John 6:60-71
Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, "This is a hard saying; who can understand it?" When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples complained about this, He said to them, "Does this offend you?
What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was before?
It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.
But there are some of you who do not believe." For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who would betray Him.
And He said, "Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father."
From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more.
Then Jesus said to the twelve, "Do you also want to go away?"
But Simon Peter answered Him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.
Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."
Jesus answered them, "Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?"
He spoke of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, for it was he who would betray Him, being one of the twelve."

Message:
The passage before us is one that is full of pathos. It brings us to the conclusion of our Lord's ministry in Galilee. It shows us the outcome of His ministry there. He had performed some wonderful miracles, and had given out some gracious teachings. It was here, that He had turned the water into wine; here, He had healed the nobleman's son, without so much as seeing him; here, He had fed the hungry multitude. Each of these miracles plainly accredited His Divine mission, and evidenced His Deity.
None other ever performed such works as these! Before such evidence unbelief was excuseless.

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It is indeed pathetic to find that here in Galilee Christ met with no better reception than had been His is Judea, and it is striking to see how closely the one resembled that of the other. His success there, judged by human standards, seemed all that could be desired. Crowds followed Him; and many seemed anxious to be His disciples. It soon became evident that the crowds were actuated by motives of an earthly and carnal character. Few gave evidence of any sense of spiritual need. As it was in Judea, so the same response in Galilee. How was it then in Galilee...simply a repetition of what happened in Judea.
Human nature is the same wherever it is found; that is why history so constantly repeats itself. When one understands the full requirements of following Christ, when one begins to count the cost of being a disciple of Jesus Christ...then, for most, the interest fades, and they drop away. If we are to profit from this section of the Gospel, we must be very clear in our understanding of why those who had appeared to be disciples dropped away. John says, "On hearing it, many of His disciples said, 'This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?'" And he adds, "Aware that His disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, 'Does this offend you?'"
The reason lies in the fact that Christ's teachings were "hard" to accept. The Greek word is (skleros,) and it clearly does not mean "hard to understand." It means "hard to tolerate." So long as Christ's followers could not understand Him, they stayed around and asked questions. It was when they did understand Him that they went elsewhere. They left because what they heard was so contrary to their own views that they would not accept it.
Our text says that the grumbling took place with the disciples. A 'disciple' means one who is a learner. These 'disciples' were carefully distinguished from "the twelve." They were made up of a class of people who were, in measure, attracted by the person of Christ and who were, more especially, impressed by His miracles. But how real this attraction was, and how deep the impression made, we are now given to see. When Christ had presented Himself not as the Wonderworker, but as the Bread of God; when He had spoken

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of giving His flesh for the life of the world, and of men drinking His blood, which signified that He would die, and die a death of violence; when He insisted that except they ate His flesh, and drank His blood, "they had no life" in them; and, above all, when He announced that man is so depraved and so alienated from God, that except the Father draw him, he would never come to Christ for salvation: they were all offended. It will be seen, then, that we take the words, "This is an hard saying; who can hear it? "as referring to the whole discourse which Christ had just delivered in the Capernaum synagogue.
We would agree that some of the sermon is not easy to comprehend, but the real difficulty does not lie here. As Calvin put it, "The hardness was in their hearts and not in the saying." They had their own ideas about the way to God and they were not going to be shaken out of it.
Leon Morris, in his commentary, tells the following story: A little boy went off to Sunday School. When he came home his mother asked what he had learned. "Well," he said, "we had a story about Moses. God sent him behind the enemy lines to rescue the Israelites from the Egyptians. When they got to the Red Sea, Moses called for the engineers to build a pontoon bridge to get them across. When they were all over, Moses saw the Egyptian tanks coming. Quick as a flash he sent headquarters a message on his walkie-talkie radio, asking them to send dive bombers to blow up the bridge. They did and the Israelites were saved." His rather dazed mother inquired, "Is that really the way your teacher told the story?"
"Well, not exactly," admitted her offspring, "but if I told it the way she did, you'd never believe it!"
We are all inclined to be a little bit like that. We have a firm idea of how God should act, and we persist in seeing His actions the way we imagine them instead of listening to what in fact He has chosen to do. That was the way it was with Jesus' hearers that day in Capernaum. They were sure of the way God acted. Were not they and all the Jews the people of God? Had He not sent His prophets to their nation? Did they not have fine official interpreters of His word? Jesus, they thought, could not possibly be believed when what

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He said contradicted their understanding of the way God acts. They did not say all this openly, but "muttered" to themselves (as is still often the way with the discontented). But Jesus knew.
"Does this trouble you?" He asked (v.61), where His verb is a picturesque one taken from the practice of trapping birds or animals. The trap would be set with a stick (called a SKANDALON) propping it open. When the bird sat on the stick and moved it the trap was triggered off and the capture made. The verb SKANDALIZO means "to trigger off the trap," and it is this verb that is used here (as in a number of places in the New Testament; it is difficult to find a satisfactory English equivalent, and there are many suggestions: "to cause to stumble," "to offend," and others). Jesus perceived that what He had said meant trouble, not enlightenment, to His hearers. They would not accept it; they could not imagine that Jesus was in fact the one way to salvation. So they did not accept what He was saying. They found His words unacceptable, offensive and intolerable.
Remember...the words were not hard, but their hearts were!
In verse 62 of our text, Jesus poses a question for them, and there is a problem for us in that He does not complete it. Evidently they were able to fill in the missing bit whereas we, from a different background, find it hard to do so. Our translations put in something to make the sentence grammatical in English. Thus the King James Version inserts "What": "What and if ye shall see...?" But Jesus says no more than "If then you see..." but leaves His hearers to work out for themselves what would be the result of their seeing. He speaks of the Son of man "going up where He was before." This must refer to His going back to heaven, for Jesus has made it clear in the discourse just ended that He came down from heaven. What He is saying, then, is this: "You find it difficult to believe that I am the bread, the essential of life, which came down from heaven. Well then, you will have no difficultly in accepting that claim when some day you see Me ascending back to heaven." It is a forecast of the Ascension.

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"What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where He was before?" Soon would the Son of God return to that sphere of unmingled blessedness and highest glory from whence He came to Bethlehem’s manger; and that, in order to go to Calvary's Cross. But He would return there as "the Son of man." This is indeed a marvel. A MAN is now seated upon the throne of the Father—the GOD-MAN. And because of His descent and ascent, heaven is the home of every one who, by eating His flesh and drinking His blood, becomes a partaker of His life. And because of this, earth becomes a wilderness, a place of exile, through which we pass, the children of faith, as strangers and pilgrims. Soon, thank God, shall His prayer be answered: "Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am." (John 17:24)
It is to be observed that Christ did not positively declare that these murmurers should "see" Him as He ascended, but He merely asked them if they would be offended at such a sight. It seems to us He designedly left the door open. There is no room for doubt but that many became real believers for the first time after He had risen from the dead.
Then Christ continues in verse 63 with these words of explanation: "It is the Spirit that quickeneth (gives life); the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life." This sentence adds the truth that it is only through the ministry of the Holy Spirit that we can understand this doctrine, and, this statement gives us the key to interpreting Jesus' discourse. His hearers had not understood the spiritual intent of His message. Some of them may have taken Jesus' words about eating His flesh literally; thus, Jesus' clarification, "the flesh counts for nothing."
This statement also applies to the correct mode of interpretation; a fleshly interpretation of His words would yield nothing. One must apply a spiritual interpretation to Spirit-inspired words.
The key to interpreting Jesus' words is in recognizing that His very words are spirit and life. Therefore, the interpreter must depend upon the life-giving Spirit to appropriate Jesus' words. What Jesus spoke was in itself (PNEUMA (spirit) and ZOE (life) and,

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activated by the life-giving Spirit, was capable of giving life to those who really heard Him and believed Him.
Thus, to receive Jesus' word was (and is) equivalent to receiving His life and was (and is) the same as eating and drinking Him. The key, therefore, to eating and drinking Jesus is to receive His word as spirit and life. Those who believed there and then were those who received His word in this way and, as a result, were recipients of eternal life.
Dr. Barnes, in his excellent commentary, gives us these thoughts on verse 63:
"These words have been understood in different ways. The word "Spirit," here, evidently does not refer to the Holy Spirit, for He adds, "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit. He refers here, probably, to the doctrine which He had been teaching in opposition to their notions and desires. "My doctrine is spiritual; it is fitted to quicken and nourish the soul. It is from heaven. Your doctrine or your views are earthly, and may be called flesh, or fleshly, as pertaining only to the support of the body. You place a great value on the doctrine that Moses fed the body; yet that did not permanently profit, for your fathers are dead.
When Jesus said that His words were "spirit," or spiritual, He is saying that they were not to be taken literally, they are to be understood as denoting the need of that provision for the soul which God has made by My coming into the world.
Verse 64 continues the words of Jesus.
"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." While Jesus thus offers eternal life to those who hear Him, He knows that there are unbelievers listening to Him. They will not respond. The life of which He has been speaking is not for such people. But these words show that the fact that some did not believe did not take Jesus by surprise. He knew that this would be so, and He knew who they were who would not believe. In this discourse, Christ was addressing human responsibility. He was pressing upon His hearers their need of believing on Him. He was not deceived by outward appearances. They might pose as His disciples, they might

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seem to be very devoted to Him, but He knew that they had not "believed." Under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, John reminds us one of the great attributes of Deity.. .OMNISCIENCE. John says: "For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray Him." In John 13:1 we find these words: "It was just before the Passover Feast. Jesus knew that the time had come for Him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved His own who were in the world, He now showed them the full extent of His love."
John 13:11
"For He knew who was going to betray Him, and that was why He said not every one was clean."
John 18:4
"Jesus, knowing all that was going to happen to Him, went out and asked them, "Who is it you want."
John 19:28
"Later, knowing that all was no completed, and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, "I am thirsty."
Jesus Christ was God manifest in the flesh. He was the God-man. A definition for Omniscience is: God fully knows Himself and all things actual and possible in one simple and eternal act. God knows "all things actual" means all things that exist and all things that happen are known by God. God also knows the future, for He is the One who can say, "I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done.
David said: "0 Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar" (Psalm 139:1-2)
He knows the words we will say before they are spoken: "Even before a word is on my tongue, lo, 0 Lord, you know it altogether" (Psalm 139:4)
Throughout the Gospel of John, He continues to remind us of the Deity of Christ, His eternity, His power, and His knowledge.
Back to our text, John 6:35: "And He said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto Me, except it were given unto him of my Father." Here Jesus repeats what He had said in v. 44. He is still addressing their responsibility. He presses upon them their

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moral inability. He affirms their need of Divine power working within them. It was very humbling, no doubt. To the Father they must turn; from Him they must seek that drawing power, without which they would never come to Christ and be saved. The language of Christ is unequivocal. It is not "no man will," but "no man can come to Me, except it were given him of My Father." John 1:13 expressly declares that the new birth is "not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."
"FROM THAT TIME MANY OF HIS DISCIPLES WENT BACK, AND WALKED NO MORE WITH HIM" (v. 66) This just has to be one of those sad moments in the ministry of Jesus! At the cross, "they all forsook Him and fled."
The Greek expression for "turned back" means "went away to the things behind." These disciples, lacking revelation and faith and hard hearts, no longer accompanied Jesus.
The events of this chapter had made it all too clear that following Jesus meant something different from anything they had anticipated.
Nothing is said to give us a clear idea of their views, but the probability is that they were interested in a messianic kingdom in line with the general expectation. Instead they are invited to believe, to receive Christ, to eat His flesh and drink His blood, to enter into that eternal life that He proclaimed. It was too much for them. They rejected these words of life and made the choice of an eternity without Him...forever lost!
"He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him" (John 3:36).
THEN JESUS SAID TO THE TWELVE, "Do you also want to go away?" Can you feel the pain in His heart? He had poured out His soul with a message of life and relationship with Him that would last forever...and they turned and walk away!! But Simon Peter answered Him, "LORD, TO WHOM SHALL WE GO? YOU HAVE THE WORDS OF ETERNAL LIFE." Also, we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."
I cannot think of a more pathetic moment in the public ministry of Christ. What a revelation of the hardness of the human heart. It is desperately wicked! Not hard sayings...just hard hearts! Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts!