153 fish

It’s one of the great human interest stories of the Gospels – you’ll find it in John 21.  Jesus has been raised from the dead, but is no longer always physically with the disciples.  Peter appears to get a bit fed up and decides to go fishing, taking half a dozen other disciples with him.  These expert fishermen try all night and catch nothing, but when they see an apparent stranger on the shore and he tells them to throw their nets on the other side of the boat, suddenly they catch a multitude of fish – and big ones at that.  So many that they can’t even get the net into the boat, but have to drag it to the shore.  John recognises Jesus, and Peter jumps out of the boat and wades ashore.  Jesus has a barbecue waiting for them (more fish!) and uses the opportunity to challenge Peter about whether he really loves Jesus, having recently denied knowing Him.

The disciples also count the fish, and there are 153.  But what’s the significance of that?  If we believe that everything recorded in the Bible is there for a purpose, must than not be true of this?  After all, Luke doesn’t record the number of fish in a similar earlier miracle (Luke 5:1-11) and there was no need for John to do it here.  Was it because there were 153 known species of fish and they represented all the nations of the world hearing the Gospel?  Or is it to do with the fact that Greek letters are also numbers, and if you add ‘Simon’ to ‘fish’ you get 153?  Or is it a reference to Ezekiel 37, where it talks about a stream in the end times flowing from Jerusalem and filled with fish from En-Gedi to En-Egalaim?   En-Gedi is 17 (see my post on 153 as a triangular number for the significance of that), while En-Egalaim is 153.  Or if we take 17 as significant in this, can we think about it as the 10 commandments plus the 7 fruit of the Spirit?

If you believe one of these, or something different, is the significance of 153 here I’m not going to argue with you.  But for me it’s just a very large number that reminds us what a bountiful God we have.  By themselves, the disciples could catch nothing.  With Jesus, they got a magnificent catch provided by the God who showers His grace on us abundantly.  And that happens not just in the vital spiritual matters of our salvation and eternal life, but in the everyday, mundane things – even in our work when we depend on Him rather than struggling along ourselves.

But I do still have a little bit of me that thinks perhaps the 153 is recorded so that those who recognise it as an intrinsically interesting number can marvel at the God who even feeds our mathematical interest.