John 6:14-21 Then those men, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said, This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world.… 1. They beheld in Jesus the fulfilment of prophecies fondly remembered, of hopes long deferred. The Law-giver who was to be a second Moses; the Deliverer who was to be a more mighty conqueror than Joshua; a King more glorious than David, wiser than Solomon, was come at last. 2. They who said so were not men learned in the Scriptures, like the Jewish scribes and rulers; book-learning, even of the highest sort, is apt to make those who have it slow in forming their judgments, backward and cold in declaring them. Nor were they men of the city, who might have gained some knowledge at second hand from those who had searched the Scriptures. But they were a crowd of rude, simple folk, come together from the hill country of Galilee, where old traditions had been handed down from age to age by word of mouth. With an instinct more true, more strong, than the opinions of the learned, they perceived that the bread which they received in such abundance could only have been supplied by God Himself, and that in Him who fed them thus God was revealed as clearly as when He spake by the profits to their forefathers. 3. Confessions of this kind, all the more impressive from their being artless and involuntary, are often to be met with in the four Gospels, and are just such as we might expect men would make on .seeing of a sudden the supernatural power and wisdom of Christ (see John 1:49; Luke 5:8; Mark 15:39). 4. It is not to be supposed that the like effects should be wrought in us, who have heard and read a hundred times the record of these things. Miracles the most amazing, discourses the most persuasive, the heartrending tales of sufferings inconceivable, sound in our ears as old familiar truths; and familiarity too often leads to neglect, even though it may by no means breed contempt. They who live in sight of a beautiful landscape lose in some degree the perception of its loveliness. They would like to view it with fresh eyes; as the strangers do who come to visit them. There is stealing over us a spirit of indifference, which for any saving purpose is as dangerous as the spirit of downright unbelief. 5. God does not suffer us to remain without a warning in this deadly stupor. Not by miracles, not by the visitation of angels, but in the course of His providence, by what we call the accidents of life, He arouses us and makes us see the Saviour as plainly revealed to our inward vision as He was to those men sitting on the grass and eating the bread which He gave them in the wilderness. 6. And what sort of things are they which bring us to see in His beauty and majesty that Saviour who hitherto has had no form or comeliness in our sight, so that we have even hid our faces from Him? Have we been led to look with abhorrence on one of our darling sins and yearn for the purity which once we had, and which we cannot of ourselves recover? And has a ray of comfort from Him been shed upon us, kindling a new hope in our breasts, making us embrace as a living truth what had become to us a dead form of words, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners? Or has the heavenly ray reached you by another path? It is in love that thou art chastened, that the weight of thy affliction, which is but for a little moment, may gain thee the exceeding and eternal weight of glory. I have been the Man of sorrows, and now am at God's right hand. I know thy afflictions, and even the glory here am touched with a feeling of them. But such is God's law, equal for all;" only through tribulation canst thou enter the kingdom here above." Have such consolations given a new turn to your thoughts, and thrown some light on the deep mystery of your life? If so, you might well exclaim, "This is of a truth the Prophet that cometh — that Herald of life and joy, so greatly needed by the sons and daughters of affliction, so longed for by me, sorrow-stricken, sick at heart as I am! This is He, the Desire of all nations!" And if, in any of these ways, the good impression has been made upon you, take care to keep it by giving good heed to it, and especially by often calling to mind the circumstances under which you first received it. Otherwise it will soon wear out like the stagnant pool of Bethesda, troubled for an instant by the angel's wing. (W. W. G. HumphryG. Humphry, B. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Then those men, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said, This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world. |
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