Losing students—and keeping the good ones.

John 6.66-71.

Growing up, I’ve heard many a Christian claim the worst verse in the bible was John 6.66. I suspect most of that is because of the address. Plenty of Christians are superstitious about the number 666, forgetting it’s only a hint of what the Beast’s name is; it’s not an inherently evil number. And there are much worse verses. But here’s how that verse goes:

John 6.66 KWL

Because of this,

many of Jesus’s students are going back,

and are no longer walking with him.

You remember a crowd came to Jesus hoping he’d give ’em free bread, and maybe overthrow the Romans, and instead he tells them he’s living bread who wants to save us, and expects our response to be a deep commitment—we gotta eat this living bread. And no, this isn’t actually about holy communion; Jesus is not making statements about how eating and drinking the communion elements literally work. He’s talking about abiding in him. Jn 15.4 About being one with him. About really following him.

He didn’t just weird out the crowd; this was too much for some of his own students. And if this freaks you out, Jesus pointed out, wait till you see Jesus get raptured.

Jesus had already pointed out the people didn’t trust him, Jn 6.36, 64 and the radical stuff he was saying—much of which affirms he’s actually God. It broke them. So they quit. They followed him no more.

Christian apologists love to point to this, and claim it’s part of the “trilemma,” John Duncan’s claim (which C.S. Lewis popularized; no, he didn’t invent it) that Jesus is either a fraud, self-deluded, or divine. Or, as Josh McDowell rephrased it, a liar, lunatic, or Lord. (Pagans typically choose a fourth option: Jesus never said any of these things, for overeager Christian fanboys made ’em up.) So the students who quit figured Jesus was either phony or crazy, and the students who stayed figured Jesus is Lord. In other words a good old-fashioned di-lemma: Jesus is either wrong, or right.

As for those who stayed:

John 6.67-71 KWL

67So Jesus tells the Twelve,

“You² don’t want to leave too?”

68Simon Peter answers Jesus,

“Master, to whom will we go?

You¹ have the sayings of life in the age to come,

69and we trusted you

and knew you¹ are God’s saint.”

70Jesus answers them, “Don’t I choose you² Twelve?

And among you is an accuser.”

71Jesus is saying this

of Judas bar Simon Iscariot,

for Judas is about to betray him,

despite being one of the Twelve.

Jesus goes too far for some of his students.

John 6.59-66.

The first time I heard this story, I thought, “Wait, some of Jesus’s students left him? I thought the Twelve always stayed with him.” And in fact John’s very next verses say the Twelve stuck with him. But somehow I had the idea Jesus only had the 12 followers. The fact he’d been teaching 5,000 followers in the beginning of this chapter, kinda skipped my notice; I didn’t think of these followers as students, but as fans. Fans love what you’re doing, and wear your merchandise, but you shouldn’t expect them on the training field with you. Same deal with “Christians” who love being Christian, and heartily approve of Jesus, but don’t obey him any, never plan to, and never produce good fruit.

And yeah, the people who followed Jesus to Capharnaum looking for him to give ’em more bread: A lot of them were nothing more than fans. Jesus starts talking about serious dedication with all his “living bread” talk, and they’re all, “Nope, I’m tapping out,” and the fans scatter. But apparently the living bread stuff was too much for some of his legitimate students, the ones he was teaching along with, and same as, the Twelve—the ones Jesus designated apostles. The ones we Christians usually call “disciples.”

In Acts, Luke identifies two of these students, who were nominated to take Judas Iscariot’s place in the Twelve after he died—Joseph Barsabbas and Matthias. Ac 1.21-26 These two guys, among others, had been with Jesus from his baptism to his rapture. No doubt there were others who joined them along the way, who were just as much disciples as Matthew—both men and women, ’cause Jesus had no problem with women students like Mary the Magdalene. We really don’t know how large Jesus’s class was.

Here’s where it gets smaller.

John 6.59-66 KWL

59Jesus says these things

while teaching in the Capharnaum synagogue.

60Upon hearing it, many of Jesus’s students

therefore say, “This is an outrageous lesson.

Who can listen to it?”

61Having known within himself

his students are bellyaching about these things,

Jesus tells them, “This trips you² up?

62So what’ll you do when you² see

the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?

63The Spirit is making you alive.

The body benefits no one.

The sayings I spoke to you²

are of the Spirit, and are life.

64But there are some of you²

who don’t trust me.”

For Jesus knew from the beginning

some are unbelievers,

and some will betray him.

65Jesus says, “This is why I told you this:

No one can come to me

unless the Spirit was given to them¹

by {my} Father.”

66Because of this,

many of Jesus’s students are going back,

and are no longer walking with him.

Wait, we gotta 𝘦𝘢𝘵 Jesus?

John 6.47-58.

Jesus is the living bread. It’s a metaphor for how we gotta commune with him. And in this passage, Jesus gets a bit graphic with the metaphor: The living bread is his body, and if we wanna abide in him, we gotta eat his body. The living drink—he doesn’t specify here whether this drink is living water, or the wine we use as part of our ritual of holy communion—is his blood, and if we wanna abide in him, we gotta drink his blood. (Since drinking blood is a no-no in the Law, Lv 17.10 that got their attention.)

This is where Jesus goes way too far with the Galileans who came to him hoping for free bread. They wanted Jesus to feed them like Moses (properly, the LORD) fed the Hebrews in the wilderness with manna. They didn’t expect him to make profound divine statements, and tell them if they wanted life in the age to come (KJV “eternal life,” because the coming age of the kingdom of God lasts forever) they’d have to eat and drink him.

And like I said, Jesus gets graphic. In verses 54, 56, and 58 he uses the word τρώγων/trógon, which doesn’t merely mean “eating,” like we see in a lot of bibles; it means chewing. Not necessarily loudly, but yeah, like livestock chews on its grain or cud. You gotta chew on the Son of Man. We’re meant to get the idea of rumination—or meditation. We’re meant to turn this food over and over in our mouths—or turn Jesus’s word over and over in our minds, and really work on abiding in Jesus.

Of course, since Jesus is talking about eating and drinking him, it immediately brings to mind the ritual of communion which Jesus introduced in his last supper. Mk 14.22-25, 1Co 11.23-26 Which is likely why bibles don’t translate trógon as “chewing,” but simply “eating.” You know how a lot of churches discourage us from chewing on the communion wafers, because they represent Jesus and they consider it disrespectful to chew Jesus? Yeah, Jesus doesn’t share their hangup. He says trógon. Which is why “chewing” is in my translation.

John 6.47-58 KWL

47“Amen amen! I promise you²

one who believes has life in the age to come.

48I’m the living bread.

49In the wilderness,

your² forefathers did eat manna,

and did die.

50This is the bread

which comes down from heaven,

so one might eat it,

and might not die:

51I’m the living bread

which comes down from heaven.

When anyone eats of this bread,

they¹ will live in the age to come.

Also, the bread which I will give you,

my body,

is for the life of the world.”

52So the Judeans are debating one another,

saying, “How can this man

give us his body to eat?”

53So Jesus tells them, “Amen amen! I promise you²

unless you² eat the body of the Son of Man,

and drink his blood,

you² don’t have life in you².

54One who chews on my body

and drinks my blood

has life in the age to come,

and I will resurrect them¹ on the Last Day.

55For my body is really food,

and my blood is really drink.

56One who chews on my body

and drinks my blood

abides in me,

and I in them¹.

57Just as the living Father sends me,

and I live because of the Father,

one who chews me—

that one will live because of me.

58This is the bread

which comes down from heaven.

It’s not like the forefathers did eat

and die;

One who chews on this bread

will live in the age to come.”

The living bread who comes from heaven.

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.

The living bread wants to save us.

John 6.35-40.

You’re gonna find today’s passage translated a bit differently in other bibles. It’s because Jesus is using a lot of conditional verbs. Grammarians call this “the subjunctive mood,” and it refers to things which should happen, ought to happen; things which Jesus wants to happen. Since he sits at the Father’s right hand, he has the unlimited power to make ’em happen. But they might not happen.

Because they’re conditional. There’s a variable which first has to be met. It’s not Jesus; he wants all this stuff to happen. It’s us humans. We have to abide in Jesus. Jn 15.4 We have to come to him, to trust him, to follow him. If we don’t, the conditions aren’t met. Jesus might grant us eternal life—but if we don’t trust him, he might not.

So why do bible translators regularly render these verbs as unconditional; as if they will happen? Well, commentators and translators don’t say. All of ’em are just following custom. Other bibles translate ’em as unconditional, definitive statements, and so do they.

Going all the way back to the first bible translations. When the New Testament was translated into Latin, which has no subjunctive-form verbs—where you have to recognize these statements are conditional by their context, same as English—Jesus’s conditional statements weren’t translated into Latin as conditional statements.

Most of us have commonsense and basic reading skills, and recognize Jesus must be speaking only of the people who come to him. Jn 6.37 But—no surprise—there are always exceptions. Universalists will insist this is proof Jesus is gonna save everybody, even antichrists. Certain determinists will insist this is proof if the Father chooses us for salvation, his will is paramount and must prevail, and these people will come to Jesus, whether they want him or not. It’s a really iffy interpretation of this passage… but it’s mighty popular among some Christians who really want their pagan loved ones to be saved.

Well. Whether you can deduce the conditional nature of this passage or not, I decided to translate all the conditional verbs as conditional verbs, and make it nice ’n obvious. Here ya go.

John 6.35-40 KWL

35Jesus tells them, “I’m the living bread.

One who comes to me ought not hunger.

One who trusts in me ought not thirst.

36But I tell you² that you² also saw me—

and you² don’t trust me.

37Everyone the Father gives me

will come to me.

I ought never throw out

one who comes to me.

38For I came down from heaven

not so I might do my own will,

but my Sender’s will,

39and this {the Father} my Sender’s will:

That I might lose none of everything he gave me,

but I might resurrect it on the Last Day.

40For this is my Father’s will:

Everyone looking to the Son,

and trusting in him,

might have life in the age to come

and I might resurrect them¹ on the Last Day.”

As you can see, Jesus isn’t the variable. He wants to save us. He’s never unable, never unwilling; the whole reason he came into the world was to save it. Jn 3.17 But we humans were granted free will, which means we can misuse it and reject God’s salvation. He 2.3 And no small number of us will, for bitter or wrongheaded reasons, do so.

But the crowd doesn’t 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 living bread.

John 6.29-36.

To recap: The crowd of Galileans whom Jesus and his students fed literal bread were fixated on this literal bread. Plus the idea Jesus is the Prophet-Like-Moses who, according to Pharisees, would feed them literal bread during the End Times—but not so much that as the bread. (Hey, unlimited food is a big deal to a poor community!) Whereas Jesus told ’em to not seek bread; seek “the living bread,” i.e. him.

Well they didn’t want him. They wanted actual, literal bread. They wanted a thing, not a person. They wanted to fill their bellies, not to pursue a relationship with the Son of Man.

So the discussion with these Galileans deteriorated from there. I should point out John refers to them in this story as Ἰουδαῖοι/Yudéï, “Judeans,” and no, he’s not mixing up the province they’re in. The word means both “Judeans” and “Jews,” and of course they’re Jews—and they’re descended from Judeans. About a century before, some Judeans chose to go north—farther north than the province of Samaria—and re-settle any available territory which used to be part of the kingdom of northern Israel. This became the Galilee. They’re Galilean Jews, same as Jesus.

Anyway. In verse 29, which I’ll repeat today, Jesus tells ’em they have to trust the Son of Man, i.e. “that man he sends.” (Jesus likes to refers to himself in the third person, y’know. And it doesn’t confuse the Galileans at all; they respond to Jesus in verse 30 about trusting “you,” i.e. the man God sent. All my life I’ve heard Christians claim part of the reason the Galileans reacted to Jesus the way they did, was Jesus was somehow way too difficult for them to understand; that his metaphors went right over their heads. That’s not what the text shows at all. They were following Jesus’s train of thought just fine. Following him personally, however, they balked at. Free bread is one thing, but following Jesus? They didn’t wanna sign up for that.

I’ve also shared John 6 with pagans. And they understood it just fine as well. John didn’t write it in complex, hard-to-translate Greek; beginning Greek students can translate this no problem. Nope; it’s not at all about misunderstanding Jesus. It’s about understanding him—and then rejecting him.

John 6.29-36 KWL

29In reply Jesus tells them, “This is God’s work.

So you should trust in that man he sends.”

30So the crowd tells Jesus,

“So what sign do you¹ do

so we might see it

and might trust you¹?

What are you¹ doing?”

31Our forefathers ate manna in the wilderness,

just as it’s written,

‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ ” Ps 78.24

32So Jesus tells them, “Amen amen!

I promise you Moses didn’t give you² bread from heaven.

But my Father gives you² true bread from heaven.

33For God’s bread is the one

who comes down from heaven,

and who gives life to the world.”

34So the crowd tells Jesus,

“Master, always give us this bread!”

35Jesus tells them, “I’m the living bread.

One who comes to me ought not hunger.

One who trusts in me ought not thirst.

36But I tell you² that you² also saw me—

and you² don’t trust me.”

Jesus himself, right there in verse 36, says so. They saw him. This crowd was right there when he and his kids fed 5,000-plus people. They know what he did; they know what he can do. But they don’t trust him enough to follow him any further. They only wanted bread. Same as any selfish, materialistic Christian who only follows Jesus for prosperity, political might, a mansion in heaven, social acceptance, to feel spiritual, to feel justified, or any of the other ulterior motives which cause people to embrace Christianity—but not Jesus.

Seek living bread!

John 6.26-29.

Jesus doesn’t tell a lot of parables in John. Some Christians claim he doesn’t tell any, but that’s not accurate. He doesn’t tell full parabolic stories; he uses one-liners. He talks to Nicodemus about wind; Jn 3.8 tells the Judeans about sheep in a pen, their shepherd, and thieves; Jn 10.1-6 talks about a grain of wheat that bears fruit when it dies. Jn 12.24 He uses metaphors and analogies throughout his lessons in John. In speaking about the bread of life, he constantly says “bread,” but you know he doesn’t literally mean bread. Or at least you should know this. Those with ears to hear, and all that.

The crowd of Galileans came to Jesus seeking literal bread. A few days ago, he fed ’em bread, and they were hoping for more. Lots, so they could regularly be full. An abundance of it; so they were seeking a wealth of this material. Do I have to spell it out any more? Fine: Material wealth. That’s all they wanted.

And a lot of Christians are the very same way. How many of us are hoping to make it to heaven so we can have a crown filled with jewels, and a mansion on one of the streets of gold?

Jesus instead wants us to have living bread. Which—spoilers—is Jesus himself. Jn 6.35

John 6.26-27 KWL

25In reply Jesus tells the crowd, “Amen amen!

I promise you² you² seek me,

not because you see miracles,

but because you² eat of the bread²

and are filled.

27Don’t work for perishable food,

but food which lasts for eternal life,

which the Son of Man will give to you²,

for Father God will seal this man.”

28So the crowd tell Jesus,

“What could we do,

that we could do God’s works?”

29In reply Jesus tells them, “This is God’s work.

So you should trust in that man he sends.”

Again, “that man he sends” is Jesus himself. Seek him. Not material wealth.

Jesus’s line “Don’t work for perishable food” is a similar idea to what he told the Samaritan about living water. Which likewise isn’t perishable, ’cause those who drink it will never thirst again. Jn 4.13-14 He’s offering us something eternal, and wants us to stop settling for the temporary and fleeting. Food and drink are really good examples of this. Here today, eaten tomorrow; and if not eaten it spoils. And of course you remember in the Sermon on the Mount when he teaches about treasures in heaven: Stop putting your trust in the perishable.

Since the imperishable “bread” Jesus speaks of in this chapter is himself, obviously he’s talking about our eternal relationship with him. “Whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Jn 3.16 KJV

And of course this confused the Galileans completely, because they were fixated on literal bread. This bread metaphor still confuses Christians; just look at all the Catholic and Lutheran ideas about how literally communion bread represents Jesus, deduced from John 6—and this chapter isn’t even about holy communion! But y’know, those with ears to hear.