John 6:14–15

"Are you the Prophet?" they ask John the Baptist, in a way that showed they were all expecting His coming. "And he answered, 'No'" (John 1:21). They then ask him why he baptised, if he was not "the Prophet" (v. 25). But he tells them, "Among you stands one you do not know." Later the Lord fed the five thousand in John 6, and there we read, "This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world" (v. 14). Through Moses God had spoken to them and fed them in the wilderness. So they would remember the promise of the Prophet, who would surpass Moses, and still be "like" him.

Struck by the miracle of feeding the five thousand, the people confess Christ as the Prophet foretold by Moses, who would, like Moses, come to the people from God to meet their needs and lead them into the promised blessing (Deuteronomy 18:15-19).

John 6:14. — "The prophet." See Deuteronomy 18:15, and compare John 11:27 (Matthew 11:3; Luke 7:19) and John 12:13. There the testimony is that of His works (compare chapter 9), as in John 7:40 it is that of His teaching.

This great sign showed that Jehovah was among them. He was the One who had fed His Israel with manna in the wilderness, and who promised to satisfy the poor with bread (Psalm 132:15). When they had seen the great sign, they acknowledged Him to be the promised Prophet who should come (Deuteronomy 18:15). They wanted to make Him King.

The power and the grace were His, and His alone. This was so obvious to the men who shared in His bounty that they connected it with heaven. They declared that He must be the Prophet who was to come into the world, as Moses had said. People reached that conclusion many times — see John 4:19; John 7:40; John 9:17. But to last, it had to be a stepping-stone to deeper conclusions. In John 4 it led to the conviction that He was the Christ; in John 9, to the conclusion that He was the Son of God.

The people would have liked a king who gave them bread and fish every day. But they strongly disliked the word of His mouth that spoke to their consciences. They understood well enough when He told them to sit down on the grass. But they could understand nothing when He spoke of His death, which implied that they were lost.

The men who had seen the miracle of the loaves and fish cannot help confessing, "This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world" (John 6:14). Then Jesus saw that they would try to make Him king by force, and He "withdrew again to the mountain by Himself." So in this event we see the Lord Jesus taking His place on high after His prophetic mission here below. He refuses to take the kingdom from the hand of man, just as He had refused it earlier from the hand of Satan.

They do recognise that "this is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world." And they would gladly use the power they saw — but for their own ends, and under their own will. The Lord foresees the result: they would take Him by force and make Him King. They would force Him to lead one of those popular revolts against Roman authority which happened so often later on. Once He was committed, they thought, He could not draw back. He would give in to the will of the crowd and become the Deliverer everyone was waiting for. How strange the mind of man is when his own will twists it! They credit that will with great power. It only clouds all true sight and turns their reasoning into pitiful folly. They are going to have a prophet after their own heart, and divine power working at their command!

But their plan was a fleshly one. No faith in Him, no devotion to His person was behind it, and the Searcher of hearts had to tell them when the crowds sought Him again: "Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves."

With these men the loaves and fishes had become too important. They wanted a steady supply, so easily obtained, and so they plotted to force kingship on this Prophet. We have just heard Him say that the testimony He receives is not from man. He also said, "I do not receive glory from people." So it is no surprise that He will not receive a kingdom from the hands of men. The glory of the greatest earthly kingdom that man can build is only tinsel before Him.

On earth, the Lord Jesus refused the kingdoms of the world from the hand of Satan. Here in John 6:15 He refused Israel's throne from the hands of men. But He will yet receive the kingdom of Israel, and all the kingdoms of the world, from the hand of His Father. They belong to the "all things" given into His hand.

Unbelief either runs ahead of the kingdom, trying to set it up now by man's will, or drops it for the delusion of human progress. Neither has a thought of God's purpose: to establish the kingdom by Christ the second Man, when the first man is judged. Faith patiently waits for it meanwhile. So the Lord declined then, and went up on high — this time Himself alone. It was the figure of what is actually true. Owned as Prophet, He refuses to be man's king, and goes above to exercise His intercession, as He is now doing, the great Priest in the presence of God.

While He is praying on the mountain, a figure of His heavenly place of intercession (a reality, of course), they are on the sea.

But how could He take the kingdom while sin was running wild on earth, and the world was in the state it was then, and still is in now? Impossible! So you find later in John 6 that He tells the people plainly that He Himself must die.

See how the blessed Master always withdrew from human applause and human excitement... When they would come and take Him by force and make Him a king, He withdrew into a mountain to pray. When they wanted Him to show Himself to the world, He said, "My time has not yet come." We always find Him hiding Himself... Oh, to be well content to be a nothing and a nobody, so that Christ may be magnified!