“How can these things be?” is a very natural question when the human mind contemplates the works and ways of God. It is, however, the query of unbelief, not of faith. Whether it be the collapse of Jericho’s walls, Jonah’s three days’ abode in the fish’s belly, our Lord’s walking on the sea, or any other wonder—nothing staggers the heart that has learned to trust God and believe His word.
When the Saviour refused to be made king after the feeding of the five thousand, He went up into a mountain to pray, bidding his disciples cross to the other side of the Sea of Gennesaret. It is a picture of what was soon to take place—His going up to God to enter upon His present ministry of intercession, leaving His disciples to face the billows of this stormy world during His absence. The twelve found their passage rough and trying, as followers of a rejected and crucified Lord have ever found life and testimony here. Many a storm has Satan raised in the hope of destroying all witness to the Name he hates. In the fourth watch of the night the Lord went to the disciples walking on the water. Thinking it was an apparition, they cried out in fear, but were soon calmed by His cheery call: “It is I; (or “I am,”) be not afraid.” He has never failed to draw near to His own in their hours of distress and need. He is the “I am” of Exodus 3:14. The possibilities involved in such a name forbid the smallest questioning of unbelief. “Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains he carried into the midst of the sea” (Psa. 46:2).
The boat is the emblem of the old system of things in which our Lord left His disciples at His glorification. The Book of Acts shows how tenaciously they clung to the old order, with its earthly sanctuary, its successional priesthood, etc., and how very slow they were in learning that Christianity is essentially a heavenly and spiritual system. Instead of being a graft upon Judaism, Christianity is its total opposite in character and spirit. Judaism, with its gorgeous ritual, appealed to the senses; he who understood Christianity better than any says, “We walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7). Satan’s aim has always been to corrupt the work of God; hence when the old boat of Judaism was destroyed by Titus he set to work to prepare another boat under Christ’s name. Earthly sanctuaries, priests claiming successional rights, etc., soon appeared, to the complete falsification of the testimony of God.
Matthew, Mark and John all tell us of our Lord’s walk on the water; Matthew adds another feature (Matt. 14:24-33). Peter, when he learned that it was the Lord who was approaching, begged for permission to go to Him. This being granted, he leaped into the sea and went to Jesus. For a moment he faltered as he saw the wind and waves, but a cry from his lips and a touch from the Master’s Hand made his feet secure. In like manner the individual believer of to-day who turns his back on Christendom’s religious boats in obedience to the call in Hebrews 13:13, must look to the Lord alone for sustainment in his walk of faith. But the first act of faith, without which nothing else is possible, is the soul’s humble obedience to Him for pardon and salvation.
The storm ceased when the Lord and Peter stepped aboard the boat. Similarly the world’s raging will be hushed when Christ and His saints show themselves once more in the midst of Israel.