Or, A Tragedy of Eternal Proportion
Scripture: John 6:66-71
Date: July 22, 2012
Speaker: Sean Higgins
John 6 is a long chapter, the longest in John’s Gospel. The chapter began with Jesus miraculously making bread for 5000 men from five snack loaves and ends with Twelve men. Jesus has offered Himself as the Bread of life, He has offered to end hunger and thirst in the soul, He has offered eternal life, and He offended almost all of His audience who then walked away.
Jesus had interacted with Jews in the Capernaum synagogue who grumbled (verse 41) and quarreled (verse 52) about Him (verses 22-59). All of those men are gone by this point. Jesus interacted with so-called disciples, men who heard His synagogue teaching and who, after thinking about it, decided they didn’t like what Jesus said either. They grumbled (verses 61-62) to the point of offense and they didn’t stay with Jesus either.
John emphasizes how few are left in this paragraph. In verse 67 “Jesus said to the Twelve.” Here is the first time in the Gospel of John that this group is named. Again in verse 70, “Jesus answered them, ‘Did I not choose you, the Twelve?‘” Once more in verse 71, John finishes with “he, one of the Twelve.” So the Twelve are mentioned here the first time, mentioned three times in six verses, and then only mentioned one more time in the entire book (20:24). John contrasts this small number with the “large crowd” (verse 2), the “five thousand” (verse 10), and the “crowd” (verses 22, 24). And even among the Twelve, one wasn’t a true follower. From 5000 to 11 is a 99.78% loss.
Throughout the whole story Jesus keeps pounding that He and His Father and the Spirit make the difference. Jesus will make the point again in this paragraph: eternal life depends on Him, from beginning to end.
Without any hiccup at all John describes the defection of many disciples.
After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. (John 6:66, ESV)
After this refers to verses 60-65. Though it can’t be separated from the larger context of the Capernaum complaining, these disciples were more offended by Jesus’ comments directly to them. He told them that their flesh was no help to them (verse 63), that some of them didn’t believe (verse 64), and that life-depended on the Spirit and on the Father (verses 63, 65). This isn’t what they expected, not why they had been following Jesus, so many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. This is two ways to reinforce the same thing.
To “turn back” or “withdraw” (NAS), “go away, depart” is tragic. What the ESV and NAS translations miss is that they “turned to go back to the behind things” or the things they had left behind. “Like a dog that returns to his vomit” (Proverbs 26:11), they “went away backward” (YNG) to what they had before Jesus. They failed to grasp that they had no life apart from Jesus (which Peter gets right in verse 68).
They no longer walked with him meaning that they had been walking with Him up to this point, at least for some period of time. I don’t think John means this metaphorically; disciples follow their discipler around. That’s part of the learning process, to hear and watch by being with.
Being close to Jesus is not the same thing as believing in Jesus. Many made a tragic turn for the worst, a turn away from life. In our language, many “church people” do the same thing.
Many disciples physically got up and left, leaving Jesus alone with His small group.
So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” (John 6:67–68, ESV)
So (or “therefore” NAS) means that Jesus saw the leaving as a good time to talk. As He has throughout the whole episode, Jesus initiates. He said to the Twelve, as I said before, the first time the group is named like this and it seems the only who are left. He asks them, Do you want to go away as well?
Let’s ask a question or three about that question. Why did Jesus ask this question? Who did He ask this question for, or, who benefited most by this question? Was Jesus seeking information? Didn’t Jesus know already?
Of course He knew the answer. Verse 64, “‘There are some of you who do not believe’ (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe and who it was who would betray him).” Verse 70, “Did I not choose you, the Twelve? And yet one of you is a devil.” Jesus knows the hearts of all men (John 2:24-25). He knows why men do and don’t believe, why they do and don’t come to Him, and why they do and don’t stay with Him. He knew why the Twelve stuck around so far and whether or not they would leave.
Even the way He asked the question indicates a positive expectation. He wasn’t dejectedly opening a door for the disciples’ free will to defect. His “Wanna get away?” question anticipates that they didn’t want to leave. The Greek construction (with the particle μὴ) implies that Jesus expected a negative answer (Lenski, 519). “You don’t want to go away too, right?”
The question is for the benefit of the disciples, not for Jesus. The answer to the question is more important for them to say than it is for Him to hear. He is inviting them to express their commitment and, in doing so, He is inviting them to realize how they could make such a commitment. He’s inviting them to thankfulness that God the Father drew them, that God the Spirit gave them life, and that God the Son was feeding them.
As usual, Peter speaks first and on behalf of the group.
Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:68–69, ESV)
Peter uses the same verb as in verse 66, those disciples “turned to things behind,” these disciples have “no one else to turn to.” There aren’t any other options. Peter realizes the personal point of life, that life centers on and comes from the person of Jesus. Jesus, you (alone) have the words of eternal life. Peter had been listening when Jesus said that “the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life” (verse 63).
Verse 69 is a brief testimony, We have believed and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God. This is a statement of conviction, a confession with a proposition about a person. Peter doesn’t say when it happened, but that it did happen and that it still affected them. They beheld and believed. They heard and actually heard. Confessing Jesus as the Holy One of God doesn’t come from an exact Old Testament quote, nor does it overlap with the previous dialogue. Yet it is one way to summarize Jesus as the one coming down from heaven.
Remember, earlier that same morning, Peter walked on water with Jesus until his doubts got too heavy. Jesus rescued Peter from drowning. Peter along with the other eleven had been on quite a ride and they were sticking with Jesus.
It’s not really the answer we’d expect after such a glorious affirmation by Peter.
Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the Twelve? And yet one of you is a devil.” (John 6:70–71, ESV)
How does this “answer” Peter’s confession on behalf of the disciples? Or, what was Jesus responding to in Peter’s answer? Why not affirm the affirmation? Why bring up their need and their problem?
Jesus was no more surprised by the Twelve disciples’ affirmation than He was by the many disciples’ walking away. He knew who did not believe and who did (and who would). He knew who were His, the ones His Father gave Him. So again, why did He answer this way?
First, because the defection wasn’t finished yet. One of you is a devil. That doesn’t seem like a helpful thing to say. In fact, it sounds harsh. It was probably also divisive. Jesus didn’t say who the devil was. John relieves our tension in the next verse, but Jesus leaves it hanging for the disciples. Can you imagine how the Twelve responded to this? That doesn’t seem like the easiest way to build team unity. And, that’s not the first thing Jesus was after.
Jesus was after their humility. A group of humble men would be a group that could grow in unity. Something in Peter’s answer—or perhaps Jesus knew straight from Peter’s heart—indicated a measure of presumption, a “we’re better than those quitters” attitude. “They walked away. We didn’t. We believe!”
That’s great. It is always good to affirm that Jesus is the Holy One of God. But there is a way to say it that is dangerous. Peter was flirting on that edge. To say true things without humility is dangerous. To say the true thing because you think you’ve figured it out the truth all on your own inevitably leads to apostasy.
Affirming truth is not the same as depending on Jesus. Those who don’t depend on Him will eventually defect from Him. Why could Peter make the great statement? Why did the disciples believe? Not because they were better than the others but because they had received grace. Jesus chose them. The Father drew them. The Spirit gave them life. They had no reason to be uppity, presumptuous, or pleased with themselves. Our confession had better be accurate and our commitment had better be faithful. But our confidence had better be in Christ, not in our accuracy or our faithfulness.
By reminding them that they had been chosen and by warning them that one of them was a devil, Jesus was inviting them to depend humbly on Him, not on their confession. That’s part of why eating and drinking are so important, not just knowing which aisle the bread is on. That’s why abiding is important for life, not just affirming how someone can live.
Adding a narrative end to the story, John identifies the devil.
He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the Twelve, was going to betray him. (John 6:71, ESV)
John removes some of the suspense by telling us, his readers, who the devil amidst the disciples was, though they didn’t know at that point.
It’s sad in a says-something-about-us sort of way that we miss the real tragedy of eternal proportions in this chapter and in this paragraph. It is a tragedy that so few actually took the bread of life. It is a tragedy that many disciples turned away from the only one with words of eternal life, meaning that they turned away to eternal death. It is a tragedy that even among those closest to Jesus, one from among the Twelve would not only walk away, but even turn on Jesus.
But if you were reading John 6 for the first time, what would shock you the most? What would you describe as the greatest tragedy? Shouldn’t we be shocked that the Holy One of God is going to be betrayed? How could that happen?
Men grumble about the imagery of eating His flesh and drinking His blood. Men are offended by Trinitarian sovereignty in the choosing and the drawing. And men miss that the Holy One of God, the Bread of life, the one sent from heaven, was betrayed. He was going to give His flesh for the life of the world. If anything is wrong in the chapter, it’s how Jesus was treated, not how Jesus treats people.
John 6 ends on an unresolved chord; the notes don’t sound right. The last taste is of betrayal and defection. The best we get is presumption from those with true affirmations.
It may be a small opening, but the door to eternal hope is right here. Here is the door to true life, to true hope: trust Jesus, not that you know true things about Jesus that others don’t. Hope in the fact that He chose us, not that you chose Him. He will keep those who are His and raise them up on the last day. He gave His life to guarantee the life of His people.
The difference between the 11 and the 4989 is not that the majority walked away and the 11 didn’t. The 11 just walked away later.
Now we know that you know all things and do not need anyone to question you; this is why we believe that you came from God.” Jesus answered them, “Do you now believe? Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone. (John 16:30–32, ESV)
The difference is that the 11 were given by the Father to the Son. The difference is that the 11 didn’t walk away from eternal life finally because of grace.
If we are brought low in humble dependence on Him we will be raised on the last day. If we have nothing else to turn to but Jesus, we have everything to look forward to. If we have come to believe and know Him, we have been brought into eternal life by the Trinity. He won’t let us walk away.