Do You Want to Go Away As Well?

John 6:60–71 – That You May Believe
Baptism of the Lord – January 12, 2025 (am)     

I’m thinking a lot about the subject of apologetics these days. That was once a passion of mine. And a passion like that doesn’t really go away, it just sort of fades into the background, not meaning it becomes less important but just that it gets interwoven into the fabric of pastoral ministry such that it only shows up as the dominant pattern when it’s needed. We just began a new season in our GCD Basketball League and I’m doing the pregame devotionals again this year—ninety-second to two-minute thought-nuggets that set up the gospel as the central solution to life’s most important, pressing questions—apologetics, spotlighting the rationality of a biblically-rooted worldview.

It really is astounding how clearly Christianity addresses every hard question of life with answers that are demonstrably consistent with one another. It’s a worldview that accurately, insightfully accounts for every struggle and hardship and joy and thrill we experience as human beings, as the key players on the stage of this world God has made. However, in order to see how Christianity does this (handles the hard questions), we have to believe God when He speaks. And He does speak—through His Word, both written and Living. The only real questions are, first, are we listening? And second, do we believe what we hear? Do we receive it, trust it?

It truly amazes to me how often we as mere creatures feel free and even obligated to question what God says, to doubt it or sit in judgment of it, or identify it as outmoded or outdated or irrelevant or untenable or too extreme or too exclusive or insensitive or unkind or judgmental or intrusive or over-reaching or otherwise distasteful. We need help to listen! And we get just that kind of help in today’s text. Jesus responses here teach us some things we desperately need to know about how to listen to Him and hear Him, and particularly so when He’s saying things that are hard to hear. Let’s jump in and address two questions.

How Should We Understand What Jesus Is Teaching?

60 When many of his disciples (the crowd) heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” They were talking about what we heard from Jesus last week, summarized well in: 56 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever. Jesus is talking about Himself as God’s provision for true life, eternal life, like food sustains physical life. He is the bread of eternal life (58). Feeding on Him as though He were food is the clearest illustration of what faith (believe [35]) means. We trust in Him like we consume food, as God’s provision for eternal life. We receive His teaching into our souls and draw nourishment from it/Him. We eat food because we’re hungry, not because we’re convinced we should or must. We eat almost unconsciously in response to our body’s yearning for food. When we feed on Jesus like that, on the word (1:1) of God, we grow in Him. We move from milk to solid food (Heb.5:12-14) to rich, complex recipes of heavenly truth. Feeding is a metaphor for faith (belief) here.

61 But this crowd was choking on something they couldn’t swallow. And Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling… (never a good response to God’s provision [cf. Exo.15:14]), said to them, “Do you take offense at this?” Are you going to argue with Me about this rather than receive it and learn from Me? Now, it’s not hard to see why they were taking offense; it’s a gruesome image if you haven’t followed His metaphor—53 … unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. And He had indeed lost them in the middle. They’d forgotten that His point (belief in [Him] [35]), not theirs (eating bread from heaven [30-34]), was the actual point.

And there were a couple of reasons why that just wasn’t good. First, they couldn’t understand His meaning if they didn’t track with His point. And second, if His teaching involved more challenges down the road, they weren’t set up to understand those either—just like in math class!

And that’s just where Jesus went next. 62 Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? What if you see Me return to the Father, Jesus is saying. But in John’s Gospel, this is so much more than a hypothetical question about His coming ascension. That event had to include Jesus’ completion of the purpose for which He came and the Father’s full acceptance of that work. So, in short, they’re going to witness far more offensive things than they’ve heard Him say here. However offensive the… expression ‘eating flesh and drinking blood’ may be, how much more offensive is the crucifixion of an alleged Messiah! The very idea is outrageous, bordering on blasphemous obscenity, ‘a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles’ (1Co.1:23). Yet this stands at the very heart of the [God’s] self-disclosure. The moment of Jesus’ greatest degradation and shame is the moment of his glorification, the path of his return to the glory he had with the Father before the world began (17:5). The hour when the Servant of the Lord is despised and rejected by men, when he is pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities (Isa.53:3-5) is the very [passageway] to the time when ‘he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted’ (Isa.52:13). … How [we] respond to this supreme scandal determines [our] destiny (Carson 1991 301).

God is always at work doing far more that we’re aware of and far more than we understand even even when we are aware. Jesus’ words here display that. But so does God’s salvation that Jesus’ words were expressing. Even though it’s in His flesh that He provides for our life, His flesh alone doesn’t grant life. 63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. They are the product of the life-giving Spirit, the tools of the Spirit, and, rightly understood and absorbed (by faith), they generate life (Carson 1991 301-2). We’ve heard Jesus say, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life (5:24). (We’re going to drill into v.63 a bit further next Sunday PM in our Family Dinner devotional. But for now,) just notice that Jesus Himself makes it clear: central though His flesh is as that which reveals the glory and grace and truth of God (1:14), it’s not His flesh that gives life. The (coming) Spirit does that. So, eating His flesh it isn’t His point. It’s His illustration. 63 … The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. Believe them. Embrace them by faith. Trust them. There’s His point!

And when we do, eternal life is the reward! 64 But that’s not what the people did here. Jesus said: there are some of you who do not believe. That seems unbelievable given all He’s done, and what He’s offering. But then He returns to a previous statement He’d made that in some ways lands on us as even harder. John introduced it in the second half of v.64: (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, [even] who it was who would betray him, before we even knew someone would.) He’s building on a theme He expressed most clearly in: 44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. … Now, here [He] knew front he beginning who [would] not believe (64). Then He explained: 65 … This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father. Those who believe are given as a gift from the Father to the Son (37). That’s the only way they come.

And that was Jesus’ final word before John reported: 66After this (from this time, for this reason [Carson 1991 303]) many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. This was one hard saying too many. 67 So Jesus said to the twelve, perhaps the only ones left, “Do you want to go away as well?” 68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. At least he’d been listening at v.63 (The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.). Peter continued, 69 and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” This sounds like a glorious confession. And the words themselves truly are. But it seems like Peter spoke them as though they set the twelve apart from the crowd as men of special insight, and it seems the others agreed. So: 70 Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the twelve? And yet one of you is a devil.”

How does that work? It’s just another reminder that God is always at work doing far more that we’re aware of and far more than we understand even even when we are aware. No one would choose Him unless He’d chosen them. Yet even among those He chose was a devil (70). God is accomplishing His plan. He’s doing it through His incarnate Son and the Holy Spirit Whom He’d later give. Our salvation, eternal life, is His gift for all who believe, who trust Him to the point of obedience (3:36). Yet, all of this is done by His enabling alone. That’s how we should understand His teaching here.

What Should We Learn from Jesus in This Teaching?

Most simply, I’d say we should listen to Jesus and trust what He says! Even if it sounds hard, look closer. Listen more carefully. Believe it even before you can explain it fully—just know that it’s true. Keep digging into it, sure. Compare and contrast it with other things He’s said, or Scripture says. If it’s hard to believe, realize that’s due to your own limitations, your own lack. Don’t ever be so foolish as to believe that the problem is with God or Jesus or the Spirit or Scripture.

Press hard to make sure you’re hearing what He actually says, not what you wish He said, or thought He might mean, or thought He must mean. There are many things God says in His Word that don’t play well in today’s world—things that identify what’s right and what’s wrong, things that tell us how we should live, what we should believe, how we should think about Him and how we shouldn’t, how we should treat others, and how we should think about ourselves.

There are many things Jesus said that retrace the pathways of our lives, and redraw the borders, that limit our self-expression even as they press us into strive for standards so high we can barely see them. And I could continue. But go for it! Just believe what Jesus says and follow it. Honor Him in that way, thanking Him all the while that He’s now sent the Spirit He mentions again here (63), the One Who gives life, the One Who (we’ll learn later [14:16, 26]) enables our obedience.

Really, the one thing you don’t want to do when Jesus says something hard is to turn and walk away, like this crowd did. Not only are the poles of your reasoning entirely reversed when you go that way, you’re also turning your back on the only One Who [has] the words of eternal life (68), on the Holy One of God (69), the only One Who can bring us to the Father, the only One Who can truly help us make sense of this world.

Conclusion

So, there’s our take-away today: just listen to Jesus—trust what He says even if it’s hard, for any reason; honor it; obey it—and follow Him.

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Resources

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Bruce, F. F. 1983. The Gospel of John. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

                  , Gordon D. Fee, & Ned B. Stonehouse, gen. eds. 1995. The New International Commentary on the New Testament. The Gospel According to John, Revised Edition, by Leon Morris. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

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                  , R. T. France, J. A. Motyer, & G. J. Wenham, eds. 1994. New Bible Commentary 21st Century Edition. John, by Donald Guthrie, 1021-1065. Leicester, Eng.: InterVarsity.

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Osborne, Grant, ed. 1993. Life Application Bible Commentary. John, by Bruce B. Barton, Philip W. Comfort, David R. Veerman, & Neil Wilson. Wheaton: Tyndale.

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Tenney, Merrill C. 1976. John: The Gospel of Belief. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

NEXT SUNDAY: Judge with Right Judgment, John 7:1–24