Book: John

In this sermon, Pastor Dave Capoccia examines John 6:1-15 and John’s account of Jesus feeding a massive crowd that included five-thousand men. John presents this sign miracle so that you will not come to Jesus to fulfill your own agenda for temporal blessing but to find eternal life in Jesus.

The passage can be divided under four narrative headings:
1. A Massive, Expectant Crowd (vv. 1-4)
2. An Impossible Food Problem (vv. 5-9)
3. The Miraculous, Satisfying Feast (vv. 10-13)
4. The Disappointing, Unbelieving Conclusion (vv. 14-15)

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Summary

This passage from John 6:1-15 teaches us the true lesson of Jesus feeding the massive crowd. We are reminded that Jesus’s miraculous signs point not to temporal blessing and earthly comfort, but to Jesus himself as the bread of life. The crowd witnessed an extraordinary miracle—the feeding of perhaps 20,000 people from five loaves and two fish—yet they learned the wrong lesson, seeking to make Jesus king so he would serve their agenda for prosperity and power. We are called to examine whether we follow Jesus for Jesus himself, or for what we think he can give us.

Key Lessons:

1. Jesus’s miracles are signs pointing to his identity as the Son of God, not merely demonstrations of power meant to provide earthly comfort.
2. It is possible to witness God’s mercy and grace yet learn the wrong lesson—seeking to manipulate God into fulfilling our own agenda rather than worshiping him in repentance and faith.
3. Jesus is the true bread of life who alone can satisfy the deepest hunger of the human soul; all other “food” perishes and leaves us wanting more.
4. Coming to Jesus means surrendering our own agenda and embracing his purposes for our lives, even when that includes trials and suffering.

Application: We are called to examine our hearts and ask whether we follow Jesus for who he is or for what we hope he will give us. We must repent of treating Jesus like a means to our own ends and instead pursue him as the true treasure, giving up whatever distractions or sins keep us from feeding on the real bread of life.

Discussion Questions:

1. In what ways might we, like the crowd, be following Jesus primarily for the blessings he provides rather than for who he is?
2. How does the distinction between the crowd’s enthusiastic response in verse 14 and Jesus’s withdrawal in verse 15 challenge our understanding of what genuine faith looks like?
3. What specific “food that perishes”—comforts, ambitions, or habits—might be keeping you from deeper satisfaction in Christ as the bread of life?

Scripture Focus: John 6:1-15 records the feeding of the massive crowd, while John 6:27 and 6:35 provide Jesus’s own interpretation: “Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life” and “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will not hunger.” Deuteronomy 18:18-19 provides the Old Testament background of the promised prophet like Moses.

Outline

• Introduction
• The True Lesson of the Miracle
• Reading John 6:1-15
• The Biggest Miracle Jesus Ever Did
• The Sign Is Misunderstood
• John 5 and John 6 in Parallel
• Jewish Rejection Despite Miracles
• John’s Main Idea
• A Massive, Expectant Crowd (vv. 1-4)
• The Setting: Other Side of the Sea
• The Crowd Follows for Signs
• Believing but Not Saving Faith
• Jesus on the Mountain
• The Passover Connection
• An Impossible Food Problem (vv. 5-9)
• Jesus Tests Philip
• Philip Fails the Test
• Andrew’s Discovery
• Five Loaves and Two Fish
• The Miraculous, Satisfying Feast (vv. 10-13)
• The Distribution of Food
• The Mystery of the Miracle
• Twelve Baskets of Leftovers
• The Disappointing, Unbelieving Conclusion (vv. 14-15)
• The Crowd Misidentifies Jesus
• Jesus Withdraws from the Crowd
• The True Meaning: I Am the Bread of Life
• Application: Which Jesus Do You Want?
• A Call to Repent and Pursue the True Jesus

Introduction

Let’s pray.

Lord God, we thank you for your word and we thank you for Jesus Christ. We do pray, Lord, all glory be to Christ as we go to your word now and we hear more about Christ. We want it to be so that Christ is lifted up in our minds, in our hearts, that we can testify truly with the words of the songs we’ve just sung that it’s all about Jesus Christ.

And if we lose everything else but still have Christ, that’s okay, because he is our life, Lord. We can easily move away from that. I pray that with this sermon you’d bring us back. You’d bring us right back to where we need to be, centered on Christ, living for him and nothing else.

In Jesus’ name, amen.

The True Lesson of the Miracle

Well, thinking about today’s passage, I was reminded this past week about a certain notorious incident that took place in the Kosha household growing up. You see, we had a dog, a Papillon named Jedadiah, whom we called Jetty or Jed for short.

I don’t know if you know what a Papillon is. Just imagine a long-haired Chihuahua with a slightly longer snout, butterfly-shaped ears, and an extra fluffy tail, and you’ve got a Papillon. Jetty was not a good dog. He was cute, but he was also a depraved, food-worshiping creature.

One day we found Jetty limping around the house, staying off his back right leg. My siblings and I were immediately filled with compassion toward our dog. We said, “Oh, poor Jetty! Did you hurt yourself?” We started to baby him, gave him extra pets, extra treats, and made sure he was comfortable. After all, the little dog looked so distressed.

However, later that same day, my siblings and I happened upon Jetty again, walking around without his limp. We said to him, “Oh, Jetty, are you feeling all better?” And what he did—as soon as he heard our voices—the back leg sprung right back into the limp position. Except there was a problem: it was the wrong leg. He lifted his back left foot instead of the originally injured back right foot.

Well, you can imagine we did not feel the same compassion for Jetty the second time as we did the first time. Rather, we marveled at the selfish lesson that our little dog learned. Instead of learning that his owners truly care about him and that maybe in return he should become a more loyal and well-behaved dog, Jetty learned that he could manipulate his owners into giving him what he wanted if he simply pretended to be injured and in distress.

But that was the wrong lesson to learn. As proved when his owner’s compassion evaporated when Jetty’s efforts to manipulate them were exposed for what they were. Now, Jetty was just a dog. We might excuse his learning the wrong lesson in the face of compassion. But what about people?

“Is it possible for people in selfish pride to learn the wrong lesson from God’s acts of mercy?”

What about people with God? Is it possible for people in selfish pride to learn the wrong lesson from God’s acts of mercy? Instead of, after receiving undeserved kindness from God, worshiping God in true repentance and faith for who he has demonstrated himself to be, a person might actually try to manipulate God, to force God to continually give them what they really want—not God himself, but some of the things of this world.

In our next passage in the Gospel of John, we’re going to look at one of Jesus’s most famous sign miracles. A miracle born from compassion and demonstrating Jesus’s divine power and Messianic authority. Yet it’s a miracle that, for most of its witnesses, led to the wrong lesson being learned.

Our author John tells us about this miracle so that we might not be like the original misunderstanding crowd, but might learn the true lesson taught by the miracle. Even so that we will believe in Jesus and find eternal life in him, and not in the gifts that he can give us.

“Believe in Jesus and find eternal life in him, and not in the gifts that he can give us.”

Please open your Bibles to John 6. We’re looking at verses 1 to 15 today. The sermon title is “Jesus Feeds a Massive Crowd.”

Reading John 6:1-15

Jesus feeds a massive crowd. John 6:1-15 is on page 1065 if you’re using the Bibles that we’ve provided. Let’s read the passage. John 6:1-15.

After these things, Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, or Tiberias. A large crowd followed him because they saw the signs which he was performing on those who were sick. Then Jesus went up on the mountain and there he sat down with his disciples.

John 6:2: “A large crowd followed him because they saw the signs which he was performing on those who were sick.”

Now the Passover, the Feast of the Jews, was near. Therefore, Jesus, lifting up his eyes and seeing that a large crowd was coming to him, said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread so that these may eat?” This he was saying to test him, for he himself knew what he was intending to do.

Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them, for everyone to receive a little.” One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, “There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two fish. What are these for so many people?”

Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” Now there was much grass in the place, so the men sat down, in number about 5,000. Jesus then took the loaves and, having given thanks, he distributed to those who were seated. Likewise also of the fish, as much as they wanted.

When they were filled, he said to his disciples, “Gather up the leftover fragments so that nothing will be lost.” So they gathered them up and filled 12 baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves which were left over by those who had eaten.

Therefore, when the people saw the sign which he had performed, they said, “This is truly the prophet who is to come into the world.” So Jesus, perceiving that they were intending to come and take him by force to make him King, withdrew again to the mountain by himself alone.

The Biggest Miracle Jesus Ever Did

The account that we just read is of the biggest miracle Jesus ever did. Yes, Jesus did other more powerful, more poignant miracles besides this one, like raising Lazarus from the dead, or certainly raising himself from the dead. But in terms of the largest miracle—the miracle directly affecting the most amount of people—this is it.

Commonly, this miracle is called “The Feeding of the 5,000” since the text tells us specifically that there were 5,000 men present. But Matthew’s gospel tells us that there were also women and children present, and they also ate. So really, this is not a feeding of only 5,000, but perhaps as many as 20,000 or 25,000.

And how many is 20,000? I know when we start talking about thousands of people, it’s hard to visualize. But 20,000 is about the number of seats in an NBA basketball arena. Imagine all those seats filled. That’s how many people were there, or maybe even more, with Jesus.

This is a lot of people. And they not only were there, but they ate. And they not only ate, but the text says they ate as much as they wanted. So Jesus didn’t just provide food for these people. He provided an all-you-can-eat feast.

“Jesus didn’t just provide food for these people. He provided an all-you-can-eat feast.”

And then notice there was plenty of food left over too. So this is a huge miracle. No wonder that this miracle is the only miracle that appears in all four gospels apart from Jesus’s resurrection. You see it also in Matthew 14, Mark 6, and Luke 9.

The Sign Is Misunderstood

Clearly, the miracle made a significant impression upon the people and upon Jesus’s disciples who were there. Yet, as we can tell from our reading all the way down to verse 15, even this great sign miracle is significantly misunderstood.

If you just read down to verse 14, we might think that the crowd witnessing the miracle grasps the proper lesson and came to the proper conclusion that Jesus is the long-awaited prophet and Messiah. But verse 15 reveals that Jesus knew the Jews didn’t understand the sign, and that he could not go along with their seemingly pious plan to install him right then and there as their Messiah King.

“Verse 15 reveals that Jesus knew the Jews didn’t understand the sign.”

Really, to understand the significance of the sign of Jesus feeding this massive crowd, we cannot simply look at verses 1 to 15. For the narrative is immediately tied to the explanatory discourse that comes later in this chapter.

John 5 and John 6 in Parallel

We read part of that earlier in our service today, actually. John 5 and John 6 parallel each other significantly when it comes to their structure and even to the events that occur. In John 5, we had a sign miracle followed by an extended speech from Jesus explaining the true significance of that sign.

Notably, that explanation was ultimately rejected by the Jews. They hated Jesus for what he claimed on the basis of that sign. We have basically the same setup here in John 6. We have a sign. We have Jesus’s later explanation of that sign. And then we have the Jews rejecting Jesus on the basis of that explanation.

“We have a sign, Jesus’s explanation of that sign, and then the Jews rejecting Jesus.”

Jewish Rejection Despite Miracles

Why does John show us these two situations that are so similar, based on two miracles back to back? Well, this is part of John showing us the Jewish nation turning against Jesus, turning in opposition to Jesus, despite his miracle ministry.

Remember John 1:4? We had Jesus presented as the Son of God to Israel. And Israel didn’t quite know what to make of Jesus’s presentation to them in the beginning. But starting in John 5, and it’s going to extend all the way to John 12, the Jews are going to increasingly reject Jesus.

They’re going to say, “Now we know what you’re really about. We don’t want you.” In John 5, we saw it begin to happen to Jesus in Judea. Jesus had gone south to attend one of the feasts in Jerusalem, one of the religious feasts, and he was rejected there. But now we see the rejection happening in the north, in Galilee, in Jesus’s home region. The Jews are turning against him there too.

The Jews love Jesus’s miracles. They can’t get enough of them. But increasingly, they cannot stomach the teaching that goes along with the miracles—teaching that proclaims Jesus to be the Son of God and that eternal life is only in him.

“The Jews love Jesus’s miracles but cannot stomach the teaching that proclaims Jesus to be the Son of God.”

John’s Main Idea

Considering then the fuller context of this miracle, we can summarize John’s main idea here in this way: In John 6:1-15, John presents the sign miracle of Jesus feeding the massive crowd so that you will not come to Jesus to fulfill your agenda for temporal blessing, but instead come to find eternal life in it.

John wants you to see by this sign miracle that you should not come to Jesus to fulfill your own agenda for temporal blessing, just prosperity in this world, but instead find eternal life in Jesus himself.

“Do not come to Jesus to fulfill your agenda for temporal blessing, but instead find eternal life in Jesus himself.”

The narrative is pretty straightforward. We can describe the unfolding events under four main headings, and those would be the points of my sermon outline.

Let’s look at those as we follow the verses more closely.

A Massive, Expectant Crowd (vv. 1-4)

The first heading covers verses 1 to 4, in which we see number one: a massive, expectant crowd.

A massive, expectant crowd. Look at verse 1 again. It says, “After these things, Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, or Tiberias.”

The Setting: Other Side of the Sea

Now notice that first phrase: “After these things.” What are these things? Well, they would be what was just mentioned in the Book of John—the events in Jerusalem reported in John 5. Remember, Jesus healed a sick man on the Sabbath, and then he used that occasion to declare his own divine sonship to the Jews.

After those things, we get what’s coming next. But how long after those things? Well, we don’t know. The phrase is vague enough that it could be a short time or a long time. Likely, the events in chapter 6 take place six to 12 months after the events of chapter 5.

A feast was mentioned in Jerusalem—maybe it was the Feast of Booths, maybe it was Passover. We have Passover coming up again soon according to John 6. So this is 6 to 12 months later.

This means that Jesus has been ministering in the north for a while, in the region of Galilee. In fact, if we bring in some information from the other gospel accounts on this feeding of the 5,000, we learn that right before this instance, Jesus has received word that John the Baptist has been beheaded.

Jesus’s 12 disciples have also just returned from ministering around Israel in Jesus’s power and in his name. They’ve likely gathered again in Jesus’s main base of ministry, which is the town of Capernaum, that bustling town on the northwest side of the Sea of Galilee.

But now the rest of verse 1 says that here in John, Jesus and his disciples go to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, to the northeast side, a more rural and empty area. Why journey to the other side? Why go to a desolate place?

Well, for a kind of ministry retreat. Jesus has been affected by John the Baptist’s death, and he and his disciples are exhausted from the ministry they’ve done lately. Jesus knows that he and his disciples could use a break to recharge for further ministry. So he takes his disciples to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, with the Sea of Tiberias—those are interchangeable terms.

“Jesus knows that he and his disciples could use a break to recharge for further ministry.”

The Crowd Follows for Signs

But verse 2: “A large crowd followed him because they saw the signs which he was performing on those who were sick.”

Despite Jesus’s efforts to get away for a short while, a large crowd—thousands of people—keep coming after Jesus to seek him out. Apparently, people saw Jesus get into a boat with his disciples, and they noticed the direction in which he was going. So they tried to meet him there.

People trudged along the north shore of the Sea of Galilee to where they thought Jesus would land. Why are they following Jesus? It’s because they love him, they believe in him, they can’t get enough of his teaching. Well, verse 2 says, “Because the signs which he was performing on those who were sick.”

John tells us the people are impressed by Jesus’s signs, especially his healing miracles. And they are impressive. They want to see more, especially on behalf of their friends and relatives who were still sick. According to the other gospels, the people aren’t just traveling by themselves to see Jesus, but they’re bringing their sick. They’re bringing people to be healed by Jesus too.

Now, is it good to seek after Jesus because of his healing signs? Kind of. After all, what have we seen so far in this gospel? It’s true that Jesus’s miracles, his signs, they are meant to point people to who Jesus really is so that they will believe in him. Jesus said that in John 5:36: “The works that I do, they are the Father’s testimony on my behalf, so that you will believe.”

“Jesus’s signs are meant to point people to who Jesus really is so that they will believe in him.”

Believing but Not Saving Faith

But all too often, the Jews stop short of full belief in Jesus as their real Lord and Savior. They embrace him only as a miracle worker. They have a lot of enthusiasm for his miracles and believe in him to that degree. But they don’t believe in him in a saving way.

John 2:23-25 was a sobering example of this. This was when Jesus began his ministry in Jerusalem at Passover. It says, “Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover during the feast, many believed in his name, observing his signs which he was doing.” Great!

But Jesus, on his part, was not entrusting himself to them, for he knew all men. And because he did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for he himself knew what was in man. They believed, but it wasn’t saving faith. They stopped short at just the miracles.

“They believed, but it wasn’t saving faith. They stopped short at just the miracles.”

Is the crowd doing the same thing here? Well, while the people are on their way, verse 3 tells us where Jesus settles down.

Jesus on the Mountain

Verse 3: “Then Jesus went up on the mountain and there he sat down with his disciples.”

Now, on what mountain or hill did Jesus set up with his disciples? We can’t say for sure. He could have gone as far as the Golan Heights, which are in the northeast of Israel. But more likely, he stayed closer to the sea, since he and his disciples are going to be using the sea again shortly.

The Sea of Galilee has a number of hills and mountains all around it, because the sea is actually very low itself. It’s 700 feet below sea level. So if you’re sitting on the Sea of Galilee, you can actually see hills and mountains basically all around you.

It’s possible that Jesus—it’s actually quite likely that Jesus—found a hillside with a U-shaped bend in it. If he sets himself up in this bend, then he’s basically created a natural amphitheater. When people are there with him, he can speak to them. He can speak to even thousands of them, and they can all hear him.

“Jesus found a hillside creating a natural amphitheater where thousands could hear him speak.”

This is likely where Jesus sets up, though we don’t know what particular hill it was.

Well, the crowds are about to show up. But before they do, John gives us one more background detail in verse 4.

The Passover Connection

Verse 4 says: “Now the Passover, the Feast of the Jews, was near.”

Why is that detail mentioned? Well, this could simply be an eyewitness time detail that’s part of establishing historical authenticity. After all, this was a real miracle, part of a real event that happened with real people in a real time. And it happened to be a day close to the celebration of the Jewish Passover, which is prescribed in the law of Moses.

But there’s probably more to why John mentions this detail. For one thing, the timing of the Passover explains why the people were in a heightened state of Messianic expectation, even ready to proclaim a new king in verse 15.

Why would that be? Well, as one commentator of the passage notes, Passover was for the Jews a bit like the Fourth of July is for us. It’s basically a commemoration of the date of establishment of the Israelite nation. How appropriate would it be then, in this kind of patriotic day, for God to reveal his promised Messiah and have him set up his kingdom?

“The timing of the Passover explains why the people were in a heightened state of Messianic expectation.”

So the Jews are extra ready for their Messiah at Passover.

Something else significant about the mentioning of Passover is that it means more prominent in people’s minds is the wilderness experience and the one who led them through it. I’m not talking about God. I’m talking about the man who led them through it—who led Israel through the wilderness. It was Moses, that great, that special prophet of God.

And what was one thing that Moses provided the people with while they traveled through a desolate place? Food. It was through Moses—really God, as Jesus explains later—but it was through Moses the Jews remembered that Israel was fed, that bread from heaven, manna. And they were even given quail.

So as the people journeyed to Jesus and his disciples in this more out-of-the-way place, kind of like the wilderness, if they suddenly get a whole bunch of food, what are they going to be thinking about? They’re going to be thinking about Moses. They’re going to be thinking about that manna in the wilderness. Because, after all, Passover of the Jews is near.

But what does Jesus do when he notices this massive crowd crashing his ministry retreat with his disciples?

An Impossible Food Problem (vv. 5-9)

We go to our second heading now, covering verses 5 to 9. Number two: we discover an impossible food problem.

An impossible food problem. Let’s reread verses 5 and 6. It says, “Therefore, Jesus, lifting up his eyes and seeing that a large crowd was coming to him, said to Philip, ‘Where are we to buy bread so that these may eat?’ This he was saying to test him, for he himself knew what he was intending to do.”

Now, because it’s not important for John’s purpose here, John doesn’t mention that when Jesus sees the crowd showing up, Jesus is moved in kindness to spend the rest of the day ministering to the people, despite his plans for downtime with his disciples. And those were good plans—that the disciples and Jesus could really have used.

Jesus changes course. He decides he’s going to teach the people and miraculously heal many of their sick for pretty much the rest of the day.

What a kind Lord!

“Jesus is moved in kindness to spend the rest of the day ministering to the people. What a kind Lord!”

But as the day draws to a close, the disciples get Jesus’s attention. They say, “Hey, Jesus, don’t you think we should send the people away to go to the villages and buy food? We’re in a desolate place. There’s no food here for them. Send them away.”

But Jesus, as we see here directly in John, he’s not interested in sending the crowds away, not yet. Rather, in compassion, he suggests to his disciples that they should provide food for the crowd.

Jesus and the disciples will feed these people. And he asked Philip, “Where could we buy bread to feed these 20,000, 25,000 people?”

Jesus Tests Philip

Now, why ask Philip? We actually haven’t seen Philip featured in the narrative since Andrew called him back in John 1. Why does Philip suddenly get name-dropped here?

We can’t say for sure, but perhaps Jesus asks Philip because Philip, as we’re told pretty much every time he appears in the narrative, is from the nearby town of Bethsaida. So he knows the area. If anyone knew where someone could buy bread or find bread in this area, Philip would know.

But Jesus’s question of Philip is only half serious. Jesus isn’t really intending to buy bread. He’s testing Philip. What would Philip think of Jesus’s expressed intent to feed all these people? Would Philip conclude that the idea is impossible? Or would Philip manifest faith in his Rabbi, the Son of God?

“Would Philip conclude that the idea is impossible? Or would Philip manifest faith in his Rabbi, the Son of God?”

Well, we see Philip’s reply in verse 7.

Philip Fails the Test

“Philip answered him, ‘Two hundred denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them, for everyone to receive a little.’”

Does Philip pass the test? No. Because, forgetting who Jesus actually is, Philip plainly indicates that feeding this many people at this point in the day is impossible.

“Forgetting who Jesus actually is, Philip plainly indicates that feeding this many people is impossible.”

Philip’s quick number crunch reveals that 200 denarii worth of bread—about eight months’ wages for a day laborer—wouldn’t be enough to give everybody there a bite, let alone satisfy them.

Now, I’m not exactly sure what eight months’ wages of a day laborer is equivalent to today. But if you calculate minimum wage in the United States right now, eight months’ wages is about $10,000. This should provide a single meal for this crowd of people.

Do you imagine spending $10,000 on a meal? That’s an expensive dinner. That’s because there are so many people.

Well, probably Jesus’s group doesn’t have $10,000, doesn’t have 200 denarii, eight months’ wages. But even if they did, where would they find that much bread to buy it? And if they somehow did find bread, it still wouldn’t do any good, because you’re only giving everybody a tiny piece of food, a tiny piece of bread, that won’t satisfy them.

Unsure, Philip expresses that Jesus’s intent to feed the people is impossible. “It’s a nice sentiment, Jesus, but we just can’t do it. Sorry.”

Andrew’s Discovery

Philip’s friend Andrew chimes in verses 8 and 9 with some additional information that he thinks Jesus should know.

Verse 8: “One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, ‘There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are these for so many people?’”

Here’s another testimony basically declaring the goal of feeding the crowd to be impossible.

You might be wondering, where did Andrew find this lad? And why is he stealing his food? Well, we don’t get the full story here. In his accounts of this miracle, Jesus specifically told his disciples to find out how much food they already had. It’s there, like here, that Jesus learns, “Oh, there’s a lad here who has these loaves and fish.”

This lad probably was a servant boy or a young man who was traveling with Jesus’s group of disciples. This wasn’t some random boy in the crowd. Probably this is somebody part of Jesus’s group who had some provisions for the disciples, had some still left. He’s carrying food, but it’s not that much.

Five Loaves and Two Fish

And when you read “barley loaves” here, think disc-shaped bread cakes. Kind of flat disc-shaped with a hole in the middle, so that you could tear off pieces of it. The Jews didn’t cut bread. They just tore it off.

So you’ve got five of these bread cakes, and then you have these fish. These would have been small, pickled fish that kind of serves as a side dish to the main meal of bread.

By the way, barley bread was considered poor people’s food. If you were well-to-do, you ate wheat bread. But we’ve got barley bread here.

Now, on the surface, this discovery of bread and fish seems helpful. “Hey, we don’t have zero food. Look, we’ve got five loaves and two fish. We’re not stuck at square one.”

But even Andrew asks rhetorically, “But what are these for so many people?” Translation: This doesn’t really change the situation in a significant way. Feeding the people is still impossible.

“Andrew asks, ‘What are these for so many people?’ Feeding the people is still impossible.”

This takeout dinner wouldn’t even feed the 12 disciples, let alone 20,000 people.

By presenting the testimonies of Philip and Andrew, John establishes for us—just as those disciples established for Jesus—that naturally speaking, feeding this crowd is impossible. You can’t do it.

But do not the scriptures say, “What is impossible with man is possible with God?”

Luke 18:27: “What is impossible with man is possible with God.”

The Miraculous, Satisfying Feast (vv. 10-13)

We come now to the third section of the narrative in verses 10 to 13, where we see number three: the miraculous, satisfying feast.

Look at verses 10 and 11.

“Jesus said, ‘Have the people sit down.’ Now there was much grass in the place, so the men sat down, and number about 5,000. Jesus then took the loaves and, having given thanks, he distributed to those who were seated. Likewise also the fish, as much as they wanted.”

You have to love the confidence of our Lord Jesus, right? He’s not disturbed at all by the impossibility of this situation or the lack of faith of his disciples.

Jesus simply—as the disciples tell the people—sit down. Literally, to recline. Which I think is interesting. Reclining for a meal? That’s the preferred posture of the Jews. That means it’s going to be a relaxing dinner.

Jesus says, “Have the people recline.” And it turns out that reclining—laying down, propping yourself up on one arm—it wasn’t uncomfortable in that environment, because we’re told there was much grass in the place. This is a nice place for a reclining picnic, even though there’s not food there. At least it’s comfortable.

“Reclining for a meal is the preferred posture of the Jews—it’s going to be a relaxing dinner.”

We’ve got these 5,000 men, probably plus another 15, 20,000 women and children, that are being organized into groups and now reclining on the mountainside before Jesus.

Jesus then does what is customary for any rabbi or head of a Jewish household to do when entertaining guests for a meal. He offers a prayer of thanks and blessing to God. The typical prayer for the period went as follows. It’s short: “Blessed be the Lord, our God, the king of the universe, who has caused bread to spring out of the earth.” To which the rest of the participants at such a prayer would respond, “Amen.”

The Distribution of Food

Jesus prays something like this. In verse 11, it says Jesus—no doubt via his disciples—then distributed the bread and the fish to those who were reclining, as much as they wanted.

I’m sure the people wanted a lot. They had worked up quite an appetite, hoofing it all the way to the northeast side of the Sea of Galilee, then spending all day with Jesus. They were hungry at dinner time.

They got to chow down some nice bread and fish. And apparently, it’s a lot.

The Mystery of the Miracle

How is Jesus able to distribute so much? We’re not told the precise mechanism. But whatever Jesus did, it apparently wasn’t flashy. It’s not like his hands started glowing, heaven opened up, all these lights, there’s sounds, there’s music. Jesus isn’t saying some special formula words like “Abracadabra.” No, none of that.

Apparently, though, somehow between leaving Jesus’s hands and showing up before the people, the food—much food—miraculously appeared. It multiplied so that the people could eat as much as they wanted.

“Between leaving Jesus’s hands and showing up before the people, the food miraculously appeared and multiplied.”

Jesus makes sure that people don’t miss that Jesus is doing a sign. Because we read verses 12 to 13.

Twelve Baskets of Leftovers

“When they were filled, he said to his disciples, ‘Gather up the leftover fragments so that nothing will be lost.’ So they gathered them up and filled 12 baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves which were left over by those who had eaten.”

Now notice the first part of verse 12. It says that the people were filled. They were satiated. They had eaten, and they were fully satisfied.

Then Jesus commands the disciples to gather up the meal’s leftovers. Why does he do that? Well, it could be partly to be responsible, not waste any food. That’s something that a Jewish host would typically do.

But more importantly, gathering up the fragments would make clear to everyone what just happened. This was no illusion. This wasn’t like, “I don’t know, where did the food come from? Did we even eat it?” This is going to become clear as the disciples gather up what is left of each tear and shred of loaf and what’s left of the fish.

The other gospels mention that. When they do, the disciples fill 12 baskets, 12 baskets, with the leftovers.

Notice John is emphatic in verse 13 that these leftovers came from the original food. They came from the five loaves and the two fish. Nobody else brought out secret stores of food. This wasn’t a big potluck where everybody’s like, “Oh, look, that kid is sharing his lunch. Let me get my food out too.” That is not what happened here.

“Nobody else brought out secret stores of food. It was from the five barley loaves.”

As we can tell from verse 13, it was from the five barley loaves. And again, the other gospels mentioned the two fish also. It was from the original food that the disciples gathered. In the end, 12 baskets full of leftovers.

This is after 20,000 people or so ate as much as they wanted.

Where did all that food come from? Why are there 12 baskets left? It’s clear to everyone now. Jesus has just performed a miracle. This is the powerful compassion of the Son of Man, Son of God, doing like he did in the beginning—creating out of nothing, multiplying food to meet the needs of the crowd.

“This is the powerful compassion of the Son of Man, creating out of nothing, multiplying food to meet the needs of the crowd.”

Did the crowd get this? And if so, what did it cause them to do?

The Disappointing, Unbelieving Conclusion (vv. 14-15)

Look at verse 14 as we come to our last heading, which covers verses 14 and 15. Number four: we see finally the disappointing, unbelieving conclusion.

The disappointing, unbelieving conclusion. Verse 14: “Therefore, when the people saw the sign which he had performed, they said, ‘This is truly the prophet who was to come into the world.’”

Now, at first glance, verse 14 sounds like wonderful news. This was exactly what Jesus was hoping for. The people realized that Jesus had performed a sign—a miraculous act pointing to his true identity—and they conclude he is definitely the special prophet foretold by Moses, even in Deuteronomy 18:18-19, where God said to Moses, “There, let me quote those verses for you.”

Deuteronomy 18:18-19: “I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you, and I will put my words in his mouth, and he will speak to them all that I command him. It shall come about that whoever will not listen to my words which he shall speak in my name, I myself will require of him.”

That’s what God said to Moses. Jesus is a prophet like Moses. And could it be any more obvious to the crowd?

Moses was God’s chosen leader. He miraculously fed the people in the wilderness. Now Jesus is doing the same thing as Moses. He’s God’s chosen leader. He just miraculously fed us in this otherwise barren place.

The Crowd Misidentifies Jesus

They conclude he’s the prophet. He’s even the Messiah. Because verse 15 says that the people were even ready to make Jesus king. So they didn’t just see him as the promised prophet.

Jews at that time, some of them were like, “Oh, yeah, there’s the prophet, and then there’s the Messiah. They’re not the same.” But other Jews, they kind of saw it being together, which is actually the truth according to the scripture. Jesus is the promised prophet and the promised King.

Apparently, some of the Jews were making that same conclusion. They were concluding correctly in part who Jesus is.

“Jesus is the promised prophet and the promised King.”

So that’s perfect, right? The people get it. The sign worked. Jesus, they believe in you. Aren’t you pleased?

Jesus Withdraws from the Crowd

Verse 15: “So Jesus, perceiving that they were intending to come and take him by force to make him King, withdrew again to the mountain by himself alone.”

Does that surprise you?

Well, verse 15 shows us there’s more to the story than what was reported in verse 14. Jesus perceives—literally knows—something about this enthusiastic crowd.

How does he know? Is he just overhearing their conversations? Is he just a very observant person? Possibly. But we’ve seen already multiple times in the Gospel of John that Jesus has supernatural knowledge. He doesn’t have to overhear a conversation. He just knows all men. He knows what they’re thinking. He knows what they’re intending.

What does Jesus know about this well-fed, sign-witnessing, newly believing group of Jews?

Verse 15 says he knew they were about to come and seize Jesus so they might make him king.

That’s a very revealing statement, isn’t it? What does it reveal about these Galilean Jews? It reveals that the people don’t ultimately care what Jesus’s agenda is or even what God’s agenda is for Jesus. What they care about is what they can make Jesus do for them, how Jesus can serve their own agenda.

“The people don’t care what Jesus’s agenda is. They care about how Jesus can serve their own agenda.”

They’re learning a lesson from what Jesus just did. But it’s the wrong lesson.

Jesus has just shown them—they think—what life under his rule will be like: abundant food, freedom from disease. Look at this powerful miracle. This guy can overcome the Romans. Jesus, in short, can offer the prosperity and the power that the Jews have been wanting for centuries.

So what are we waiting for? They say. Let’s make this guy our King. And if he doesn’t want to be king, well, tough, because obviously this is what God would want for us. He would want to bless us, because we’re his holy people.

The intention of the crowd is flattering in a way. And if Jesus were seeking the approval of men, if he were seeking an earthly kingdom right then and there, he would not dissuade the Jews from their course.

Jesus told the Judeans in John 5:41, “I do not receive the glory of men.” He also told them, “I have come in my Father’s name. I’ve come to do his will, not your will, not even my own will.”

So Jesus knows what he must do. He must walk away from this unbelieving crowd—ultimately unbelieving crowd—who are ready to make him King.

“I have come in my Father’s name. I’ve come to do his will, not your will, not even my own will.”

The other gospels tell us that after this miracle, Jesus dismisses the crowds. He sends his disciples to sail across the lake without him, and he withdraws alone to the mountain to pray to his God.

Kind of a disappointing conclusion, isn’t it? Certainly, the people were disappointed. No doubt Jesus was disappointed. And you could say even we readers are disappointed. This wasn’t the conclusion we were looking for.

And yet it is a very instructive conclusion. Because, as I said to you at the beginning, we see clearly that we are not to be like the overzealous crowd whose mind was set on earthly things rather than the things of God.

The True Meaning: I Am the Bread of Life

Jesus is going to say more to the crowds later about this miracle he performed and why he didn’t go along with their efforts to make him King. Particularly in several statements that we see in John 6:27 and John 6:35. I’ll just read those to you. We’ll say much more about them later.

John 6:27: “Jesus tells the crowds, when they catch up with him, ‘Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you, for on him the Father, God, has set his seal.’”

John 6:35: “Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will not hunger, and he who believes in me will never thirst.’”

John 6:35: “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will not hunger, and he who believes in me will never thirst.”

This is what the miracle is really about. This isn’t Jesus proving to you that he’s about making your life comfortable. He’ll give you the food that you want. He will heal all your diseases. He’ll deliver you from all your problems. He’ll make life easy for you. No, that’s the wrong lesson. That’s not what Jesus was saying with that miracle.

Rather, he was saying, “Look at how I’m able to provide this miraculous bread for you. I did this by the power and approval of God. But what I can give you—much better bread than this—what that bread is, it’s me. I’m the bread you should be looking for, because I will actually satisfy you.

I’ll be the bread that no matter how many pieces you tear off, there’s more, more there’s more to enjoy. You’ll never be hungry again. You’ll never be thirsty again.”

“Why seek after the bread that perishes? Why seek after the little comforts and blessings and provisions of this world with all your heart and might, when that’s ultimately going to fail? I will never fail. I am life, and myself, come to me. Feed on me, and you will be saved.”

“Why seek after the bread that perishes when I will never fail? I am life. Come to me, and you will be saved.”

That’s what this is really about.

The crowd doesn’t see it yet. When Jesus explains it to the crowd, they don’t like it, which is going to reveal something about their hearts. Despite what they say, despite what these religious, zealous, expectant of the Messiah Jews are demonstrating outwardly, they don’t really love God. They don’t really want God. They want what God can give them.

Application: Which Jesus Do You Want?

What about you? We got to bring this to a personal application, don’t we, brethren?

Why are you a Christian? Why do you follow Jesus? Is it because you think Jesus is the key to fulfilling your agenda in this world? Jesus will grant you health. He will grant you wealth. He will grant you success. He will deliver you from your problems. He will give you friends. He will give you a great marriage. He will give you perfectly obedient children. He will fulfill all your goals and dreams?

Isn’t that the Jesus who’s preached in many places? Jesus is all about you and what you want.

Is that why you are a Christian? Or is it because you recognize that Jesus—just as he declares—he is life in himself? And that you want to follow his agenda, whatever it is, for your life, because that means you can have him?

Jesus has already told you what part of that agenda includes: trials, persecution, rejection, suffering.

Why would anybody choose that? Because Jesus is true bread. “Yes, Jesus, I’ll take the suffering. I’ll accept that I’m not going to be able to fulfill my dreams in my life, because I’m giving all those up, Jesus. If you do fulfill some of those things, great. But if not, that’s also great, because I have you. You have the words of eternal life. You have the living water. You are the true bread. So if you don’t fulfill my agenda, that’s perfectly okay.”

Is that you? Does your heart testify to that? Because it’s only those, brethren, who come after Jesus for Jesus who really get Jesus. Everyone else who comes after Jesus for something else, they only get the Jesus of their imagination. They don’t really have God. God has withdrawn from them, just as Jesus has withdrawn from the crowds.

“Only those who come after Jesus for Jesus really get Jesus. Everyone else gets the Jesus of their imagination.”

It will be a rude awakening for many of those religious people when they meet the Lord Jesus. As Jesus testifies elsewhere, “Many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ but I will say to them, ‘I don’t know you. Depart from me. You practice lawlessness. You never were my true disciple.’ You should have known. You believed in a different Jesus. You didn’t want me. You wanted what you thought that I would give you.”

Here’s the terrible irony: everyone who comes to Jesus to be their genie, to give them what they really want in this world, will never be satisfied. Ultimately, this crowd is going to prove that they just want Jesus’s food. But what they’re always going to want more, and they’re never going to have enough.

It’s the same with whatever it is that you want Jesus to give you instead of him. It’ll never be enough. Worse, it’ll keep you away from the real Jesus. It’ll keep you away from eternal life.

Which Jesus do you really want? Do you want the fake Jesus? Or do you want the real Jesus? Do you want the Jesus who satisfies and actually saves? Or do you want the Jesus that just soothes your lusts and feels good temporarily? It won’t feel good in the end if you’ve been pursuing the fake Jesus.

A Call to Repent and Pursue the True Jesus

It’s time to repent, because the real Jesus is speaking to you right now from his word. He’s saying, “Don’t be like this foolish, unbelieving crowd who learned the wrong lesson. Learn the true lesson and come to the true Jesus.

I will satisfy you. I will save you. But you got to give up your own agenda. You got to give up your sin. You got to give up your purposes for your life. You got to say, ‘Jesus, take it all. Whatever you want from me in my life, that’s what I want, because you’re the Lord.

You are life. You’re the true treasure. So whatever it costs me to have you, I’m willing. I’m willing to give, because I know that you will never fail.’

Come pursue the true Jesus today. Come feed on the true Jesus and feed on him more.

“Learn the true lesson and come to the true Jesus. He will satisfy you. He will save you.”

That’s what Jesus is also inviting each one of you to do today. Say, “Get to know me more. Walk with me more. That distracting thing you have in your life that’s keeping me away from you, get rid of that so that you can enjoy true food. That sin that you keep going back to for comfort, get rid of that. That’s food that perishes. That’s actually poisonous food. But I’m the true food. I will satisfy you.”

“Whatever’s keeping you away from the true Jesus this morning, give it up, because Jesus freely offers himself to you as the bread of life, the true bread from heaven.”

Now, we’ll have more to say about this miracle and the true interpretation of it in the coming weeks. But next time we’re back in John, we have a little aside, a little bonus miracle. We just looked at the fourth sign in the Gospel of John. The fifth sign with Jesus walking on the water. We’ll look at that together next time.

Let’s close in prayer.

Lord Jesus, it’s interesting how you have made us as humans. You are the Creator. You declare that in your word. We know it to be true. Nothing came into being that didn’t come into being through you.

One thing that’s so evident about the way you’ve made humans is that we are creatures who eat. We eat from the beginning. We’ve needed to eat. It’s part of enjoying life. It’s part of sustaining life.

And yet with the fall—which ironically also involved food—we got away from what is true food. Declaring we knew better, we said, “God, I don’t need your food. I want to get my own food. I’m going to get the food that’s wise and tasty to my own preferences.” But where did that get us? It got us death. It brought the curse. It brought vanity into this world. Vapor. Everything is vapor. Even food is vapor.

We have to keep on eating, but we’re never fully satisfied until we die, because even the food that sustains our lives, it doesn’t sustain us forever.

All those who eat physical food today—even those who amass mountains of food and whatever other treasures are there in this world—they will still die, because that food cannot sustain them eternally.

So what is to be done? It is to repent and to come back to the God whose food we rejected in the beginning and say, “No, God, you’ve had the true food all along. I was wicked and foolish to reject it. But Lord, you say to anyone who comes to me, who comes for this food which I freely offer, they can have it. They can receive it, and it will forever save. It will even deliver a person from death.”

This is food that brings about resurrection. We’ve never heard of such food in this world until Jesus declared it. Jesus says, “I’m the food that grants eternal life.”

Jesus, you said that to us. So God, I pray that would be the conviction of every person in this room and the person listening online as well, that we would say, “I’m done with the food that perishes. Seeking after that is my ultimate good. I want the true food.”

And you’re not just food who gives life, but like you designed food to be in the beginning, you are enjoyable food. You are satisfying food. The psalmist does declare correctly when he says, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” Jesus, you are sweet. You are, spiritually speaking, delicious to our taste.

But Lord, when we get distracted with fast food, poisonous sinful food, sometimes we think, “Nah, I don’t think I really want to feed on Jesus anymore. That’s not satisfying.” God, deliver us out of that broken kind of thinking.

Jesus, you are not only the food that gives life. You are the food that truly satisfies. I pray, God, that you would grant the gift of faith to everyone here today to say, “I believe that, and I’m going to follow Jesus like I believe that, because I do, Lord.”

Be pleased to glorify yourself in this way.

In Jesus’s name, amen.

In this sermon, Pastor Dave Capoccia examines Jesus’ concluding words in John 5:41-47 to religious people who will not believe in him despite supernatural testimony. Jesus exposes two fundamental realities of such religious unbelief to convict you of your own self-righteous way and to move you to believe in Jesus.

1. You Seek Men’s Approval over God’s Approval (vv. 41-44)
2. You Don’t Believe the Scriptures You Study (vv. 45-47)

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Note: This transcript and summary was autogenerated. It has not yet been proofread or edited by a human.

Summary

This passage from John 5:41-47 exposes two fundamental realities behind religious unbelief. We are challenged to examine whether our outward religiosity conceals a heart that seeks human approval over God’s approval and whether we truly believe the Scriptures we claim to study. Jesus penetrates the self-righteous facade of the Jewish religious leaders, revealing that their refusal to receive Him proves they lack genuine love for God and have never truly believed Moses.

We are reminded that the entire Torah—its prophecies, its sacrificial system, its gospel realities—all point to Christ, and to reject Him is to reject the very Scriptures we profess to revere.

Key Lessons:

1. Outward religiosity and good behavior can conceal a heart of unbelief that loves self and human approval more than God.
2. Seeking the approval of men over the approval of God makes it impossible to truly believe in and follow Jesus.
3. The entire Old Testament, beginning with Moses, testifies of Christ—His coming, His substitutionary sacrifice, and the need for God to regenerate human hearts.
4. Religious tradition, when it replaces direct engagement with Scripture, becomes a prison that keeps people from seeing and believing the truth about Jesus.

Application: We are called to honestly examine whether we seek human approval over God’s, to go back to the Scriptures themselves rather than filtering them through tradition or personal preference, and to be meaningfully embedded in a faithful community that holds us accountable to accurate Bible interpretation and faithful obedience.

Discussion Questions:

1. In what specific areas of your life might you be seeking the approval of others more than God’s approval, and how does that affect your obedience to Christ?
2. How can you distinguish between healthy concern for your reputation and an unhealthy craving for human praise?
3. Are there areas where religious tradition, personal experience, or a favorite teacher’s influence has caused you to resist what Scripture plainly says?

Scripture Focus: John 5:41-47 reveals Jesus exposing religious unbelief; Genesis 15:6 and Deuteronomy 30:6 show how Moses preached the same gospel of faith and heart regeneration; 2 Timothy 4:3-4 warns of leaders who tell people what they want to hear; James 1:22 calls us to be doers of the word, not hearers only.

Outline

• Introduction
• What Is Religious Unbelief?
• A Personal Testimony of Religious Unbelief
• The Awakening of True Faith
• Context of John 5
• Jesus’ Conflict with the Jewish Leaders
• The Father’s Testimony of the Son
• Why Won’t the Religious Believe?
• Point 1: You Seek Men’s Approval Over God’s Approval
• Jesus Does Not Seek Glory from Men
• Jesus Knows the Heart
• You Do Not Have the Love of God in Yourselves
• Coming in the Father’s Name vs. One’s Own Name
• Receiving Glory from One Another
• Leaders Who Tell You What You Want to Hear
• The Approval of the One and Only God
• How Can You Believe?
• How to Check Your Heart
• Pleasing Others vs. Pleasing God
• Point 2: You Don’t Believe the Scriptures You Study
• Moses Accuses You
• If You Believed Moses, You Would Believe Me
• Messianic Prophecies from Moses
• Gospel Realities in the Torah
• The Need for Heart Regeneration
• The Law as a Tutor to Christ
• The Prison of Religious Tradition
• If You Don’t Believe His Writings
• Do Your Lives Show You Believe?
• The Need for Faithful Community
• Jesus Longs to Gather You
• Closing Prayer

Introduction

Heavenly Father, thank you indeed for Jesus Christ. He is our great treasure. But Lord, that is easy to say and not really mean. But you see everything. You see our hearts. See the heart of every person in this room, everybody streaming online today.

Oh Lord, give us the gift of hearing you speak today. Not just hearing your words explained, but being given ears to hear it. Lord, that we will listen, we will heed, we will be changed for sanctification, for salvation, for Your Glory, God. Please do this.

Enable me to speak this word as you would want. In Jesus’ name, amen.

If you’ve perchance looked at the bulletin today, you may have noticed that the sermon title contains an oxymoron. Now, what’s an oxymoron? It’s not an insult. It’s a language technique in which you combine two words of opposite meaning to make a new term.

Think of phrases like freezer burn or Living Dead, deafening silence, old news. Do you hear how each of those phrases uses a pair of opposites? You might at first think that oxymorons are self-contradictory, but they are not. In fact, they are ways to memorably describe something by drawing upon what seems like two opposite meanings to make a new meaning.

What Is Religious Unbelief?

Now, today, the oxymoron I’d like you to think about is religious unbelief. Religious unbelief. At first glance, that doesn’t seem to make sense. Maybe because for something to be religious, that thing must relate to what people believe, even what they believe about God or what is the proper way to relate to God. Yet there is no real contradiction in these words: religious unbelief.

As I use them, religious unbelief is the use of religion, even outwardly expressed love for God and obedience to God, as a way to hide the heart’s unbelief in God and even love for something else more than God. To speak more simply, outward religiosity and good works, good behavior, often conceal a heart of unbelief.

“Outward religiosity and good works often conceal a heart of unbelief.”

A Personal Testimony of Religious Unbelief

And I can testify to this personally. I grew up in a Christian household, and I was, by everyone’s estimation, a good kid. I got straight A’s in school. I was rarely disobedient to my parents. I memorized verses in VBS. I talked about Jesus to my friends. I frequently went out of my way to serve and be polite.

For example, if there was a door to be held open, I was the one who held it. As people passed by and said thank you, I said, “You’re welcome.” And if they passed by and didn’t say thank you, I still said, “You’re welcome.”

I had made a profession of faith in Jesus by prayer when I was five. I was baptized around eight years old. If you asked me in sixth grade if I was a Christian who loved Jesus, I would have told you yes. But there was something off about my religion.

I didn’t want to read the Bible, and I actually tried clever ways to get out of my family Bible study. If at any time I failed to measure up outwardly, like if I got a bad grade, I would cry. I would wail. And yet, strangely, in other instances, I didn’t feel bad at all. I didn’t feel bad about laughing at dirty jokes or mocking my younger sister when my parents weren’t around.

Only later did I realize that though I grew up thinking that I loved God and was a Christian, what I really loved was myself and what being good could do for me. I loved being admired by my peers at school. I loved being praised by my parents and teachers. I loved getting rewards. I loved being thought of as the good kid because that’s the way I thought of myself.

“What I really loved was myself and what being good could do for me.”

This belief in myself as good was why I would get so devastated by my public failures. Not because I had displeased God and I was so broken up over that, but because in missing the mark before others, I had tarnished the image of myself as the good kid and thus I risked losing their approval.

The Awakening of True Faith

Despite my outward appearance of true religion, I was actually a proud, selfish, self-righteous boy who didn’t really believe in Jesus according to God’s saving gospel. I didn’t realize this for a long time, but around seventh grade was when God finally opened my eyes to my own sinfulness.

I wasn’t good. I wasn’t righteous. But Jesus is good and righteous and lovely, and I need him desperately.

It’s only then that I repented and believed in the gospel for real. The Lord changed my heart and behavior in amazing ways. I started wanting to study the Bible for myself to know the Lord, not to look good in front of others. I began to serve others to please the Lord more than to please them.

“I started wanting to study the Bible to know the Lord, not to look good in front of others.”

But what about you? Have you come out of a background of religious unbelief? Are you still there? Even as a true Christian, has a love for, respect for, or the approval of others corrupted your walk?

We can hide our hearts from others and even deceive ourselves, but we cannot hide from the Lord.

Context of John 5

So let’s hear what our Lord has to say about religious unbelief in John 5. Just take your Bibles and turn there now. The sermon title for today is “Jesus Exposes Religious Unbelief.” We’re going to see this from John 5:41-47.

If you’re using the Bibles that we provided, it’s on page 1,064. But I’ll give you some additional context. We’re going to read the same section that we read last time, starting from verse 30 down to verse 47. So let’s hear John 5:30-47, and we’ll be focusing on verses 41-47 in the sermon today.

We begin in verse 30. Jesus is speaking: “I can do nothing on my own initiative. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just because I do not seek my own will but the will of him who sent me. If I alone testify about myself, my testimony is not true. There is another who testifies of me, and I know that the testimony which he gives about me is true.

You have sent to John, and he has testified to the truth. But the testimony which I receive is not from men. But I say these things so that you may be saved. He was the lamp that was burning and was shining, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light. But the testimony which I have is greater than the testimony of John.

For the works which the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I do, testify about me that the Father has sent me. And the Father who sent me, he has testified of me. You have neither heard his voice at any time nor seen his form. You do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe him whom he sent.

You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life. It is these that testify about me, and you are unwilling to come to me so that you may have life. I do not receive glory from men. But I know you that you do not have the love of God in yourselves.

I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him. How can you believe when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the One and Only God?

Do not think I will accuse you before the Father. The one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”

Jesus’ Conflict with the Jewish Leaders

We are coming now to the end of John 5 and to the culmination of what began in the first verse of this chapter. According to John 5:1-16, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the religious feasts and happened to heal a sick man by the pool of Bethesda on the Sabbath. This action brought on Jesus the condemnation of the Jewish religious leaders.

They saw Jesus’ actions as blatantly violating God’s Sabbath, which was really just a violation according to the teaching and rules of the rabbis. But nevertheless, they concluded that Jesus is a lawbreaker who deserves the death penalty for violating the Sabbath.

But Jesus responds by giving the true interpretation and application of his Sabbath healing, namely that Jesus is the Son of God in whom all must believe to escape eternal condemnation. In verses 17 to 29, Jesus unmistakably declares his divine sonship, even that he and the Father are intimately united and that the Father has given him the great works of life-giving and judgment, which the Son executes even now and will execute in a greater way in the future.

“Jesus is the Son of God in whom all must believe to escape eternal condemnation.”

The Father’s Testimony of the Son

Then in verses 30-40, which is where we were last time, Jesus presents the greatest testimony of his divine sonship: the testimony of God the Father. In verses 30-35, Jesus acknowledges his need to supply appropriate supporting testimony to the claims that he is making. Having John the Baptist testify on Jesus’ behalf is good and noteworthy, but Jesus must have a greater testimony if he really is the divine Son who does everything alongside his Father.

This testimony Jesus indeed does have. In verses 36-40, Jesus summarizes how the Father himself testifies of the Son. The Father testifies—you might remember this from last time—through the Son’s works in verse 36; through the Son’s words in verses 37-38; and through the Old Testament scriptures in verses 39-40.

“The Father testifies through the Son’s works, the Son’s words, and the Old Testament scriptures.”

As we worked through verses 30-40 last week, we noted how even as Jesus acknowledges that he speaks as he does so that his listeners might believe and be saved in verse 34, Jesus also begins to reprove his Jewish listeners. These who say they love God, he reproves them for not heeding God’s own testimony about the divine Son so that they might come to the Son and saving faith. See that in verse 38 and verse 40.

Why Won’t the Religious Believe?

So the question naturally arises: Why won’t these supposedly religious, God-fearing, God-loving Jews believe? Why won’t they believe in God’s Son? This is an important question for Jesus to answer, not only for Jesus’ original audience so that they might be convicted of their own sin and repent, but also for John’s original audience.

Remember, our author John writes this gospel primarily with Greek-speaking Jews in mind, Hellenistic Jews who don’t live in Palestine. John is reporting to them select words and works of Jesus so that those Jews might believe in Jesus as the Christ and the Son of God and thereby obtain eternal life. That’s John’s purpose, expressed in John 20:30-31.

John thus doesn’t choose any details of the book to include arbitrarily. Even verses 41 to 47, from Jesus, are included with that purpose in mind. John also wants the supposedly religious Jews to whom he writes to have their own proud unbelief exposed so that they might be made willing to turn and believe in Jesus.

“John wants the supposedly religious to have their own proud unbelief exposed so they might believe in Jesus.”

It’s like John is saying to his audience, these Greek-speaking Jews: If you’re having a hard time believing in and following Jesus, whatever you say the reason for that is, the real reasons are right here, or at least part of the real reasons. What Jesus, and through him John, asserts is provocative, to be sure, but it’s meant to shake the listener-readers out of the self-righteous complacency in which they found themselves so that they might find out whether the things that John and Jesus say are true.

Our Triune God has a similar purpose for us this morning as we examine this passage together. In John 5:41-47, Jesus exposes two fundamental realities of religious unbelief to convict you of your own self-righteous way and to move you to believe in Jesus.

Is anyone here today religious but having a hard time believing or following Jesus Christ in a particular area? If so, let the Spirit of Jesus tell you what’s really going on in your hearts, even to expose these two fundamental realities of religious unbelief.

Point 1: You Seek Men’s Approval Over God’s Approval

The first fundamental reality of religious unbelief that Jesus exposes is in verses 41 to 44. This is the first point of this sermon. Outline number one: You seek men’s approval over God’s approval.

If you are hesitant to believe and obey Jesus, even after hearing his word declared to you, it is because, Jesus says, you seek men’s approval over God’s approval. This point starts in verse 41, where Jesus says, “I do not receive glory from men.”

“If you are hesitant to believe and obey Jesus, it is because you seek men’s approval over God’s approval.”

Jesus Does Not Seek Glory from Men

Now, you may notice that verse 41 seems like an untrue statement. What are you talking about, Jesus? Weren’t we just singing in this service about giving glory to Jesus? Are you saying you don’t accept praise, honor, worship from men? Isn’t that what you should accept if you are the Son of God, the divine Son, as you really claim?

Jesus does receive praise, honor, and worship from men. In fact, this is one of the Father’s own goals for the Son, as we heard even in this passage, verse 23. So why does Jesus seem to flatly contradict that truth?

We can see what Jesus is really getting at here if we peek ahead and compare verses 44 and 41. In contrast to the Jews, whose ultimate goal was to receive glory from one another and not glory from God—and we should understand the term “glory” here to mean something like praise, honor, or approval—in contrast to these Jews, Jesus ultimately seeks glory from the Father and not from men.

Jesus doesn’t fundamentally need man’s praise or approval. If he has that, fine. But if he doesn’t, that’s also fine, because whose commendation is the only one he really needs? And in fact receives? It’s the commendation of his Father, of God.

“Jesus doesn’t fundamentally need man’s praise. The only commendation he needs is the Father’s.”

This is why Jesus has been saying or doing surprising things so far in this gospel, often generating tepid belief, confusion, or outright hostility from his people, the Jews. Really, if Jesus were seeking the Jews’ acceptance, praise, and approval, he would be failing miserably. But Jesus has said, and will say again in this gospel, he did not come to seek his own will but the will of his Father.

Therefore, Jesus says truly in verse 41: “I do not receive glory from men.” That is not what I’m after ultimately.

Jesus Knows the Heart

But what about the Jews? What about the Jewish religious leaders? Beginning at verse 42, Jesus says, “But I know you.” At this point in John’s gospel, we the readers have come to understand something unnerving about Jesus’ knowledge.

And what’s that? Jesus knows everything. He has supernatural knowledge. He doesn’t need to ask questions. He doesn’t need to do detective work to know all about you and all about what’s in your heart.

John’s gospel has demonstrated repeatedly and has also recorded for us explicitly the reality of John 2:24-25. John 2:24-25 says that Jesus knows all men and he doesn’t need anyone to testify to him about men because he himself knows what is in man.

John 2:24-25: “Jesus knows all men… He himself knows what is in man.”

Jesus is exercising again that supernatural knowledge here. He asserts that he fundamentally knows his Jewish opponents and even knows something specific about them. And what is this specific knowledge of Jesus about these Jews?

Well, we get a clue with the transition word. Notice Jesus says “but.” That’s a contrasting transition word, right? Which means that Jesus is about to reveal something about the Jews and the Jewish leaders in particular that contrasts with what Jesus just said about himself: “I do not receive, I do not seek the glory of men.”

But as for you, can you guess what Jesus is about to say? What he’s implying?

You Do Not Have the Love of God in Yourselves

Now let’s look at the rest of verse 42. “But I know you that you do not have the love of God in yourselves.”

That’s maybe a little unexpected. We were perhaps thinking Jesus would say, “But I know you that you do receive, you do seek the glory of men.” That’s not what he says. Jesus says instead, “You do not have the love of God in yourselves.”

Why this switch? Why this confusing switch? Well, this isn’t so much a switch as it is a parallel description. To not have the love of God in yourselves is to seek the glory of men, it is to receive the glory of men. While to have the love of God in yourselves is not to seek, not to receive the glory of men.

You see, to love God means you seek his will and approval above all else, whereas not to love God means you don’t care so much for God’s approval. You seek men’s approval over God’s approval.

“To love God means you seek his will and approval above all else.”

So Jesus here is not simply revealing that the Jews, in contrast to Jesus, fundamentally seek and receive men’s approval, but that the reason they do so is because they fundamentally don’t love God. They do not have the love of God, that is the love for God, in themselves.

And this is no idle accusation. This is the all-knowing Son looking into their hearts and saying what’s there. “I know you,” Jesus says. “This is who you really are. You talk a great game about loving God, seeking his will above all, but I know you that you do not have the love of God in yourselves. You love men’s approval. You crave men’s affirmation and admiration to the point that you don’t care so much about God’s approval.”

Now think again about to whom Jesus speaks. He’s speaking to the Jews, the ostensibly pious chosen people of God. He’s speaking to the rabbis of the Jews, the religious teachers, the scribes, the Pharisees. These are holy people. To them Jesus says this, even the holiest among the holy people.

This would be like going into a church or a pastor’s conference today and saying to everyone, “I know you all that you do not have the love of God in yourselves.” That’s very bold. That’s very provocative. How can Jesus say this? They say they love God, but you say they don’t. How can that be?

Well, Jesus does have that penetrating soul-gaze. He is the divine Son with supernatural knowledge. That should be enough support right there. Nevertheless, Jesus does point to a basic but critical piece of evidence to establish this alarming assertion.

Coming in the Father’s Name vs. One’s Own Name

Look at verse 43: “I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him.”

To appreciate this statement from Jesus, we need to understand what it means to come in someone’s name. If you’ve been following the news, the US is currently responding to various international crises, like the wars in Ukraine and Israel. Our country, even our ruling presidential administration, often sends representatives to these areas and to the powers involved to bring aid or to negotiate different diplomatic deals.

These ambassadors are not going in their own names, that is, on their own behalf or under their own authority or seeking their own will. They go in the name of the United States, in the name of the government of the United States, to accomplish our ruler’s will, our country’s will.

So it is in verse 43. Jesus says that he himself has come in the name of his Father, on his Father’s behalf, with the Father’s authority, seeking the Father’s will. So if the Jews truly love God the Father, what should they do? Receive and believe in Jesus.

“Jesus has come in the name of his Father. So if the Jews truly love God, they should receive Jesus.”

But what do the Jews do in fact in response to Jesus? What do they do as a people, generally on the whole? Jesus says, “You all do not receive me.” It’s evident you all do not receive me. The Father is with me. He testifies of me. I only seek his will. But you don’t receive me.

If you do not receive the one who comes in the name of the Father, it can only be because you do not have the love for the Father, the love of God, in yourselves.

Someone might say, “Well, maybe the Jews are just stubborn, and they won’t accept anyone, any messenger, any teacher, any leader. They’re just a stubborn people.” Well, no, that cannot be it, because Jesus goes on to point out that if another comes in his own name, that is, he comes on his own behalf, on his own authority, seeking his own will, what do the Jews do characteristically? They all receive that one. It says, “You will receive them. This is what you’re going to keep on doing.”

So the issue is not receiving messengers or leaders. The issue is with receiving God’s special messenger and leader, even the Son, Jesus Christ. Why do the Jews only accept those who come on their own names? Jesus explains in verse 44.

Receiving Glory from One Another

Even while pointing out that this kind of hard-heartedness makes it impossible to believe in Jesus and be saved, verse 44: “How can you believe when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that is from the One and Only God?”

Note the key phrase in the middle of this verse: “When you receive glory from one another.” What does this phrase tell us? It tells us why the Jews only accept leaders who come on their own name instead of God’s name. It is because these leaders, in one way or another, give glory to the Jews, while the Jews respond by giving glory to that leader.

“These leaders give glory to the Jews, and the Jews respond by giving glory to that leader.”

You see, there were many leaders, even many pretend Messiahs, who had presented themselves to the Jews in the years up to Jesus’ coming. And then there were many who came after Jesus and claimed to be the Messiah or acted like Israel’s Messiah. Many of these were accepted and supported to some extent by the Jews.

What kind of message do you think the pseudo-Messiah brought to the people? Do you think it was a message like Jesus’? “You do not really love God. You need to repent from the heart in order to enter God’s kingdom.” No way.

Leaders Who Tell You What You Want to Hear

No, what kind of message did these leaders bring? “You guys are doing a great job. We just need to keep doing more of what we’re doing. We need to keep on keeping the law of Moses so that we can get into that kingdom. And meanwhile, let’s work to get rid of these evil Romans ruling over us. I’ve got a plan, guys. I’m going to lead a rebellion. I’m going to free our nation from the ungodly influence of these evil Gentiles.”

In other words, those who came in their own names told the Jews what the Jews wanted to hear. They gave the Jews glory, approval, praise. And so the Jews responded accordingly, giving glory, approval, and praise, support to these pseudo-Messiahs.

Then the Apostle Paul warned about the same thing in the church. In 2 Timothy 4, Paul charges Timothy: “I’m about to die. Make sure you preach the word in season and out of season, when it’s popular, when it’s not popular, because the time is coming when people won’t want to listen to the word of God anymore. But they will find for themselves teachers, leaders who will tickle their ears, who will say to them what they want to hear. And thereby they will turn aside from the truth to myths.”

2 Timothy 4:3-4: “People will find teachers who tickle their ears, who say what they want to hear.”

This is common to the human condition. We like the leaders who tell us what we want to hear. They’re the ones who get our approval.

It may feel good to hear that you have the approval of your leader, your teacher. But what good is that if you do not have the approval of the One and Only God?

The Approval of the One and Only God

And that’s a description, by the way, that is intriguing: “One and Only God.” This is a rare description for God in the New Testament. Certainly, it’s factually true. The Bible is quite clear that there are no other gods beside the true God. But why use this phrase here?

Surely the answer must be to emphasize the contrast. Your human leaders, they’re all the same. They come, they ask for your approval, they give you their approval, and then those leaders do their thing and they pass away.

Leader after leader is doing this. They’re coming, seeking your approval, you give them their approval. What about the approval of the One and Only God, the unchanging God?

Your leaders are a dime a dozen. But what about God, the One and Only God? Shouldn’t his approval be more important?

“Your leaders are a dime a dozen. But what about God, the One and Only God? Shouldn’t his approval be more important?”

How Can You Believe?

Notice now that verse 44 is a rhetorical question. In light of this exposed reality, this stated reality, Jesus asks, “How can you believe?” And what’s the implied answer? You can’t. Not as long as the approval of men is more important to you than the approval of God. It’ll be impossible for you to believe. Therefore, impossible for you to be saved.

“As long as the approval of men is more important than the approval of God, it will be impossible for you to believe.”

And this would have been a tough issue for John’s original audience, even those Hellenistic Jews, because they faced severe persecution and social ostracization for believing in Jesus. As many Jews do today, if you confess Jesus, it’s like you’re turning your back on us Jews. We don’t want anything to do with you anymore. We might even try to kill you.

It was a big question of whether they were going to seek God’s approval or man’s approval.

But what about us? What about all of you listening today? As the desire for people’s praise, approval, attention become more important to you than God’s praise, approval, or attention, unlike Jesus, who came in his Father’s name, have you come in your own name, willing to give praise and approval to those who give you praise and approval because that serves your purposes?

You only give God’s praise and approval second thought. “Oh, if I can get that, that’d be nice, but that’s not essential.”

How to Check Your Heart

Now, perhaps you say to yourself, “I don’t think I love men’s approval more than God’s, but how will I know for sure?” That’s a good question. Certainly, Jesus gives one very basic way to check: Do you receive him as the Christ and the Son of God? Is he your Savior and Lord? And are you living your life accordingly? Have you committed your life to following Jesus? Do you actually obey him?

Because if the answer is no, then Jesus has exposed your heart. You love the approval of men more than the approval of God.

But here’s another way to check. Consider how you respond to men’s approval or the lack thereof. When someone or a group of people doesn’t give you glory or looks like they might not, does that make you anxious, angry, depressed, or hopeless? If so, these are signs that you love the approval of men more than the approval of God.

“When someone doesn’t give you glory, does that make you anxious, angry, depressed? These are signs.”

And by the way, should someone say, “I don’t care what people think. I’m a straight shooter. I tell it like it is, whatever the consequences. People don’t like it, that’s their problem.” Let me just tell you that that very likely is just a different kind of pride, a different kind of selfishness that ironically glories in not seeking man’s glory and uses truthfulness as an excuse to bludgeon people rather than build them up.

Did you hear that? For the sake of the gospel, you should care to a certain extent about what other people think. What other people think about you. You should give them no just reason to blame or reproach you. After all, this is one of the qualifications for elders in the Bible: Titus 1 and 1 Timothy 3. They say this is supposed to be a man above reproach, even one who has a good reputation with those outside the church.

Pleasing Others vs. Pleasing God

So to a certain extent, you should care what other people think. But pleasing others must always come secondary to pleasing God.

If you are a true Christian, consider Paul’s own example. Paul says on the one hand in 1 Corinthians 10:33 that he seeks to quote, “Please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit but the profit of the many so that they may be saved.” If there’s anything I can do to remove hindrances to people in terms of their listening to me, liking me, I’ll do it so that they can be saved.

However, Paul says on the other hand in Galatians 1:10: “For am I now seeking the favor of men or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond servant of Christ.”

Galatians 1:10: “If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond servant of Christ.”

That’s the same attitude as Jesus, right? “I do not receive the glory of men. That is not what I’m ultimately after.” Paul said the same.

We read earlier in Matthew 6, and you may notice that section about doing your righteous deeds before others. It ends somewhat curiously with the statement, “No man can serve two masters.” It mentions God and wealth, but really these things are tied together.

The approval of others often brings you worldly wealth, and it is the kind of wealth in itself. But Jesus says you cannot serve two masters. You’re either going to devote yourself to one or to the other.

Will it be the approval of men on earth, which is a passing treasure? Or will it be the approval of God in heaven, who provides treasure that never fades?

This is the first fundamental reality that Jesus exposes in religious unbelief: those caught up in religious unbelief seek the approval of men over the approval of God.

Point 2: You Don’t Believe the Scriptures You Study

The second fundamental reality appears in verses 45 to 47, and it’s the final verses of our chapter. Look at our second point, number two: You don’t believe the scriptures you study.

If you are a religious person but you hold back from believing in Jesus or from giving your full obedience to him from the heart, then this is proof that you do not believe the scriptures that you otherwise study and say that you value. Your actions prove you don’t believe the scriptures.

“Your actions prove you don’t believe the scriptures.”

Moses Accuses You

Look at verse 45. “Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father. The one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have set your hope.”

Verse 45 is a little surprising. Why does Jesus suddenly bring up Moses? Well, remember to whom Jesus is speaking. He’s speaking to religious Jews who not only claim to value God’s Old Testament scriptures generally but to have a particular reverence for Moses and for the law of Moses, that is the five books, which we sometimes call the Pentateuch, but which the Jews call the Torah.

Every good Jew, both back then and today, is really a disciple of Moses and therefore a student, a dedicated student, of the Torah. Jews are taught to believe that there is life in studying and keeping Torah. You have to know the law of God as expressed in these foundational books, and you need to put the law into practice. If you do, you will have life.

And does not God himself say this by the hand of Moses in the Torah? Leviticus 18:5, this is just one version of it. It’s expressed in different places, but Leviticus 18:5, God says, “So you shall keep my statutes and my judgments by which a man may live if he does them. I am the Lord. I am Yahweh.”

God says the Jews knew about this verse. They knew about this concept. So the Jews of Jesus’ day loved Moses and they were devoted to the Torah. Therefore, as a final prod to these religious unbelievers, Jesus asserts something shocking to them.

He says essentially, “I’ve declared my role as life-giver and judge in accordance with the will of the Father. But I tell you, I won’t be the one accusing you to the Father regarding your unbelief and disobedience. There’s another who will do it for me. I tell you, it is Moses. It is Moses.”

Instead, the very prophet you love and to whom you devote yourself in your life, he is the one accusing you and providing the evidence of your own damning unbelief.

“The very prophet you so love is the one accusing you and providing evidence of your damning unbelief.”

Now, that would have set off alarm bells for the Jew. That’s an extremely alarming claim. That’d be like telling the Lutherans, “Martin Luther is condemning you all right now.” Or telling Roman Catholics, “St. Peter is condemning you all right now.”

And note the verb tense of Jesus’ assertion. Jesus doesn’t say, “The one who will accuse you,” but instead, “The one who accuses you.” This is a present participle in the original Greek. Literally, “The one accusing you all is Moses.” It’s present. It’s continual. It’s a characteristic action. Accusation doesn’t have to wait until the future. It’s happening right now, over and over again.

But how can Jesus say this? Do not the Jews study Moses and the law diligently? Are the Jews not zealous for Moses’ law, as shown by their condemnation even of Jesus’ Sabbath healing? How could Moses condemn them?

If You Believed Moses, You Would Believe Me

Verse 46: “For if you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me.”

Jesus explains here why Moses can rightly be said to be accusing all religious Jews of unbelief. Moses wrote about Jesus. So if the Jews had believed Moses, they would have believed Jesus. But as is evident, the Jews in fact do not believe in Jesus. This proves that the Jews really never believed Moses.

“If the Jews had believed Moses, they would have believed Jesus. Their rejection proves they never believed Moses.”

Despite all the nice words the Jews might say about Moses and his writings, despite the study they devote to his books, if they don’t believe Jesus, it means they didn’t believe Moses. Thus, Moses justly accuses them of unbelief.

But wait a second. Did Moses really write about Jesus in a significant way? Absolutely. After the resurrection, it was the joy of Jesus, the apostles, and many other Christians to prove to the Jews from the Torah, from the prophets, from the other Old Testament writings, the truth about Jesus. It was showing, using all the scriptures, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing in him, in only him, there is life.

Many books of the New Testament explain how passages from Moses, concepts from Moses, connect to Jesus, connect to the gospel. Here in verse 46, we don’t see Jesus cite or explain any specific passages from Moses’ five books, but certainly they’re there.

Messianic Prophecies from Moses

And just to give you a brief overview, a snapshot, let me mention first some Messianic prophecies from Moses. Genesis 3:15 promises victory from the seed of the woman over the seed of the serpent. The serpent himself will bruise the seed of the woman’s heel, but that seed will crush the serpent’s head.

Genesis 12:3 promises blessing to all the families of the earth through Abraham’s seed. Yes, even the Gentiles will be blessed through Abraham’s seed.

Genesis 49:10 promises widespread dominion to the seed of Judah.

Genesis 12:3; 49:10: “Even the Gentiles will be blessed through Abraham’s seed… widespread dominion to the seed of Judah.”

Numbers 24:17 and 19 promise widespread dominion to a future ruler of Israel, a future king.

Deuteronomy 18:18-19 promises the coming of a final, authoritative prophet like Moses.

Gospel Realities in the Torah

And we can add to this the repeated presentation of New Testament gospel realities throughout the law of Moses, such as salvation and blessing comes according to God’s gracious promise through faith, not physical lineage or good works.

The greatest example of this, quoted many times in the New Testament, is Genesis 15:6, the description of Abraham in which it says, “Then he, Abram, believed in the Lord, that is Yahweh, and he reckoned it to him as righteousness.”

You cannot say that the law of Moses teaches salvation by works when that verse is standing right in the middle of it. But then you can just compare the experience of the Patriarchs and of the Israelites. Many of whom, many within their physical lineage, were passed over in receiving the promise and inheritance, while others received it who by human rights and human means shouldn’t have.

Like when Jacob received the inheritance instead of Esau, or Joseph was given the greatest portion among his brothers, or how the first generation after the exodus of Israel, none of them except for Caleb and Joshua went into the promised land, though they were all descendants of Abraham.

God’s salvation and blessing comes according to God’s gracious promise through faith, not physical lineage or good works. That’s just one of the realities.

“God’s salvation and blessing come according to God’s gracious promise through faith, not physical lineage or good works.”

We also see from Moses. Moses writes and makes clear the need for man to receive forgiveness for sin via a blameless, substitutionary sacrifice, because man inevitably falls short of a holy God’s perfect standard.

Think even in the first chapters of the Bible how the Lord had to provide the animal skins to cover Adam and Eve, Genesis 3:21. Think of how a ram substitute was necessary so that Isaac, the son of promise, would not be sacrificed by Abraham. It was this ram instead, Genesis 22:13.

God provided the ram. Or just think of the entire sacrificial system as it was delivered to Israel: the Passover Lamb, the sin offering, the burnt offering, the day of atonement. All these showing, “You are a sinful people and unclean people who need atonement before God. You need forgiveness from God. You need cleansing from God.”

Even the sacrificial system, though by the fact that it was ongoing and repeated and it never provided a once-and-for-all cleansing, it showed—and the writers of the New Testament bring this out—that something better needed to come, something to fulfill what only these things could picture.

Moses was writing that. Moses was communicating that.

The Need for Heart Regeneration

Another gospel reality we see from Moses is the need for God to regenerate the hearts of people to believe and be saved. You might say, “Well, Moses talks about Abraham, talks about faith, and talks about the need for obedience, and this is all something that we can do on our own.”

No. Moses actually says that this too must come from God. Listen to two verses: Deuteronomy 29:4. Moses tells the Israelites, “Yet to this day, Yahweh has not given you a heart to know nor eyes to see nor ears to hear going into the promised land. But I tell you, you don’t have hearts that have been made new by God to love him.”

But then just one chapter later, Deuteronomy 30:6: “Moreover, Yahweh your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants to love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul so that you may live. You only may live if you love God. But you don’t have a heart right now that will do that. But one day, God will give you that heart as a nation, and your descendants will have it too. God must do it.”

Deuteronomy 30:6: “Yahweh your God will circumcise your heart to love Yahweh your God with all your heart and soul so that you may live.”

Are these not the very same gospel realities that Jesus preached, even in the Gospel of John? Was that not what we saw in the conversation of Jesus and Nicodemus? Nicodemus is like, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But Jesus says, “You should know. How can you be the teacher of Israel and you don’t know these things? These are the basics. Didn’t Moses teach you that?”

The Law as a Tutor to Christ

There’s more than this in the Torah. Jesus says the same things, but in a fuller and even more glorious way. Moses not only foretold Jesus’ coming but ultimately preached the same gospel that Jesus did. His whole book is clamoring for the Messiah, who is Jesus.

How can you read the law of Moses, all those rules, all the requirements, and say, “We can do this. We’re going to work our way in”? No. It is, as the apostles say, in line with Jesus: “This was a tutor to lead you to Christ, to point you to Christ. You can’t keep this law. You can’t be good enough for God. You not only need temporary covering, you need permanent covering, and even God to change your hearts.”

“You can’t keep this law. You can’t be good enough for God. You need permanent covering and God to change your hearts.”

Moses was preaching this. He was writing this. Thus, to believe Moses, to believe what he wrote, should logically lead to believing in Jesus. To reject Jesus in spite of what Moses wrote, or even worse, to reject Jesus because of what Moses wrote—which is what the Jews were saying they were doing: “Hey, he violates the Sabbath. Moses said don’t do that. You got to get rid of Jesus”—to reject Jesus in such a way is to fundamentally misunderstand and not believe Moses at all.

The Prison of Religious Tradition

And this is the great stumbling block. This is one of the great stumbling blocks of the Jews in Jesus’ time and in the present day. The Jews unfortunately do not study Moses. Those who are committed to the study of Torah today don’t study Torah itself. Usually, they study the commentaries on Torah and the words of the rabbis who are commenting on Moses, meaning they only look at Moses through a layer of religious tradition, the rabbinic tradition.

Thus, the Moses they follow is not the Moses of scripture, not who Moses really was. It’s the Moses of Talmud, the Moses of the collection of rabbinic writings. In other words, for the Jews, Moses has been made a teacher to confirm what they already want to believe.

The Jews aren’t alone in that. Doesn’t the same thing appear in the Christian sector? Various forms of Christianity are so hampered by religious tradition that you can only study the Bible through that tradition, or else you’re going to go off wrong. “We can’t let you do that. You have to listen to us. We have the tradition. That’s the only way you can understand the Bible.” Same thing.

Religious tradition can be such a prison for the soul, trapping religious people into thinking they love God and faithfully follow his word when they really only follow man.

“Religious tradition can be such a prison for the soul, trapping people into thinking they love God when they really only follow man.”

Thus, Jesus, by this startling declaration about Moses being the very one who was accusing you, is attempting to break through that prison, to initiate a jailbreak, to get the Jews to ask themselves, “If I’ve really understood Moses and I’ve really believed what he said.” They think they have. He says they haven’t. Jesus says they haven’t, and he has the testimony of the Father to back him up.

So if a Jew really loves God, what should he do at such an assertion from Jesus? He should do what the noble Bereans did in Acts 17:11. They daily examined the scriptures themselves to see if these things were so.

If you’re a religious person but you have problems with the claims of Jesus, with the commands of Jesus, go back to the scriptures and see if these things are so. Not through the layer of religious tradition, just go to the scriptures, look at it yourself, see if this is true.

An unwillingness to investigate or to see anything in the scriptures beyond what your man-made tradition is already communicating to you, that’s a fundamental barrier to believing in Jesus.

If You Don’t Believe His Writings

Jesus acknowledges in our final verse, John 5:47: “But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”

This is a rhetorical question with an implied answer. If the Jews refuse to believe what Moses wrote for the sake of their own self-righteousness and their own tradition, they will never believe in Jesus. How could they? He contradicts their tradition even more so than Moses did. So if they won’t believe Moses, they’ll never believe Jesus.

“If the Jews refuse to believe what Moses wrote for the sake of their own self-righteousness, they will never believe in Jesus.”

Although verses 45-47 represent a sharp challenge to the Jews of Jesus’ and John’s days as to why they refused to believe in and follow Jesus, do God’s scriptures really lead away from Jesus’ claims? Or do they in fact lead to Jesus and confirm Jesus as the Christ and Son of God?

Jesus tells us the answer. But do you believe him?

Do Your Lives Show You Believe?

I expect that all of you here today would consider yourself to some degree or another to be a religious person. You’re here in church listening to the word of God being preached. But what kind of religious person are you? Could you also have fallen into the trap of religious unbelief?

Do you claim to love the scriptures? Do you claim to be disciples of Paul, Peter, John, even Jesus? Do you claim all this, but you don’t believe their words and you don’t do them? You don’t put them into practice?

If that’s true, then I have to tell you, you are at risk of the very writers of scriptures, even Jesus himself, standing up and accusing you right now regarding your wicked unbelief, presenting that before the Father and saying, “I’m here to give testimony that person doesn’t love you.”

Remember what James says. James 1:22 states: “Prove yourselves doers of the word and not merely hearers who delude themselves.”

James 1:22: “Prove yourselves doers of the word and not merely hearers who delude themselves.”

He adds a few verses later in James 1:26: “If anyone thinks himself to be religious and yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless.”

My brethren, do your lives show that you believe the scriptures you study? It’s not good enough to know and talk about scripture. Do your lives show that you believe it?

Now, someone might ask, “Pastor Dave, I think my life shows that I believe the scriptures, but how can I know for sure?” That’s a great question. We can point to a basic check from Jesus himself.

First, do you believe in and follow Jesus as the Christ and Son of God? Because if you haven’t done that, you haven’t believed the Old or the New Testaments.

The Need for Faithful Community

But second, are you a meaningful member of a faithful community of Bible interpreters who are holding you accountable to an accurate understanding of the Bible and to a faithful living out of the Bible?

Are you a meaningful part of a faithful community of Bible interpreters who are holding you accountable to an accurate understanding of the Bible, faithfully lived out?

I’ve said this to you before, but I need to say it again. Something I’ve tragically observed as a Christian more than once is when a man or a woman becomes so convinced of his own interpretation of the Bible or application of the Bible that he becomes unteachable, will not listen, and cannot be corrected.

Everyone around him or her can see the error and the destructive effect the error is having on that person’s life, but he or she will not listen. Functionally and sometimes physically, that person withdraws from the fellowship. And if such a person does, their Proverbs prove true.

Proverbs 18:1: “He who separates himself seeks his own desire. He quarrels against all sound wisdom.”

Proverbs 18:1: “He who separates himself seeks his own desire. He quarrels against all sound wisdom.”

Proverbs 26:12: “Do you see a man wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.”

The Jews thought they were wiser than the Son of God. What about you? Has a certain beloved teacher, have your own experiences or feelings, or has a certain religious tradition colored and changed the way you view the Bible so that you no longer actually see or believe what God himself says?

Say, “I know the Bible says that, but they can’t be right, not based on what I’ve experienced.”

If you find yourself in that kind of situation, you’ve got to do what the Bereans did. You’ve got to go back to the scriptures with that faithful community, people who actually love the Bible and know how to study it. Go back to the scriptures with that faithful community and discover together what the Bible really says and hold each other accountable to it.

That’s what we do. That’s what we should be doing here as a body, as a church. That’s what it means to be a church: examine these scriptures daily as a faithful community.

Jesus Longs to Gather You

And with that, we come to the end of this whole section of John 5:1-47. I think we did four messages on this, or maybe it was a little bit more. This large section has contained various challenges regarding whether we hold to dead religious tradition and self-righteousness or whether we hold to life and God’s Son, Jesus of Nazareth.

Which is it for you?

I tell you, as an encouragement, Jesus is so eager that you find life in him. He’s not apathetic towards you. He’s not indifferent to whether you believe. He is a loving, saving God. He wants you to believe. He wants you to turn and believe.

What does he say to the Jews, even Jerusalem? “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who stones the prophets, kills those sent to her. How I longed, I have desired, I have been so much wanting to gather you as a hen gathers your chicks. But you weren’t willing.”

Oh, brethren, be willing. Jesus today wants to gather you into his brood. Stop claiming to be righteous before him when you’re not, and you can receive his righteousness. Stop claiming to love God when you don’t and your life shows that, and you can love God for real and you can experience God’s love for you.

“Jesus is so eager that you find life in him. He is a loving, saving God. He wants you to believe.”

As brothers and sisters here, this is the reality that we confess is true of us. May it be true of us and maybe true in an even fuller way as we live as a faithful community of Bible interpreters, encouraging one another, praying for each other, admonishing one another so we can know Jesus more, make him known more, and enjoy him until we see him in the fullness of his coming.

Closing Prayer

Let’s pray together.

Oh Lord, your wisdom is so right. How often you say in different ways in the Bible: “The proud man will be humbled, but the humbled man will be exalted. The one who holds to his own righteousness will be proved the utmost sinner, but the one who confesses his sin and comes to you, he’s the one who’s clothed with your own righteousness and made acceptable to you.”

Oh Lord, I pray that pride, religious tradition, fleshly beliefs about our own goodness—that these would not become the traps that keep people away from you today, that keep souls away from being saved, and that leave them in death and darkness.

And I pray for anyone who does not yet truly know and love Jesus, that they would today, that they would give their hearts over to you.

And Lord, for those who do love Jesus but need greater sanctification—and that’s all of us—I pray that you’d provide it, that you’d show us the sin that is entangling us, even the self-righteousness and the love of others’ approval, Lord, that is hampering us. And we’d cast these off, we’d tear these off and say, “I want Jesus’ approval. Yes, I’d love it if other people approved me, but if I don’t have that, I’m okay because all I want is Jesus. If I have his commendation by grace—certainly not in my own merit—if I have this commendation, nothing else matters.”

And I pray that we would have that kind of contentment, that kind of sufficiency in Christ, so that whatever trials you bring us through, whatever provocations other people bring to us, we would stand firm. Deliver us from the evil one and bring us safely into your heavenly kingdom in Jesus’ name, amen.