THE FIVE LOAVES, THE SEVEN AND THE ONE (2)
[p. 69] THE FIVE LOAVES, THE SEVEN AND THE ONE (2)
I believe the Lord would raise an exercise with us as to what we have got which He can multiply and make available as food for His people. It is a poor thing to have that which makes a show before men, but which the Lord cannot multiply — that which shrinks into nothingness when He touches it. Laodicea makes a great boast of resources, but there is nothing there which the Lord can multiply: there is nothing for Him.
One cannot doubt that there is much instruction for us in what is conveyed by the disciples having five loaves on one occasion, seven on another, and then one. These occasions tested the perception and understanding of the disciples, and I think I may say they test our perception and understanding. It is a question of how we have learned Christ, of how we have become possessed of Him, for He alone is Bread for men. If you have an apprehension of Christ, the Lord can multiply that to any extent, and make it food for all His people. You may say, it is a very small apprehension, but the Lord would give you perception and understanding of how great what you apprehend really is. It is so great in relation to God that it is more than equal to supply all need. There is that in it which can be magnified and multiplied to any extent. I think the Lord would encourage us to take spiritual account of what we have, and to see what expansion it is capable of under His hand. I take it that we have all learned something spiritually of Christ; we have become possessed of Him. Now if we place that at the Lord’s disposal He can so multiply it that it becomes food for every one of His needy people who comes within our reach. He can make it reach out in strengthening grace to thousands! You may be feeling [p. 70] how little you have; the Lord would give you an impression of how great it is in His estimation, and of how He can bring out its greatness and astonish you by the capabilities that are in it.
What we find in the first incident is that the Lord’s compassion is drawn out to a greater crowd “because they were as sheep not having a shepherd”. That is, they needed care.
They seem to be rather contrasted with the many coming and going in chapter 6: 31, who were only a distraction, depriving the disciples of leisure even to eat. But these are seen of the Lord as subjects of compassion and as calling His shepherd care into exercise. I am sure there is a great crowd of this kind today. How many of His people are truly in this condition! A flock of sheep would always interest a true shepherd, and if he saw they lacked care and food it would move his heart. Now, are we looking upon the sheep of the flock of God with something of the shepherd solicitude that is in the heart of Christ? We speak of having part with Him. May it not be an empty word with us!
He would teach them many things. “He began to teach them”. It was in the exercise of His shepherd care: that is the kind of teaching the sheep need. You may be sure that every word of that teaching was marked by consideration for their true need, and by that which would help them spiritually in relation to God whose sheep they were. For a true shepherd would always have before him not only the sheep but the interests of their owner. The sheep are to be tended so that their owner may have full gain and pleasure in them.
It is humbling to find throughout the gospels that the disciples more often appear in contrast with the Lord than in concert with Him — humbling because it is a true picture of how we are so often found ourselves. Here they would have the people sent away to buy themselves bread but this was not His thought: “Give ye them to eat”. The disciples had what sufficed because they had what He could multiply. And I venture to say we have sufficient to feed the whole [p. 71] flock today if we placed it, as it were, under His hand for multiplication.
I regard the five loaves as representing the apprehension which the disciples had, that He was the Christ as come in on the line of the promises to Israel. He was to them Israel’s Messiah to bring in the kingdom of God. They had learned Him, believed on Him, and were following Him as having the faith of this. He had come in to meet all the need of Israel, to verify in Himself every promise of God in the Old Testament, the need only serving to show the resources and power that were in Him, and the true character of the kingdom of God. He was Zion’s provision abundantly blessed. To send the people away was to confess that He was not sufficient; that they must care for themselves. The disciples had five loaves: they had in figure an apprehension of Christ, but they had to learn how great He was in His availability for the flock of God, and how He could multiply what they had.
Now have not we five loaves? Are we not, through grace, possessed of this, that we know Christ as the perfect answer in grace to all the weakness and need of men? As need arose, God met it by promise, but when the time was fulfilled He brought in the verification of every promise in the Person of Christ. Have we not got the faith of that? Do we not know that all the wealth of God’s kingdom came here in grace to men in Christ? You may say, our apprehension is weak. Yes, ‘five’ speaks of that, but however weak the apprehension, the thing apprehended has infinite potentialities. Put it at the Lord’s disposal and He will show you the boundless possibilities that are there. It is just what the flock of God needs today.
When we come to the seven loaves we get a distinct advance upon the five. There is an important spiritual education in chapter 7 which I think would have the effect of giving us an apprehension of Christ answering to the seven loaves of chapter 8: 5. That is, the heart of man, even under the greatest outward show of purity, is seen exposed in the light [p. 72] of God as a fountain of impurity. But then we see another thing. The Lord uncovers the working of God in a Syrophenician woman by which she goes behind all the promises and counts directly upon what God is in Himself. It seems to me that when we come to learn what God is in His nature, in His ineffable goodness that cannot be other than what it is, no matter what men may be or whether they have any claim on the ground of promise or not, we come to an apprehension that is indicated by the number ‘seven’. It is perfection as known in its blessed Source in God Himself.
Then the incident at the end of chapter 7 presents the skill of Christ in dealing with man in respect to both his hearing and his speech. How wonderful to hear in such a way and to speak in such a way that it just becomes the evidence of the skill of Christ! This again would link itself in my mind with the number seven.
Now the crowd in chapter 8 calls out the Lord’s compassion “because they have stayed with me already three days and they have not anything they can eat”.
Before pursuing this subject further I feel constrained to seek light from God as to why in Luke and John we have the ‘five’ and not the ‘seven’, while Matthew and Mark give the ‘seven’ also? Would it connect with Matthew being the assembly gospel, as comes out in chapter 16, and with Mark showing full competency for service in the universal sphere indicated by the four thousand? Whereas in Luke it would be the ministry of divine grace to men as in local companies “by fifties”.
In Matthew there are no companies in connection with the five thousand or the seven thousand: it is universal.
In Mark He orders the disciples in the case of the five thousand “to make them all sit down by companies on the green grass. And they sat down in ranks by hundreds and by fifties” (Mark 6: 39, 40). But when we come to chapter 8 — the seven loaves — it is the crowd, four thousand, regarded universally.
[p. 73] In John the men are simply made to sit down, and we are told there was much grass in the place: there are no companies. It is really a figure of what is given “out of heaven” perfectly suited in grace to men as in dearth and death, but given out of heaven that men might eat and not die. It is God considering for men, and bringing in from heaven just what men need, that they may live in relation to Him.
In Matthew and Mark the Lord is educating His disciples to take the place of Israel as the light of the world, and as maintaining His service and testimony here. To this end He was giving them a knowledge of God in His goodness, and of His infinitely perfect service, that gave them a sense of perfection in One who had the heart of a Father, and in One, too, who was the Father’s delight in manhood. They were learning perfection in an altogether new way, so as to be competent to feed men with it. Not only that all men’s need can be met but it is met out of the perfection that is in divine Persons. God would set up in the place of Israel a witness to Himself in those who know Him through Jesus His beloved Son. I think the seven loaves would speak not only of every promise fulfilled but of God known in His own perfection as giving character to the new order and testimony that was coming in. Matthew and Mark are educational, to show how the line of promise is confirmed and established in Christ, but to lead on to the line of revelation and to the new order and testimony that was about to take the place of Israel. Luke and John give us the development of what is connected with revelation, both in relation to every question connected with man’s responsibility and his having a wholly new place with God and in God’s house as in Christ, and in relation to life and family relationships.
In the ship there is no question of storm or toil on their part. The Lord is with them: they have one loaf in the ship. The only exercise in this connection is that no element should be admitted other than what was there. This is a very important exercise. In one sense it covers the whole exercise of the [p. 74] testimony. To perceive and understand the import of the loaves and to beware of foreign and injurious elements cover the whole exercise of those who are passing over, in isolation from the world, to the other side.
Here it is the exclusiveness of Christ; hence the one loaf. It is not His widely extended availability for man’s hunger, but the exclusiveness which makes Him the only One, and which involves the greatest care that nothing else should come in.
Here it is the leaven of the Pharisees and of Herod. The Sadducee does not come in here. It is religiousness or the world in its profane or political character. I have no doubt that in view of service these are the two great snares. The Sadducee would come in in Matthew because there it is a question of how your thoughts of Christ are formed, but in service the danger is that you go on the line of the religious man, assuming a sanctity that is not real, or you descend to the level of the world to avoid reproach and secure their approbation.