Jesus said: "I
came that they might have life" (John 10:10).
Paul said: "That life which I now live in the
flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of
God" (Galatians 2:20). "It is no
longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me" (Galatians
2:20 - R.V. margin).
We put the emphasis
upon the word 'liveth' - 'Christ liveth in me'.
And so we are occupied
with Christ living in us as the Life; and we are seeking
to understand something of the meaning and nature of that
life. For that purpose we are looking into the seven
signs which the Apostle John chose. He called them signs,
because they were works with a meaning, and it is the meaning
which is the important thing. I trust that we are
seeing that these things have a deeper meaning than we
had thought. We can take these miracles of Jesus and just
conclude that He worked miracles, or we can go further
and say that He still does work miracles, and then we can
take these different miracles and say: 'This is what
Jesus can do.'
Well, that is all quite
true, but there is very much more in it than that - there
is a whole life education in every one of these signs.
Each of them contains a secret for the whole life.
We have already
considered three of these signs in the Gospel by John,
and perhaps you have noticed the progressive nature of
the signs.
The turning of water
into wine at Galilee set forth the different nature of
this life. The wine that Jesus produced was altogether
different from and better than the other wine, and the
life which comes in Christ is of a different quality
altogether.
Then we went on to the
healing of the nobleman's son, and we saw that this life
which comes from Jesus is an eternal life, over which
time and distance have no power. He spoke in one place
and many miles away, at that very moment, something
happened. Time and miles were set aside. it was timeless
life, and that is the nature of this life. Dear friends,
that is not only a statement of truth. It ought to be
very comforting to old people. We get old - our bodies
and minds get old, but the life of Christ in us never
gets old. Oh, this life has a wonderful power of
overcoming time!
Then we went on to the
healing of the lame man at the Pool of Bethesda, and we
saw the power of this life to set a man free from
bondage. This life is a life of glorious liberty. I think
Paul's word describes that man's experience perfectly: "I
have been crucified with Christ: yet I live: and yet no
longer I, but Christ liveth in me" (Galatians
2:20). That just fits into the man at Bethesda - there is
a great power of liberation in this life.
There is just a further
word to say before we come to the next sign. It is only a
technical word, yet it must be noted. It is important to
remember that in John's Gospel we do not have an ordered
arrangement of the works of Jesus, nor of His teaching.
There are many things in the other three Gospels which
are not mentioned by John, both as to His teaching and
His works, and as to the places where He went. Therefore,
a great deal of time has to be fitted in between the
things which John does record. As you read this Gospel,
it looks as though things follow closely, the one upon
another, but that is not true. Take, for instance, the
beginning of chapter 5 and the beginning of chapter 6: "After
these things there was a feast of the Jews; and Jesus
went up to Jerusalem" (5:1). And: "Now
the passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand"
(6:4). These were two different feasts, and very likely
both were the Feast of the Passover. If that were so,
then there would be a whole year between, and a lot of
things would have happened in that year which John does
not mention. You just have to remember that when you are
studying this Gospel.
Well, having prepared
the way, we can come to the fourth of the signs chosen by
John.
Reading:
John 6.
(You notice that Philip
had said: "that every one may take a
little" - and the end was that they all had as
much as they wanted!)
To arrive at the
meaning of this sign it is necessary for us to know the
time and setting of it. At this point Jesus had reached
the highest peak of His popularity. You notice that verse
15 says: "Jesus therefore perceiving that they
were about to come and take him by force, to make him
king". As far as the multitudes were concerned,
He had reached a point of very great popularity.
Next, He had entered
upon the second phase of His ministry, which was a time
of controversy, with increasing antagonism so far as the
rulers were concerned. Popularity with the people:
unpopularity with the rulers. And immediately after this
sign that antagonism sprang into life and He found
Himself in an atmosphere of positive controversy. This
had two causes: one was the claims which He made for
Himself, for they would not accept His testimony
concerning Himself, and the other was this very
popularity. Later it is said that "for envy the
chief priests had delivered him up" (Mark
15:10). It was the jealousy of the rulers which provoked
them to this antagonism.
The third thing to
notice: It is quite evident from this story that there
was a large group of those who went by the name of
'disciples'. Look at verse 60 in this chapter:
"Many therefore of his disciples, when they heard
this, said, This is a hard saying; who can hear it?"
And verse 66: "Upon this many of his disciples
went back, and walked no more with him." So it
is evident that there was a large group of people who
went by the name of 'disciples'.
We find ourselves,
then, in the presence of three groups of people. Firstly,
there were the twelve disciples, then there was this much
larger group of disciples called 'many', and then there
was the great multitude of people.
That is the setting of
this sign, and you have to take all that into account in
order to understand the meaning of it. It is quite clear
that it was intended to do three things.
First of all, it was
intended to be a test of everybody. It was not just
something done, but something projected to test
everybody. Everybody was going to be challenged by this,
and there had to be some kind of reaction to it. Jesus
meant it to be that.
In the second place, it
was intended to sift out all these people. You notice
that when Jesus perceived that they would come and take
Him by force to be king, He "withdrew again into
the mountain himself alone". He is not taking
all this at its face value - He has seen through it all.
Presently He will say: "Ye seek me, not because
ye saw signs, but because ye ate of the loaves".
Oh no, this whole crowd, all these people, have to be
sifted out.
The third thing is that
it was intended to confirm those who really did mean
business. Like Gideon's great army of twenty-two
thousand, He was bringing it down to a very small company
of people who really did mean business.
Now note: the means
that He employed for this threefold purpose was life in
the form of bread. The mind of Jesus ran far ahead of His
acts and beyond what He did to what He meant by what He
did. Of course, there is abundant evidence that that was
true: you have already seen it in this story -
"Whence are we to buy bread, that these may eat? And
this he said to prove him: for he himself knew what he
would do." Already He had thought this whole
thing out: it had a meaning that was more than the act,
and by the act He was moving toward that meaning.
What was the test by
which they were going to be sifted out? You have the
answer in this chapter. Jesus only wants those as His
disciples to whom He is as necessary as their daily
bread. If it should come to the choice between daily
bread and the Lord Jesus, He wants the people who say
'the Lord Jesus'. That is why He said: "I am the
bread of life". This is a matter of living or
dying: 'Whether you have Me is a matter of life or death.
The people that I want for disciples are those who know
that their only life is to have Me.' You see, He was
sifting out. Notice this: "Except ye eat of the
flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have not
life in yourselves.... Many therefore of his disciples,
when they heard this, said, This is a hard saying; who
can hear it? ...Upon this many of his disciples went
back, and walked no more with him." This is the
ultimate issue, and that is exactly why Jesus performed
this sign. He tested the multitude. He said: "Work
not for the meat which perisheth, but for the meat which
abideth unto eternal life". To the
professing disciples He said: "Except ye eat of
the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have
not life in yourselves." Presently that great
multitude which would have taken Him by force and made
Him king will cry: 'Crucify Him!' Where was the voice of
the multitude when Jesus was on trial? It was quite
silent. No, they had not come to see that He was
necessary to their life.
So He sifted out the
many disciples, drawing a broad line between professing
disciples and real disciples. And when they answered Him:
"To whom shall we go? thou hast the words of
eternal life", He had got where He wanted to get
with this sign.
You notice that there
were three things here. One was that it was a matter of
their perception as to who He really was. Did they really
see that He was the Bread of God come down from Heaven?
It was because the majority did not see that that they
went away. How important it is for our very life that we
should have an inward revelation of Jesus Christ! That
was the very thing that kept the Apostle Paul going right
to the very end. Oh, what a lot of trouble that dear man
went through! Think of all his sufferings, all his
persecutions and all that he had to meet of opposition!
Think of him at the end of his life saying: "All
that are in Asia turned away from me" (2
Timothy 1:15). What was it that kept that man in victory
right to the end? The answer is in his own words: "It
was the good pleasure of God... to reveal his Son in
me" (Galatians 1:15,16). It was the inward
revelation of Jesus Christ that became the life of that
man.
I think we can say that
that was true of Peter and John, and of many others. It
may be true of some of us here today. We have seen who
Jesus is by revelation of the Holy Spirit. He is the very
Bread of God come down from Heaven and is as necessary to
our inward man as natural food is to our outward man.
That is so often proved by our choices. If, on the one
hand, there is an opportunity for some spiritual food,
and on the other hand there is an opportunity or
invitation for some natural enjoyment, the true disciple
always says: 'I am for the spiritual food! That is more
important to me than all natural pleasures.' This is the
kind of disciple that Jesus must have: those to whom He
is the only life. That is gathered into this word which
He used: 'Except'... 'Except ye eat the flesh of
the Son of man... Except ye drink His blood ye
have not life.' There are no alternatives to this. There
is nothing that you can put into the place of this. It is
this, or nothing - or, it is this or spiritual death.
Yes, He wants disciples
to whom He is the only life, not just life and something
else. There are whole multitudes of disciples who want
Christ and something else, to whom Christ is not
all-sufficient, the only life, and the Lord is going to
sift out this large body who carry the name of
'disciples'. He has always done it. He did it in New
Testament times. The mighty persecutions which came upon
the early Church were His means of sifting out, and
through the ages He has done this thing by many means. He
is doing it in the world today. Oh, what a tremendous
sifting is going on amongst Christians! It is already
beginning in the east and is going to develop in the west
- the western world is not going to escape this. The
great multitudes who may call themselves by the name of
Christ's disciples are going to be found out. Let us be
quite clear and certain on this point. If Christ is not
our only life we are going out, for sooner or later we
shall not be able to stand up to the test.
But we come to a
happier note to finish with, and that is the wonder of
this sign. He began with everything very small. In our
translation it says: "There is a lad here", but
in the Greek it is: "There is a little child
here". The probability is that this lad had been
sent out by his mother with a basket of loaves and fishes
to sell for her support, and that the multitude away from
home presented to him a good opportunity for business. So
he got as near to the front as possible, offering his
wares, and at the same time, like all boys, full of
curiosity as to what was happening. He got a big
surprise! When I was sitting downstairs yesterday I saw
someone come in with a huge basket in which there were
loaves about a metre long. Now, don't think of loaves
like that with this boy. They were probably just little
round pieces of baked dough, and only a few of them. And
the fishes were very small. And Jesus took that into His
hands, and after He had prayed He began to give to the
disciples. He gave, and gave and gave, and still He went
on giving until every one of the five thousand people had
had all that they could eat and were filled. And then
there was a lot over afterward. How inexhaustible is the
life that Jesus gives! There is no end and no limitation
to it.
Dear friends, this is
not just something that we are saying. It is very true.
Again and again we have been the doubtful optimists like
Andrew. We have faced a situation and said: 'Well, whence
will there be bread enough for this?' But the Lord has
met the need and there has always been something over. We
need never, never come to an end when we have this life,
for it is an inexhaustible life. There is always
something more. We may be filled today, but there is more
for tomorrow.
Now that is very
practical. If you go back to your own life, you know that
every day will make demands upon you, and sometimes the
demands may seem too big for you, and you may say: 'I
wonder how I am going to get through! I wonder how I am
going to meet this situation!' Remember, you have the
Lord of Life in you, and He is inexhaustible in His life.
You may have fullness for today and then for tomorrow
when it comes, and right to the end.
I am asking that at the
end the Lord Jesus will be glorified in this way - that I
have more than when I started. That is the kind of life
that has come to us in the person of Jesus Christ.
May we learn to live by
Him! And when I say 'live', I do not mean just exist. I
mean live, in a way that naturally we could never
live.