One of the more prominent stories from the Gospels is the time Jesus walked on water. The story is found in the Gospels of John, Mark and Matthew.

But many miss (including me) the hidden message within this miracle. It confronts the allegations by some agnostics who claim that Gospel writers, except for John, did not recognize Christ’s deity.

According to Mark 6, Jesus had just fed the 5,000. Jesus then told His disciples to go by boat across the Sea of Galilee to Bethesda. Jesus remained behind to pray.

As the disciples were crossing the sea they were hit with a sudden storm. Because the Sea of Galilee is surrounded by mountains, storms pop up quickly when the cooler mountain air mixes with Galilee’s warm moist air.

The wind was pushing against them and as the disciples struggled with the oars. Jesus suddenly appeared walking on the water.

Shocked, the disciples initially thought they were seeing a ghost.

While there is certainly the miraculous element to this story, many miss the bigger message. Without stating it outright, Jesus was demonstrating to His disciples that He was Jehovah in the flesh.

This is seen from several passages throughout the Old Testament where we read that God walks on water.

It starts off with arguably the Bible’s oldest book, Job, where the Patriarch describes the power of God with these words:

he who commands the sun, and it does not shine
and seals up the stars,
⁸ he alone spreads out the heavens,
and treads on the waves of the sea. (Job 9:7-8) .

In this passage, God not only controls the sun, He also “treads” or marches on the Sea.

The idea of Jehovah walking on water is seen again in Psalm 77. This passage starts off in verse 11 attributing what follows to Jehovah (LORD in all caps).

You walked through the sea;
you passed through the surging waters,
but left no footprints. (Psalm 77:19)

The same idea is also presented in Isaiah 43:16.

Now Jesus was doing exactly the same thing.

But Mark alludes to Jesus being Jehovah with a second odd phrase, when he writes that Jesus ‘came to them, walking on the sea. He meant to pass by them” (Mark 6:48 ESV).

This phrase is significant, because it connects back to Moses who desired to see God’s Glory in Exodus 33:18. However, Jehovah told Moses that if any man sees God’s face or God’s Glory they would die.

Twice in verse 22, Jehovah said He would ‘pass by’ Moses allowing him to see God’s back:

”and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by.”

Without saying it, Jesus was demonstrating to His disciples that He was the Son of God, Jehovah in the flesh.

Matthew adds that this was the first time that the disciples, at least some of them, recognized Jesus’ Deity (Matthew 14:32-33).