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 deliver him up.
A crowd had followed Jesus across the lake to hear Him. Then He says something that empties the room: some of these listeners do not believe. He can say it because He has known all along who they were, and which one of them would hand Him over.
The words that exposed these hearers were about His death and His going back to heaven. One writer explains what they stumbled over, and what was missing in them:
To many of His disciples this was a hard saying, and they stumbled at it. They were thinking of the "Kingdom and glory," and wanted nothing of the "Kingdom and patience" that must come first. To eat and drink into His death, whatever it might mean, was not the fulfilment of their earthly expectations. They had no heart to ask further. They got no further than the bare words and the flesh... But some of them had no power to receive it — no faith. Here He spoke out of the awareness that had always been with Him. He knew who did not believe, and how their unbelief would end in falling away and betrayal.
Another writer names three truths these hearers had to receive. They stand or fall together:
Man cannot accept Christ coming down from heaven and becoming man. Christ going into death offends his pride. Christ ascending into heaven is completely beyond his understanding. All these great truths hold together. Refuse one, and you lose them all. Faith in one will prepare the soul to believe in all.
The verse says Jesus knew "from the beginning." He did not work these people out over time. He never had to.
But, sadly, "there are some of you who do not believe." Not to believe is fatal to anyone, and most inconsistent in a disciple. Christ must be all or nothing... Jesus knew their unbelief, not by observation or experience, but from the first. He is God, and none the less so because He became man; and this is our evangelist's constant theme.
Others place this alongside the rest of what John records about Him, and read it as evidence of who He is:
His knowledge was of no human order but divine. It is also stated that He "knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray Him" (John 6:64), and indeed "all things that should come upon Him" (John 18:4).
These listeners carry the name disciple. The name describes their place in the crowd, not the state of their hearts.
There were some who professed to be His disciples, but they did not believe. Men might indeed follow Him in the crowd for the sake of material benefits. But no one truly came to Christ unless the Father gave it to him. The Father draws; the Son speaks; and the Spirit gives life by applying His words in power to the soul.
The verse names two groups, and the second has only one member. Judas kept his place among the twelve disciples until the moment he acted:
Until Judas revealed himself by betraying the Lord, he had his place among the apostles. We learn later why he was counted among them — so that the scripture might be fulfilled (13:18; 17:12) — while the Lord knew all the time what he was, and the terrible sin he would be guilty of. No one could deceive Christ. He knew what was in man (2:25).
Another writer contrasts Judas with the rest of the disciples:
Satan now takes actual possession of the one who was truly his own, for Judas had never believed in Christ. Peter may deny Him, and the rest of the disciples may forsake their Lord, yet Satan could never enter into them, for they were saved, had life, and the power of God kept them. The Lord knew that wicked one among His disciples.
He could have kept silent and kept the crowd. He spoke instead.
They might come to Him outwardly and in the flesh, as they did here. But even here, when He was present in the flesh, they had to come to Him in reality... or else they came to Him only in the flesh and falsely, in denial of Him. This is why our Lord revealed as much as He did — so that He might have none but real followers.
He also drew a line between the unbelievers and the traitor, and no one could tell it from His conduct:
He did distinguish between those who did not believe and the one who would betray Him; but who ever learned it, except now from His own words? Who had ever seen grace falter in Him in His dealings with all? How solemn is the patience of Divine love!
- Knowledge — "From the beginning" means Jesus never learned who these people were. He knew their unbelief "not by observation or experience, but from the first," because He is God.
- Test — What exposed them was His death and ascension. They wanted the kingdom and glory, not "the Kingdom and patience," so a hard saying was enough to sift them.
- Profession — The unbelievers here carried the name disciple. Men can follow in the crowd "for the sake of material benefits" and still not believe.
- Patience — He carried the knowledge of the traitor in silence, and no one ever saw His grace falter toward anyone.
- Purpose — He said it on purpose, "so that He might have none but real followers." The word that empties the crowd leaves only the real ones.
And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no one can come to me unless it be given to him from the Father.
Jesus had just spoken in the synagogue, and many of His own followers walked away. Here He gives the reason: coming to Him is not something a person achieves but something the Father gives.
The verse opens with "This is why". The Lord is explaining why they left. None of it surprised Him, and it left those who stayed with nothing to boast about.
Jesus knew their unbelief, not by watching or by experience, but from the start. He is God, and no less so because He became man... On the other hand, those who believed had nothing to boast about. They did hold on to Jesus, but no one could come to Him unless the Father had given it to him. It was sovereign grace in God.
The account pauses here to tell us what Jesus already knew as He spoke.
This chapter shows how dead man is. The Lord's words are spirit and life, yet they only made these people stumble. In verses 64 and 65 the Gospel writer breaks off his record to tell us that Jesus spoke knowing all this. He knew in Himself what they thought and said. From the very beginning He also knew who believed, who did not, and who would betray Him.
Crowds had followed Jesus all through this chapter. So the coming He speaks of must be more than that.
To come to Him truly, they had to believe that He really was the Son of God, the living God, and that He was Man from heaven. This was faith... So our Lord said that no one could come to Him unless the Father gave it to him. Real coming meant grasping in spirit who He was, and that understanding is the Father's gift alone. They could come in a merely outward, fleshly way, as they did here. But even while He stood among them in flesh, they had to come to Him in reality.
The Father's gift is not a lone act. One writer sets this verse beside what the Lord had already said in the chapter.
Some claimed to be His disciples, but they did not believe. People might follow Him in the crowd for the sake of material benefits. But no one truly came to Christ unless the Father gave it to him. The Father draws (verse 44). The Son speaks (verse 63). And the Spirit gives life by applying His words in power to the soul.
If the gift is necessary, then without it no one would have responded to Christ. Not even with love standing in front of them in person.
How humbling and heart-breaking for us! Life and love stood there in person, in the Son of God come in flesh. Yet no one would have come to Him, and no one would have been helped by His mission, if the Father had not given Him some. Their coming was something He could count on for certain. Every person's will would have held out against Christ, if the Father had not decided that His Son should have some as the trophies of His victory and the reward of His coming down from heaven.
The verse can sound like a locked door. Read the other way round, it becomes a test anyone can apply to themselves.
Notice this. If you come to Jesus, it is proof of two things. First, that the Father has given you to Him (v. 37); for "no one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him" (v. 44), and no one comes unless the Father grants it (v. 65). Second, that God has taught you (v. 45). If you have not come, is it not because you do not believe God? (v. 45)
This verse does not cancel out human responsibility. One writer urges us to hold on to both truths.
By the grace of God, let us hold firmly to both of these great facts. God is sovereign in the way He acts in grace. Man, though fallen, is a responsible creature, and God addresses him as one. Scripture states God's sovereignty plainly. Read passages such as John 6:37-44; Romans 9:10-24; Ephesians 1:4; 1 Peter 1:2. Man's responsibility is just as plain. Read passages such as John 3:16-18; Romans 2:6-16; 1 Peter 4:5-6. So let us accept both, even if for now we cannot see far enough to work out exactly how they fit together.
- Given — Coming to Christ is a gift, not an achievement. The Lord says so as His followers walk away.
- Given really — This coming is not walking in the crowd. It is seeing who He truly is, and only the Father gives that.
- Given fully — The Father draws, the Son speaks, the Spirit gives life. The whole coming is God's work from start to finish.
- Given to the unwilling — Left to himself, no one would ever have come, not even face to face with love in person. The Father decided otherwise, and that is the only reason anyone came.
- Given — and provable — If you have come to Jesus, that is proof the gift was yours. If you have not, Scripture still speaks to you as responsible.
From that [time] many of his disciples went away back and walked no more with him.
The teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum is over. This time the people walking away are not the religious leaders, but people already counted among His disciples. What in His teaching drove them off, and what does their departure reveal about them and about Him?
The problem was not that His words were unclear. They took away a status His hearers assumed they already had.
His saying was "hard" to them; but where did its hardness lie? In that it cut at the roots of their national religious pride. To be told, "You have no life in you" unless there was this eating and drinking, was intolerable to them. Why, they took it for granted that life was theirs, since they were the nation owned by God. They had not given up that idea, even though they thought they had found the promised Messiah in Jesus.
There was a second disappointment behind the first. They had a picture of what the Messiah would do, and He was describing something else.
They had looked for a King, and there stood a carpenter's Son! In the synagogue discourse He had spoken of giving His flesh for the life of the world. Most of them completely failed to understand what this might mean. But the words made it plain enough that their cherished visions of earthly glory would never come true. And so they stumbled.
The word "disciple" here describes a following, not a new life.
And many of the disciples went away, and the branches of the vine were broken off. These were people who only professed to be His. So a man might be a disciple without having new life, as far as following after Him goes.
Their leaving did not destroy a faith they had; it showed what their faith had always been.
The seed had fallen on the rock. They had not understood the Word. When it came home to their unspiritual hearts in its true character, it set before them the cross as the only way of salvation. Then they discovered that the Word had never taken root, and so it withered away.
They left at the very moment He was offering the most, not the least.
He had brought out His incomparable grace. He had brought out a truth infinitely deeper than if He had brought in the kingdom and given them the seats at His right hand and His left. Suppose it had been possible for every one of them to have the best place. What was that compared with His coming down and dying for sinners, giving eternal life, and raising them up at the last day?
We are not told where these people ended up. We are told what they stopped doing in public.
Now we are not told what became of these deserters, or whether they were saved or not. No such question is raised. We are simply told that they abandoned Christ, and no longer stood in public with His name and His cause. It is one thing to profess to be a disciple of Christ. It is quite another to stand with firm purpose of heart on the ground of public testimony for His name, in full identification with a rejected Lord... Applying the teaching of the cross very quickly thins the ranks of those who only profess.
The Lord could have softened the message and kept the numbers. He did not.
His words are certainly meant to search and sift, to reveal who is really His and who is not. How different this pure faithfulness of the Lord of glory is from the smooth words of religious misleaders! He sought no mere followers, but only those true in heart.
The same words do opposite work in opposite hearts. And those who leave have only their own will to blame.
So the warnings of the Lord hasten the departure of unbelievers. At the same time they bind the faithful more closely to Himself, and bring out their sense of what He is to their souls. The cause lay in their own will, which gave Satan power.
The words that emptied the crowd were the very words the rest could not do without.
Faith in Simon Peter answered for the rest — there was no other to whom to go: it was, and so it has remained, Christ or none at all! And for those who find it so, there are "words of eternal life" with Him. They are His words all the more surely because unspiritual men find them unacceptable.
- Test. The teaching was "hard" because it denied them the life they assumed they had. It also buried their hopes of earthly glory.
- Exposure. The test did not break a real faith; it uncovered a shallow one — seed on rock, a following without new life.
- Cost. They walked away from more than a teacher. They walked away from the One who would die for sinners and raise them at the last day.
- Sifting. He let them go instead of softening His words. He wanted true hearts, not crowds.
- Anchor. The same words that drive unbelievers away bind believers closer. For those who stay, there is simply no one else to go to.