Jesus left Judea because he wanted to avoid any confrontation with the Pharisees who had heard that Jesus was gaining and baptising more disciples than John, when in case, it were His disciples who were doing so. He also did not want to warrant any jealousy of John’s disciples. He did so because it was not yet His time to get into any kind of confrontation and draw any bitter attention towards HIm. Also, He left Judea for Galilee, to preach the “good news of God” (NIV BIBLE- MARK- 1:14) after John had been imprisoned.
John baptised with water, while Jesus baptised with the Holy Spirit, [(“And I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptise with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptise with the Holy Spirit.’” ) NIV BIBLE- JOHN- 1: 33.] Baptism with water is done in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. So Jesus couldn’t have baptised in His own name. Rather, He immersed Himself in preaching the words of God, healing, working miracles and serving His Father and left the work of Baptising to His disciples.
Strict Jews avoided travelling through Samaria because they did not like themselves to be associated with the Samaritans. There was a mutual hatred that ensued between all Jews and the Samaritans. The Jews avoided the impure Samaritans, who were considered to be an inferior race.
From this story on Jesus’ life, we learn that He did not discriminate among any race or culture while preaching. Every person was dear to Him as He accepted water from the hands of the Samaritan women, who was detested and avoided by Jews altogether. God created every man equal in this Earth and we created various distinctions among us. But for Jesus, there was no one pure or impure, guilty or innocent, or superior or inferior. He loved them all equally and wanted everyone to repent for their sins and be delivered. Also, He taught us that earthly water will end one day and people drinking that water will get thirsty again. But the spiritual thirst can be quenched by the Holy Spirit, that can only come from Jesus Christ.
According to Bruce’s explanation of “living water”, we come to learn that when Jesus spoke about the “living water”, the woman mistook it for the spring that fed water to the Jacob’s well. But in fact, Jesus was talking about the spring of eternal spirituality that would be deeply embedded into a person’s heart that would never dry up or need replenishing. Bruce explained that like water from the earthly river could not quench thirst perpetually. Our spiritual thirst would not be quenched by the Holy Spirit, but it would flow on forever in our souls and never run dry. As quenching the spiritual thirst would mean our growth in the Holy Spirit would stunt. But instead, we would be given “an inward source of satisfaction” (Bruce, 1994). The fountain of the “living water” would provide the joy of salvation and redemption in Christ and enjoy the eternal life that would come after the Day of Judgement.
Jesus was the son of God. He was with God when everything was being created, from the heavens and the earth, to the moon and planets and all forms of life on earth, “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.” (NIV BIBLE- JOHN- 1:3-4). He knew everyone even before they themselves knew about them. He created the life as we know and He is the spring from which all life ensued. He did not need to hear or learn about a person from themselves or from others, because He knew everyone inside-out.
The Samaritans worshipped MT. Gerizim because they believed that through the tenth commandment, Moses ordered them to protect that mountain and pay homage by making pilgrimages to it thrice a year.
God is not a physical being that is confined to the ideals of seeing or touching or hearing. He is the spirit that can only be felt through our hearts and minds. “God created mankind in his own image” (NIV BIBLE- GENESIS- 1:27), though it does not signify the physical image, but the moral and rational image. So, we need not try to find a physical form of God to worship. Man is made of flesh, but not God. We must believe in his spirit and the truth that he beholds. We must worship God with no other agenda than praising Him and glorifying Him. We do not need to attribute any form of rituals or find a certain place to worship Him, because He lives in our hearts.
The Samaritan woman took Jesus to be a prophet. When Jesus explained to her that they do not need any place or temple or a particular method to pray to God, she told him that when the Messiah would come, He would explain everything to them on these matters. At this, Jesus introduced Himself to be Messiah who is to come. With these words, Jesus claimed that He was the Promised Son who was to come and live among men. By speaking so wonderfully with her, about her life and how and where to pray God, Jesus showed that for Him every person was equal and He did not despise or love one race over another.
By “sowing and reaping”, Jesus meant the redemption of the lost souls that would occur because of the change of hearts of men from evil towards good. Sowing meant putting the words of God inside men with the hope that they might change their hardened hearts and open them to accept the true and living God into their hearts. Reaping meant the people opening their hearts and welcoming the words of God and reforming their lives for the better. Since long back, many prophets had come and gone, preaching about God and how men should abstain from the path of evil and return back to the path of righteousness. Jesus, too, came in flesh in this earth to live among men and preach the words of God. Many people listened and believed and many did not. Those that believed will be saved and those that did not, will face eternal damnation.
The people of Samaria, who came to visit Jesus at the insistence of the woman to whom Jesus said that He was the Messiah, said this. After hearing from the Samaritan woman all that Jesus had said about her, they went to Jesus and urged Him to stay with them for a few days. Jesus stayed with them for two days and preached God’s words within them. They were very impressed with His words and therefore, said that not because of the woman’s testimony, they believed that Jesus was the Messiah because of the words that he spoke amongst them. The way He stayed and spoke amongst them, showed His humility and the fact that He did not discriminate among any people and loved them all, brought about this belief in them.
Jesus is the son of God. When the official told Jesus about his son, Jesus asked him to go home and he would find his son alive. Later, the official’s servants confirmed the time of his son’s healing, which coincided with the same time when Jesus said that his son would live. Thus, it shows that Jesus truly is the son of God, who triumphed death. It showed that Jesus words were infallible and those who believed in His words without asking for any signs or miracles, would find many blessings in their life.
These verses are absent in certain modern versions because of the doubt of them not being original verses. The missing verses notified about the angels stirring the water of the pool and whoever would the first to get onto the pool after one such stirring, would be healed of all his/ her diseases. The lines were omitted not to avoid the mention of the angles, as the Bible is strewn with references about angels. But these lines were omitted, perhaps, to not draw attention towards the angels and put the limelight on Jesus, who is the actual healer.
Those who were healed, were cured because of their faith in Jesus. But those who witnessed the healing process, were brought into faith by the miracle. Thus, the healing miracles occurred due to faith in the believer’s heart and created faith in the heart of the non-believers. This is the true beauty of Christ. He never forced or coerced anyone into believing Him. But His simplicity and humility attracted people towards Him.
Throughout the four Gospels, there are several instances of open hostility to Jesus. Among them, the first one to occur in the Fourth Gospel is the conspiracy of the Jewish leaders to persecute Jesus in Chapter 5, which began after He healed a diseased man on the day of Sabbath. The day of Sabbath was considered to be holy and people refrained from doing any work on that day. But Jesus healed the man on that day and the Jewish leaders didn’t approve of such behaviour, where healing was considered to be a work.
The Jewish tradition mentioned thirty-nine categories of work that were prohibited on the Sabbath day. The thirty-ninth prohibited work was carrying something from one place to another. And as such, the carrying of the mat by the man, was considered a work and therefore, violated the Sabbath day.
the writer meant to say that the cause of the man’s suffering, in this case, was his own sins. So, his sins were the reason that he had to suffer so. So, if he didn’t want to suffer any more, he must stop sinning. By more suffering, the writer meant to signify eternal damnation that would ensue if a man didn’t stop and repent for his sins.
In verse 5:16, Jesus said that His Father, the Almighty God, is at work even on the Day of Sabbath, as well as He, Himself. But Jewish tradition controlled people from working on the Sabbath day. So, when Jesus said that He and His Father both are at work on that day, it violated the Jewish rule of abstaining from any work on that particular day. The charge that the Jews brought against Jesus was related to this particular banter on not working on the Sabbath day while Jesus healed a man on that day.
The Jews conspired against killing Jesus from that time itself not only because He was breaking the Sabbath day rule, but also because because He was calling Himself the son of God and thereby, placing Himself equal to the status of God. The people had distanced themselves so greatly from God that they could not realise when God sent His own son, Jesus Christ, to live and die among them and for their sins. Even after so many sign and miracles, their hardened hearts could not welcome Jesus because they were blinded by the mountains of sins they had done. So, they conspired to kill Jesus.
In these verses, Jesus claims that He does not do anything on His own, but it is from His Father that he gained the power to do those works. He could do only those things which God had taught and shown Him. Many more greater works and miracles Jesus would perform in later days because God will have shown Him those greater works. Jesus foretold that He would be resurrected by God and in that similar way, He was giving back life to those He seemed fair. He also told that God does not judge anyone. He loves everyone equally. But the power of judgement had been entrusted to Jesus, who would punish the evil and bless the pure with eternal life on the final day of Judgement, so that everyone would honour the words of Jesus and listen to them with open heart and minds. Because whoever does not honour Jesus or His words, disregards God as well, because it is God Himself who sent His son amongst us to preach His words. So if we do not believe in the words of Jesus, we also do not believe in God. So, whoever believed in Jesus and His words, believed in God and will be rewarded with the eternal life that He promised.
From the time people open their hearts to the words of Christ and for the Holy Spirit to dwell in it, the journey to the eternal life starts. By the Great Resurrection, we mean the time when Jesus rose from death three days after His crucifixion. but the Great Resurrection can also mean the people being risen from spiritual death. The moment from which we start believing in the words of Christ and leading our life according to His way, we are being rescued from our spiritual; death, and from that moment on-wards, we start our journey towards the eternal life that had been promised to us by God
This Gospel lists that everything that Jesus does is through God and for God. It is through God that all his power to heal and serve comes. Again, it is for God whatever He is doing, because it has been taught to Him by God Himself, just like a father teaches his son the good ways of leading a life. It is because God loves his son, Jesus Christ and through Jesus, God will perform many miracles so that people may believe and leave their lives of sin behind and start afresh in the holy name of Jesus Christ. Jesus foretold about the resurrection in which He would rise from death. The way in which God has the power to rise the dead from the grasp of death, similarly, Jesus’ power to raise the dead emanates from His Father and He through Him, Jesus can raise anyone from death. Jesus claimed that God does not judge anybody, but has given the power to Christ to judge to condemn them or bless them with eternal life. Finally, whoever honours Christ, honours the Father and whoever doesn’t, doesn’t honour the Father as well. Because it is God’s will to have sent His son among us to live and preach His words. So, whoever do not believe in Christ and His words, do not believe in God as well.
In verse 25, the “dead” refers to the persons who are spiritually dead. It refers to the persons who are drowned in oceans of sins. So whichever spiritually dead person listens to the call of Christ and responds, would be saved from damnation and would be blessed with eternal life. When the spiritually dead will respond to the voice of Christ, they would be filled with the Holy Spirit and their lives would be filled with blessings. In verses 28-29, the phrase “all that are in the tomb” refers to the physical death. It refers to the final day of Judgement, where all those who had repented for their sins, would be save d and all those who had sinned their entire life without any sign of guilt or remorse, would’ve be subjected to eternal damnation.
The five witnesses that bear testimony to Christ are-
The Jews were very ardent readers of the Scriptures. They put the words of the Scriptures before anything else. But they moulded the meaning of the Scriptures according to their own need and preferences. There is a difference between faith and believe. All they did was believe in the words that were written but not faith on those words. Jesus gave them example of human as well written testimony supported with signs and miracles. But all those evidences were not enough for them and would never be enough because there hearts were not open to accepting the words of God. It was not because they were unaware of the facts, but they were unwilling to accept them. The matter is that no amount of evidence or proof would be able to soften their hearts that was so heavy with sins and thus, they would not accept Jesus and His words, even if that meant getting the blessing of an eternal life.
Most of the Jews would accept a false Messiah instead of Jesus because Jesus came in the name of His Father and that false Messiah would come in his own name. Jesus came not at His own accord, but at the will of God, to fulfil His work. No matter how many ever evidence He would provide to the, they would not believe or accept Him. It was not a matter of faith or belief. Their hearts were so prejudiced against Him that they would never have accepted Him, and were more likely to accept a false prophet in His place.
A prominent pseudo-Messiah, Simeon ben Kosebah, who claimed to be a Messiah from the House of David, backed by Akita, one of the most eminent rabbi of the time, revolted against Rome. The Roman emperor, Hadrian, decided to integrate the Jews into his empire and thereby, prohibited circumcision, erected the temple of Jupiter Capitpolinus on the ruins of the Jewish Temple, etc. enraged by such happenings, the Jews rebelled under Simeon Ben Kosebah. The Christians abstained themselves from joining in this war. The Jewish army had a disheartening defeat and Simeon was killed in the process. The difference between this pseudo-Messiah and Simeon was that Jesus came in peace, whereas Simeon led a bloody revolt. He is called pseudo because nothing he did resembled or even spoke of God.
The people were busy in getting accolades and praises from other persons that they did not have any time to stop and receive God’s glory. They were so busy boosting about themselves, that they had hardly any time to praise the Lord. They were so busy in beating their own drums, that they hardly had any time to accept and live according to the words of God. And therefore, anyone who said to them about God’s word or even about God, it seemed silly and funny to them. They did not have Holy Spirit in them and therefore, their empty self boasted around the emptiness of earthly glories and didn’t understand the heavenly glories that could only be understood by the presence of the Holy Spirit within them.
Jesus likely referred to the book of Deuteronomy 18:15-22, in verse 46.
“The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him. For this is what you asked of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, “Let us not hear the voice of the LORD our God nor see this great fire anymore, or we will die.”The LORD said to me: “What they say is good. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put my words in his mouth. He will tell them everything I command him. I myself will call to account anyone who does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name. But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, is to be put to death.”You may say to yourselves, “How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the LORD?” If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the LORD does not take place or come true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously, so do not be alarmed.” (NIV BIBLE- DEUTERONOMY- 18:15-22).
The miracle of distributing bread and fish among thousands of people, other than the Great Resurrection, is mentioned in all the four Gospels. In all of them, a great crowd appears before Jesus, listening to His sermons and it gets late and Jesus asks his disciples to make food arrangements for all of them present there. When His disciples remain perplexed at their inability to do so, He breaks the scanty number of bread and fish available at His disposal in the name of God, to feed thousands of them. At the end, every time we find excess food remaining for the disciples to divide amongst them.
After Jesus had crossed to the far shore of Galilean Sea, also known as the Sea of Tiberias, a big crowd of people followed Him after they had heard about the many miraculous healings He had performed. From there, Jesus went up on to the mountain-side, where he sat down along with his disciples to heal and teach the large crowd that had gathered. It was at this place that the feeding of the five thousand people took place.
A large crowd gathered before Jesus after hearing about Him healing many people. Jesus took compassion on them and healed the sick people. To Jesus, the crowd seemed like sheep lost without their shepherd. It meant that the crowd seemed to have no direction of their life. They knew no difference between good and bad. So, He started to teach them. Since it was already getting late, he asked his disciples to gather food for the people so as not to send them home in an empty stomach. Also, He wanted to see how His disciples would react at this unusual and impossible to achieve command.
When Jesus asked His disciples to make arrangements to feed five thousand people, they were perplexed and astonished. Then, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, who was one of the disciples of Jesus, stepped up and offered to Jesus the small five barley loaves of bread and two small fish that he had with him.
When we live our life in the name of Jesus Christ, everything seems to be in an orderly fashion. There is no place for chaos in our lives in Christ. Even in this incident, we find this principle of orderliness being depicted in such a beautiful manner. Jesus asked His disciples to make the people sit on the green grass, “in groups of hundreds and fifties” (NIV BIBLE- MARK- 6:40).
The term “Eucharist” means giving thanks, which is also known as the Holy Communion. It is attributed to the Last Supper of Christ with His disciples, where ‘he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.”In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.”’ This tradition incorporated in the Christian tradition not only enhances the believers’ faith in Christ but also strengthens relation among the fellow Christians.
Even after feeding the five thousand people, Jesus asked His disciples to gather the leftover bread and fish so that nothing was wasted. It was found that twelve baskets of barley loaves left with them. From this incident, it can be seen that from five loaves of bread, Jesus fed five thousand with still twelve baskets remaining out of them. It may be presumed that when the gathered people saw the disciples sharing their food among them, the people who had some food along with them, also started sharing them with the others. In this way, everyone started sharing whatever they had with them and therefore, more than what was needed got gathered. So, we learn that in Christ, we will never run out of anything because He knows what we need, “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” (NIV BIBLE- MATTHEW- 6:26)
After they saw this miracle, the people gathered before Jesus, began to discuss among themselves that He was the promised prophet sent to them. Jesus realized that these people would forcefully try to make Him king and so He retired to the mountain by Himself. Jesus came to establish a kingdom of peace and love. But these people wanted to make an earthly kingdom, where they wanted to rise to glory by war and bloodshed. They wanted earthly pleasures and glory and fame. But Jesus’ kingdom had nothing to do with any materialistic pleasures. He came to mend the bond between the actual king, God, and his people, who had broken the bond by sinning against Him.
Jesus’ disciples were afraid when they saw Jesus walking on water during the storm because it was dark and when they saw a figure walking towards them on the water, they were terrified because they thought it was a ghost or a spirit.
By “It is I”, Jesus consoles His disciples that it was Him who they saw walking on the water.
Jesus accused the multitude of people following Him because of the free food that He offered them and not for the miracles He had performed. It meant that they were interested in filling themselves with earthly food but not with the spiritual food that would enrich their souls. The signs and miracles only served the purpose of amusing the people and not enkindle the light of faith in them, because they did not want to believe Him.
Jesus said that instead of thinking about material food, they must think about enriching themselves with spiritual food. Material food will not be able to quench their eternal hunger and they would have to feed themselves again. Moreover, no earthly thing endures forever. But the spiritual food would quench their hunger for the Holy Spirit. It will give them an eternal life in God. And this can be only provided by Jesus Christ, who have been approved by God Himself. Only through Jesus can we receive this Holy Spirit, that will bring peace and satisfaction on our hearts.
The people wanted to see a greater sign as it was an excuse for them to not believe Jesus. When Jesus told them that they were not there to listen to His words but to receive free food, they did not like His response. Jesus asked them to believe in Him to receive the Holy Spirit. But they were not interested in His teachings. However or whatever great signs Jesus may have shown or given them, it would have never been enough for them because they did not want to believe. If they did not believe once, they will never believe. And if they did not believe before seeing any sign, they wouldn’t believe even after seeing thousands.
In John 6:48, Jesus calls Himself to be “the bread of life”.
In John 8:12, He is “the light of the world”.
In John 10:7,9, He is “the gate for the sheep”, and whoever believed and entered in His name, would be saved.
In John 10:11,14, He is “the good shepherd” who knew His sheep (people) and the sheep (people) knew Him
In John 11:25, He is “the resurrection and the life”.
In John 14:6, He is “the way and the truth and the life”.
In John 15:1,5, He is “the true vine” and we “are the branches”.
Verses 38, 39 and 40 of Chapter 6 of the Fourth Gospel states that Jesus did not come in Earth to do His own work but to serve His Father, who had sent Him to carry out His will. God’s will is that Jesus bring all lost souls back to God so that they may be risen on the final Judgement Day and be blessed with eternal life with God. It is God’s will that whoever believed in Jesus and lived life according to His teachings, would be risen from death in the final day of Judgement.
According to verses 44-45, Jesus said that we can only find God when He calls us to Him. Unless God made the first move, we would not find Him. Also, only those who had received the call from God, believed in Jesus Christ. But according to 1 Thessalonians and 2 Thessalonians, we see that some Christian interpreters made it about themselves, that people were drawn to God only because they were moved after hearing the Gospels from them.
Jesus dies for our sins. He had to pay for our sins through His flesh and blood. He made the covenant of redemption with us through His flesh and blood. So eating His flesh and drinking His blood means taking a part in His grand promise. Also, His flesh and blood are the food to our hungry souls. By accepting His flesh and blood, we accept Christ into our hearts. Through Him, we shall also live, always quenched and satisfied spiritually.
Jesus offered His flesh as food for humanity that whoever ate that flesh would gain eternal life. It meant that whoever would believe in Jesus and His words would find the Holy Spirit within them and they would not anything else and would find eternal life. His sacrifice was not only for the Jews or the Gentiles. It was for everyone who would believe Him. He never made the distinctions that we people created. He suffered for the entire mankind so that they may be saved.
In this discourse, Jesus fed five thousand people and said that His flesh was the bread and His blood was the wine sent from Heaven to quench the spiritual hunger and thirst of men. In the Last Supper, Jesus offered His blood and flesh as a promise of eternal life to us. So, the essence of Holy Communion is implied in this discourse in the fact that He offered Himself to sufferings so that we find redemption in Him.
By “hard saying”, it meant “hard teaching” (NIV BIBLE- JOHN- 6:60), which meant any teaching that was intolerable or offensive. The symbolism of offering flesh and blood is in itself gory and not very much acceptable to the people. But the fact that Jesus was not going to start a conquest or war to take the Jews to their supposed glory was grossly unacceptable to them. They wanted the Messiah to be a political king and not a spiritual one. So, to them these particular words of Christ were unacceptable and not difficult to grasp.
By “Where he was before”, Jesus meant to describe the magnificence of Heaven from where He has descended. Jesus meant to explain the glory and majesty of God’s abode.
Only by accepting and consuming the “words” of Jesus to their fullest extent, people’s spiritual hunger will be quenched. Only by seeing or touching the food, we do not get nutrition. It is only when we eat the food, do we gain strength. Similarly, only by listening to Christ’s words won’t help. People need to understand and grasp those words deep within them to be baptised with the Holy Spirit. And with the Holy Spirit within them, they will be blessed with eternal life. With our death, our earthly flesh will disintegrate. But we will find eternal life in Christ.
Here, disciples do not refer to the twelve core disciples of Christ, but all those who followed and listened to Him are referred to as disciples. So, when they heard that only those that truly believed in Him and were prepared to commit everything to Him, would see eternal life, they left Him because of their shallow interests which was meant to serve their own selfish interest. They rejected Christ because they did not want to change their minds.
Jesus asked his twelve disciples if they, too, wanted to leave Him. But Simon Peter replied that they had nowhere to go as they had realised He was the “Holy One of God.” (NIV BIBLE- JOHN- 6:69) and that only through Him they could get eternal life.
In Matthew 16:16, Peter called Him, “the Son of the living God”. The difference is that in Matthew, Peter evoked the Father-Son relationship between God and Jesus. But in John, he ascribed Jesus to be belonging to God, to be with God, to the tune of “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (NIV BIBLE- JOHN- 1:1).
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