And he went on board ship and his disciples followed him;
One short line decides who is really with Jesus. It reads like a travel note, but the commentators find in it both the cost of following Him and the safety of it.
The verse follows straight on from the Lord's words about what it costs to follow Him. One writer traces the link:
First, it is a mistake to think of personal advantage. Second, the Lord must have an undivided heart. Third, "his disciples followed him." There is a play here on the word "follow."
When the boat pushed off, the difference between admiring Jesus and belonging to Him showed:
Later the Lord declares the truth about what following Him involved. As Son of Man, He had "nowhere to lay his head." Then He enters the boat to cross to "the other side," and no one but His disciples follows Him. There was no real attachment to Himself, and so no readiness to face danger, or loss, or opposition, for Him and with Him. No, there was no true faith in Him. They had never known His glory and His love in their hearts, because they had never truly felt their need of Him.
The route was His. It took them out of the crowd and into open water:
There were those who owned His claims and they followed Him in the ship. Whatever it might cost, they would be with Him. They found themselves in His company outside the nation, tossed on the waves in a storm that threatened to swallow them. Whatever it looked like, no storm could harm them in His company. "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you" (Isa. 43:2).
Another writer makes the same link, then looks at the disciples' fear:
If they had gone on with the multitude they would not have had the storm. Their following Him led them into the storm... In all that is recorded of our blessed Lord we never see a single case of fear of any of His creatures. How could it be? He was the dependent Man, always confident in Jehovah. So in the storm we see Him at perfect rest. There was no fear there. If the disciples had rightly valued who He is, they would have had no fears either, for such fears have no ground.
One writer takes the crossing as a picture of the whole road ahead:
This shows us the character of the disciple's path. It is one "through waves and clouds and storms," and so it always carries danger, because in it the disciple has to meet the full force and opposition of Satan's power. Besides this, it will often seem as if He were asleep — unaware of the danger of His followers, or even indifferent to it. But the same scene that shows the danger of the path and the temptation of the disciple also shows the disciple's resource.
Being with the Lord is not the same as being comfortable. One writer sets the exercise of faith beside the safety of that boat:
To go with the Lord, to be truly with Him, is not peace and quiet, but the exercise of faith... They were in the same ship with the Lord, the object of all the counsels of God. Accidents do not happen there, not to say anywhere else. A word from Him calms the waves and the wind. Keeping company with the rejected Lord leads us into the storm. He seems to let everything go without paying attention to it. But we are, thank God, in the same ship with Him.
Translators have discussed the English wording here. One writer argues that the Greek does not point to one particular vessel:
He was on the mountain, not in the plain; on a boat, not on dry land; in the house, not outdoors. But "the boat" and "the mountain" suggest one particular boat and one particular mountain. In the cases we are referring to, there is no ground for that. See Matthew 5:1; 8:23; 9:1...
- Follow — Here "follow" stops meaning admiring from the crowd. It means an undivided heart getting into the boat.
- Cost — They left the crowd for a Master with nowhere to lay His head. Whatever it cost, they would be with Him.
- Storm — The storm did not interrupt obedience; obedience led into it. Had they stayed with the crowd, there would have been no tempest.
- Sleep — He can seem asleep and unconcerned. His rest is confidence, not neglect, and it shows their fear had no ground.
- Same ship — The safety was never in the weather or their skill. They were in the same ship with the Lord, and accidents do not happen there.
and behold, [the water] became very agitated on the sea, so that the ship was covered by the waves; but *he* slept.
The disciples follow Him into the boat, and within a verse the sea is on top of them while He sleeps. The scene raises two questions: why was such a storm allowed, and who is this Man who can sleep in it?
Take the plain history first. A comparison with Mark's Gospel fixes the evening this crossing belongs to:
When did this take place, if we ask about it merely as a matter of historical fact? On the evening of the day when He delivered the seven parables given in Matthew 13. The truth of this is clear if we compare the Gospel of Mark.
The storm did not catch them off the path. It met them on it — they had left the crowd because they were following Him.
If they had gone on with the crowd they would not have had the storm. Their following Him led them into the storm... In all that is recorded of our blessed Lord we never see a single case of fear of any of His creatures. How could it be? He was the dependent Man, always confident in Jehovah. So in the storm we see Him at perfect rest. There was no fear there. If they had had a right sense of who He was, the disciples would have had no fears either.
Behind the wind stood a purpose.
In the eye of man He seemed to be exposed to the winds and waves. Yet they obeyed His voice at once. That was a striking reproof to the unbelief that woke Him from His sleep. That unbelief had supposed it possible for the waves to swallow Him, and with Him the counsels and the power of Him who had created the winds and waves. Clearly this storm was permitted to test their faith and to show the dignity of His Person. If the enemy was the instrument who produced it, he only succeeded in making the Lord display His glory.
The short words "but he was asleep" carry the weight of His true humanity. He was tired, and He lay down as any tired man does.
Nothing shows the perfection of the Lord's manhood more plainly than this: He slept in the stern of the boat. No one can explain the sacred mystery of His sinless, holy Manhood. But we see it there all the same, when He slept in that storm that threatened to wreck the ship. He knew what sighing and grief and weariness and fatigue were, and He had withdrawn for a little rest. Why disturb Him? But they were in danger.
The same boat shows both sides of who He is:
The two natures in the one Person are unmixed... Jesus slept in the boat: He was man. Jesus quelled the winds and the waves: He was God.
Every visible fact argued that they were lost.
The gracious Lord tested the faith of His followers, so that they might trust His supremacy over all need, and His concern for them in all dangers and difficulties. He was here to rescue from everlasting destruction all who look to Him in faith. If He could not perish, how weak and unworthy to wrong His love, as if He would leave them to perish! Yet He allowed appearances to test their hearts. The sudden violent squall! The sea raging! The little boat they had gone aboard, the waves beating in so that the ship was already filled! And the Lord asleep — not on a pillow but the boat-cushion!
The scene points beyond itself. A far heavier storm broke over Him at the cross.
Underneath this first recorded incident on the lake of Galilee there is a glorious pledge of divine victory at the cross. There the waves and billows of God's judgment passed over Him. But there He triumphed over all the power of evil. Both Matthew and Luke record what the Lord did in the storm, but Mark tells us what He said: He rebuked the wind and told the sea to be silent and be quiet. That word means to muzzle. Blessed be His name, He has not only silenced the storm on the sea but has muzzled all the forces of evil. The world is judged, the devil defeated, death annulled, and all the forces of hell laid low.
- Following — the storm came because they went after Him; obedience is no guarantee of calm water.
- Permitted — the Lord allowed it, to test their faith and display who He is; even the enemy's hand only served that end.
- Asleep — the tired Man resting in the stern is the proof of a real and perfect humanity.
- Awake — the same Person speaks, and wind and sea obey: man in the boat, God over the waves.
- Safe — the peril was real. But He who came to save the perishing could not perish Himself. At the cross He muzzled every force that threatened them.
And the disciples came and awoke him, saying, Lord save we perish.
The disciples had followed Jesus into the boat. The storm that hit them was so violent that experienced sailors thought they were finished. Their cry mixes two things: a real appeal to Him, and real panic about themselves.
The Gospel writers record different men saying different things in that one moment. Matthew keeps the words that credit Christ with power.
The twelve were at their wits' end. Calmness and courage deserted them. They lost all confidence in their own sailing skill. Worse still, they lost faith in their sleeping Master. Why did He sleep in the hour of their need?… Those whose words Matthew reports showed that they were sure He had the power to help them. They said, "Lord (kurie), save us; we perish." Others complained that He did not care about them, since He slept while they were in danger. They said, "Teacher (didaskale), don't you care that we perish?" Others again seem to have been overcome by their fears even more completely. They showed their intense urgency by repeating His title: "Master, Master (epistata), we perish."
The storm was not the test. Their estimate of the Person in the boat was.
In the next scene, a sudden danger tests all the disciples. Their sleeping Master paid no attention to it. This tested their thoughts of the glory of Jesus. No doubt the tempest was great; but what harm could it do to Jesus? No doubt the waves covered the ship; but how could that endanger the Lord of all? They forgot His glory in their own anxiety and selfishness. They measured Jesus by their own weakness.
The sleep they interrupted was genuine human tiredness, and it rested on something.
The Lord slept in the storm. That sleep was the proof that He was truly a man, who knew tiredness through work and the rest that sleep gives. It is remarkable that the only time we read of Him sleeping was in the storm. What was the secret of that wonderful repose? On what pillow did He put down His head? The secret was His perfect confidence in God, and His pillow was His Father's changeless love.
Waking Him changed nothing about who He was.
As man, worn out with His work, He slept on a pillow. As God, He rises, and with His almighty voice hushes the storm and calms the sea.
Their position in the boat, not the weather, decided the outcome.
The disciples were in the same boat with Jesus. Here is a lesson for us. The Christian life has many difficulties and dangers. The whole journey goes over waves, often stirred up by the stormy sea of life and of Christian service. Yet we are always in the same boat with Jesus, if we are doing His will. It may look to us as if He is sleeping. But if He allows the storm to rise to test our faith, we will not perish, since we are with Him in it. Plainly, neither He nor we can perish. He may seem sometimes to be indifferent to our situation; but I repeat, we are with Him; His security is our own.
In another Gospel the same cry sounds like a complaint. Kelly notes what the Lord heard in it.
It was little faith; but was it not little love too? It did, however, bring out the secret of their hearts. They at least cared for themselves — a dangerous thing in the servants of the Lord. Oh, to be self-sacrificing! to care for nothing but Him! At any rate the comfort is this — He does care for us. So the Lord rises at that call of glaring unbelief, selfish as it might be. Yet His ear heard it as the call of believers.
The calm that ended this storm points ahead.
In weakness of faith they cry to Him, for He was asleep. Of course with Him on board they could never sink. But in tender grace He simply calms the sea with a rebuke of absolute authority. The wind died down, and there was a great calm. So it will be when He speaks in power to a world in uproar, racked by the winds of the great tribulation.
- Their cry — "Save us, Lord" credits Him with power; "we are perishing" forgets He is on board. Faith and fear speak in one breath.
- Their mistake — they measured Jesus by their own weakness. Thinking of themselves, they forgot His glory.
- Their Master — He slept as a tired Man and rose as God to silence the sea. His rest came from confidence in His Father.
- Their safety — being in the same boat with Him was the whole answer; He cannot perish, and neither can those with Him.
- His response — He heard a self-centred cry as the cry of believers, and He acted. The calm He gave that day previews the calm He will speak to a world in uproar.
And he says to them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then, having arisen, he rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.
A storm hits the lake, the disciples wake Jesus, and He speaks to their fear before He speaks to the weather. So why the correction before the rescue, what is "little faith," and who can give orders to wind and sea?
Matthew and Mark tell this event in a different order. One writer treats that difference not as a mistake to solve but as a design to read.
Matthew puts the correcting of the disciples for their unbelief before the rebuking of the winds and the sea. Mark gives the opposite order. So the question is not "Which is correct?" but "What special meaning is intended by the change?" In Matthew's gospel, faith — or the lack of it, unbelief — stands out more than in the other gospels. The reason is that Matthew presents Christ as the Messiah.
after_check: meaning kept
Their fear was not about the water. It was a judgement about the Person in the boat with them.
No doubt the tempest was great; but what harm could it do to Jesus? No doubt the ship was covered with the waves; but how could that put the Lord of all in danger? They forgot His glory in their own anxiety and selfishness. They measured Jesus by their own weakness... Little faith leaves us as fearful for ourselves as we are dim witnesses of His glory whom the most unruly elements obey.
The phrase is not "no faith." They did call on Him. The problem was the size of what they trusted Him for.
He recognised that they were not completely without faith, for they appealed to the Master for help. But it was only a very little faith. They thought they were perishing, although Jesus was with them. Faith must be feeble if it cannot trust until the cause of anxiety and alarm is gone. For them the storm was stilled so that their fears might be quieted. So their faith did not rise to the level of Paul's, who was sure of coming safely through the storm.
So where did the fear get in, and what settles it?
You see the leak where the water came in to sink their spirits: they had "little faith." What calms and comforts a soul in great trouble is not what God is in Himself. It is what we think of God at the moment. Suppose a man fears the house will fall on his head in a storm. The house may be as immovable as a rock. That will not ease his mind until he thinks it so.
Earlier in the same chapter a man with a skin disease brings Christ his misery and goes away healed, with no word of correction.
The leper in Matthew 8 is a stranger. He brings his sorrow to Christ, and gets healing at once. Disciples, in the same chapter, bring their sorrow also, their fears in the storm; but they get rebuke as well as relief... In the one case it was simply sorrow. In the other it was the soul as well as the sorrow. So His answer to the one was tenderness, pure tenderness. To the other, faithfulness must form part of the answer.
Others in Scripture have parted waters — but always with an instrument handed to them. Here there is nothing between the voice and the sea.
He spoke in His own right as Lord of the sea and the land, and He addressed both the winds and the waves. For "the sea is his, for he made it," and He "rides on the wings of the wind." He stretched out no rod of delegated authority towards the troubled elements, as Moses did at the Red Sea. He struck the waters with no mantle of the prophet's office, as Elijah did at the Jordan.
His answer did not shrink to the size of their trust.
When faith was small, He acted according to Himself. In Matthew 8:26 He answered the disciples' "little faith" with "a great calm."
One writer reads the scene forward, past this lake.
But in tender grace He simply calms the sea with a rebuke of absolute authority. The wind died down, and there was a great calm. So it will be when He speaks in power to a tumultuous world racked by the winds of the great tribulation.
- Little, not none. They prayed, so faith was there; it was small because it could not rest until the danger itself was gone.
- Little faith sees little Christ. Fear grew because they judged Him by their own weakness and forgot whose glory shared the boat.
- Little faith gets faithfulness. A stranger's sorrow met pure tenderness. The disciples got relief and correction, because Christ had their souls in view, not just their sorrow.
- Little faith meets His own measure. He did not answer their small trust with a small deliverance, but with a great calm.
- Little faith, unborrowed power. No rod, no mantle, no delegated authority — the voice that quiets one lake will one day quiet a world in uproar.
But the men were astonished, saying, What sort [of man] is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?
Jesus has just stopped a raging storm with one word. The men in the boat now stare at Him, and their question is not about the weather. It is about who He is.
Their question admits that no human label fits what they have seen. Human helplessness before wind and sea is what makes the moment so staggering.
More than a man! What man could command the wind and the sea? Man is powerless when the elements break loose in all their fury. The tornado moves on with irresistible force. Nothing can withstand it. The sea rages. No human power can curb its frightful power. These forces make man feel small! No, the disciples found themselves in the presence of the Eternal Son of God, "God manifest in the flesh."
Minutes earlier this same Person was asleep, tired out from the day. The two facts sit side by side in one Man, and moving from one to the other costs Him nothing.
There is something perfectly beautiful in the way our blessed Lord rises, without any effort, from the rest of perfect humanity into the action of essential deity. As man, worn out with His work, He slept on a pillow. As God, He rises, and His almighty voice hushes the storm and calms the sea.
The Old Testament had already named the only One who masters deep water: Jehovah, the name of God in Israel's Scriptures.
On one side we see the weariness of the Servant of Jehovah after the work of the day. On the other side we see His instant readiness to serve still more when someone calls for help. And we see a further wonder: not only was the Servant of Jehovah in the boat, but Jehovah Himself was there. He who spoke with such authority to the winds and the waves was without question God. And the One who spoke like that was the same One who slept and woke at the cry of distress. This was indeed the God of Israel. As the Psalmist said, none but Jehovah is "mightier than the noise of many waters, yes, than the mighty waves of the sea" (Ps. 93:4).
Matthew says "the men" marvelled. Who were they? One writer reads them as the sailors working the boat, and not only the disciples.
When they realise whom they had in the boat with them, they cry, "Save us, Lord; we are perishing." He rises and rebukes the wind and the sea, and there was a great calm. Even the sailors marvelled and said, "What sort of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey Him!" The disciples knew it in a deeper way, but the others were astonished.
Their trembling after the calm was of a different order from their panic during the storm.
Later we read that the disciples were filled with great fear when they saw what the word of Christ did to the stormy sea. This was a wise fear. They now knew what unworthy thoughts had filled them while they stood in the immediate presence of Infinite Power and Goodness. This was the fear of reverence. It had replaced the cowardice of unbelief in their hearts.
Still, amazement at God and worship of God are not the same thing.
The disciples were amazed when they saw how the Lord behaved in the storm. They said, "What sort of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?" The mighty power of the Lord bewildered them, but astonishment is not the worship in spirit and in truth which the Father seeks.
Once the question is answered, the fear behind it has no ground left.
If they had known who that divine Person in the boat with them was, they might have slept as peacefully as He did. How could they perish when they had the Son of God with them in the boat? If HE could perish, they might too, but not otherwise.
This holds in our own experience too.
In every difficulty, trial, or painful circumstance where we seem to be completely overwhelmed by the power of Satan in this world, if our eye is towards Christ and we appeal to Him, we will know His power truly put forth on our behalf.
- Question. Their question admits that no human label fits Him. Wind and sea obey Him, so He is more than a man.
- Person. The same Person sleeps because He is worn out, then rises and gives orders. Perfect humanity and essential deity, with no effort in between.
- Identity. The Servant of Jehovah was in the boat, and Jehovah Himself was there. None but He is mightier than the mighty waves of the sea.
- Response. Their great fear was reverence, not cowardice. But amazement still stops short of the worship the Father seeks.
- Rest. They could only perish if the Son of God could perish. Look to Him in your own storm, and you will know His power working for you.