Commentary - John 6:22-25

Bird's-eye view

This brief transitional narrative in John's Gospel sets the stage for one of the most doctrinally dense and controversial discourses of Jesus' ministry: the Bread of Life discourse. The day after the miraculous feeding of the five thousand and Jesus' subsequent walking on water, the crowd is in a state of confusion and pursuit. They are driven by a carnal enthusiasm, having witnessed a stupendous sign and having been filled with free bread. Their search for Jesus is industrious and persistent, but as Jesus will shortly make clear, it is entirely wrong-headed. They are seeking the gift, not the Giver. They are looking for a political Messiah who can fill their bellies, not a spiritual Savior who can forgive their sins. This passage, then, is the hinge between the sign and the sermon. It masterfully displays the difference between a superficial, consumeristic interest in Jesus and the true, saving faith that He demands. The crowd's question, "Rabbi, when did You come here?" is practical and mundane, but it opens the door for Jesus to redirect their entire worldview from the earthly to the heavenly.

What we see here is the anatomy of a false revival. There is excitement, there is a crowd, there is a flurry of activity, and there is a "seeking after Jesus." But the foundation is sand. It is built on the miracle, not the meaning of the miracle. Jesus, in His sovereign wisdom, will not ride this wave of popularity. Instead, He is about to crash it upon the rocks of hard doctrine in order to reveal what is truly in the hearts of these followers. This is a critical lesson for the church in every age about the dangers of pragmatism and the necessity of grounding all our evangelistic endeavors in the unvarnished truth of the gospel.

Outline

Context In John

This section immediately follows two of Jesus' most potent miracles. In the first part of John 6, Jesus feeds a massive crowd with just five barley loaves and two fish (John 6:1-14). This sign leads the people to declare Him the Prophet who was to come and to desire to make Him king by force (John 6:14-15). Jesus withdraws from them, sending His disciples across the Sea of Galilee. That night, He comes to them by walking on the water, another profound demonstration of His deity (John 6:16-21). Our text picks up the very next morning. The crowd, still buzzing from the free meal, realizes Jesus is gone and sets out to find Him. This pursuit directly leads to the confrontation in the synagogue at Capernaum, where Jesus will challenge their fleshly motives and present Himself as the true Bread from Heaven (John 6:26-59). The events of our passage are therefore the necessary narrative link that moves the action from the sign (the feeding) to the sermon that explains the sign's ultimate meaning.

Key Issues

The Belly-Full Seekers

There is a kind of seeking after Jesus that is not saving. This is a hard but necessary truth. The crowd in this passage is a textbook example. They are energetic, determined, and focused. They cross the sea to find Jesus. If we were to measure their spiritual state by their external actions, we might conclude that a great revival is underway. But Jesus is about to diagnose their condition with surgical precision, and the diagnosis is not good. They are seeking Him because they ate the loaves and were filled (John 6:26). Their god is their belly.

This is a permanent temptation for the church. It is the temptation to attract people to Jesus by offering them something other than Jesus. We can offer them a better family life, financial principles, a vibrant community, emotional healing, or political influence. These things may be downstream effects of the gospel, but they are not the gospel itself. When we lead with the benefits, we create benefit-seekers. The crowd came for more bread. When Jesus offered them His flesh and blood instead, they were offended and left. The gospel of Christ is not a means to a worldly end. Christ is the end. The warning of this passage is that it is entirely possible to be busy with religious activity, to be part of a crowd that is chasing after Jesus, and to have a heart that is still in love with the world and its bread.

Verse by Verse Commentary

22 On the next day, the crowd which stood on the other side of the sea saw that there was no other small boat there, except one, and that Jesus had not entered with His disciples into the boat, but that His disciples had gone away alone.

The scene is set the morning after the great picnic. The crowd that had been miraculously fed is still lingering. They are acting like detectives, piecing together the events of the previous evening. They conduct a rudimentary investigation of the shoreline. They note that there was only one boat to begin with. They had seen the disciples get into that one boat and leave. And, crucially, they had seen that Jesus did not get into the boat with them. They are working with a closed system of naturalistic assumptions. People cross lakes in boats. The disciples left in the only boat. Jesus was not with them. Therefore, Jesus must still be somewhere on this side of the lake. Their logic is impeccable, but their premise is flawed because it leaves no room for the supernatural. They are trying to understand a supernatural man using purely natural categories, and this is why they are confused.

23 Other small boats came from Tiberias near to the place where they ate the bread after the Lord had given thanks.

John inserts a parenthetical note here that is full of understated providence. Just as the crowd is wondering how to get across the sea, a flotilla of boats arrives from Tiberias, a major city on the western shore. These were likely boats that had sought shelter from the storm the previous night or were simply engaged in daily commerce. But in God's economy, there are no coincidences. God provides the means for this misguided crowd to continue their pursuit of His Son. He is sovereignly arranging the circumstances to bring about the necessary confrontation in Capernaum. It is also significant that John identifies the location as the place "where they ate the bread after the Lord had given thanks." The miracle is the defining event in their minds, and John highlights this. The giving of thanks, the eucharisteo, points forward to the Lord's Supper and to the greater truth that all of life is a gift to be received with gratitude from God.

24 So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor His disciples, they themselves got into the small boats, and came to Capernaum seeking Jesus.

Their search on the eastern shore comes up empty. Jesus is not there. The disciples are not there. The conclusion is obvious: He must have somehow gotten to the other side. So, without hesitation, they commandeer the newly arrived boats and set off for Capernaum. Capernaum was Jesus' base of operations in Galilee, so it was the logical place to look. We must give them credit for their persistence. They are not casual inquirers. They are going to considerable trouble and expense to find Jesus. But zeal without knowledge is a dangerous thing. Their energetic pursuit is driven by a desire for more miracles, more food, more earthly kingdom. They are seeking Jesus, but not the true Jesus. They are seeking a Jesus of their own imagination, a bread king who will satisfy their temporal desires. This is a picture of false religion, a great deal of human effort expended in the pursuit of a god who is fashioned in our own image.

25 And when they found Him on the other side of the sea, they said to Him, “Rabbi, when did You come here?”

They finally find Him, likely in or near the synagogue at Capernaum. Their opening question is entirely practical. "Rabbi, when did you get here?" They are still stuck on the logistical puzzle. How did He cross the sea without a boat? They want a natural explanation for what was a supernatural event. They are focused on the "how" and the "when" of the transport, because they want to understand the mechanics of the miracle worker. But they are completely oblivious to the "who" and the "why." They address Him respectfully as "Rabbi," or teacher, but they do not yet see Him as Lord. This question, born of mundane curiosity, is the softball that Jesus will hit out of the park. He will ignore their trivial question about His travel itinerary and instead expose the corrupt itinerary of their hearts.

Application

This passage forces us to examine our own motives for following Christ. It is a spiritual diagnostic test. Why are we here? Why do we come to church? Why do we read our Bibles? Why do we call ourselves Christians? Is it because we have found that Jesus is a useful tool for getting something else we want? A happy life, a stable marriage, well-behaved children, a sense of purpose, fire insurance from hell? These are the modern equivalents of the loaves and fishes.

The crowd was not hostile to Jesus, not yet. They were enthusiastic. They were his biggest fans. But their "faith" was a mile wide and an inch deep. It could not survive the first encounter with hard doctrine. Jesus' response to them is a profound act of love. A true physician does not flatter his patient; he tells him the truth about his disease. Jesus loved this crowd too much to let them continue in their self-deception. He confronts them, challenges them, and calls them away from the perishable bread that they seek to the true Bread of Life, which is Himself.

We must learn to seek the Giver and not the gifts. We must come to Christ for Christ Himself. He is not a means to an end; He is the end. He is the Treasure hidden in the field, worth selling everything to acquire. If we have Him, we have everything. If we have all the blessings of the Christian life but do not have Him, we have nothing. The central application is to repent of our consumeristic, belly-full Christianity and to ask God for the grace to hunger and thirst for righteousness itself, for Christ Himself. For He alone can satisfy the soul.