To Whom Shall We Go?

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

TO WHOM SHALL WE GO?

John 6:60-71

60 On hearing it, many of his disciples said, "This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?" 61 Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, "Does this offend you? 62 What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! 63 The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. 64 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. 65 He went on to say, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him."  66 From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him. 67 "You do not want to leave too, do you?" Jesus asked the Twelve. 68 Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69 We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God." 70 Then Jesus replied, "Have I not chosen you, the Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil!"  71(He meant Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, who, though one of the Twelve, was later to betray him.)

NIV

This is a hard teaching, who can accept it? We have to go back to that teaching to understand why they would think it is a hard teaching and not easy to accept. That teaching was that whoever eats His flesh and drinks His blood will live. We already considered that Jesus was speaking metaphorically and not in a physical sense making those people the only ones who could live, for after they accomplished all that, there would be nothing left of Jesus to go to the cross to take all the sin of the world upon himself and salvation for us would not have been possible. So we have to understand no one has to actually eat His flesh and drink His blood, however through the doctrine of transubstantiation, those who practice it believe they are eating his flesh and drinking his blood. But it would seem that doctrine had not yet been thought of and those who were followers of Jesus just could not wrap their minds around his truth and so they turned back, left following him. Because John uses the term disciples to describe them, it only means they were learners, not that they were The Disciples or the twelve Jesus had chosen. We are also back to some words those who ascribe to the view of John Calvin would say it proves only the elect or specific people God chooses are saved.  Their interpretation of Jesus saying that no one can come to him unless the Father has enabled him would mean only those the Father chooses to enable are the only ones who can come to Jesus and be saved. That sounds sort of right and we can understand why some might believe that except these words of Jesus would have to be taken totally out of context to come up with that theological stance. Jesus had just said that the words he has spoken to them regarding his flesh and blood were spirit and they are life. He was speaking in the spiritual sense and some just could not grasp the spiritual, they could not, or would not allow the Spirit to reveal this truth to them. The Father was making the Spirit or the spiritual understanding available, but Jesus makes it clear that some of them did not believe. This turns it back into the heart of a man who chooses whether to believe or not to believe, not on the choice of God. We are sure of this because Jesus then asks the chosen twelve, ones who were in fact chosen, selected out of the crowd and told to come to follow him if they also wanted to leave, if they wanted to decide to turn away, to stop following him. He was giving them the choice. It was up to them, just as it is up to us, to either decide to follow him or to turn away and follow our own path, which is exactly what Judas did. Oh right, those who believe or follow Calvin’s view would say God chose Judas because he needed him to betray Jesus so he would be crucified. It was the plan of God that Judas was selected to betray Jesus and go to hell because of his betrayal and act of suicide. But do we not betray Jesus every time we choose to commit some act or attitude of sin? Did God select us just so we would betray Jesus in this way? Isn’t sin a form of betrayal? Isn’t sin a form of breaking our trust in Jesus? If we think about it, the root of all sin is our wanting to supply a need in our life rather than trusting in Jesus. All sin is in some way fulfilling some desire within us. But does that mean we do not believe in Jesus? We know he is the only way to eternal life, yet we still sin. How can that be? We have not turned back, we have not returned to our former way of life, or relocated back to the city of darkness and death. We are still living in the city of light and life, but we just have not been glorified yet and thus have to deal with this frail human condition. Sin is not our desire, we have decided to follow Jesus. Just as Peter said, who else would we turn to? Jesus has the words of eternal life. The fact remains we have to choose who we turn to, Jesus or ourselves, or by default the devil. We have turned to Jesus for we know he is the Holy One of God. To who else shall we go?