“Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, ‘This is a hard saying; who can understand it?’” John 6:60.

With seventy-one verses John chapter 6 is the longest chapter in the gospel of John; so very brief recap might be helpful.

The first fifteen verses record the feeding of the five thousand and their subsequent attempt to force Jesus to be king.

The Lord rejected this mainly because it was neither the Father’s timing nor Jesus’ way. The Lord then sent His disciples away by boat and went up on a mountain to pray.

In verses 16-21, we find the disciples struggling at sea, trying to reach the other side. Having rowed about three or four miles through the stormy waters for around nine to twelve hours, Jesus came to them, walking on the water, the hour being 3 to 6 a.m. Upon welcoming Him into the boat, the craft was immediately transported to their destination.

In verses 22-40, a crowd from the feeding on the day before found the Lord in a synagogue in Capernaum and attempt to con Him into feeding them again, and always.

Thinking of Him as the Prophet like Moses they begin baiting Him by saying that Moses gave them the manna from heaven. Jesus corrects them by saying it was His Father who gave them manna; see Exodus 16:15.

Jesus continued telling them that He is the true bread come down from heaven, saying, “I am the bread of life.”

In verses 41-51 the Jews begin to murmur against the Lord, choking on His words “I have come down from heaven”, saying we know His father and mother, how could He have come from heaven?

Never once do they ask Him about His statements. The Lord continues His discourse, saying, “I am the bread of life”, presenting Himself as the giver of everlasting life.

In John 6:52-59 the Jews begin to quarrel among themselves; again, showing no interest in what Jesus might have to say to clarify His words. As the crowd shows that they have no interest in understanding Him, His words become even more obscure.

Presenting Himself as the bread of life, flesh and blood which must be consumed for eternal life. We pick up here at John 6:60 for the final outcome.

“Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, ‘This is a hard saying; who can understand it?’” John 6:60.

Having come to this synagogue with unbelieving hearts the Jews miss the entire message because of their worldview which we saw almost immediately at the beginning of this discourse.

“What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” John 6:28b.

These folks, having been indoctrinated with the Pharisees emphasis on works to get to heaven miss the Lord’s point and overlook His response. Jesus’ reply to this question was as follows.

“This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.” John 6:29b.

Everything which follows is built on this verse. There was no chance that they, or anyone else could work their way to heaven, because salvation is based on simple faith in Christ’s having paid for our sins on the cross; nothing more, “…that you believe in Him whom He [God] sent”.

“When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples murmured 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?’” John 6:61-62.

The Jewish mindset at this time was that the Messiah was to come and set up His kingdom and rule forever. For example, after God the Father spoke to Jesus in an audible voice in the hearing of the people, Jesus said the following.

“This voice did not come because of Me, but for your sake. Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself. This He said, signifying by what death He would die. The people answered Him, ‘We have heard from the law that the Christ remains forever; and how can You say, “The Son of Man must be lifted up”? Who is this Son of Man?’” John 12:30b-34.

A present day example of this thinking concerns the rapture of the church, the snatching away of all who have accepted Christ as their savior from the earth.

There are three views on the timing of the rapture.

The first is that believers will be removed from the earth before the tribulation begins.

The tribulation is a time of unprecedented horror. A period when a man called the beast in the Bible becomes world dictator. Who declares himself to be God and demands worship from those who dwell upon the earth.

Along with his rule there will be wars, famines, earthquakes, fires, the air will be so polluted that the sky will be dark for most of the time, and inflation will be by far worse than anything we have seen so far.

This will be worldwide, even in America, green grass and trees will be gone and crime will be pandemic. No man, woman, or child will be secure, for the times will be perilous.

At the end of this period, the world armies will gather for one last battle, Armageddon; at which time the Lord Jesus Christ will return to destroy these armies and claim the earth for Himself.

The second belief is that Christians will be removed in the middle of the seven year period that makes up the tribulation.

The third and least plausible is that the rapture will happen at the end of the tribulation. And then there are those who deny that there will be a rapture at all.

All of these views have generated many a heated argument over the years, and they will go on until it happens.

My point is that whenever the rapture happens, of these three beliefs, four if you count the no rapture idea; of these three, one is correct and the others will be caught unawares, and be wrong.

In the same manner the Jews of Jesus’ day were wrong in their thinking that the Christ would stay forever at that time.

He is going to fulfill those prophecies concerning Himself but upon His second advent not the first, and then only at the end of the seven year tribulation period.

It is this mode of thinking that the Lord questions, whether these folks would be offended if He told them He not only came down from heaven and rather than stay on to rule forever, He was going to ascend to heaven.

In spite of all this, Jesus still tries to reach them by telling them that He was speaking on spiritual terms. He did this knowing full well that there were those who would believe and those who would leave.

And let us not forget that these words were written down for our sake, as well as for all who will read them.

“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.” John 6:63.

It is through the working of God’s Holy Spirit that we gain eternal life. We will not earn eternal life through the works of the flesh, the things that we do in the flesh profit nothing.

“What then shall we say that Abraham our father has found according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something of which to boast, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.’ Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt. But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness, just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works: ‘Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin.’” Romans 4:1-8.

In fact the flesh desires the things which are in opposition to the desires of God; even though we may rationalize that we are doing things for God, often it is only the desires of the flesh in disguise.

The things of the flesh are all only temporal. If you have a steak with mushroom sauce, mashed potatoes, gravy, and asparagus tonight, you will be hungry again tomorrow.

In this manner, all things pass with the using and none of it will stretch into eternity.

The Lord separates the temporal, dying flesh, and a person’s spirit, which is eternal, no matter where it ends up after we die, by saying, “The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.”

This should have caused many of them to realize that the things that He was saying about eating flesh and drinking blood were spiritual matters not temporal physical things.

“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.” John 6:64-65.

Again we see Jesus’ omniscience in that He knew who did not believe. And to take this a step further, He knew all about all those who were in this crowd before Him. This is a fantastic statement, but either He is God all knowing, or He is not.

Jesus, at this point also repeats the basic statement that He made in John 6:37, 44, and 45, “…no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father.”

As noted in the lesson “Taught by God” published on 9-1-17, the Scripture states the following.

“It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the father comes to Me.” John 6:34.

This crowd standing before Jesus may have been taught by God, but at this point they had not really heard God, nor had they learned; as a result, it was not granted by the Father that they come to Jesus, at least at this time in their life.

Only God knows who will or will not accept Jesus as Savior, and it does not pay to try and second guess Him. The thing that is important is; what have you done with Christ?

“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?’ Then 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.’” John 6:66-69.

Herein is the mark of a true Christian as Peter stated, “Lord, to whom shall we go?” For those in Christ there is nowhere else to go, Christ not only has the words of eternal life, but the abundant life is in Christ only.

The average person does not realize this but Christ is the center of all history, it is all about Him and it will all be consummated in Him.

One day every Christian will think something like this to himself. “Look at me, look at me, I am standing next to the living God, I can see Him with my own eyes. I can reach out and touch my Creator!”

“For I know that my Redeemer lives, and He shall stand at last on the earth; and after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God, Whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!” Job 19:25-27.

This day is rapidly approaching for all of us.

“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.” John 6:70-71.

Some Do Not Believe, John 6:60-71 taken from godisrevealed.com posted on 10-18-12, updated on 9-11-17.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version, copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission, all rights reserved.