John 6:23 Commentary and Bible Study

Not finding him there, they took shipping in boats that had since arrived from Tiberias and came to Capernaum, where they thought he might be. Capernaum was at the north-east side of the lake. He had made it his base during the 16 months of the so-called great Galilean ministry, and they knew that is where he would be most likely to resort. Later on in the chapter we are told where they found him, in the synagogue in Capernaum. Seeking for Jesus, they still had this concern to make him king. They were looking for earthly salvation. Previously the apostle John had told us that it was near to the Passover, and the people were thinking about Messiah. Unfortunately they were thinking wholly in terms of a political Messiah or Redeemer, one who would overthrow of the Roman yoke, one who would give them pride as a nation and make them prosperous again, and they thought this miracle worker, someone who could feed a vast crowd, could be him. They wanted therefore to make him king at great risk to themselves. The chief priests, the scribes and the Pharisees would be set against them if a popular movement arose to do that, and they would suffer the likelihood of a Roman backlash, but they were ready to do it. Those people who saw the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000 were ready for war. They would stand up for him, they would represent him. So in their patriotism and nationalism, they were determined to take him by force in order to proclaim him king. But Christ evaded them; it was not his time. He was here on the earth to follow a divinely established plan. He knew day by day what he would do, but the time was coming when he would be arrested and rejected and executed. And he would go to Calvary’s cross in order to be the representative of all who would be saved, and suffer and die and take their eternal punishment of sin for them. He would die an atoning, substitutionary death. All this had to be worked out in the future, so he had slipped away from them quietly.