John 6:16-21

ADDITIONAL NOTES BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR.

Vv. 16-21 contain the account of the second miracle mentioned in this chapter. This miracle is inserted between the first miracle and the discourse which followed on the next day. If the narrative is viewed simply in the light of biography, the reason why the event is placed here is obvious; it is placed where it belongs in the order of time. But if we look at the plan of the book as related to the purpose stated in John 20:30-31, it is worthy of notice that this chapter presents two developments of faith. The multitude, who were impressed by the miracle of the loaves, declared their conviction that Jesus was the Messiah. They accordingly believed; but the course which they pursued the next day, and the effect upon their minds of His presentation of the necessity of living in and upon Him (see John 6:60; John 6:66), prove that their faith was like that of those who are mentioned in John 2:23-25. The apostles, on the other hand, are not only described as having a faith of a higher order than that of these half-way disciples, but are represented as giving utterance to a more confident and established belief than they had expressed at any previous moment (John 6:68-69). Is it not probable that the second miracle, following upon the first a miracle which was so peculiarly fitted to produce a deep impression, both in itself and in the circumstances attendant upon it was an essential element in this new development of the apostles' faith? May we not account for the upward movement of their belief, as contrasted with the downward movement in that of the many who went back, as connected partly with this second wonderful fact? Certainly the fact that it followed so immediately after the miracle of the loaves was calculated to make them ready and able to say, not only: We have believed, but: We have believed and know that Thou art the Holy One of God. The insertion of this miracle, therefore, as well as the other, falls most naturally within the line of the writer's great purpose. The reader who will place himself in thought in the circumstances in which the apostles were at the time, and will open his mind, as they did, to the reception of the evidences, cannot fail to see how their faith grew stronger, or to feel that his own faith is growing stronger under the same influence. The signs which were given in the presence of the disciples, says the author, are written in his book that the reader may, by following the record of them, be led forward in the same progress of faith.

In the account of this second miracle which is given by Matthew, Matthew 14:33, the apostles in the boat are represented as saying, as they witnessed it, “Of a truth Thou art the Son of God.” If this is the record of what they actually said at this moment, it may suggest, in connection with John John 6:14, the likeness and also the difference between the belief of the multitude and that of the Twelve. If, on the other hand, as may not improbably be the fact, Matthew, in his more brief narrative of the whole occasion, places at this point what, in the succession of the events, was really said by Peter in the name of the apostles at the time indicated by John in John 6:69, we have a suggestion in Matthew's narrative of that which is represented by John as the result of the miracles and the discourse taken together.

May not the words of Mark (Mark 6:51-52), who says that the apostles were exceedingly amazed when Jesus entered the boat and the wind ceased, but that they did not understand concerning the loaves, suggest that the full conviction indicated in Matthew 14:33 came only after the discourse, as indicated in John John 6:69 ?

The difficulty connected with the words ἤθελον and εὐθέως is to be recognized. In the story as given by Mark and Matthew, Jesus seems to be represented as entering the boat (in Matthew, with Peter, who had gone to meet Him on the sea), and the boat seems to have moved gradually towards the shore, only over calm waters. In John's account, on the other hand, the impression which the reader would naturally get from the verb ἤθελον is that Jesus did not enter the boat, and εὐθέως would imply that the boat reached the shore immediately. The explanation given by Godet is a possible one, but can hardly be considered altogether satisfactory. It is to be observed, however, that in brief stories such as we find in the Gospels, which are told by all the writers for a purpose which is beyond the mere details considered in themselves, differences of this sort are not unnatural differences which may not be altogether explicable at a distance of centuries from the date of writing, but with reference to which, even now, we may see possibilities capable of removing them. The New Testament narratives, in this regard, may fairly claim to be treated by opposing critics with as calm a consideration of all these possibilities as should be given in the case of other histories. The harmonists and the critics alike have sometimes been disposed to demand too much of the Gospel writers in this regard.