John 6:41-71: Who Can Accept It?

~ Vincent

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41 At this the Jews there began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42 They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?”

  1. The crowd doubted the evidence first, insisting that Jesus owed them a better miracle since their ancestors ate bread from Moses.  Now, they move from attacking the evidence to attacking his identity.

  2. “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?
    1. They grumble at Jesus’s claim to be the bread from heaven, questioning his origins: “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph… How can he now say, I came down from heaven?”

    2. “These Jews were far off from the bread of heaven, and knew not how to hunger after it. They had the jaws of their heart languid; with open ears they were deaf, they saw and stood blind.” -Augustine, Tractate 26, 1.

43 “Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered. 44 “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. 45 It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me. 46 No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. 47 Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. 50 But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

  1. Christ’s Response
    1. Jesus answers their attack on his identity by explaining their doubt.  Why can’t they come to him?  Because the Father has not drawn them.  All of this is in the Father’s plan.

    2. Jesus is the only one able to see God.  He has knowledge in a way nobody else has.  Even Moses could only see God by hiding in a rock and seeing his back (Exodus 33:21-22).  Jesus is God and can see God in His fullness.

    3. He reiterates his promise: those who believe have eternal life.  Previous bread only delayed death.  Christ’s flesh will end it. 

  2. “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them,”
    1. “[H]ave I not myself heard you say in your heart, ‘Jesus, Jesus, my whole trust Is in thee: I know that no righteousness of my own can save me, but only thou, O Christ, sink or swim, I cast myself on thee?’ Oh, my brother, thou art drawn by the Father, for thou couldst not have come unless he had drawn thee. Sweet thought! And if he has drawn thee, dost thou know what is the delightful inference? Let me repeat one text, and may that comfort thee: ‘The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.’ Yes, my poor weeping brother, inasmuch as thou art now coming to Christ, God has drawn thee; and inasmuch as he has drawn thee, it is a proof that he has loved thee from before the foundation of the world. Let thy heart leap within thee, thou art one of his.” -Charles Spurgeon, “Human Inability,” Mar. 7, 1858.

52 Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

53 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. 57 Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” 59 He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.

  1. First, they doubted the evidence, telling Jesus that their ancestors got bread from Moses and they deserved a better miracle.  Second, they doubted his identity, insisting that he was just the son of Joseph, not anyone from heaven.  Now, they doubt his message, claiming that he’s not even coherent.

  2. “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
    1. The crowd fixates on a highly literal objection: “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” even though Jesus speaks in a metaphor that points towards a profound spiritual reality.
      1. This rejection is very similar to when Nicodemos objected to Jesus’s language about being “born again” in John 3:4.
          
  3. Jesus doesn’t back down; he doubles down: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you… my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.”  He has no interest in slowly chipping away at his message to accommodate people who have no real interest in it.
    1. “Unless ye eat the flesh of the Son of man – Spiritually: unless ye draw continual virtue from him by faith. Eating his flesh is only another expression for believing.”  -John Wesley, John Wesley’s Explanatory Notes of the NT, Jn 6.

    2. “It should be noted that this can refer either to spiritual eating or to sacramental eating. If it refers to spiritual eating, there is no doubt about the application… However, if it is applied to sacramental eating, a problem arises… since in the one receiving the Eucharist actual reverence and devotion are required, which those who do not have the full use of reason, such as children and the mentally ill, do not have, and therefore it is in no way to be given to them.” -Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on John, Lecture 7, 969.

60 On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”

61 Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you? 62 Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! 63 The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life. 64 Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. 65 He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.”

  1. “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”
    1. Often, so called “hard teachings” are less about comprehension and more about acceptance.
      1. One of the top defenses against countercultural commands is “I don’t understand this part.”  Verses like Mark 10:2-12 (Jesus on Divorce) and 1 Timothy 1:10 (Paul on sexuality) are more than clear as they’re worded, but many still claim that they can’t understand what the Bible says on these topics.

      2. Often “I’m confused” masks unwillingness to accept teachings that challenge personal preferences. The Christian life asks, “Do we trust that God knows more than we do and that his ways are good?”

    2. Jesus asks, “Does this offend you?” and warns that if they stumble here, they will be further confounded by future events like his ascension.

    3. Jesus does not water down his teaching or chase those leaving; he invites trust beyond comfortable words, preparing disciples for wild things to come.

  2. “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them… no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.” 
    1. Jesus knew from the beginning who did not believe and who would betray him.

  3. “Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life.”
    1. Jesus’s words are “full of Spirit and life;” understanding and embracing them relies on divine action, not just human effort.

  4. Augustine famously wrote about this struggle to know God and approach him by drawing on Romans 10:14 in Confessions.
    1. “Lord, what comes first: asking for your help or praising you?  Do we start a life with you by asking for your help?  Or do we need to know who you are before we can do that?  How could we ask for your help if we don’t know who you are?  We might start talking to you like you were some totally different being!  Or do we start out by asking for your help so that we can know you?  But how could we ask for help from a god that we don’t believe in?  And how could we believe in that god if nobody brought the Gospel to us?  In the end, people who seek the Lord always end up praising him, because anyone who seeks will find, and anyone who finds will praise.  I’m seeking you, Lord, by asking for your help.  I’m calling on your name while believing completely in you because the Gospel was brought to me.  You gave me faith, and now that faith is crying out to you.” -Augustine, Confessions, Ch. 1.

    2. If you can’t see God, pray to Him.  “Knock and the door will be opened.” (Matt. 7:7)

66 From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

67 “You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve.

68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69 We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.”

70 Then Jesus replied, “Have I not chosen you, the Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil!” 71 (He meant Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, who, though one of the Twelve, was later to betray him.)

  1. “You do not want to leave too, do you?
    1. As people leave due to his “hard teaching, Jesus asks the Twelve if they also wish to leave.  It had to have been an emotionally-charged moment as thousands left and he turned to his closest friends.

    2. Peter’s confession: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life…” isn’t just a buddy cheering up a sad friend.  Peter sincerely believes in everything that Jesus is said.  He’s seen the evidence, he acknowledges Jesus’s identity, and he believes in the message.

  2. “Yet one of you is a devil!”
    1. Jesus repeatedly forewarns about Judas’s betrayal, which does not change Judas’s course.  What God has destined will not be changed by human will, even if Judas has every opportunity to do otherwise.

    2. The disciples were tested through all of this.  The crowd left, but they stayed despite how unpopular it was.  This wasn’t the end of the testing.  Their faith would continue to be tested throughout their lives, and not everyone would pass in the end.

    3. “Mark the wisdom of Christ: He neither, by exposing him, makes him shameless and contentious; nor again emboldens him, by allowing him to think himself concealed.” -Chrysostom, Hom. xlvii. 4.

 

Full Transcript

For weeks we have talked about this question: If God is all-powerful, why doesn’t he give us everything we want? We have looked at wrong answer after wrong answer, haven’t we? We’ve looked at the prosperity gospel—this claim that God wants to give you everything you could possibly imagine, and the only thing holding him back is you! You don’t have the faith. If you did, you’d have that new car. That doesn’t align with scripture. The apostles were not promised health or wealth, and they did not get it.

We looked at the claims that God deals with spiritual stuff, that he doesn’t deal with earthly stuff because that’s beneath him. Don’t go to him for stuff like food or money; it’s beneath him. He deals with spiritual things. Also, not true. Throughout this chapter, we saw God dealing with very physical things. He multiplied bread and fish; He helped His apostles get across a sea. These are all very physical, worldly things going on, and he deals with each of them without being disgusted. God made the world; he certainly doesn’t hate it. It’s not beneath him.

Then last week, we even looked at the classic atheist response: if God’s all-powerful, why doesn’t he give us everything we want? They would say, because he can’t, because he’s not real. We see bad things happen every day. If there was an all-powerful, good God, wouldn’t he stop those bad things from happening? Of course he would, but he doesn’t—because he can’t, because he’s not real. The atheists would have us dead to rights if that’s the God the Bible described. If the Bible said there is an all-powerful God, and he’s good, and no bad things will ever happen to you, what would we say in response?

That’s not what the Bible says. The Bible never says that you’re not going to suffer. As a matter of fact, many people in the Bible do suffer despite following God. The true biblical answer to this that we finally get to dwell on now is this: God won’t always give us what we want, but He’ll give us what we need. God’s miracles are not at our beck and call. There it is, and he has told us what his will is. He’s told us in no uncertain terms what he wants to do. He said, “I want you to live eternally. I want to destroy sin and death.” Part of the problem is we are still addicted in many ways to sin and death.

Giving us what we want would actually go against what he wants in many cases. God has to find a way to rehabilitate us, to help us seek what is good in an eternal sense, not just in a temporary sense. Sometimes that won’t be easy. The question is, can we trust him? Knowing what he said he’s going to do, knowing what his goals are, and knowing that they don’t always align with ours, do we trust him?

We’re going to look at that even more today as we continue on from where we left off. Let’s briefly refresh our memories. We began chapter six four weeks ago. All the way back then, where did we start? Jesus was teaching and he was healing by the Sea of Galilee, and there were all these people—five thousand or more. They didn’t have anything to eat. Jesus turns to Philip, “Hey, we need to feed these people.” Philip says, “Impossible! Can’t be done!” Meanwhile, a boy offers Jesus some bread and some fish, and Jesus starts handing it out. He just keeps going and going. There is not only enough; there is more than enough. At this point, the crowd gets to thinking and they say, “Hey, if he can do that with bread, what else can he do? I want this guy working for me. Let’s make him our king whether he wants to be king or not. He’s going to solve our problems.” Jesus goes up a mountain to pray, and he tells his disciples to go across the sea.

That night there is a horrible storm, and they are paddling and paddling, trying to get across the sea. All night they only get halfway. Muscles aching, blisters on their hands, not getting where they want to go, but Jesus comes to them over the water. The second they trust him and let him onto their boat, they’re right where they want to be. They have learned a lesson, but the crowd has not. The next day they wake up and say, “Hey, where’d Jesus go? I can’t find him anywhere.” So after searching, they get on some boats. They go across the Sea of Galilee, and they start searching on the other side. Finally, they go into Capernaum. They find Jesus teaching there in a synagogue, and they start asking him questions. They say, “Jesus, where have you been?” He says, “You’re here because you want bread and fish. You want something that’s going to be good for a day. I want to give you something that’s good for eternity. Believe in me. Believe in me and you will have eternal life.”

They immediately start to doubt him. The first doubt they throw out there is they doubt whether he’s given them sufficient evidence to believe in him. They say, “Okay, so you gave us some bread once. Not a big deal. Moses did that. He did the bread thing. You’re going to have to do better than bread if you want us to believe in you.” Which is pretty ironic. They came all this way because of the bread. Obviously, they were impressed, but the second Jesus says, “Trust in me, not in yourselves,” then they start to bristle. Then they start to take a step back. Hold on! I don’t know if I am ready to trust you. I liked the bread trick, but that’s not enough. They’re going to continue to take steps back. They’re going to doubt Jesus three times throughout the course of this, moving from doubting whether he’s given them enough evidence, to doubting who he is next, and then finally they are going to doubt whether his message even makes sense at all.

That is where we pick up after the first doubt, and Jesus has reaffirmed that he does indeed offer eternal life. He gets a little wordier this time, a little fuller. Pay attention to that. We pick up at verse forty-one. At this, the Jews began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?” This guy’s not so special. I know his dad. That’s Joe’s kid. This is not a big deal. Now he’s acting like he’s all special. “I’m from heaven. You’re not.” I know where you’re from. I know your parents. Again, strange, isn’t it?

Just yesterday, they called him the prophet in the line of Moses and wanted to force him to be their king. They obviously knew there was something special about this guy, but the second Jesus tries to acknowledge that and explain it to them, they take another step back. Jesus responds to their second doubt saying, “Stop grumbling among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard the Father and has learned comes to me. No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

Notice again—he’s gotten even more complicated. Jesus doesn’t water it down when people object. If anything, He seems to get a little more intense. He’ll explain why. But notice also here he’s gotten more complex, but he hasn’t gotten insanely, unfollowably complex. The core of his message that he said all the way back in verse twenty-nine is still there, and we know how he got there. He said, “You are here for bread. You were impressed by loaves and fishes. You wanted bread for a day. I want to give you bread that will last for eternity. Believe in me.” He’s gotten a little more complex, but that’s still there, and they’ve seen the argument kind of develop. I don’t think it’s unfollowable. I don’t think at this point there is any rational reason to believe that Jesus is saying, “Hey, come up here and take a bite out of my arm. It’s going to do something for you.” No, obviously he’s not.

The crowd goes in that direction anyway. They argue sharply among themselves and say, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Suddenly, Jesus doesn’t make sense to them anymore. We saw this all the way back in John chapter 3 with Nicodemus. Jesus told Nicodemus, “You must be born again.” And what did Nicodemus say? “Jesus, come on. That’s ridiculous. What, you want me to crawl back inside my mother’s womb? You don’t make any sense.” Jesus did not invent metaphor. It was around; it was well-established since the beginning of time. Nicodemus knew that Jesus was not proposing what he said, in the same way that this crowd understands that Jesus does not literally want them to go up and tear him to pieces with their teeth. They know what he’s asking for. They just don’t want to do it. The confusion with the crowd is not up here. It’s not that they don’t understand; it’s that they’re not willing to accept it, and that’s a different thing.

I’ve seen this many times in the church. I remember, for example, there was one church where they would read two scriptures every Sunday, and it was from the lectionary, so they were all pre-chosen for the entire year. The first scripture would always be read by a member of the congregation. The second scripture would always be read by the pastor, and the pastor would preach from the second passage. One day, the congregation member gets up to read their first one. She stands up there and she reads the Mark passage—Mark chapter ten, verses two through twelve:

Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” “What did Moses command you?” he replied. They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.” “It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,” Jesus replied. “But at the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. So that they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate.” And when they were in the house again, the disciples asked Jesus about this. He answered, “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.”

Sure enough, they read this. Then they followed it up with this in front of the whole church. They said, “And as a divorced person, I’m confused. I’m so confused by this. I hope the pastor’s about to tell us what this means because I don’t understand it. I sure hope they have some answers.” It was uncomfortable. The pastor got up there and disarmed the situation. They said, “I’m actually going to preach on the second passage. But if anyone’s confused and would like to talk about the first passage you heard, come to my office hours. Delighted to talk about that or anything else you’re confused about.” I think the uncomfortable thing wasn’t necessarily the combativeness; it wasn’t that as much as the fact that the passage isn’t really that unclear. She knew what it said; she just didn’t like it. She wasn’t willing to accept it, and again, that can happen in so many places.

I remember with the split of the United Methodist Church, I can remember a colleague coming to me and saying, “I am wrestling with this because one of the things people seem to disagree on is same-sex marriage. And I just don’t understand. I read this morning in First Timothy, chapter one, verse ten. It says, ‘Those who practice homosexuality will not enter the kingdom of God.’ That’s what it says, but I don’t know what that means. That doesn’t make any sense because we don’t know what Paul was dealing with. That could mean any number of things. I mean, maybe he’s talking about prostitution. Maybe he’s talking about pedophilia. We just can’t know what Paul meant. We can’t know. I’m too confused. I don’t understand what he was trying to say. If only he would have left a second letter explaining his first letter, maybe we could have known what he meant, but we just can’t. It’s so confusing.”

I responded and said, “Well, what if he meant what he said? What if the two thousand years of Christians who all believed that he meant what he said were right, and it’s exactly what it looks like? I think your concerns are because the ethics that are often practiced today suggest that if you have any restrictions on sexuality, you must hate someone. Jesus never tells us to hate anyone—by no means. We’re supposed to love people, but there are certain ways that God tells us to shepherd our sexuality. That’s what the church has traditionally held. That’s what makes sense in the passage. What if Paul meant what he said?” He just responded, “That’s ridiculous. You’re being ridiculous. You can’t know what he meant. You can’t know. It’s impossible to know.” He knew what it said. He just wasn’t willing to accept it.

I don’t say this as someone who always is willing to accept what the Bible says immediately. We’ve all had those instances, haven’t we, where we read something—something that touches a nerve, something that calls us out, something that makes us say, “Jesus is going too far here. That’s not… I’m confused. I don’t understand what this means.” Often the confusion is not up here; it’s here. God has shared something that isn’t the way we would have done it. Do we trust him? Do we trust that he knows more than we do, and that his ways are good?

The crowd doesn’t. The crowd thinks he’s too baffling. They’re not ready to trust him. In verse fifty-three, Jesus responds again and again. Notice he will not make it even a little bit easier; he will get more intense again. He says, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me.”

“This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. Really intense. He’s just gone right out there. They’ve said, “I object on this premise,” and he says, “Let’s talk about that premise. I’m going to go with it. I’m going to run with it.” Why is he doing this? He’s about to explain. Verse 60: On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?” Notice what they say there. They don’t say, “This is a hard teaching. Who can understand it?” They understand. This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it? Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you? Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where He was before?”

Here he’s explaining why he is getting more intense. If he was chasing people down saying, “No, don’t walk away. Hear me out. Let’s work through this together”—Jesus doesn’t do that, though, and that’s consistent throughout the scripture. Think about the story of the rich young ruler who came to Jesus and said, “Jesus, I need you. I want to follow you. What do I need to do?” Jesus said, “Sell everything, give the money to the poor, and come follow me.” The man leaves sad because he’s not willing to do that. Jesus doesn’t chase him down; he lets him go. That seems to be the same spirit Jesus has here. He gets more intense. He doesn’t water it down. He says, “Does this offend you? Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before?”

If you can’t believe this, this is just a starting place. This is nothing. Just wait, things get crazier from here. If you can’t accept this, there are going to be things to come that will utterly confound you. You are going to see the miraculous and balk. You are going to see things like me ascending—I’m going to leave. What are you going to do? You’re going to panic! Why? Because right now you’re counting on me making it easy, coming to you, and constantly making things easier. I don’t want you to trust my pretty words. I want you to trust me. Do you trust me? Because if you do, you will be able to weather anything that comes—all the wild stuff. That’s good for us today, too. God isn’t done doing wild things. If we can’t trust him in the little stuff, how can we trust him with things that haven’t even happened yet?

“The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of Spirit and life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and would betray him. He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.”

When we see Jesus getting more intense and not chasing people down, it can feel like he must hate them or that he doesn’t care about them. We think if he really cared, he would make it easier. Jesus says, no. Everything I have spoken is spirit and life. Those who are enabled by the Father will get it. What does that mean? Here, we’ve got a group of thousands of people that we know are genuinely interested in Jesus. They have followed him to both sides of a sea and hunted for him on either side. They care, but they’re looking by their own power, not by God’s power. When humanity sinned and fell away from God, we became incapable of doing good.

We were meant to function hand in hand with God. The Holy Spirit is supposed to be our fuel, keeping us going and drawing us closer to God. When we cut ourselves off from God, how are we supposed to do good without the Holy Spirit? We’re capable of no good without God, and that includes things like knowing God. Even just knowing God is a good thing, and without God, we’re not even capable of that.

So what’s the solution? We have to ask God for help in knowing God. That seems a little crazy, I know. It’s a bit of a mind-bender. Even in his seminal work, Confessions, Augustine of Hippo admits that this is incredibly confusing. How do I do that? How do I call on a God that I don’t know yet? I have to know Him to call on Him, don’t I? And yet, when a preacher brings that word, it provides enough information to help us call on Him. You are loyal, God. You listen, and you allow us to draw on you to know you better. The only real way to know God is through God. We need His help to even know Him.

That is applicable to us today as well. If you are in a place where you can’t see God—you are looking and you just can’t see Him in the world around you—ask him for help. Just pray a simple prayer: God, reveal yourself to me. Help me to see you in this world. Help me to know you better. Knock and the door will be opened.

Verse 66: From this time, many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him. “You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the twelve. We know Jesus knows the answer to this. That’s been one of the focuses throughout John chapter six. Every time there has been a question, the text tells us that Jesus already knew. It said just a few verses ago that Jesus already knew who was going to follow him and who wasn’t. He knows. But you have to imagine this is an emotionally charged question, because watching thousands of people turn away—thousands of people he loved, thousands of people he came here to save and to die for—watching them walk away must have broken his heart. He turns to the twelve: “You don’t want to leave me too, do you?” Simon Peter responds, “Lord, to whom shall we go?” What a beautiful response. Peter gets a lot of things wrong, but this is beautiful. Lord, to whom shall we go? Where else could we go? Jesus, this is home. We belong with you. We wouldn’t know where else to go. Of course, we’re going to be here.

Is Jesus your hope? Could you say that? Who else would we go to? There is nowhere else. I’ll be here no matter what; it’s where I belong. “You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.” He doesn’t say, “We have come to believe that we believe in you,” or, “We’ve come to believe that it’s possible that you are the way.” He doesn’t say, “We have come to believe that we have faith that you are the one.” He says, “We believe and we know.” The witness of God opened his eyes. He doesn’t just theorize; he knows. The evidence is sufficient. He knows.

The Holy Spirit can do that. You can know who God is. Wouldn’t this be a perfect place to end? Honestly, for a while, I thought it ended there. Isn’t it a nice triumphal ending? Everyone leaves, but the disciples stay and they’re not going anywhere. It doesn’t end there, though; it goes on just a little more. Jesus replies, “Have I not chosen you, the twelve? Yet one of you is a devil.” He meant Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, who, though one of the twelve, was later to betray him.

This is not the only time Jesus says something like this. There are multiple instances in Scripture where Jesus, in front of Judas, foretells that Judas will betray him. It doesn’t seem to change Judas’s mind. Judas does not seem to be someone who is particularly open to meditating on the words of Jesus. We’ve all known that person who, whenever they hear criticism, looks at everyone else. I imagine Judas is like that. If Judas were around today and working in an office, and the boss came out and said, “All right guys, this quarter we’re going to have to work extra hard. I know some people have been slacking. I need you to buckle down,” Judas would be there saying, “Yeah! I know you guys have been slacking. Time to get serious.” Meanwhile, Judas is the one sleeping at his desk. He doesn’t even recognize it. He just looks at everyone else and says they’re the problem.

I imagine Judas is in just the same place here. Judas unapologetically is the one who is going to betray Jesus, and yet when Jesus says, “One of you is going to betray me,” I imagine Judas looking really severely at everyone else, maybe even looking at Peter. But it’s Judas. He’s a hypocrite. He doesn’t think these things through.

The passage ends on a note of telling them that it’s not done. They have faith here and they’ve learned, but it’s not over. There is more to come. There are new challenges that they will have to learn to trust God through. They’ve learned to trust Jesus even when the crowd turns away, but now there is a new circumstance: one of the twelve will turn away. There’s something new that they will go through, and they will need a new depth of trust in Jesus because even one of the ones that he chose will turn away.

The Christian life is always one of new challenges. There’s never a moment where you just say, “I have faith in Jesus,” and you’re done, you’re finished, and you never have to worry about it again because you trust Him and that’s good forever. You will still be concerned, you will still be afraid, and you will still be confused. The Christian life continually involves gaining a new, deeper faith. There are always new things that you will wrestle with and new challenges that life throws at you. Can you trust Jesus there? Can you trust him in what’s next? That development of faith doesn’t end after you just do it once. Continually, we are invited to know him better and to trust him even more.

Here at the end, let’s ask our question one last time: If God is all-powerful, why doesn’t he give me what I want? Why doesn’t he guarantee health and wealth? God’s miracles are not at our beck and call; they’re at His. We can ask him for help, and sometimes we’ll get it, and sometimes we won’t. Ultimately, a big part of this is trusting his will. He’s made his will known to us; he’s told us what he’s seeking. He is seeking the end of sin and death itself. He is seeking something wonderful, and he’s trying to help us. He’s told us that.

Can we trust him? Can we trust him when things are easy and when things are hard, when we get the miracle and when we don’t? God has not promised us anything in this life; he’s promised us everything in the next. Do we believe that? Can we trust him? The disciples learned to trust him. The crowd did not; they found every excuse in the book. Can we trust him? We have to learn to trust if we really want to be followers of God—to trust that in all circumstances he is seeking our good, our wellness, and that he loves us immensely.

Amen.