John 6:1-7

Second Section: 6:1-7. The Great Messianic Testimony and the Crisis of Faith in Galilee.

THE war is now declared in Judea; the thread of the narrative is outwardly broken. John does not mention the return of Jesus to Galilee. But it is there that we find Him again at the beginning of chap. 6, and He remains there, after this, so long and with such persistency that He even astonishes His relatives; as we read in chap. 7. This sojourn in Galilee includes the whole interval between the feast of Purim, in March (chap. 5), and the feast of Tabernacles, in October (chap. 7), consequently seven consecutive months, in which it is natural to place the greater part of the events of the Galilean ministry described by the Synoptics.

This continued sojourn in Galilee and this long retirement in which Jesus keeps Himself away from Jerusalem, are the more striking since during this part of the year, two of the three great Israelitish feasts occurred at which the Jews were most anxious to be present, the Passover and Pentecost. The conduct of Jesus, therefore, needed explanation. This explanation appears from John 7:1: “ And Jesus sojourned in Galilee; for He would not sojourn in Judea, because the Jews sought to put Him to death. ” The sixth chapter is thus the continuation of the fifth, in the sense that the continued sojourn of Jesus in Galilee, the most striking event in which is related in chap. 6, was the result of the violent conflict which had brought about the removal of Jesus from Jerusalem after the miracle and the long discourse related in chap. 5. Morally speaking, therefore, the thread of the story is not broken.

But why, among the whole multitude of facts which filled the ministry of Jesus in Galilee, did John select this one which is related in chap. 6, and this one only? Reuss thinks that the narrative which John gives of this scene so well described by the Synoptics is incompatible with the idea that he proposed to himself to complete them. There is an exception here, it is true, but it is explained without difficulty. For this purpose it is enough to go back to the idea which governs this whole part that of the development of the national unbelief. The end of the sixth chapter will bring us to see that the point of time here described was that in which there was consummated in Galilee a crisis similar to that which occurred in Judea, with this difference, already indicated, that the unbelief in Judea is violent and aggressive, and can end only in murder, while in Galilee, where it proceeds from a simple feeling of being deceived after over-wrought expectation, it occasions only indifference: there is no killing, there is a going away and a going not to return (John 6:66-67). As Weiss says: The Galilean half-way faith becomes unbelief. The revelation of Jesus' glory by means of the two miracles and of the discourses related in this chapter forms everywhere the basis of the narrative. But the special aim of this narrative is to describe the sad result in which such great favors issue in Galilee, as in Judea. In this very province, where faith for a moment seemed to have taken root (John 4:45), the Messianic work, as such, failed; and here also, the saying had to find its fulfillment: “ He came to His own, and His own received Him not. ” In the midst of this great disaster, however, the work of Jesus continued its peaceful and humble growth in a few; it even gained at this critical moment the most glorious tribute (John 6:68-69).

Beyschlag has set forth the way in which the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves, by provoking the sudden explosion of the political hopes which were smouldering under the ashes among the Galilean people, brought to light the complete incompatibility which existed between the common Messianic idea and that of Jesus, and made evident the moral necessity of the rupture. John alone had apprehended the historic bearing of this decisive epoch in the ministry of Jesus; and this is the reason why he alone was able to present it in its true light. Here is what explains for us the exception which he has made in favor of this narrative, which he found already reproduced in the writings of those who preceded him, and the reason why he thought fit to concentrate in the representation of this event the summary of the entire Galilean ministry.

There are three parts in this chapter: 1. The two miracles: John 6:1-21; John 2. The conversations and discourses which are connected with them: John 6:22-65; John 3. The final crisis: John 6:66-71.