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It is interesting to jump ahead a bit to verse 59, just to
set the location of the conversation that would follow; as the dialogue between
Christ and those who had followed Him there, as well as those already in Capernaum
was going to take place in the Synagogue.
Even though the religious leaders of the day had rejected the
cornerstone of their faith, even though the growing hatred of Christ was
getting so intense, that believing Jews who declared Jesus the Messiah would be
put out of the temple altogether; Jesus Himself had not rejected the faith He
had founded so long ago with Abraham and his descendants. Jesus goes to teach truth in the places where
spiritual seekers go to find truth.
Jesus did not endorse competing ideologies for spiritual growth or
awareness. He did not teach in the pagan
temples, or in places where substitute deities attempted to take the place of
the true God. Nor did Jesus glorify “wisdom”
as the Greeks had done, attempting to place wisdom and reason ahead of all
other ideas for attaining truth and enlightenment. Instead Jesus went to the synagogues where
the scriptures, the writings of the prophets, the study of the Old Testament,
was practiced and taught. He went to
teach truth, and not once in His ministry, did Christ ever deny the Old
Testament, attempt to rewrite it, or revise it, or call it’s miraculous stories
mere allegories or fables. Instead He
affirmed the scriptures written to that point in time. And He worked to correct the
misinterpretations His people and their leaders suffered from.
So being in the Synagogue at Capernaum, Christ takes the
opportunity to respond to the question, by beginning to change the subject
towards what is more important than the free miraculous meal they had recently
enjoyed. He wants to reach the hearts of
these followers, with a message of truth that is more important than the needs
of today; instead turning the focus to the needs of eternity. In verse 26 Jesus responds … “Verily, verily,
I say unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did
eat of the loaves, and were filled. [verse 27] Labour not for the meat which
perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the
Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed.” The food they experienced the day before was
now gone. It is here today and gone
tomorrow. Yes we have need of food every
day, but there is food of another kind.
Food for our souls, and in the same way God meets our physical daily
needs for food that sustains our body, He also longs to share with us, food
that can meet the needs of our souls as well.
Notice that Christ again uses the words “shall give unto you”. The food our souls need is not something to
be earned, or even deserved, it is purely a gift of Christ.
One of the deceptions the devil was offering the people in
the day of Christ was that they did not need a Messiah to come to God. Since they had the scriptures, and were born
in the lineage and bloodline of Abraham, their faith in the true God alone was
enough to save them from evil. The
Messiah then, was only useful to liberate them from Roman oppression, not as
the vehicle by which all mankind would come to God. Jesus states here in His initial response
that it is He alone who gives the gift of bread that does not perish. In this He is saying to the people, you
cannot get this gift outside of Me. You
cannot come to God outside of Me, for God is one. You cannot reject the Son, while still
honoring the Father. The work of the
Messiah is to bring light and life into the world, and into our souls, freeing
us from our slavery to self and evil.
This work prepares us to think, love, and live in harmony with our
God. We cannot ignore it, and expect to
go to God directly, on our own, and be accepted. We must be made free from the evil within us,
if we are ever to stand before perfect love without the desire to run away and
be shielded from it. Christ is here
stating that the work of the Messiah in our salvation is work He alone will do,
and offer to us as a gift.
The same snare the devil used then, he continues to use
today with spectacular results.
Americans today believe in spirituality, but not in religion. They believe that one can come to know God,
through any means that makes sense to them.
In short we prefer to believe that any method of coming to know God is
perfectly acceptable. Today we have no
more need of a Messiah, than did the religious leaders of His day. We prefer to use God to answer prayers for
success, financial gain, increased health, and blessings on us and those we
love. We do not need Christ to remove
our evil, and reveal to us our absolute dependence on Him to be made free from
the evil of self that consumes us. We do
not pray for the salvation of those who despise us, nor to be rid of the burden
of wealth, nor to learn how to love like God loves. For those prayers begin with a change in our
thinking, and our desires. We have
replaced our need for Christ to save us, with a reliance on self-will, and self-determination,
to save us. And despite our failures, we
continue to believe in our own wisdom as being superior to the writings found
in a Bible. We do not want or accept
objective truth, but instead embrace subjective truth that feels right to each
of us. We delude ourselves into thinking
we are “good” people because we are less evil that those around us. And in so doing, we walk away from Christ as
our method of salvation, content to think we have this work covered on our own,
and that God will accept us as we tell Him how we get to Him is perfectly
acceptable. But like Cain whose best
efforts, and personal ideas, were not accepted by God so long ago, the wisdom
of man is not sufficient to find God, or save us from our slavery to self and
evil. It is only the gift of Christ that
can accomplish this for us. Our ideas
simply do not succeed.
But then as we find all too often today, even the people who
thought they had the truth, continued to think they could “work” their way to
salvation. Despite all the miraculous
stories of the Old Testament scriptures they studied, where the salvation of
God, came only after man realized his own inability to save himself; they
persisted with the idea that self-determination of salvation was possible. To Jesus’s attempts at offering them the gift
of bread that does not perish they respond in verse 28 … “Then said they unto
him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?” How often do we Christians respond to an
offer of salvation in exactly the same way?
Christ says to us, I have a gift for you of infinite value. And our response is, wonderful – how do we
earn this gift? What can we do, to get
it for ourselves by the actions we take?
The question sounds legitimate.
It sounds as though we are simply trying to do the will of God. But it is coming BEFORE we have actually been
saved by God, it is coming outside of the context of having accepted God’s
gift, and instead is coming in lieu of it.
We are trying to obey BEFORE we have been remade and are capable of
obedience. If I do not know how to love
yet, then my efforts to love are going to be meager at best. Once love is so fully a part of who I am
remade to be, and reflected in such a large measure through me that I am unable
to contain it, my efforts to love will be unavoidable, profound, and carry
immediate results. But loving like this
does not come BEFORE, instead only AFTER I accept the gifts of Christ.
And so again, as He does now, Jesus attempts to reveal the
entirety of the gospel in the simplicity of the gospel. To their question about how they can work the
works of God Jesus responds in verse 29 … “Jesus answered and said unto them,
This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.” Wow!
Your work – is to BELIEVE in JESUS.
Period, end of story, end of requirement, end of effort. Notice Jesus does not say your work is to pay
your tithes and offerings to the ministers who preach the gospel. He does not say you are to keep the Sabbath
Holy. He does not say you are to believe
in a rigid set of doctrines that your particular brand of Christianity supports
to the exclusion of all others upon pain of death and damnation. He does not say to the people of His day, you
have the truth and you are correct in what you are already doing. He says INSTEAD – your whole effort is to
believe in Jesus Christ and be saved as a result. Your doctrines, your truth, your ideas are
going to be completely remade once you accept that salvation comes from Christ,
not from you. You are going to look at
people differently once love is the overwhelming motivation of your life. You are going to look at evil differently
once you see the pain it causes you, and everyone it touches, and you are going
to yearn to be free of it. You are going
to see that no doctrine can save you, no accumulated knowledge will free you,
only Jesus can do that, and only then will truth be made plain, and obedience
finally possible.
It is not our prerequisites that save us. It is not our accumulated wisdom of scripture
that saves us. It is not our actions or
lack of them that save us. It is Christ
alone. Until we have been remade, our
reluctance to part with our precious money, keeps us from the joy of
giving. Until we have been remade, our
ideas about keeping Sabbath holy are more about what we are not “allowed” to
do, than about treasuring every moment with our God without the distractions of
our normal routines. Until we are
remade, the truths of scripture present more of a barrier to God and come
across in a spirit of condemnation, than the entirely redemptive way they were
intended. Without Christ as the
foundation of everything we believe, our doctrines are meaningless. This was the truth the people of His day, had
lost sight of. The Messiah was not to be
a liberator of financial gain, and physical prosperity, He was to free them to
love, to obey, to be saved from themselves.
The doctrines of Moses only have relevance against the hope and fulfillment
of the Messiah. Outside of the Messiah,
there was no point. All the symbolism of
the wilderness temple service, the sacrifices of unblemished lambs, the colors,
the altars, the candles, everything pointed to the Messiah. Without the Messiah, the entire system of
worship was pointless. Without Christ,
our doctrines are just as empty; our truths, just as irrelevant.
Despite everything these questioners had seen and heard,
they were still not ready to accept the idea that Christ alone was to be the
method of their salvation. They would
need proof of who He was, if they were to accept Him as the Messiah. In verse 30 they continue … “They said
therefore unto him, What sign shewest thou then, that we may see, and believe
thee? what dost thou work? [verse 31] Our fathers did eat manna in the desert;
as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat.” You could say the Jews were hung up on Moses
at this time. He was sort of their
reference guy, their go-to-guy, for all things spiritual. So if Christ was to be their Messiah, and
salvation was to be His gift, they would ask for something bigger than Moses
did. If Moses gave their forefathers
manna in the desert, what would Christ do to show He was greater than Moses
was?
At this point, Jesus must correct an error in their premise,
and then point them to a greater truth.
In verse 32 Jesus responds … “Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily,
I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth
you the true bread from heaven. [verse 33] For the bread of God is he which
cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.” First, Moses did not give you anything, God
the Father did. And what is more the
same God the Father is now offering you “the true bread from heaven”. Manna like almost everything else, was also a
symbol of the coming Messiah and the true bread of heaven He would offer the
world. Manna sustained the people in a
desert where growing wheat or oats or corn was simply not going to happen. Manna was a daily provision, that would not
last if attempts to hoard it were made.
Each day, the supply was to be enough for that day. There was no guarantee against the needs of
tomorrow, only the promise that tomorrow would again see the faithfulness of
the gift of God received. Only on
Friday, was an extra portion of Manna sustainable against the next day’s
needs. Only on Sabbath would yesterday’s
supply of Manna prove sufficient, so that no gathering of Manna was required or
available. God wished to free His people
from the need to focus on food, to focus on Him, for one special day in
seven. For those who believe it does not
matter which day we worship God on, it would certainly seem He took
extraordinary provisions to make a particular day special in the gathering of
manna for more than 40 years of wandering.
The symbolism and analogy was lost on His listeners. All they could hear was the possibility of
bread they may only need to eat once and forever be filled with on a purely
physical needs level. They respond … “Then
said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread.”
Careful what you wish for.
Jesus responds … “And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he
that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never
thirst.” Here is Jesus attempting to tie
the symbolism to the reality of who He was.
The method of our salvation was to be Jesus. Like the manna that preceded Him, He would
provide both our daily physical needs, as well as our daily spiritual
needs. In Christ our hunger would be met
and satisfied. In Christ our thirst for
something more would be met; our needs to be fully met in Christ and in Christ
alone. But His listeners had asked for
something they could see and point to as a sign they could put their faith
in. To this Jesus continues in verse 36
… “But I said unto you, That ye also have seen me, and believe not.” As far as that sign you were looking for,
here I am. Everything Christ had already
done should have been more than enough to testify that He was the Son of God. Most of these men had only one day earlier
eaten a full meal from a miraculous origin.
But despite their reluctance, and lack of faith, Christ
opens the doors to salvation to all of them and all of us. He continues … “All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” Here Jesus points out that the work of
Salvation is not a singular work within the Godhead, but is a united
effort. It is God the Father that gives
to Jesus those who would seek Him out.
And Jesus affirms that everyone that comes to Him would in no wise be
cast out. It is not Jesus who rejects us
coming to Him. It is we who refuse to
come and sometimes leave Him after we do.
It is we who feel no need of a Messiah as we trust to our own
wisdom. But when in humility we realize
our need of a Savior, we come to Christ, and no matter who we are, or what we
have done, He accepts each one of us.
The point of redemption is to redeem, not to condemn for what we are,
but to remake us into what we should become.
Jesus continues to echo the true mission of the Messiah … “For I came
down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.” Jesus is not here to work for Himself, but to
do the will of the Father. Even here is
perfection revealed, it is found in perfect submission to God. The will of Christ perfectly submitted to His
Father results in a life of perfection and complete absence of sin.
Then Jesus reveals the will and motives of His Father, an
insight into God the Father that to this point in time, man had never even
conceived of in verse 39 He states… “And this is the Father's will which hath
sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should
raise it up again at the last day.” Here
Jesus plainly states that God the Father wished to save every single one of
us. He wishes for Chris to lose
nothing. Jesus further states that life
would again be restored to those who died, as they are raised up again at the
last day. This shows the author of life
is God. God is the source of life. It is not inherent in us, but given to us by
God. God is immortal we are not. Christ does not say that He intends to place
dis-embodied souls back into their mortal containers at the last day, but
instead to raise up the dead back to life again. The power of resurrection granted to the
Messiah, the source of life truly within our Savior.
Jesus continues to give us insight into the mind and motives
of His Father God in verse 40 He repeats … “And this is the will of him that
sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have
everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.” To see Jesus, to believe in the saving power
of Christ, is to find everlasting life, a life worth living. The transformation that Christ begins and
finishes within us is the definition of what life is. Life is to be more than mere existence. Life cannot be fully measured while pain
exists. To have true life, pain must
cease to exist. Life which is found in
Christ, is defined by His remaking us, freeing us from our slavery to self, to
sin, and to the pain that comes with it.
An eternity of pain is not everlasting life. Everlasting life is an eternity where pain
and death will exist no more. This is
the goal not only of Christ, but of His Father God. This is the gift THEY wish to give us,
through the mechanism of Jesus Christ.
These profound insights into the mind and motives of God the Father were
offered by Christ to those worshippers in that Capernaum Synagogue.
But these profound insights were lost on them as their
unbelief was revealed in their response in verse 41 … “The Jews then murmured
at him, because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. [verse 42]
And they said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we
know? how is it then that he saith, I came down from heaven?” How often do we lose the profound insights
Christ offers us while we focus on the unimportant or trivial, allowing our
doubts to cloud our thinking, until what we wish to address is only our concerns,
and not His truth. Christ had just given
an insight into the very mind and motives of God the Father, yet this was
ignored. The focus was on the “facts”
the people knew to be true, they “knew” the parents of Christ, therefore how
could He have come down from heaven into the world?
Christ however, was undeterred by their questions and
murmurs, and attempts to keep the focus of the dialogue on what is important so
in verse 43 He repeats … “Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, Murmur
not among yourselves. [verse 44] No man can come to me, except the Father which
hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.” It is the Father that draws us to
Christ. If we heed that invitation and
go to Christ we will find ourselves saved by miraculous power we cannot
explain. We will find our lives altered
inexplicably by the lure and power of love that alone can rid us of evil
evermore. That resurrection from death,
is more than a literal declaration of life restored at the end of all things. It is about life restored in the here and
now. We are dead as we embrace our self
and our pain. Christ offers us a
resurrection from the death of sin, the life of perfect service to others. It is in serving others that we finally mimic
the work of God Himself. It is our God
who serves us. It is our God driven by
infinite love who forsakes His throne and glory, and defines glory in the
humility of a manger, and walks amid the contempt of those He longs to
save. Love knows no limits in redeeming
the lost. And we, the lost, are raised
out of our state of death, to a life of love and brilliance the mind can hardly
contain. This act does not need to wait
until our physical perfection is attained, it can begin as the Father lures us to
the feet of His Son, and we find ourselves transformed as we let go self, and
embrace the Messiah of our salvation.
Christ remains in this dialogue in a synagogue, a place
where the Old Testament scriptures are taught, venerated, and studied. His surroundings are not lost on Him. So He points to the scriptures they are
familiar with and continues in John’s gospel account chapter six and verse 45 …
“It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man
therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.” Here Christ fulfills the very words that were
prophesied of the coming Messiah. He,
the Son of God, is literally teaching all who were there. Mankind is literally learning from the mouth
of God Himself, in the form of His Son.
But to be taught, one must be willing to learn. Too often both then and now, we come to God
to affirm our ideas and verify our version of truth. We expect God to conform to what we
“know”. Instead of coming to find out
what He knows, and is longing to share with us.
All in all, it would have been easier to gain the love of the people, to
simply free them from Roman oppression, answering their prayers, and aligning
with their highest hopes and dreams. But
love is not love, if it is not based in truth.
Love could not align, with their expectations, instead it must be true
to itself, from ancient times past through the mouth of the prophets to His
arrival in their synagogue, Christ only spoke truth. Here again, Christ demonstrates the truth of the
Old Testament scriptures. He does not
deny them. Rather, He again directly
affirms them, and attempts to correct the misinterpretations the people had
applied to them. Christ is plainly
stating He is the long awaited Messiah, and this prophecy is being fulfilled in
their presence. They, like John who
penned this story, bore witness to the fulfillment of divinely inspired
prophecy.
Christ continues trying to reach his listeners, He longs to
share with them truth, they could not possibly know, or have gained from the
writings they studied. He wants to share
a personal account, a personal testimony, something only He could know. So in verse 46 he says … “Not that any man
hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father.” Christ is saying, I have been there. I have seen what you have not. I have seen, what no man has seen. Just me,
Only me. I have a personal
account of God that you could not know, and I want to share these truths with
you. God the Father is interested in
your salvation. God the Father sent me
here to offer you this gift. It is the
will of God the Father, and His desires, I am fulfilling. And here is an even more personal testimony
Christ wishes to share in alignment with His Father’s will and goals, instead
of those of the people, God says in verse 47 … “Verily, verily, I say unto you,
He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.”
Christ is literally saying, I know God the Father personally, and the
two of us are united in offering you the one hope, the one method of
transforming your life from one of torture, death, and slavery to evil – to one
of abundant and eternal life of joy, love, service, and bliss. Believe in my truth, in my desire to save,
and be saved.
Christ again returns to his analogy they referenced of Moses
and the Manna God provided before. He
again attempts to reset their expectations and call their attention to the real
redemptive work the Messiah is there to accomplish. He continues in verse 48 … “I am that bread
of life.” It is not Manna you need, it
is not the meal I provided that you really need, to find real life, you need
Me. To be saved, we must see our need
transcends our ability to save ourselves, and seek an answer that is outside of
ourselves. We need a Messiah. We need a solution to our slavery to self
that comes as a gift, as we never be able to afford it, or earn it, or acquire
it on our own. The path of salvation for
us, is the only one by which we could ever be saved. For once bound to the chains of evil we
became forever powerless to break its grip.
We need the eternal bread, the eternal solution, the eternal needs met
in the only God who offers it to us. It
is Christ we need, both then and now and forever.
Jesus continues to attempt to explain how His work of our
redemption will be accomplished. He
continues in verse 49 … “Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are
dead. [verse 50] This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man
may eat thereof, and not die. [verse 51] I am the living bread which came down
from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the
bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the
world.” Christ must give His own flesh
in order to restore life to the world.
He must die, and bear the consequences of our sin, take our punishment,
so that we can be freed from it. It is
only through His sacrifice that the demands of Satan for justice of our crimes
can be pardoned, the punishment must be met, but it will not be met by us. To be redeemed will cost love everything. To be redeemed will cost Christ His own life
in our stead. This is how far love would
go to redeem, it would sacrifice itself, the very life of God, to see His
children restored to His side. Christ
came to end our slavery and bear our punishment. He is not there to conquer Romans, He is
there to conquer our evil within us. We
will be made free from within. Slaves no
more from within. Then no matter where
we find ourselves, whether in a mansion with millions of dollars, or in a
prison a ward of the state, we will be free indeed. Free to love, free to serve, and free to
discover what life truly is. This is a
wisdom that Christ alone can reveal. But
in His continued analogy, His listeners lost sight of the spiritual, and
focused back on the physical, to them the pearls of wisdom and truth were
lost. All they heard sounded like
cannibalism. And the beauty of truth was
transformed into the most abhorrent of ideas.
When we refuse to let go of our ideas, and our understanding, and be
taught, we wind up not hearing, not understanding, and getting about as far
from what was intended as those listeners did in the Synagogue.
In verse 52 came the inevitable response … “The Jews
therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh
to eat?” Jesus could have dropped this
analogy some time ago, but He did not.
He continued with it, trying to tie the Moses they venerated, with
Himself and His work. I believe His continued
response revealed an even more subtle truth starting in verse 53 … “Then Jesus
said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the
Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. [verse 54] Whoso
eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him
up at the last day. [verse 55] For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is
drink indeed. [verse 56] He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood,
dwelleth in me, and I in him. [verse 57] As the living Father hath sent me, and
I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. [verse 58]
This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat
manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever.” In effect Christ doubles-down on His
analogy. His words now go beyond just a
hint at cannibalism and look more like full blown vampirism and cannibalism if
one applies them merely physically. Perhaps
these extreme images were intended to show his listeners that He was not talking
physically. Or perhaps the more subtle
truth, was that our truth was not going to dictate our salvation, but instead
the words that come from God. We can
reject God, but if we are to find the truth, we have nowhere to look but to
God. When the words of God conflict with
our ideas, it is our ideas that require an adjustment.
Christ plainly states that those who reject His sacrifice,
have no life in them. To turn away from
the source of life, is to leave life altogether. Our breath does not define our lives, our
continued heart rhythm itself is not enough to define a life worth living. A life of evil, is one of torture, pain, and
the craving for death, the death of everything around it. This is the path Satan has pioneered and
refused to abandon. Those perfect angels
who followed him and broke trust with God, now join him on a highway to
self-destruction, and a demonic desire to drag as many as God would love with
them. It is not a threat that Christ
makes, it is a statement of fact. In
Christ, in God, is life. Outside of
them, is only torture, pain, and death.
This stands as a stark warning to those who like Lucifer would embrace
their own ideas, and wisdom, over the wisdom of God – what awaits you, is not
life. Life can only be found in one place,
in one God. Scripture does not save
those in that synagogue. The truth of
Moses does not save them. Their
accumulated wisdom and knowledge of God found in the study of nature, and the
prophets does not save them. If they
reject the source of life, refuse to take Christ into them, refuse to submit,
all those other things matter nothing.
There is but one source of life, without Christ, there is no life in
them. The same is true for us. It is not our Christianity that saves us, nor
our denomination, it is Christ alone. It
is our individual submission to Christ that results in our transformation. This is not a corporate act, it is a personal
one. It will be determined one soul at a
time. You cannot rely on the choices of
your loved ones, to transfer to you by proxy.
Either you submit personally, or you cling to self, your own wisdom, and
your fate.
It would be hard enough, that those in the synagogue that
day, could not see the truth of His words.
But even among those who called themselves His disciples, among those
who followed Him, to learn the truth, these words appear to have just gone too
far. In verse 60 they respond … “Many
therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard
saying; who can hear it?” This was simply,
just too much. Even those who professed
to follow Him, had interpreted His words physically. Jesus attempts to get to the heart of the
matter He continues in verse 61 … “When Jesus knew in himself that his
disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you? [verse 62] What
and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?” Here is Christ asking, what the real problem
is? Are they offended by the idea of
cannibalism, or by the idea that He is in fact God, and came from Heaven, not a
mere prophet or mortal man? He continues
in verse 63 … “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing:
the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” Okay, says Christ, let’s take cannibalism off
the table. I am not talking about the
actual flesh, I am talking about this concept in a spiritual capacity. Remember now, the center of attention has
moved to a conversation between Christ and those who had chosen to follow Him
and call themselves His disciples. But
even with the idea of cannibalism put to bed, the idea that salvation could
come to man alone through the Son of God was a truth that could not be
denied. It would be this belief that
would save them. They would still have
this hurtle to overcome; their own ideas about truth.
Jesus then states openly the thoughts of many there … “But
there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who
they were that believed not, and who should betray him. [verse 65] And he said,
Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given
unto him of my Father.” Christ knew who
would betray Him, and who would refuse to believe in Him. But this did not prevent Him from accepting
them anyway. Those who would choose to leave
Him were free to do so, but it was not because they were rejected, it would be
because they chose to leave. Love cannot
compel, it can only offer. Even Judas
who was among the 12 and would eventually betray the Savior was there at the
will of the Father. The salvation of
Judas was just as important to Christ as was that of Peter or John. Judas was no less a disciple, and no less
loved or treasured by God. Judas did not
do anything to Christ, that you and I have not done 10 times just today. Every time we betray the Son of God back to
His crucifixion to cover the sins we choose once again to commit, we knowingly
betray Him anew. Yet God remains keenly
interested in our redemption, as He was with Judas, and those there who would
refuse to embrace His words.
But verse 66 reveals the disturbing nature of mankind when
the desire to cling to our wisdom exceeds the lure of love … “From that time
many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.” Christ lost followers. His message was more than unpopular, it
revealed the need of a Messiah, and the eventual death He would embrace for our
freedom. There would be no popular
uprising against Rome. There would be no
earthly kingdom of power and wealth.
Instead poverty would remain.
Instead the yoke of Roman oppression would remain. The ideas and hopes and dreams of the people
were rejected by Son of God, who had higher goals and dreams in mind. Those who walked so close to God, and heard
the words of truth, decided to walk away from them. They chose to leave. Do we?
Do we hear the beauty of truth of submission, and change, and decide we
prefer ourselves and our lives the way they are? Do we, like those who were numbered in His
closest circle, walk away, then the ideas of God conflict with our own?
But praise God, sometimes those who do not understand, can
still cling to love in spite of their lack of wisdom. Jesus asks in verse 67 … “Then said Jesus
unto the twelve, Will ye also go away? [verse 68] Then Simon Peter answered
him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. [verse 69]
And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living
God.” Peter spoke for the 12 when He
acknowledged they may not get it, they may not understand everything Christ was
trying to teach them, but they knew He was God.
There was no place else to go.
There would be only one source of truth, even if the truth was still
something they could not fully comprehend.
That is faith that saves. That is
belief that transforms.
But even among the 12 was one whose faith was still not
quite so certain. But before Judas can
betray God, Christ must make every attempt to reach him. Jesus reveals to Judas, that the thoughts of
his heart are known to the savior. He
continues … “Jesus answered them, Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you
is a devil? [verse 71] He spake of Judas Iscariot the son of Simon: for he it
was that should betray him, being one of the twelve.” Even for Judas, all was not lost yet, the sin
he was bent on committing was not yet done, and there would still be time to
let go of his own ideas. The words of
Christ had offended not only Judas, but the religious leaders as well. Chapter seven of John’s gospel reveals the
quick epitaph of the results of His sermon in Capernaum, and partially because
of His healing of crippled man on Sabbath.
It reads … “After these things Jesus walked in Galilee: for he would not
walk in Jewry, because the Jews sought to kill him.” Judas would betray Him, because of his refusal
to accept the truth of Christ. The Jews
would seek to kill Him for the same reason.
When we reject the truth of Christ, to embrace our own ideas, we embrace
the path of Lucifer, and his fate. This
is the nature of choice; there is only one that leads to life, all others to
death.
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