Dr. Sproul starts this section expounding on Jesus' walking on the water with an investigation into the phrase "I am" in Greek ego eimi. When Jesus is found on the other side of the sea a discussion starts concerning why they seek Him. Dr. Sproul starts the discussion concerning food that endures to everlasting life.

Our Scripture this morning is once again from the sixth chapter of the gospel according to Saint John. It was published in the bulletin that we are to begin at verse 22, but I am going to preempt that and begin earlier at verse 15. John 6:15–35:

Therefore when Jesus perceived that they were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king, He departed again to the mountain by Himself alone.

Now when evening came, His disciples went down to the sea, got into the boat, and went over the sea toward Capernaum. And it was already dark, and Jesus had not come to them. Then the sea arose because a great wind was blowing. So when they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and drawing near the boat; and they were afraid. But He said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.” Then they willingly received Him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land where they were going.

On the following day, when the people who were standing on the other side of the sea saw that there was no other boat there, except that one which His disciples had entered, and that Jesus had not entered the boat with His disciples, but His disciples had gone away alone—however, other boats came from Tiberias, near the place where they ate bread after the Lord had given thanks—when the people therefore saw that Jesus was not there, nor His disciples, they also got into boats and came to Capernaum, seeking Jesus. And when they found Him on the other side of the sea, they said to Him, “Rabbi, when did You come here?”

Jesus answered them and said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him.”

Then they said to Him, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?”

Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.”

Therefore they said to Him, “What sign will You perform then, that we may see it and believe You? What work will You do? Our fathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”

Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

Then they said to Him, “Lord, give us this bread always.”

And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.

Jesus Walks on the Sea

One of the reasons we take vows upon joining the church is that sometimes, we have to buttress our promises with sacred commitments. As fallen creatures, we are covenant breakers by nature, and we are taught by the Word of God that all men are liars. There is no exception to that. So, I have to confess to you that when we started this study of John’s gospel, I said that I would not be looking at every verse of this gospel but would be covering the highlights, and I lied. I realized that I had intended to pass over this brief passage that records the miracle of Christ walking on the water, and I just could not do it. I could not leave that out. It is too important to the whole gospel. It is too important, not only to our understanding of the person and work of Jesus, but to the continuity of what is going on in this extremely important chapter, John 6. So, after having confessed my sin and asked for your forgiveness and indulgence, I am going to start at verse 15 instead of verse 22.

We read that when Jesus perceived that the people were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king, they were not interested in electing or even drafting Him, but they wanted to compel Him to be their king. When Jesus noticed this and understood what they were about to do, He left the congregation. He left the multitude and sought solitude in a private place.

Now we read these foreboding words in verse 16, “Now when evening came, His disciples went down to the sea, got into the boat, and went over the sea toward Capernaum.” Notice that when John gives us the brief description of the scene, he says this: “And it was already dark, and Jesus had not come to them. Then the sea arose because a great wind was blowing. So when they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea.”

Deity Bursts Through the Veil

One of the things that we notice in the structure of John’s gospel is how alert John is to major themes and passages of Old Testament redemptive history. Even this bread of life discourse that he is introducing hearkens back to the feeding of the people in the wilderness with the manna that God provided from heaven.

If you remember our very first lesson from John’s gospel, the prologue of the gospel began with the words, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). When we looked at this, one could not miss the obvious connection to the opening words of the Old Testament, where we read in Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

Then in Genesis 1:2, we read a description of the yet unordered, unfinished work of divine creation. We read, “The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep.” I have mentioned before that one of the most ominous images used in Hebrew poetry is the image of the sea, because the sea is the figure of violence. The sea is the figure of that which is ominous, that which threatens destruction.

Not only was that true of the ocean, but it was also true of the Sea of Galilee. This sea was given to wild outbreaks of violence because it was six hundred feet below sea level and was situated, as it were, in the middle of a wind tunnel. The winds would come off the Mediterranean or the mountains and instantly, without warning, stir up violence in the sea. We see that in Matthew 8, where Jesus was in the boat when such a storm arose, and He was called upon to calm the storm.

It is that same body of water that we find in this passage. We are told that it was dark, and the waters were raging, with high waves. It is not a calm, placid pond that Jesus tiptoes gently across. As seasoned veterans of this lake, these professional fishermen are pulling at their oars to get across the lake, which is not that far across. They go three to four miles against this wind in the violent, choppy water, and they are making little to no progress.

Suddenly, the disciples see Jesus approaching them without the benefit of a boat, but walking, striding in the darkness over the chaotic frothing of this boiling sea—just as in creation God looked at the darkness and the emptiness and said, “Let there be light.” We are told in the beginning of John’s gospel that the incarnate Son is the One through whom creation came to pass, that it was the Logos of John 1 who created all things.

John said, “Nothing was made except by Him.” The Christ of the New Testament is the God of creation. His divine nature is masked and hidden by His human veil, but there are moments when His deity bursts through that veil and becomes obvious to anyone watching.

That is what happens when this One who is cloaked in mortality and veiled in humanity does what no human being could possibly do. He strides across the sea, and the waters support Him. The waters obey Him, and the darkness that seeks to engulf His disciples has no power over Him.

I Am Who I Am

Think for a moment how you would have felt if you were in that boat with the waves crashing against the gunwales, and the oars straining to bring inches of progress. You look up, and here comes the Master, who made the sea, who owns the sea, who rules the sea, and who now walks across the sea toward you.

The disciples had the same reaction they had on the previous occasion when He calmed the storm on the same sea. Instead of being relieved, throwing their sou’westers in the air, and saying, “We are glad to see You,” they were terrified. So would you be if you watched someone walk across an angry sea without sinking. But Jesus said to them in their terror: “It is I; do not be afraid.”

In recent weeks, I completed a series of messages for the radio called Knowing Christ: The I AM Sayings of Jesus, all taken from the gospel according to Saint John. These are those famous statements where Jesus declares such things as: “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), “I am the vine, you are the branches” (John 15:5), “I am the good shepherd” (John 10:11, 14), “I am the door” through which men must enter (John 10:9), “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35), “Before Abraham was, I AM” (John 8:58), and so on.

Those “I AM” sayings all have the characteristic of Jesus prefacing the descriptions of His own office with the strange combination of Greek words, egō eimi. The word egō in Greek means “I am.” We get the word ego from it. But they also have another verb meaning, “to be,” which is the word eimi, and eimi means “I am.”

So, if you put them together—egō eimi—what they are literally saying is “I am, I am,” as if one were stuttering. But also, when we look at the Greek translation of the Old Testament, Hebrew scholars translated the ineffable name of God, Yahweh, into the Greek language by this strange construction egō eimi, which can be translated, “I am who I am.”

Therefore, when Jesus says, “I am the door,” or “I am the bread of life,” almost every commentator recognizes that He is using the divine name for Himself. But when the scholars draw out the “I AMs” of Jesus from the gospel of John, they do not include this statement here, where He says: “It is I; do not be afraid.” I am not sure why, because it is exactly the same structure, and it is exactly the same meaning. Here, they are watching Jesus walking on the water. They are terrified. He says: “Don’t be afraid. Ego eimi, I am. I am who I am is here.”

Carried Through the Storm

Whether the next sentence communicates a second miracle is somewhat ambiguous in the text, because after Jesus announces that it is He in this manner, it says, “Then they willingly received Him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land where they were going.” This suggests that when He entered the boat, that was the end of the sea’s resistance to His disciples’ efforts to make headway against the wind and the waves. By His mere presence, the boat immediately came safely to the other shore.

There is an illustration here. I do not want to be maudlin, but ladies and gentlemen, this is the way our lives are. This text is not intended to be a parable. This is a historical narrative, not an illustration of what happens when Jesus comes into your life, but it certainly illustrates what happens when He comes into your life.

Your life is a time of pulling on the oars against resistance, trying to get somewhere. You are not getting anywhere; you are about to be engulfed, but as soon as Jesus gets in the boat, you are home free. That is what happens when Christ comes into the lives of His people. He gets us through the darkness. He gets us through the violence. He carries us through the storm.

Jesus Rebukes the Multitude

This is a transition from the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand, which was witnessed by thousands of people, to a miracle that is witnessed only by His disciples. However, it does not go unnoticed by the clamoring multitude.

As we read in verse 22, “On the following day, when the people who were standing on the other side of the sea saw that there was no other boat there, except the one which His disciples had entered, and that Jesus had not entered the boat with His disciples, but His disciples had gone away alone . . . ”

All these people went around the lake and wanted to be where Jesus was, so they came to Capernaum seeking Jesus, and John says, “When they found Him on the other side of the sea, they said to Him, ‘Rabbi, when did You come here?’” They were really saying, “How did You get here?”

Jesus does not give the answer I wish He would have given. I wish that when the people said, “How did you get here?” He had responded, “I walked,” and watched their reaction. But that is not what He did. Jesus knows what is on their minds and what they are looking for. He says to them, “I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw the signs.” He ignores their question. He does this all the time. They ask, “When did you come here?” He says: “Never mind. I say to you, you seek Me not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.”

On the one hand, they did seek Jesus because they saw the signs, but they did not see the significance of the signs. That is what Jesus is saying. “You saw the miracle, you enjoyed the benefits, and so you’ve been chasing after Me to make Me your king because I filled your stomachs. But will you want Me to be your king when you see the baptism with which I am baptized? You want to enter into the feast, but do you want to enter into My sufferings? Do you want to pick up My cross and follow Me?”

Jesus says, in effect, that these are fair-weather fans who are following Him. Then He says, “Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him.”

Food Which Perishes

This is as far as I will go, but I will not stop until I look at this part of the text: “Do not labor for the food which perishes.” I often hear people answer the question, “What are you doing with your life?” this way: “Well, I have a job.” I want to ask: “Is that your vocation? Is that what you want to do?” And they respond: “No. I’m just trying to put food on the table.” What an empty life, when our labor and our sweat and our toil are done simply so that we can put food on the table.

Sometimes it is necessary to do that because we have the responsibility to feed our families. If we cannot get work anywhere else, we have to do what is not our vocation just to make sure we get food on the table. But that is frustrating because that food perishes. You set the table one night, and you eat dinner. That is great, but tomorrow you have to set the table again. You have to get more food because every helping that you enjoy perishes. Jesus said, in essence: “Don’t spend your life pursuing that sort of thing. Don’t spend your life pursuing that which has no ultimate significance.”

I think about this every day. I see my friends who are not Christians get up in the morning, get dressed, go to work, and go through the anguish and the struggles that daily life brings. I am thinking, “Why are they doing this?” One morning, they wake up, they are sixty-five or seventy, and they say: “Why did I do that? Is that all there is?” It is not all there is. There is so much more than the food that perishes. Jesus says: “Seek that which is eternal. Invest in that which doesn’t perish. Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where there are no moths, no rust, and no thieves that come in to steal it.”

Have you ever asked yourself that question? What are you doing with your life? Why are you living the way you are living? What is it that you are trying to accomplish? What is it you hope to gain? Have you not heard that he who gains the whole world and loses his own soul has no profit? “Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you”—why? “Because God the Father has set His seal on Him.”

Food Which Endures

I have talked about the word seal before. Every time we have a baptism, I mention that the sacrament of baptism is not magic. It does not convert anyone, but it is God’s sign and seal of His promise of redemption for all who believe. Some people say, “What good is that?”

Have you seen the old Robin Hood movies where the king sends his henchmen into the town square, and they take a hammer, and they pound up a “wanted” sign of Robin Hood, with a reward of five hundred ducats for whoever gives information leading to the capture of this bandit? At the bottom of that edict, you will see a place where there is a wax inscription. The purpose of that wax inscription is to bear the image of the royal signet ring. How do you know it is not the village blacksmith who hung up this reward? You know it by the signet ring that bears the seal of the king, which authenticates that the message carries the authority of the king. This is what Jesus is saying about this eternal, everlasting bread, the bread that does not perish.

Jesus said, in essence: “I, the Son of Man, will give you this bread because the Father has put His seal upon Me. He has authenticated by these miracles that I have come from Him. I speak nothing on My own authority, but He has given to Me all authority on heaven and earth, and I have the authority to give eternal life to you.” He can do it. He is authorized to do it. Seek Him, for He is the One whom God has sealed to be your eternal provider. Let us pray.

Father, when we try to walk on dry land, we stumble. We fall. We trip over ourselves as we rush in hot pursuit of those things that perish. Father, by Your Spirit, turn our eyes upon the One who made the waters, the One who walks upon the water, the One to whom You have given the divine seal of Your approval, thereby authorizing Him to provide for us that bread that does not perish. For we ask it in His name. Amen.

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.