Jesus worked miracles to draw out faith himself, the one sent by God the Father

Faith in the one sent by God is the fundamental ‘work’ upon which everything else is built. Here’s how the miracles of the loaves pointed to this.

Jun 19, 2026

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Faith in the one sent by God is the fundamental ‘work’ upon which everything else is built. Here’s how the miracles of the loaves pointed to this.

Editor’s Notes

In the previous part, Fr Coleridge discussed what it meant for Our Lord to be “sealed by God the Father”. In this part, he expands on this in relation to faith.

Our Lord works miraculous signs which authenticate his mission – showing God’s “seal” – and which give him a right to have his teaching believed on his own authority.

This belief or faith – the assent of the intellect, moved by the will, under the influence of grace – is the fundamental work which God expects of us (and which is only possible with his grace, which he freely gives).

But it is precisely his authority to demand such faith that the crowd begin questioning.

For more on this series, see Part I.

Faith in the Son of Man

The Training of the Apostles, Part IV

Chapter X
St. John vi. 25–72; Story of the Gospels, § 74
Burns and Oates, London, 1885.
(Read on Corpus Christi)

The miracle was a seal

The fundamental meaning of the expression [“sealed by God”] is that which has been mentioned in the first place, namely, that the Son of Man is sealed by God with the seal of the Divinity united to His Sacred Humanity.

This Divine union makes Him the Author and Fountain of life, and therefore able to impart it, in what measure it may please Him, and in what manner it may please Him, according to the capacity of those to whom He may choose to impart it.

But the words imply also, not only that the Son of Man can give food that endureth unto everlasting life, but also that He is willing and desirous to do this, if only those for whom He intends so great a blessing do their part, labouring, not for the meat that perisheth, but for this Divine Food.

The proof of His willingness and desire to do this had lately been given to them in the miracle of the loaves, which again may thus be considered as a ‘sealing’ on the part of God the Father of the Son of Man, because it had been an exercise of miraculous power, one of the signs which God had given to Him to work, whereby His mission was authenticated, His compassion and His benevolence displayed, and a solid foundation furnished to them for their faith in His word.

He was now about to make an appeal to their faith in setting before them the doctrine in which was to be conveyed the promise of the food which endureth unto life everlasting. In this sense a seal was set by God not simply to the power of our Lord, and to the truth of His Divine Person, but also to His commission to teach, and to feed the people in the way He speaks of, to His willingness to do so, while at the same time the hearts of the people were prepared for this great boon.

The work of God

These words of our Lord, then, set before the multitude two things—one, that there is a Meat that endureth unto everlasting life, and the other, that there were certain works to be done by means of which this Food might be obtained from the Son of Man. The work by which it is to be obtained is one thing, and the food itself another.

‘They say unto Him, What shall we do that we may work the work of God?’

They call this work the work of God, in the same sense in which our Lord has told them to work for the Meat which endureth unto everlasting life. It has already been said that the word is the same in both places in the original. Thus the work of God of which they speak is not the work which God alone can do, but the work which He desires on our part, in order to the Divine work which He will Himself perform in giving us, if we correspond to His favours, the food of eternal life.

And this is here called a work and a labour, because faith is an act of the will directing the intelligence, an act which implies exertion, good will, resolution in the overcoming of difficulties, consisting in the slowness of the mind and the coldness of the heart towards God, His laws and His truth. It is a work which any low passion may impede, and which, as a matter of history, the greater mass of mankind accomplish with difficulty.

Faith in Him Who is sent

This is clear also from the answer of our Lord.

‘Jesus answered and said to them, This is the work of God, that you believe in Him Whom He hath sent.’

Faith is indeed the work and the gift of God, but it requires the cooperation of the human will and intelligence, and it is this part in the formation of faith of which our Lord speaks to them as the work of God which they can do.

This was the one great and pressing need of their souls at that time, that by prayer and reflection, and a careful guard of their conscience, an acting up to the light which they had, and an earnest search for more, they should render themselves fit for that further teaching which He had in store for them.

If they had been faithful, He would even have raised them to far higher knowledge of God than they as yet possessed, and which He was yearning to impart to them.

Their case was that of thousands of others in all times of the Church, with whom God has been dealing in His merciful Providence in the way of illumination and elevation, who reach a certain point in the path along which He would lead them, and are thus brought up to a critical moment in their spiritual life, when they are to make a choice between docility of mind, which may cost them something, and the rejection of greater light, which will involve their losing what they have already gained.

Request for a sign

Simple as is the answer of these people, it still shows that they were in danger of making the worst of the two choices presented to them. For they begin at once to cavil at His authority, whereas it was on that very authority alone that they ought to have received what He was going to propose to them.

They do not say, as St. Peter, that He had the words of eternal life, to whom should they go, how could they hesitate as to this work of God which He required of them? They do not say, like the poor father of the lunatic boy after the Transfiguration, Lord, we believe, help Thou our unbelief.

Their answer is only too like that captious demand for a sign from Heaven, which our Lord had already refused to listen to when it was made by His enemies. They asked for what they already had. For our Lord was continually insisting that the miracles which He wrought were the sufficient grounds for faith in His word.

‘They said therefore to Him, What sign therefore showest Thou, that we may see and believe Thee? What dost Thou work? Our fathers did eat manna in the desert, as it is written, “He gave them bread from Heaven to eat.”’

Faith in the Son of Man

Previous Chapter:

The Discourse in the Synagogue

From:
The Training of the Apostles, Part IV

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