John 6:16-34 "IT IS I (AM)" Sometimes in our lives, one significant event in which the Lord Jesus Christ reveals Himself, opens up the way to experiences that are even more impacting than we anticipated. When a person first "tastes and sees that the Lord is good," it is accepted with enthusiasm. The experience itself and the blessing associated with it, affects us to the extent we have tasted and seen that it is good. But the important part is left unknown or not considered - "the Lord is good." When the multitude of well-fed people watched the disciples of the Lord go into the boat to go to the other side of the lake, and saw the Lord Jesus go to the mountain to be alone with His Father, they went their own ways for the night. Some experiences the Lord's people have, are not for public display or knowledge. The fifth sign of the Lord's deity, walking on the water, was to strengthen the feeble faith of His disciples.
The disciples were probably glad when the people wanted to make Jesus their King. They wanted that too. It was their hope that Israel would again flourish as a nation and that Jesus would reign as the prophets predicted the Messiah would. As those who were obedient to the directions of the One, they hoped would be their King, they kept rowing against the storm. He had told them to go to the other side so they would not turn back. Most seafaring men in a similar situation would have turned around to go back to shore and shelter and try it again when the wind died down. But these men were faithful to their Master and rowed hard to go to the other side.
To see a figure walking on the water, bent into the wind and catching up with them when they were three or four miles from shore, would certainly make any person full of fear. Their hard rowing was still slower than the One walking on the water, and He was gaining on them. Doubtless their fear increased the closer He got and they feared a ghostly spirit was coming to them - until they heard His voice. "It is I (AM), be not afraid." They had been with Him long enough to know that with those words He identified Himself as God. By speaking briefly and to the point, He opened their understanding as to His Person that the feeding of 5000 and more people, did not. Not only can Jesus speed up the course of nature and make natural things happen instantly, but now they would know that He is King over nature, not just the coming King over a nation.
The whole universe is subject to Him, not just people and a nation. As soon as they had received Jesus into the boat, they were at the shore they had been heading for. The Lord Jesus is the Lord God of people, the Master of nature no matter how contrary it may be, and is also Lord over time and space because Jesus is truly the Son of God - the great I AM. That sign was seen only by the disciples who learned that His purpose in coming to earth was not just to be their King and to supply food to hungry people, but to substantiate His right over people and nature as the Great I AM.
The material blessings we receive from God are not because people have trusted Him as the Giver of Life and of "every good and perfect gift." Many people, and maybe even most, think they deserve these blessings and take them for granted without sincere thanksgiving. These good things have come to us from God continually and are to lead us to repentance. Those people who had eaten bread and fish from the Lord's hands and knew He had multiplied two fish and five loaves of bread to be more than enough to feed them all, still didn't believe on Him. The didn't see Him as any more than a miracle-worker who had come to bring benefits to them.
Those same people came to where they knew the disciples had gone in the boat and got boats themselves to cross to where Jesus was. One the other side there was only the one boat the disciples had crossed in and they wondered aloud how He got there. He did not answer their question but quickly exposed their motive for seeking Him. They wanted Him as a King who would provide for them what they desired. Even though they had eaten physical food the day before that came from Him, and that seal of the Father's approval and endorsement had been given, they still were not satisfied. Physical life alone does not satisfy the need of a person.
People are still trying to earn their way to God and would like God to accept them on their own terms. Some would like to be able to boast of what they have done to get to heaven. Those folks had just eaten food Jesus made that was a sign of His deity in that He has power and ability over the normal way of things happening. Yet in their self-centeredness and hypocrisy they still thought they could do the work of God themselves. It is impossible for us to do what God does. The Lord Jesus had done that right before their eyes and they were participants of the provision He created. How insolent it was that those same people implied that Moses was greater because instead of multiplying what was already here, five loaves and two fish, to their way of thinking Moses brought bread down from heaven by his own power. Jesus pointed out to them that Moses did not give the children of Israel manna, God gave it.
This way of thinking has not changed much in many people's minds today. People still want physical evidence before they will believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. They want to see something and then they say they will believe. They want to feel something first and they think then they will know they are saved. "Seeing is believing" is a common phrase to people who do not understand what faith in God is. God intends people to do what He says in the way He said it. The work of God, or what God intends from us is that we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and add nothing else to it. Assurance of salvation and knowing what is true comes after believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, not before.
Seeing is not believing. Seeing is only seeing. Feeling is not salvation. It is only feeling. Believing is trusting a Person, the Lord Jesus Christ, without seeing Him. That is the faith that pleases God. Faith is not belief without proof only, but is trust without reservation. Even after the Lord Jesus had explained that the manna was not spiritual food but physical food, literal food, that supplied the physical need of the bodies of the children of Israel in the desert, those people listening to Jesus did not get it. They still missed the fact that He is the True Bread of God from heaven that gives life to the whole world, not just the Jews. How hard it is for those who have their own preconceived ideas about things to be willing to listen to what God has to say. Miracles give proof as to who the Lord Jesus is. The signs He gave testified to His claims of deity. But it is faith in Him personally that gives life. Each person must accept what has already been provided - the True Bread - the Lord Jesus Christ.