Or, Looking for Loaves for All the Wrong Reasons
Scripture: John 6:22-34
Date: May 6, 2012
Speaker: Sean Higgins
Last week I mentioned that we do well to follow our assigned tour guide through the museum, but sometimes you want to stay a little longer with certain exhibits. This morning, we’re going to stop for lunch in the deli and talk for a while about what we saw. I’ve gone over my notes a few times now and can’t decide if this is really Part 2 from last week or Part 1 of this week. [Kids, bring your Korner back next week for a fun-filled key word list that actually fits.]
It’s helpful every once in a while to remind ourselves who the Gospel of John was written to, written for. Everything in the Bible has a context and our awareness of the context is crucial for figuring out what it means.
Who did John write his Gospel for? Who was the intended readership, the target audience? There are a couple ways to answer that, starting with an acknowledgement that John himself doesn’t write, “Dear [So-and-so].” We’ve got to do some thinking in order to make reasonable conclusions.
John 20:30-31 doesn’t explicitly identify Who but it does explicitly identify Why. “These things are written so that you (unhelpful) may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” By itself, that suggests that John intends this book for unbelievers so that they would believe. When we compare it to the purpose of his first letter, we see the contrast. 1 John 5:13 states, “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life.” First John is for believers so that they would have assurance of faith.
Because of John’s own heritage—a Jew, because of his ministry—a pillar of the church in Jerusalem (see Galatians 2:9), and because of his terminology and organization in the Gospel by Jewish feasts, it also seems reasonable to think that John aimed his Gospel at unbelieving Jews. The issues he covers and signs he includes are suited especially toward those who were familiar with the Old Testament, those who were looking for the Messiah, and those who had not yet believed that Jesus was that Messiah.
I bring up the original audience at this point for a couple reasons.
First, as we begin our study of the bread of life and as we hear Jesus talk about eating His flesh and drinking His blood, He is not talking about communion. He hadn’t instituted the Lord’s Supper at this point; He did that on the night He was betrayed. John 6 is not about the sacrament, not only because of the timeline, but also because of the audience. He is inviting men to salvation, not the Supper. That said, the imagery of the Lord’s Supper comes from the teaching here. We who are further along the timeline can look back at the seed having already seen what the tree looks like. Anyway, it’s a helpful distinction to keep in mind and remembering the audience helps.
But I bring up the original audience at this point for a second reason. Who was the Gospel of John aimed at? Our answer should be double-barreled: unbelieving Jews AND US, unbelieving Jews and Gentiles. It aims that you and I would believe, and even that you and I would grow in believing. We should be careful about avoiding application because it was written to “someone else.” Everything in the Bible was written to or about someone else, at least originally. We must think, we must be careful to make proper distinctions so that we know how it applies to us, not so that we can confidently argue that it doesn’t apply to us.
Our camp of truth-tube filling word fussers and theological hair-splitters are great when it comes to identifying application for others. We can write out lists of applicable Bible verses like nobody’s business. But it is wearisome to always be finding someone else to blame or battle with.
We are studying the Gospel of John. The application for us is more than, though not less than, building our evangelistic tool kit for our upcoming interactions with unbelieving Jews who lived near the end of the first century. It is more than only evangelistic material for unbelievers, Jew or Gentile, living today.
John wrote so that we might believe in the first place and for all the other places after that. He wrote so that we might really believe, unlike those who believed in Jesus’ name (2:23) but who still didn’t have life. I get that First John was written for assurance of faith, but the Gospel of John was written for application of faith, for seeing the glory of Christ, “glory as of the only Son from the Father full of grace and truth” (John 1:14), for beholding “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (1:29). Who needs to see His glory? Who needs to behold the Lamb? We do! We cannot see or behold Him enough. We cannot believe too much.
The result of believing is eternal life, a durative life. But Jesus also said that He came that we might have abundant life (John 10:10). That includes hearing His voice and following Him as our Shepherd.
As His sheep, as His disciples, as believers, we still have issues, difficulties, struggles, and failures. We are benefited by having the Gospel accounts not only because we see Jesus, but also because we learn about a variety of responses to Jesus, some positive and some murderous. We are studying the Gospel of John because we never get past our need for it, for knowing God, His heart, His work, and the life we have by believing Him.
For example, what is the point of Jesus feeding the five-thousand from five barley loaves and two fish in John 6:1-15? Is the point that Jesus is powerful? Yes. That Jesus is God? Yes. That He did supernatural things? Yes. That once upon a time He lead people into a wilderness place where only He could provide so that He could show Himself to them? Yes. Is that it? No! The point of all those truths is -> believe Him! Trust Him now! If we really understand the point, it changes more than the books we approve, it changes our responses to bills and broken bones and other bleak news.
What is the point of Jesus walking on the water in John 6:16-21? That He has power over the physics of hydrogen and oxygen. Sure. That He channels the wind to prove He has power over it? Sure. Is that it? No! The point of all of those truths is -> believe Him! Trust Him! And, as Matthew and Mark point out, even Jesus’ disciples didn’t. The ones closest to Him, who just saw His provision, did not get what He was doing.
Mark’s account of the same story described that the disciples “did not understand about the loaves but their hearts were hardened” (Mark 6:52). Why include that detail? So that we can be thankful that we are not as dense as the disciples? “We would never act like that. I mean, we live after Pentecost, after the coming of the Holy Spirit. We don’t have hard hearts anymore. That applies to other people.” Oh, but how much it applies to us! We who are Christians are those who have been given new hearts that can feel the pain of sin because of the Holy Spirit’s work. We don’t have only hard hearts. We can feel when hardness starts to creep in (and wonders to feel it’s own hardness depart!).
Thy mercy is more than a match for my heart,
Which wonders to feel its own hardness depart.
Dissolved by Thy goodness, I fall to the ground
And weep for the praise of the mercy I’ve found.
That’s good news! And not because it only happened once.
The Christian life (which, for what it’s worth, some argue can’t be discussed in the Gospels because no one was a “Christian” until Acts, well after Christ’s ascension) is a glorious, glad, and grueling process that starts in the heart. In one sense, we’ve been saved. In another sense were are being saved. In another sense we will be saved. When were/are/will we (be) saved? Yes? When will our hearts no longer have sin? When will there no longer be any potential to be deceived or blinded? Any susceptibility to doubt our dullness? Possibility of love grown colder? Any experience of hardness? We are constantly in a battle and needing to believe.
Did the disciples have the Holy Spirit in John 6 (also Mark 6)? At the end of John 6 Jesus said to grumbling disciples—to those who were following Him on purpose—“It is the Spirit who gives life” (verse 63). Then He said (repeated from 37 and 44) “that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father” (verse 65). The Spirit gives life and that life brings men to the Son by the Father’s plan. Then Jesus asked the Twelve if they wanted to leave Him and Peter answered:
“Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:68–69 ESV)
How could Peter and the disciples (minus Judas, see verses 70-71) believe? By the Spirit.
The Spirit hadn’t been sent in the Acts way yet, but the Spirit was still at work in their lives.
A few comments about why hardheartedness is a warning for us. First, there are so-called disciples, perhaps even among us, who know Jesus, see His works (or hear the stories), follow Him, and who don’t really believe. They are susceptible to hardheartedness in an eternally dangerous way.
Second, there are genuine disciples who know Jesus, see His works (or hear stories), follow Him, and freak out when something happens outside their box. Their reason for freaking out? It may be a measure of hardheartedness. Our hearts are not only hard or forever hard. The root of hardness has been severed but there may still be remnants of it left over. Freaking out is not abundant life (because it’s not believing for life).
How is hardness of heart overcome? By the Spirit’s one time work and by His ongoing work in bringing us to Christ. Being in the presence of Christ softens our hearts.
The disciples believed and had trouble believing. So do we. The disciples were being drawn to Jesus, were given life in the Son by the Spirit and they still had significant struggles. Us too. That’s why we need the Gospels.
All that is by way of introduction, literally. I’ve gone over this a few times now and, as I said at the start, I can’t decide if this is really Part 2 from last week or Part 1 of this week. It is a transition though to see another expression of sin in 6:22-34. I’d like to say that no true Christian would ever struggle with this sin. I’d like to say that this sin is found only in other people, in unbelievers and unspiritual people. And it is found in them. We will see another way that religious people who have no life at all in their souls act. But this is not a sin limited to non-Christians (as there aren’t many, if any, of those sins anyway). This sin isn’t even a word found in the Bible, Old or New Testament. We are about to encounter the sin of entitlement.
In John 6:22-34, entitlement will keep men from believing Jesus at all. As we see this extreme version of entitlement, we who believe Jesus may recognize that entitlement keeps us from believing all the way down. As we identify it, we can perhaps be better able to help others caught by it and kill it in ourselves. It may be lesser in degree, but it is no less ugly in Christians. In some sense it is worse. When James and John sought the seats next to Jesus’ throne and then the rest of the disciples got mad, their sense of entitlement was obnoxious. We do the same thing today.
Our modern, Western culture of right-happy individuals is not the first to proudly expect what we want when we want it and how we want it. That’s entitlement, pride and impatience and idolatry of self all rolled into one.
One great blessing to us is that we, as believers, have the indwelling Holy Spirit to convict us of subtle sins. Bowing down before a totem pole of carved wood bovine is wicked, and obvious. The Spirit must overcome that obviously deadly sin. The Spirit must also show us that when we follow Jesus and act put out that He didn’t give us what we wanted when we wanted and how we wanted is no less wicked.