What do we learn from this re-enactment of the feeding of the five thousand? The first thing is it teaches us that Christ's power, his divine power, is resident in him; it is permanent; it is ongoing. He did not just once feed five thousand, he could a short time afterwards do the same thing again. What he did once, he could just as easily do twice, or had it pleased him, three times, because his power does not change. He is the Lord of glory. He is God. If you go to him for forgiveness and new life, his power is just the same. It has not faded over time, as if that generation was blessed with his presence in a way that we can never know. He is the same forever and his promises and his gracious invitation are the same forever.
Then too we see the ongoing lack of understanding of the disciples. What a picture of us! We are taught one lesson of faith; we have a crisis and difficulty, and we pray, and God hears our prayers and answers from on high. Then shortly afterwards we have another crisis and another test, and we are floundering once again. Just like the disciples, we are so slow to learn, so slow to remember and recall blessing after blessing, provision after provision. It is true of the disciples. In so short a time, events completely repeat themselves and they are saying, ‘How is so great a crowd to be provided for?’, and there are at a loss. The roots of unbelief!
Unbelief is in the heart. We are so rationalistic and materialistic. Even after salvation with a new nature we are constantly ensnared by our fleshliness. How is this going to be done? How is that going to be done? Faith fails to operate, even though it has been proved before. We learn from this that faith depends to some extent on recollection. You remember things: you remember blessings; you remember lessons. You commemorate them; you keep them in mind, because faith rests on recollection in the Christian life.
Thirdly, we see from this event that Gentiles also are blessed. Though it is not the calling of Christ to reach out yet to the Gentiles – the call of the gospel to the Gentiles awaited till after Calvary, after the resurrection, after day of Pentecost, and then begins the great Gentile mission. Christ is therefore able to say that he is not called to the Gentiles, but of the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and the reason for that is fairly clear too: there was as yet no church. What had to happen is that the Jews had to come in first: three thousand on the day of Pentecost, five thousand just a few days later, then more and more. Jewish people, because they had been taught from the Scriptures since childhood, were quick learners. Among the earliest converted Jews, teachers could be raised up, apostles, of course, and then pastors and teachers, and the fledgling church could be formed. So then there were teachers for the Gentiles. Had the Gentiles of Samaria come in before the crucifixion in large numbers, who would have been their teachers? They were not conversant with Scriptures, except for their own distorted view of them. So at this stage the Gentiles are not being called. But nevertheless, more and more you see in the Gospel record something being done for the Gentiles. Immediately after Christ's encounter with the Syro-Phoenician woman, he comes to Decapolis where there were a lot of Gentiles, and they benefit too. This is why in Matthew's account in the preceding verses when Christ had come to this area, and healed many, we find the people are glorifying ‘the God of Israel’. That would be a very cumbersome statement if there were not Gentiles present. So more and more the olive branch is being held out to the Gentiles for the inclusive church that will be brought about soon.
This time it is four thousand. Why does the number vary? That is pretty obvious. If it were five thousand again, then the cynics would all be saying, ‘This is just confusion in the record. This is one claimed event, wrongly and variously reported.’ So the number varies, and we are quite sure that it is two separate occasions as the record shows.