-80% increase
The Lord Jesus does this miraculous sign when he feeds this large multitude of people. He takes a little bit of bread but then feeds thousands. Verse 13 even tells us that there were leftovers. Now, certainly that would be astonishing to see in person.
But I still think it’s hard for a lot of us to truly appreciate that miracle. I think we only get part of why this is amazing. We get the part that’s amazing in the sense that Jesus has made a lot of bread when he had relatively little bread. But I don’t think that we see this as a lot of people throughout history would.
D.A. Carson talks about this and I found it helpful. Imagine if I told you that I could increase your income by 80%.
You’d be probably be interested in that. Well…in first century Galilee, about 70-80% of a person’s working labor went to either growing food or some other form of work in order to be able to acquire food.
And for much of human history, 70-80% of your income simply went to buying food so you could live.
By comparison, the average American today spends about 9.5% of their income on food today, according to the USDA. And that includes going out to restaurants and that includes the fact that we buy a lto fo luxuries that we could easily live without, simply because we like them. 9.5% when a lot of people aren’t just sticking to a staple diet of bread, rice, beans, pasta, potatoes, and eggs.
And so the point that D.A. Carson makes about this passage is that we’re reading a story that was written in the first century. And they had views of food that were very different than our views of food. And while we might think that it’s neat that Jesus could feed this large group of people, if you had been in the crowd, it wasn’t simply that Jesus had given you a meal, it’s that you saw someone crete the thing for which you toiled and labored and he did it basically out of thin air.
How interested would you be if you could increase your income 70-80 percent? I think that the multitudes Jesus fed had thoughts that were much more along those lines than simply being impressed that he gave them a meal.
This passage alludes to the Old Testament in a few different ways. First, the beginning of the story mentions that it was the time of Passover. The time when God had used Moses to lead the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt. As God had provided bread called manna during the Israelite wanderings, we see Jesus providing bread.
And we see their response at the end of that section.
Verses 14-15: When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!” Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.
Verse 14 calls this miracle a sign. And as with the other signs that Jesus has done in this gospel, they always point beyond themselves. And as we’ll see as the passage unfolds, the sign is not simply about the bread.
We also see in the passage that after Jesus has fed this multitude, they want to make him their king. It’s easy for hungry people to be drawn to the one who can feed them. After Jesus withdraws from the crowd. After he performs the miracle of walking on water, we see him and the crowd together again on the following day in verse 22. And that brings us to our second scene. In the first scene, we saw Jesus providing bread. In the second scene, Jesus will reveal that he himself is the true bread.
Second scene – the bread of life
In verse 26, Jesus rebukes the crowd who had wanted to make him king. Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.
Jesus says they’re drawn to them because he fed them. And while that’s significant, it’s not the ultimate need which Jesus came to address. He came to a world that is dead in sin to bring eternal life. They wanted Jesus to be a king, and while Jesus was – and is – a king, he did not come to become king on their terms.
As he continues speaking to the crowd, Jesus elaborates on his previous statement in verse 27: Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you.
And so the crowd asks Jesus what they must do. And the answer is that it’s not about our goodness, our actions, our behaviors.
Verse 29, Jesus explains to the crowd whom he’s just fed: “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”
But the crowd asks for a sign. Forgetting that Jesus had fed them the day before.
But they reference the Old Testament. Verse 31: Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’
Again, we see the Old Testament as they specifically mention Moses and the manna in the wilderness. The Exodus story was well known in the Jewish world. They were familiar with the manna in heaven. The miracle which Jesus has done reminds them of that.
In Exodus, the Lord had promised an abundance of bread.
Quoting part of Exodus 16:4:Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you
Yes,they had seen Jesus provide bread once but God did it everyday for decades. Perhaps that was part of the thought process. If Jesus is supposedly greater than Moses, shouldn’t we see greater things? But Jesus will explain why he’s greater.
In verse 33, Jesus says: the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.
And the people ask for this bread. But they still don’t grasp what he’s saying. Just as we saw when Jesus told Nicodmeus that you must be “born again” and he was referring to regeneration not to entering your mother’s womb a second time. Just like when he told the woman at the well of the living water he provided and she thought that he was talking about liquid when he was talking of the cleansing and renewal that comes from the Spirit and faith, here again the crowd thinks that the bread Jesus provides is simply physical nourishment.
In verse 34, the crowd pleads “sir, give us this bread always.”
In his commentary on John, Colin Kruse notes that they want a continual supply of bread as had been given to the Israelites so they would not have to toil and labor for their sustenance.
And that’s when Jesus explains to the crowd: “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.”
Jesus is the eternal nourishment and the daily bread without which we will Spiritually starve.
The world wants to just satisfy your body. The world makes idols of what is fleeting and feeds the body. Jesus feeds the soul. And it is because he is the bread of life that he is greater than the bread. Jesus continues speaking to the crowd.
He again rebukes the crowd in verse 36: But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe.
The crowd is following Jesus but not for the right reasons and not out of faith. They’re drawn to the spectacle and the hope that he can meet their physical needs. As Jesus continues to elaborate, he will make several references to his mission and purpose in connection to the will and plan of God.
The crowd might have an incorrect theology but the truth of the divine plan does not depend on man. Jesus has come to do the will of God. Those whom God has given him, he will not cast out. Jesus will tell the crowd in verse 38 that he has been sent from heaven. And with that, we come to our third scene which is the culmination of Jesus giving bread to the multitudes and explaining that he is the bread of life.
He explains the bread in its relationship to eternal life.
Third scene –
In verse 40, Jesus says: For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
As we’ve seen many times throughout this gospel, Jesus is not seeker sensitive with his statement. He speaks in absolutes and does not leave any gray area. And the crowd is taken aback. He’s telling the crowd of the necessity of faith in him.
There’s irony that the crowd thinks they know Jesus. They’re taking in the claims he’s making that he is the bread of life, that eternal life is found in believing in him.
Verses 41-42: So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42 They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”
They question Jesus’ credentials. But Jesus responds to the group. And he largely picks up his train of thought from a few verses ago. Verse 43, he rebukes the crowd for their grumbling. The Israelites would grumble during their wanderings in the desert. They would question God’s goodness and faithfulness.
Jesus is the Lord on earth who they question.
The Israelites would eventually complain about the manna, grumble, and complain about that as their daily food source. Jesus is the true bread who they are not looking to for their Spiritual sustenance. He has already established that nothing thwarts the divine plan of the gospel. Jesus has already said that he cannot lose any who come to him in true faith.
44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.
Jesus is saying that one cannot come to Him, the source of true life, unless the father draws them.
In the New Testament, we see this idea in action in Acts 16 when Paul is ministering to Lydia. The passage says: One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. (Acts 16:4)
In verses 47-48, Jesus again says that it is belief in him that is the basis for eternal life and that he is the bread of life.
There is a lot of repetition in this passage. Keep in mind that the original audience to whom Jesus was speaking were only listening and if you’re speaking versus writing, you sometimes will say things more times for emphasis and to get the point across. Jesus keeps reiterating that he is the bread of life, he keeps reiterating in this passage that he is the one sent from heaven.
With all of the discussion in this passage about Israelites and the manna, Jesus reminds them of an important fact.
49-50: Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.
Yes, the Israelites had manna, but they still died. Jesus promises eternal life. In verse 46, Jesus talks of him as one who has seen God. Moses never saw God. Earlier in this passage, the audience incorrectly attributes provision of the bread to Moses instead of to God.
What Jesus is saying is that he is greater. He is greater than Moses. He gives greater bread. He brings something that will be greater than the Old Covenant. He gives a greater revelation of God.
And here we come to the fruition of Jesus’ teaching point. In the first scene, Jesus provided the bread. In the second scene, Jesus said he was the bread. And here he says that it is the consumption of this bread which causes eternal life.
51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
The one who eats the bread Jesus provides has eternal life and also the bread he gives is his flesh. Obviously, he was not speaking literally. Certainly, for observant Jewish people, the idea of cannibalism would have been just as grotesque as it is for us today. The audience tries to understand.
Verse 52: The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
He’s raised the stakes. It’s not just eating his flesh, he says, but also drinking his blood.
How do we do this?
So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.
Some take his language of eating his flesh and drinking his blood to be a reference to communion. That’s certainly the Catholic understanding of this passage.
I can see how it appears that way but the setting and language do not fit the other gospels. It’s not in the context of a meal where he’s breaking bread and giving wine. Communion is instituted just before Jesus dies, and this is a Passover which is at least a year before Jesus died. Communion is instituted as a sign of the New Covenant, this is not yet the time of the New Covenant.
When we take communion, while the bread is a symbol for the body of Christ, in this passage Jesus refers to the bread as his “flesh,” and so even the terms are different. Furthermore, when Jesus talks of the necessity of consuming his flesh and blood, to associate that with partaking in communion, that does not fit the context of this entire passage.
Consider again verse 35: “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.
Coming to him and believing in him are the reasons why a person will not hunger or thirst.
Consider verse 40: everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life
And then consider again verse 53: unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
Everything in this passage and this gospel has ultimately hinged on belief in Jesus. And so it’s the wrong interpretation to take verse 53 as Jesus saying that a person must participate in communion or the Lord’s Supper in order to be saved.
Communion is important. But it’s not salvific.
So while he’s not talking about communion, I think it’s important to consider that communion and this passage are both referring to the same thing which is Jesus’ sacrificial death. So this passage doesn’t refer to communion, but communion and this passage refer to the same thing. Hopefully that makes sense? Both things point to the gospel.
In the Spiritual sense, the flesh of Christ is eaten, and the blood of Christ is drunk by the means of having faith in Jesus. And it is that which is the culminating point of this section. Jesus is the bread of life that we must consume and that is done through having faith in him.
As he’s done elsewhere in this gospel, he uses an example from the physical world to communicate a Spiritual reality. And so when Jesus says we must eat his flesh and drink his blood here, it is a metaphor for believing in him.
Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.
There, Jesus points us to salvation and the promise of future resurrection.
Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.
Jesus points to our union with him as those who believe in him.
As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”
Just as the manna needed to be collected everyday. Just as the bread Jesus gave to the multitudes only sustained them for a meal, Jesus provides the bread from which we will never hunger.
And so in this passage, we see that Jesus provides something greater than Moses because Jesus is greater than Moses. And we see that Jesus is the bread of life and he’s the one whose flesh was given so that we could be forgiven. He’s the one whose blood was shed so that we could have life. And the belief that his life was given so that we could have eternal life is the ultimate consumption of the bread which Jesus provides.
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