Our Gospel resumes the historical course of these revelations, but in such
a manner as to exhibit the spirit by which the people were animated. Herod
(loving his earthly power and his own glory more than submission to the
testimony of God, and more bound by a false human idea than by his
conscience, although in many things he appears to have owned the power of
the truth) had cut off the head of the forerunner of the Messiah, John the
Baptist; whom he had already imprisoned, in order to remove out of the
sight of his wife the faithful reprover of the sin in which she lived.
Jesus is sensible of the import of this, which is reported to Him.
Accomplishing in lowly service (however personally exalted above him),
together with John, the testimony of God in the congregation, He felt
Himself united in heart and in His work to him; for faithfulness in the
midst of all evil binds hearts very closely together; and Jesus had
condescended to take a place in which faithfulness was concerned (see Psalm
40, 9, 10). On hearing therefore of John's death He retires into a desert
place. But while departing from the multitude who thus began to act openly
in the rejection of the testimony of God, He does not cease to be the
supplier of all their wants, and to testify thus that He who could divinely
minister to all their need was amongst them. For the multitude, who felt
these wants and who, if they had not faith, yet admired the power of Jesus,
follow Him into the desert place; and Jesus, moved with compassion, heals
all their sick. In the evening His disciples beg Him to send the multitude
away that they may procure food. He refuses and bears a remarkable
testimony to the presence, in His own Person, of Him who was to satisfy the
poor of His people with bread (Psalm 132). Jehovah, the Lord, who
established the throne of David, was there in the Person of Him who should
inherit that throne. I doubt not the twelve baskets of fragments refer to
the number which, in scripture, always designates the perfection of
administrative power in man.
Remark also here, that the Lord expects to find His twelve disciples
capable of being the instruments of His acts of blessing and power,
administering according to His own power the blessings of the kingdom.
"Give ye them," said He, "to eat." This applies to the blessing of the
Lord's kingdom, and to the disciples of Jesus, the twelve, as being its
ministers; but it is likewise an all-important principle with regard to the
effect of faith in every intervention of God in grace. Faith should be able
to use the power that acts in such intervention, to produce the works which
are proper to that power, according to the order of the dispensation and
the intelligence it has respecting it. We shall find this principle again
elsewhere more fully developed.
The disciples wished to send the multitude away, not knowing how to use the
power of Christ. They should have been able to avail themselves of it in
Israel's behalf, according to the glory of Him who was among them.
If now the Lord demonstrated with perfect patience by His actions that He
who could thus bless Israel was in the midst of His people, He does not the
less bear testimony to His separation from that people in consequence of
their unbelief. He makes His disciples get into a ship to cross the sea
alone; and, dismissing the multitude Himself, He goes up into a mountain
apart to pray; while the ship that contained the disciples was tossing on
the waves of the sea with a contrary wind: a living picture of that which
has taken place. God has indeed sent forth His people to cross the stormy
sea of the world alone, meeting with an opposition against which it is hard
to strive. Meanwhile Jesus prays alone on high. He has sent away the Jewish
people, who had surrounded Him during the period of His presence here
below. The departure of the disciples, besides its general character, sets
before us peculiarly the Jewish remnant. Peter individually, in coming out
of the ship, goes in figure beyond the position of this remnant. He
represents that faith which, forsaking the earthly accommodation of the
ship, goes out to meet Jesus who has revealed Himself to it, and walks upon
the sea-a bold undertaking, but based on the word of Jesus, "Come." Yet
remark here that this walk has no other foundation than, "If it be Thou,"
that is to say, Jesus Himself. There is no support, no possibility of
walking, if Christ be lost sight of. All depends on Him. There is a known
means in the ship; there is nothing but faith, which looks to Jesus, for
walking on the water. Man, as mere man, sinks by the very fact of being
there. Nothing can sustain itself except that faith which draws from Jesus
the strength that is in Him, and which therefore imitates Him. But it is
sweet to imitate Him; and one is then nearer to Him, more like Him. This is
the true position of the church, in contrast with the remnant in their
ordinary character. Jesus walks on the water as on the solid ground. He who
created the elements as they are could well dispose of their qualities at
His pleasure. He permits storms to arise for the trial of our faith. He
walks on the stormy wave as well as on the calm. Moreover the storm makes
no difference. He who sinks in the waters does so in the calm as well as in
the storm, and he who can walk upon them will do so in the storm as well as
in the calm-that is to say, unless circumstances are looked to and so faith
fail, and the Lord is forgotten. For often circumstances make us forget Him
where faith ought to enable us to overcome circumstances through our
walking by faith in Him who is above them all. Nevertheless, blessed be
God! He who walks in His own power upon the water is there to sustain the
faith and the wavering steps of the poor disciple; and at any rate that
faith had brought Peter so near to Jesus that His outstretched hand could
sustain him. Peter's fault was that he looked at the waves, at the storm
(which, after all, had nothing to do with it), instead of looking at Jesus,
who was unchanged, and who was walking on those very waves, as his faith
should have observed. Still the cry of his distress brought the power of
Jesus into action, as his faith ought to have done; only it was now to his
shame, instead of being in the enjoyment of communion and walking like the
Lord.
Jesus having entered the ship, the wind ceases. Even so it will be when
Jesus returns to the remnant of His people in this world. Then also will He
be worshipped as the Son of God by all that are in the ship, with the
remnant of Israel. In Gennesaret Jesus again exercises the power which
shall here after drive out from the earth all the evil that Satan has
brought in. For when He returns, the world will recognise Him. It is a fine
picture of the result of Christ's rejection, which this Gospel has already
made known to us as taking place in the midst of the Jewish nation.
