John 6:60-71

In our culture, we love loyalty. It's something we talk about in the relationships we have. We see it most beautifully in the wife who stayed, the friend who never left your side, the person who committed to something and actually came through. But most of us, if we're honest, have conditions built around our loyalty: I'll stay as long as it keeps making sense for me, as long as I feel like I'm getting some end of the bargain. We'd like our loyalty to be immune to circumstances, but in the real world, if the person were tested, it's easy to follow someone who always tells you what you want to hear or gives you what you want or need. But what happens when they contradict you? What happens when they say something that crosses a boundary you had put up?

Most of our relationships carry conditions — even with the people we follow, the people we're under authority to. If we reserve the right to decide what the people in charge of us are allowed to say, what they're allowed to lead us into, what we're actually doing is no longer following that person — we're following ourselves. And that's the crisis Jesus creates in this passage, in John chapter 6. Miracles. People like Jesus. They just got fed. They've seen him do miracles. And now Jesus says something that goes against almost everything they've believed — something they would have never wanted him to say out loud.

Big Question

What do you do when someone you trust says something you cannot accept?

Fortunately, the Bible has an answer for us. So let's look at John chapter 6, where we see three major movements in this story: first, the word Jesus will not soften; then, the followers who turn back; and lastly, the faith that has nowhere else to go. Over the last three weeks in this series, we've seen Jesus do some incredible things — he fed thousands of people, walked on water, showed that he was the true bread of life. He pointed people back to the Old Testament manna and showed how it was pointing to him. And then he says something pretty hard: that if you're going to have eternal life, you must eat his flesh and drink his blood. Today we reach the morning after the miracle wore off, after the spectacle was no longer in the forefront of their minds. A crowd had chased him for loaves — now only a handful of people remain.

Outline

1. The Word Jesus Will Not Soften (John 6:60-65)

2. The Followers Who Turn Back (John 6:66-67)

3. The Faith That Has Nowhere Else to Go (John 6:68-71)

1. The Word Jesus Will Not Soften (John 6:60-65)

Let's look at who's talking right now. Look at verse 60: 'When many of his disciples heard it, they said...' — and look who's talking. It's not the crowds, it's not the Pharisees, it's the disciples — the people who had been traveling with him for months, maybe years. What do they say? 'This is a hard saying. Who can listen to it?' When they say this, they're not saying, 'Jesus, you've told us some kind of riddle we have to decipher, you're speaking a different language.' It's not that this was hard to comprehend in their minds. It was hard to accept in their hearts. What they meant when they said 'this is hard' is, 'This is intolerable. We can't accept this.'

I think we can often move past how offensive what Jesus had just said to them was. When Jesus said, 'Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, there is no life in you,' imagine being an alcoholic reaching out to your sponsor — the man or woman who had answered your calls in the middle of the night, who had saved your marriage, who had helped transform your life. Imagine you're meeting him for dinner, and suddenly he pours a glass of wine and says, 'Unless you drink this, you have no life in you.' You wouldn't say, 'This is a difficult thing to understand.' You'd say, 'This works against everything you've told me not to do.' That's something like what's happening here in this chapter. The disciples trusted Jesus — they had seen the miracles, they believed, they had faith that he came from God. But they were also Jewish, formed by the Scriptures — Scriptures that forbade drinking blood. The difficulty wasn't merely that Jesus sounded strange. For a moment, Jesus sounded unbiblical. The question they now faced is the question every disciple must face: what will you do when Jesus, the one you know and trust, says something you cannot reconcile with what you thought you knew?

So how does Jesus respond? It would have seemed natural for Jesus to turn to the Old Testament and say, 'Let's look at that passage — I'll give you a new understanding, show you how this didn't mean what it meant before, how there's a new covenant happening.' But Jesus doesn't do that. Or he could have talked about what he was about to do — Jesus talks a lot about how he's going to die, how he foreshadows the cross. He could have talked about the upper room, said, 'In a year we're going to gather, and I'm going to institute this thing called the Lord's Supper — I'm not being literal about drinking my blood, this isn't something you need to be offended by.' But he doesn't do that either. Instead, look at verse 62. Jesus says, 'What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?' His response isn't a rational argument. It isn't clever words to try to help them understand more clearly.

Jesus forces them behind what he was saying, into the identity of the speaker. The question is no longer simply, can I accept these words? It pushes them into: who is the man who has said this? Essentially what Jesus is saying is, either I'm God or I'm not. What he's saying is that belief in me cannot be a cost-benefit analysis. We can't weigh the things we like about what Jesus says against the things we don't — 'well, he says awesome things about not going to hell and some pretty cool things about heaven, but he also says some things about human sexuality that don't jive with the culture we live in.' We can't say, 'In Shalom he promises to give us rest and peace, but on the other hand he's asking me to give up my Sunday.' Either he's God or he isn't. Either he was crucified and raised from the dead or he wasn't. Either he's the second member of the Trinity or he isn't.

Oftentimes we look at our faith and say, 'There's some parts I'm just not going to read, not going to follow — I'm not going to spend much time in that part of the Bible because it's convicting for me.' How moronic would it be for us to believe that Jesus truly is God, and then say, 'I might walk away because I don't like this one thing he says.' If Jesus is God, who are we to determine what he can and cannot say to us? If he were simply a good teacher, we could weigh his teachings over time and see what stuck — take the good things, disregard the rest, the way we do with other teachers, other pastors, other philosophers. But he wasn't simply a teacher. If he is the Son of God, then we do not stand over his word and judge what he has to say. His word stands over us.

Jesus will not soften the truth to keep people who only want him for the benefits. He would rather have a group of twelve than a stadium full of people ready to leave once the bread runs out. Jesus has been and always will be a stumbling block for people who cannot see beyond their own desires. But Jesus refuses to change his words, and many of his followers respond by making a different choice. They change direction. That's what we see in the next section — the followers who turn back.

2. The Followers Who Turn Back (John 6:66-67)

Verse 66 might be the saddest chapter — the 'disciples turn back' chapter. 'After this, many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.' Yesterday there were thousands of people on a hillside ready to make Jesus their king. Now some of the disciples walk away — not the Twelve, but people who had followed Jesus for months, maybe even a year. They'd had one-on-one conversations with him, they were regulars, they followed him wherever he went. That's why Jesus, in other places, asks the Twelve to prove themselves as his true disciples after this happened. A crowd of followers is not the same as a company of a few faithful. The thing that separates the two is not intellect, not zeal, not enthusiasm — the difference between those who are true disciples and those who left is whether they stay when the words stop being flattering.

It says they 'turned back.' This phrase is a direct allusion to Israel wandering in the wilderness, when they kept desiring to go back to Egypt. Over and over in the Old Testament, the desire to turn back is almost exclusively a bad thing — Lot's wife turned back and looked at Sodom and Gomorrah. It also says they 'no longer walked with him.' That phrase is pregnant with meaning. Throughout the Old Testament, walking with someone wasn't just an activity — it was the status of a relationship. It showed who you cared for. Adam and Eve walked with God in the garden. Enoch walked with God. And now these disciples will not walk with him any longer. The interesting thing is that Jesus does not stop them. He doesn't plead with them, doesn't run after them to bring them back. It shows us something: our staying, our showing up, isn't a favor we do for Jesus.

Look at verse 67: 'So Jesus said to the Twelve, "Do you want to go away as well?"' Essentially Jesus is saying, 'Look, there they go — there's the door, if you want to join them, go ahead.' Our staying was never a gift we gave Jesus. Our staying was a gift he gave us. Only Jesus can hold someone fast, because it's part of his nature, because he's God. As humans, there are relationships we're dependent on — if you're married, you need your spouse; if you're a child, you need your parents. But God does not need a relationship with us to be complete. It's one of the beautiful things about creation — he didn't make us to fill something he was lacking. He was complete when he made the world, in relationship within himself — that's what the Trinity is. Out of love he created us. Jesus does not need to chase after them. God does not need people he manipulates into worshiping him. He doesn't need hostages. God is glorified when we see his beauty and desire to walk with him.

This shows God's trust in the Father's faithfulness — it shows how Jesus trusts the Father's calling for the elect. Jesus knows the Father will bring to him whom the Father has chosen. Jesus is bringing them to the moment every disciple must face: if everyone walks away, who do you believe Jesus is? The question isn't to reassure Jesus — it's not asked to make Jesus feel better about himself. Jesus is giving the disciples an opportunity to stand their ground, asking if they're leaving too. And that's what we see in the next section — the faith that has nowhere else to go.

3. The Faith That Has Nowhere Else to Go (John 6:68-71)

Verses 68 and 69 say this: 'Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God."' Others had said this was too far, too much, and they left. Peter looked at Jesus and realized he had nowhere else to go with his questions — nowhere else had the words of life. The difference is not that Peter had fewer questions. The difference is that Peter knew who has the answers. He doesn't say, 'Jesus, I figured out your riddle, I get it, I've comprehended it, I understand what you have to say.' He also doesn't say, 'What else would we turn to, or where else will we go?' Peter says something very specific: 'To whom shall we go?' He's saying, 'We've looked around — there's no one else who has the words of life, no one else can give us life and life eternal.'

He gets it. And if you read the rest of John's Gospel, Peter is certainly still confused about what Jesus had said. He makes some pretty boneheaded moves throughout the rest of the book. He's still confused. But he stays, because he knows there isn't another way. He stays because there is no better alternative. Christianity is not a system of ideas for us to adopt. It's not a moral code. Christianity is not a philosophy we apply to our lives to make us into better people. Christianity is, and always has been, a person. It's Christ. It forever will be. Peter is not saying, 'We have found the best worldview.' He is saying, 'We have found him' — the one that Scripture, that all of time, has been looking forward to. Where else can we go? To whom can we run? This is the faith of a cornered heart that has found the only open door. Peter does not have to understand every hard word to know that they are the words of life and that Jesus is the only one who has them.

Then he says this beautiful thing — 'we have believed and have come to know.' That order is important. We are not people who understand in order to believe. We believe because it makes us understand. St. Augustine, a 4th-century pastor and prolific writer, said this: 'Seek not to understand so that you may believe, but believe so that you may understand.' True faith is not the absence of confusion. Peter is still confused about much of what he has just heard. This is not about knowing it all, not about having all the answers — it's about running to the one who has the words of eternal life. There is nowhere else to go, so run to him. We often think faith means having no doubts, having absolute certainty, no questions, no hesitancy, no fear. But that's not what we see in Peter. He doesn't say, 'Jesus, I understand everything now, I've logically put it all in order and it makes sense.' No — he says, 'Lord, to whom shall we go?' Faith is not having every question answered. Faith is knowing where the answers are.

Saving faith does not depend on the strength of your certainty — it depends on the strength of the one you're trusting in. Imagine you're falling off a cliff and you see a branch, and you're 100% certain it will save you if you grab onto it. You can study the branch, know exactly what type of wood it is, know it won't snap under pressure. You can tell everyone, 'This branch can save you.' But if you never grab it, you're doomed. But if, in the same situation, you're uncertain the branch will save you, and yet you cling onto it — you cling on with trembling hands — you will be saved. What saves you is not the confidence of your grip, not the perfect strength of what you are gripping. That's what Peter understands. He does not have a perfect grip on Jesus. No one ever has. It's not the amount of faith that saves you — it's the object of your faith that saves you. It's not the strength of your trust that saves you — it's the strength of Christ. Christ is strong enough to hold weak faith, even if we're unsure, even if we have just a mustard seed of questions.

Maybe you grew up with questions. In this reformed world we live in, we love to be right, we love to know the right thing — we don't say that out loud, but we pride ourselves on it. Maybe you brought some questions with you this morning. Maybe there are things in Scripture you don't understand. Maybe you're going through a season of suffering and you don't understand what God is doing. Maybe you feel weaker than you used to. The answer is not to manufacture a pseudo sense of certainty — it's not to fake it. The answer, again, is to run to Christ. Weak faith in a strong Savior is still strong faith in a strong Savior. Peter is right: where else do we go? To whom shall we run? Who else has the words of eternal life? There's nowhere else to go, so run to him.

There are two points of application. The first is this: stop. Verse 66 says many of his disciples turned back — and that's not something people just do with their feet. Turning back is something we do with our hearts. What they did was essentially repent from Jesus — turn 360 degrees and walk away. Some of us spend our lives trying to return to a season that's gone. We want to go back to when our children were small, when our marriage felt easier, when our bodies were stronger, when our parents were alive, when the church felt fuller, when faith felt simpler — back before the diagnosis, the grief, the disappointment. There's nothing sinful about missing what is good, about remembering the blessings God has given us. Grief often means we cared about something that was good. But nostalgia becomes dangerous when you begin to believe that life itself is behind you. You cannot follow Jesus while constantly facing backwards.

Christ has not promised to take you back to the life you had. He has promised to lead you to the life he has now given you — he's our shepherd through the valley of the shadow of death. So stop asking only, 'How do I get back what I've lost?' and begin asking, 'How do I follow Christ faithfully from here?' Maybe faithfulness from here means learning to live with limits you did not choose. It means loving the spouse you have today instead of resenting the marriage you used to have. Maybe it means serving the church that exists now instead of comparing it to the church you remember, or trusting God in a quieter season when you no longer feel as useful as you once did. The past absolutely contains gifts we should thank God for. But the past is a terrible place to live. Trying to resurrect what is dead will only make us miserable. God is not calling you to look backwards. He is calling you to walk with him.

The second application is this: do not demand that Jesus explain himself before you obey. We often say, quietly in our hearts, 'I will do this, God, but only once you make this clear to me, once you explain it.' But that kind of obedience is conditional obedience. Peter does not understand everything Jesus said, but he knows who Jesus is. Faith does not mean we stop asking questions, but there is a difference between asking questions and putting Jesus on trial. Sometimes Christ calls us to obey before we understand what it means to forgive, what it means to tell the truth, what it means to remain sexually faithful, what it means to give generously, or what it means to trust him in suffering — and yet he still calls us to obey. Saying 'God, explain it to me first, show me it's all going to work out, I don't know if I can do this, I'm still thinking about it, still praying about it' can be a respectable way of saying no. Obey what Christ has made clear. Keep asking questions, keep seeking understanding — but do not make complete understanding the price Jesus has to pay for your obedience.

But there is nowhere else to go. So we must run to him, because the one who says the hard things is also the one who did the hardest thing for us. Jesus did not stand at a distance and tell sinners, 'Go save yourself.' He went to the cross for us, and on that cross he did not merely suffer — he stood in the place of sinners. He bore the guilt we deserved. He took the judgment, took the wrath that should have fallen on us, so that everyone who trusts in him would never have to bear it. The Holy One of God was treated and condemned as guilty, so guilty people could be declared holy and righteous. The Son was forsaken so that all who belong to him would never be abandoned. That's why Peter is right: where else will we go? Who else has carried our sin? Who else has borne our judgment? Who else has taken God's wrath upon himself? Who else has defeated death for us? Who else can look at every sinner and say, 'Son or daughter, you are forgiven'? And who else has the words of eternal life?

Eternal life is not merely living forever. Eternal life is not merely getting a mansion or streets of gold — those are a cherry on top. Eternal life is life with him. One day, faith will become sight. The questions that confuse us now will not have the final word. The suffering that makes obedience hard will be gone. Sin will be gone. Death will be no more. And we will see the face of the one we trusted when we could not see the way. And on that day, in the presence of Christ, we will not say, 'I wish I would have turned back, I wish I would have trusted less, I wish I would have chosen another way.' We will see the one who brought us home — the Lamb who was slain, the Savior who bore our sin, the King who was worth it. So when the word is hard, when obedience costs, when you don't understand what he is doing, when the world offers a hundred other places to go — hear Peter's question again: Lord, to whom shall we go? There is nowhere else to go. So run to him. There is no one else you need.