John 6.41-46.
As I’ve said previously, there are a lot of Christians who incorrectly teach the reason Jesus’s teachings in John 6 made the Galileans freak out and stop following him, is because the teachings went over the Galileans’ heads. It’s a popular myth. It’s totally false though; the text of John 6 doesn’t support it. The Galileans understood Jesus perfectly, and that was their whole problem: Jesus is making radical divine statements about himself, which didn’t at all jibe with anything the Pharisees had ever taught ’em about the End Times. Jibes with the bible just fine, but not Pharisee teachings.
Jesus is telling them he’s living bread. He came down from heaven. He’s going to resurrect people on the Last Day. Pharisees had taught ’em God would resurrect everybody, not the Son of Man—because they had no idea the Son of Man is God, incarnate.
The Galileans were so thoroughly indoctrinated in what their rabbis had claimed, there was no room in their minds for anything Jesus claimed. They’d never heard anything like this before—even though plenty of it is found in the Prophets!—so they responded same as most humans do: Automatically presumed it’s wrong. And automatically presumed Jesus is nuts.
After all, isn’t Jesus a man like them? Isn’t he Galilean like them? Don’t they know his parents? How did the son of Joseph and Mary of Nazareth come down from heaven?
- John 6.41-46 KWL
- 41So the Judeans are bellyaching about Jesus
- because he’s saying, “I’m the bread which comes down from heaven.”
- 42They’re saying, “Isn’t this Jesus bar Joseph?
- Haven’t we known his father and mother?
- Now how does he say this—
- ‘I came down from heaven’?”
- 43Jesus replies, and tells them,
- “Stop bellyaching with one another.
- 44No one can come to me
- unless the Father my Sender attracts them¹,
- and I will resurrect them¹ on the Last Day.
- 45It was written in the Prophets:
- ‘All of them² will be taught by God.’ Is 54.13
- Everyone who listens to the Father, who learns,
- comes to me.
- 46Not that anyone saw the Father
- except the one who’s from God.
- That one saw the Father.”
Again, the Galileans (whom John calls “Judeans” because they are; the Galilee was settled a century before by Judeans) are ἐγόγγυζον/egóngyzon, “complaining in a low tone; muttering” because they don’t like what Jesus is saying. They’re not loud about it, because John eventually reveals they’re in synagogue when Jesus says these things, Jn 6.59 but the bellyaching is making enough noise in Jesus’s class for their rabbi to overhear and rebuke.
He knows why they’re bellyaching too—and he doubles down.
“No you didn’t.”
When somebody claims, “I came from heaven,” our knee-jerk reaction, naturally and understandably, is to reply, “No you didn’t.”
Doesn’t matter how much you know and like them. The only beings in the highest heaven are God, the mighty godlike beings round his throne, and those few people he raptured before the resurrection, like Elijah. (We presume a few people because only three get a mention in the bible. For all we know God might’ve raptured way more. But that’s pure speculation.) Nobody can come down from heaven but those people, and we’re entirely sure our claimant isn’t one of them. You’re not the second coming of Elijah.
Likewise the Galileans with Jesus. Of course he didn’t come down from heaven, they figured; he was born. He has parents. They knew his parents.
Yes, we Christians are fully aware he was born and has parents—and he existed before his conception, ’cause he always existed, ’cause he’s God. “The word was made flesh and dwelt among us,” Jn 1.14 and all that. We know how he came down from heaven, and tend to take that belief for granted.
But this was a wholly foreign idea to the Galileans, who presumed if you came down from heaven, you’d come directly down from heaven, exactly like Jesus’s second coming: The skies would split open, and down the Son of Man would come with all the heavenly angels. Or if it’s just Elijah, it’d just be Elijah; probably with some kind of whirlwind instead of falling to the ground and hitting it with a wet thud. But it’d look like that. Not childbirth, with all the screaming and bodily fluids and placenta and everything. Eww. That’s not dignified.
Again, Jesus is making radical divine statements about himself. And again, even if the Galileans could conceive of the idea God might take on human form, they couldn’t imagine him humbling himself so far as to literally become human. God would never. He’s almighty, he’s sovereign, he’s dignified… Didn’t Moses say God’s not a man? Nu 23.19 They figured he’d never stoop so low as to ever become one of us. Even to this day we have Christians who buck against the creeds and try to claim Jesus didn’t empty himself of his divine power to become a literal man like the scriptures say, Pp 2.6-7 but somehow retained his infinity and only appeared finite.
To the Galileans, Jesus might’ve been a prophet, and maybe even the Prophet, but coming down from heaven was too much for them. In part because… well, they figured they knew Jesus. He grew up in the Galilee among them. They knew his family. Some of ’em were his family. Just like when he visited his homeland, they balked at the idea this guy, whom they remembered as a little kid, was as cosmic as he’s making himself sound.
Thankfully this is a hurdle our culture doesn’t still need to leap. We can’t dismiss Jesus on the grounds we remember when he used to soil his diapers. We might dismiss our own family members on those grounds, when they try to share Jesus with us, and we dodge their message with an ad hominem attack, by trotting out their past failings. It’s an unfair attack, but one people love to use to dodge uncomfortable truths. Like the fact Jesus might actually be everything he claims.
Drawn to Jesus.
Jesus’s statement, “No one can come to me unless the Father my Sender attracts them,” Jn 6.44 or “draws them” (KJV) has regularly been interpreted by determinists as “unless the Father compels them.” In other words, nobody can come to Jesus unless they’ve been pre-programmed to irresistably embrace him, because the Father built that desire for Jesus into them.
To a point I would actually agree with the determinists. God did put a desire for Jesus in us. Determinists will say the Father only put that attraction to Jesus in the few people he selected for salvation; I say the Father put that attraction to Jesus in everyone. It is extremely rare to find a pagan who doesn’t like Jesus, who doesn’t find something interesting and attractive about him, who doesn’t approve of Jesus’s teachings. They may not like him enough to commit to him—to put up with Christians and come to church, to confess and repent and try to obey him—but they do acknowledge he’s a great guy.
I have met exceptions: Antichrists who claim Jesus’s teachings are nuts, and can’t be taken seriously. John 6 is a really good example of some teachings they claim are nuts. They freak out the antichrists for the very same reason they freaked out the Galileans: Neither the antichrists nor the Galileans could stomach what Jesus says about himself. But antichrists—and let’s be honest, they’re mostly doing this to antagonize Christians—will even object to Sermon on the Mount stuff, and say it’s ridiculous and impractical for us to love our enemies and do unto others. They certainly don’t.
True, Jesus’s teachings are gonna butt heads with human depravity. But even so, even selfish narcissists are somewhat drawn to Jesus. They just plain like the guy. Antichrists have to fight how much they like the guy; it’s why they’re acting out. I’m entirely sure when Jesus talks about the Father attracting people to Jesus, this attraction is in everyone. Both those who will eventually come to Jesus and follow him, and those who will eventually reject him—who knowingly reject him, despite their attraction. So they have no excuse.
So yeah, I disagree with determinists. This attraction to Jesus is not compulsion. This passage doesn’t support their belief in irresistible grace. It’s still resistible. But it’s there, in everyone. Like St. Augustine wrote, “You have stirred in us the desire to praise you, for you have made us for yourself and our heart is restless until it comes to rest in you.” Confessions 1.1 The Father did this because he wants everyone to be saved, 1Ti 2.4 and this’ll help draw people towards Jesus and salvation.
Jesus’s Isaiah quote comes from a passage where the LORD talks about restoring Israel and his relationship with the people.
- Isaiah 54.13 ESV
- “All your children shall be taught by the LORD,
- and great shall be the peace of your children.”
It doesn’t mean this teaching is only for Israelis, though certainly Messiah came to Israel first, and these promises are definitely for Jews and Israelis. But he quotes it to remind them all of them can hear God, and follow him—and he’s pointing them to Jesus. So everyone who heeds the Father comes to Jesus. (As for seeing God, I deal with that elsewhere.)
