Walking on Water: Part 1

In Matthew 14, Mark 6, and John 6 we are told how Jesus walked on the water in the midst of a storm to come to His disciples who were stuck in the middle of the Sea of Galilee. This storm prophetically speaks of tribulation prior to the coming of Christ. There is much to learn in this story about the coming of Christ and its relation to tribulation.

First of all, this story occurs right after Passover (John 6:4). John was executed around the time of Passover, as we read in Matt. 14. Because John was a forerunner of Jesus, his execution ensured that Jesus would also be put to death a few years later. Jesus' death at a later Passover was the beginning of the persecution of the early Church at the hands of the religious leaders of the temple in Hagar-Jerusalem (Gal. 4:25-29).

After the Christians were forced into exile from Judea by persecution (Acts 8:1), the Roman government continued the persecution for a few centuries until Constantine put an end to it. Then the Church became institutionalized with established creeds and a singular lack of love. Maintaining its structure and authority over men took precedence over manifesting the love of God, and for this reason it began a campaign to persecute all that it viewed as heretics.

Some really were heretics, of course, but instead of speaking the truth in love, they persecuted them and sought to kill them for thinking differently. This is not the proper way to handle false teaching, of course. Among those persecuted were genuine believers in Jesus Christ--even if they did not recognize the authority and right of carnally-minded Church leaders to determine truth.

And so the storm of persecution continued in another form for the next thousand years or more, intensifying in the thirteenth century with the Spanish Inquisition. Only with the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century did Rome begin to lose its ability to persecute dissenters. Yet it continued in some countries into the twentieth century.

Then the main engine of persecution came to be communism, and this continued for most of the twentieth century, bringing us to the present day.

The point is this: The Church has been in tribulation for 2,000 years. Many millions have been killed even in just the past century. But in the midst of this long and sordid history, America was founded under the principles of religious freedom. As this nation grew and prospered, Christians began to forget the past. A new optimism was born, and a new doctrine of escaping tribulation through a "rapture" began to emerge.

The pre-tribulation rapture was not born among persecuted Christians, but took hold of this new generation of American and British Christians that had not experienced tribulation. Those Christians in communist prisons laughed at this doctrine. "What do you mean, escape the tribulation?" they asked. It is, unfortunately, an American vanity that tribulation does not exist until it comes to America. They lack a broader view of the world and of history, and this has only worsened in recent years.

So getting back to the story in Matt. 14, Jesus broke the bread near the time of Passover to signify His death on the cross. He gathered up the fragments that remained to signify His resurrection and the fact that He ended up with more than He had at the start. And then He went into a high mountain to pray (Matt. 14:23). This signified His ascension to the throne, where He ever lives to make intercession for us.

He sent His disciples across the lake in a boat, knowing full well that a storm was brewing. Why? No doubt because He was aware that they had to go through that experience, and He had to come to them in the midst of the storm, in order to give us a pattern of tribulation and of His coming.

He did not stop the storm from coming. He did not even stop the storm when it came time to walk on the water to the disciples. He did not stop the storm until He was in the boat with them. Matt. 14:32 says, "and when they [Peter and Jesus] were come into the ship, the wind ceased." In other words, the Church will experience tribulation until the second coming of Christ. When He comes, it ends.

But look at the manner of His coming to them, for this reveals some important patterns of Christ's second coming as well. Peter went out to meet Him, even as the overcomers will go out to meet Him. The rest of the disciples (Church) remained in the boat. They did NOT go out to meet Him, even though they were believers. Peter represents the overcomers; the rest of the disciples represent the Church in the story.

Secondly, when Peter went out to meet Him, it was to escort Jesus back to the boat. Jesus did NOT take Peter back to the shore from whence He came. Normal rapture teaching says the opposite, that Jesus will come and take ALL the disciples back to the shore and presumably to the high mountain from whence He had come.

Think about that. When Paul says in 1 Thess. 4:17 that we will "be caught up to meet the Lord in the air," the key is in understanding the Greek word translated "to meet." The Greek word is a special word, apantesis. It is a word used to describe a delegation going out to meet a visiting dignitary to escort him back to town. Today we call it, "rolling out the red carpet." Government officials always send a delegation to meet other visiting dignitaries.

Whenever the Bible uses the term apantesis, it is always to express this idea. Other than in 1 Thess. 4:17, the word is used in Matthew 25:1 and 6, where the virgins go out to meet the Bridegroom. The phrase "go ye out to meet Him" does not mean that they are waiting for Him to escort them back to heaven, but that they are to escort Him to the wedding place where they are awaiting His coming.

Likewise, in Acts 28:15, as the Roman soldiers were bringing Paul to Rome, we read, "and from thence, when the brethren heard of us, they came to meet us as far as Appii forum and the three taverns." Did they all go back to Jerusalem with Paul? Of course not. They met Paul as they would a visiting dignitary to escort Him to Rome.

These are the only places where the Greek word apantesis appears in Scripture. Its meaning is well illustrated by Peter going out to meet Jesus in the middle of the lake. The biblical usage of the term proves to be opposite of the modern rapture teaching. Don't take my word for it. Look it up for yourself.

So we are given the essential order of events at Christ's second coming. First, from Jesus' death on the cross at Passover 2,000 years ago to the end of the Pentecostal Age, the disciples will have tribulation, a "storm," while Jesus is on the high mountain ("heaven") making intercession for us--not to keep us from evil, but to deliver us through it. Jesus said in John 16:33,

"In the world you shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."

Then at the end, Jesus comes, and Peter (the overcomers) go out to meet Him. The wind and waves work to expose his last remaining fear, and he begins to sink. A few years ago I was shown prophetically that this pictures a final cleansing (baptism) that must take place before we can be fully set free. Peter then escorts Him back to the boat (the earth) where the rest of the Church is waiting.

Then the wind ceases, and the whole boat is transported to Capernaum on the other side of the lake. Capernaum is a compound word from two Hebrew words: Kaphar and Nahum. Kaphar means "covering." Nahum means "Comforter" (Eph. 3:19). In other words, Jesus took them to the "place" of the covering of the Comforter, the fulness of the Spirit (Eph. 3:19) in the feast of Tabernacles.