Why did so many walk away from Jesus?

In John 6:60-71, a large crowd that had eagerly followed Jesus suddenly turns and leaves. In this study, Dr. Toby Holt examines the hard teaching that thinned the crowd down to a faithful few.

The people loved Jesus’ miracles, but when His teaching grew hard, many grumbled and walked away. Dr. Holt distinguishes “followers,” who came for what they could get, from true “disciples,” who stay and learn. What drove the crowd off, he explains, was Jesus’ teaching that no one can come to Him unless the Father draws them — the truth that salvation is God’s gracious work, not our own. When Jesus asks the Twelve if they will leave too, Peter answers, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

Questions this study answers:

1. What first drew the crowds to Jesus? Mostly His miracles and the benefits they hoped to gain — not His teaching or His person.

2. Why did so many walk away? Because Jesus’ teaching was hard to accept, especially that salvation is God’s gracious work and not something we achieve.

3. Why did the Twelve stay? Because, as Peter said, there is no one else to go to. They had come to see that Jesus alone has the words of eternal life.

“Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” — John 6:68 (NKJV)

Speaker: Dr. Toby Holt is the President of New Geneva Theological Seminary, a Reformed seminary in Colorado Springs. He is known for clear, down-to-earth Bible teaching, and his sermons have been downloaded more than 1.9 million times on SermonAudio.

Listen and go deeper: This sermon is part of the John Explained study from New Geneva Theological Seminary. Find more verse-by-verse teaching across the Bible at newgeneva.org. To support this teaching ministry, visit newgeneva.org/give.

Throughout the Book of John, we see crowds flocking to Jesus for healing, food, and deliverance. However, they often turned away from Jesus when he spoke. It appears they were eager for Christ's miracles, but not necessarily for his words. Are people in our day any different? That'll be the focus of today's study in John Chapter 6.

If you start at the beginning of John 6, you see it starts wonderfully. Everyone's pursuing Jesus. Everyone in a square mile. Everyone who even heard his name went to him, chased after him, ran him down, and that happened on a lot of occasions. People would pursue Jesus, but the problems we saw last week is they didn't necessarily pursue him for the right means. They looked at their stomachs. Their stomachs were rumbling. They looked at their illnesses. They looked at their concerns. They looked at grandma's health. They looked at their pocketbook. They looked at everything they had, and they said, "You know, I need someone who can fill all that, and that guy can do it. I've heard the rumors. I know what he can do." And so they chase him down by the thousands. But then, you just keep reading. I think John 6 is either the second or third longest chapter in the whole New Testament, but as you keep reading, it gets sadder and sadder. All these people, all these thousands of people that pursued Jesus, they bleed off to the point that Jesus will have to ask the question towards the very end of the chapter. He'll look at the last 12 who remain and he'll say, "Hey, are you going to leave me, too?" And of course, Peter will say, "Where would we go? You alone have the words of life." All right. As we dive into this text, let me ask you a thinking question to frame all of this. Let me ask you a thinking question. How many disciples did Jesus have at the most? How many disciples? Now, is that a trick question? In a sense, yes, because we're taught to think that everyone who followed Jesus was a disciple. The reality is that they weren't. If you look in the New Testament, not all of his followers were disciples. The terms were not used interchangeably in scripture. What we see is that lots of people pursued him and followed him from place to place. Early on in John Chapter 6, after he had just fed the multitudes, you had a bunch of people follow him to wherever he went. He walked across the water. They said, "Hey, where is this guy?" And they thought, well, maybe he went out to Capernaum somehow, some way. He took some boat we didn't even know was there, and maybe that's where he's at. So they would follow him. Jesus had lots of followers, many followers. However, he had fewer disciples. So what's the distinction? Well, in Jewish society, a disciple was one who literally sat at the feet of the rabbi, who eat, lived, slept nearby. They traveled with the rabbi. Where the rabbi went, the disciples went. So to be a disciple of Jesus in that setting was one who was habitually, regularly, consistently being taught by the rabbi, and that you would go where he would go. Now, what's the most number of disciples we ever see in scripture? What's the most that are ever identified? Well, the largest number that's ever assigned to the disciples of Jesus, the largest number of disciples he ever seemed to have, or at least were ever cited in scripture, was 70. In Luke Chapter 10, we read this, that, "After these things, the Lord appointed 70." He appointed 70. He appointed disciples. He appointed 70 disciples, and he sent them two by two before his face into every city and every place where he himself was about to go. As a Jewish rabbi, Jesus did not have many disciples. No more than 70 at the highest count that we see here in scripture, but in today's text, he's going to end up with a lot less than that. See, in today's text, it's not just going to be the curious that are going to depart him. In today's text, as we read, it's not just going to be the hangers on that are going to depart him. It's going to be the disciples. It's going to be the people who hung out with him everywhere he went and traveled where he went and sat at his feet. Those are the people who are going to part all down but to 12. So why would they depart? What would he say that would cause that? Well, that's what we're going to look at. All right. Let's reread Verses 51 through 59, then work our way through the balance. Verse 51. So Jesus said, "I am the living bread which came down from heaven." Remember, he'd already fed the 5,000. Bread was already the topic du jour here. So he says, "I'm the living bread. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness. I fed 5,000 on the hillside, but here's the thing. Those things were meant to point to me. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. And if anyone eats of this bread," not the manna, not the stuff from the barley cakes and the loaves and the fish that we just ate earlier. "If anyone eats from this bread," he says in Verse 51, "he will live forever. And the bread that I give is my flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world." Verse 52, "Then the Jews themselves quarreled among themselves, saying, 'How can this man give us his flesh to eat?' And Jesus said, 'Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat of the flesh of the Son of Man, unless you drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. And he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on me will live because of me. And this is the bread which came down from heaven. Not as your fathers ate the manna and are dead.'" He's saying there's a different bread in town. "Not as your fathers ate the manna and are dead, but he who eats of this bread," you can almost see him gesturing, "this bread will live forever. And these things He said in the synagogue as He taught in Capernaum." All right. As we said before, everything that goes down in John Chapter 6, there's a reason it's such a long chapter, is because it's all related. Everything that goes on in John Chapter 6 is meant to point to this truth. You remember back when he was talking to the Samaritan woman, and he meets her by the well, right? The woman at the well. What was that all about? Well, the point was this was a teaching mechanism. Meets her at the well. She was drawing the water, and he says, "Hey, I know where there's a better source of water. Hint, it's me." Right? This is the same concept. It went from living water, he would talk about the living water, onto eternal life. Same concept. Here he talks about the bread. You want bread? The bread that your fathers ate, the bread you ate on the hillside over there, that'll feed you for a day, and then you'll be hungry again. But I came to bring you eternal life. I came to bring bread that is myselfI came to bring you something that is so much better than that which simply nourishes the body. I came to bring you something that will nourish the soul. So you have to understand that what's being taught here is the correlation with what was taught earlier with regards to living water. It's the same general principles that are being applied here. Same general principle. So that's this whole chapter, and even the chapters before are all dovetailing to the same point. So again, earlier in the chapter, he fed the 5,000. Now he's traveled across where he walked on the water across the sea. His disciples got into the boat, they went across, things got kind of stormy, and then he walks across the water. They freak out, then he hops in the boat, and then they all go over together, right? So they end up in Capernaum, and then everyone else who was wondering where Jesus went, they go looking for him. And the reason they went looking for him is because this is a source of a free meal, right? This is the guy who makes bread and fish and miracles and that thing come like that. So of course, they chased him down. So they went around, they found him in Capernaum. Now in Capernaum, we see that he's in the synagogue, which makes sense because that was a seat of authority. Moses' seat was there. That's a place that teaching and preaching, so to speak, regularly took place. As a side note, a number of years ago, I had an opportunity to travel to Israel. And I'll tell you right now that the tours that go to Israel, they'll say every grassy knoll, every hillside, everything that they point to, they'll say, "Some big event happened there. Jesus did this over there. Jesus, he healed this guy right over here." And then they'll build a shrine or church on top of that sort of thing, and people come and touch relics. It's very marketplace, a trading on the potential things and places Jesus might've been a long time ago. You go to a place where they say, "Well, Jesus did the Sermon on the Mount right here on this spot he stood." I don't know where he stood, and neither do they. But they like to do that. With that said, the one place that we went on my tour, which I was 1,000% certain that Jesus stood right here, is the synagogue in Capernaum. It's really neat to walk across the threshold where Jesus would have walked. With that said, he walked through the threshold in order to teach. And what did he teach? He taught something that no one in that synagogue had ever heard before. He taught something in that synagogue that no one had ever said before. He picked up the equivalent of the Old Testament and said, "This is all about me. It's all about me. It's all about me. Your fathers, they ate that manna." You guys like the manna, right? The story of the manna. "Your fathers ate that manna, and now they're all dead. But I have come as the ultimate fulfillment of what the manna pointed forward to. And those who eat my flesh, so to speak, those who consume my blood, those who are nourished by me will live forever." Now, was it confusing to them? Yes. Yes, it was on some level. But here's the thing. When you hear about the hard teachings, they're going to complain. They're going to say, "Oh me, oh my. This is so hard. What to make of all this stuff?" Well, there's two ways in which we can interpret the hard teachings of Jesus. One is we can say that it's hard to understand, right? Hard to understand. What is he talking about? I can't fathom what he means here, right? Maybe that's it. I don't think that's the problem they had, though. Because they weren't acting confused. Jesus identified their motivation in a few verses from now. He'll say, "You're not just confused. You're offended, because you do get what I'm saying, and you don't like it." See, the problem was not just that this was hard to cognitively process or understand. The problem was it was hard to swallow. You understand the difference? Of course you do. You've picked up the Bible. You've found that in the book, there are some things that are hard to understand, right? Open Ezekiel. Open Revelation. You'll go, "Oh, good golly. This is hard to understand." But there's other verses you've read that have been hard for you to accept because they've convicted you. Well, this is the problem. Jesus talks about this bread and eat of my body and my blood and the like. And in fairness, I guess let me mention that across the ages since, theologians and scholars have kind of divided into three camps as far as what he might've been meaning here. Across the ages, those who fall into a more Catholic or Greek Orthodox understanding of all this, they say, well, clearly what he's talking about is the Eucharist. They say, all right, what's going on here is that he wanted to convey something about the Lord's Supper. This is a teaching point about the Lord's Supper. Because remember, the understanding in Roman Catholicism is that the Lord's Supper, that the bread and the cup and all that stuff, actually really turns into the body and blood of Jesus. That when they're partaking of the crackers, the wafers, the juice, the Welch's, the wine, what have you, they're actually partaking of the real transubstantiated body and blood. They believe two miracles occur in Roman Catholicism. Number one is that magically, it turns into the body and blood of Jesus. Not the pretend, but the actual body and blood. That that's miracle number one. Miracle number two, they believe, is that it retains what are called the accidents or the properties of bread. So the first miracle is it becomes the body. That's great. The second miracle is it still looks like bread. Well, that's interesting. So they have two miracles that occur. So many believe that what's going on here in this text is that Jesus is anticipating that unless you partake in the Eucharist, unless you partake in Communion, the Lord's Supper, unless you do these things and you eat of the body and blood, unless you do that continually, perpetually onto the future, unless you do that, you have no part in me. That the nourishment comes from the mass. The nourishment comes from Communion. The nourishment comes from the Lord's Supper. Some believe that to be true. That is not the majority opinion within the Protestant world, as you could probably guess. The understanding amongst Protestants is that just like when he was talking about the living water, that it doesn't mean we should all go out looking for water that literally turns into the blood of Jesus or anything like that, but rather, it's a word picture. That when he talks about living water, when he talks about eating of his body and blood, he's saying, "You need to be nourished upon me. I am the source of eternal life. Whether it's bread, wine, water, Welch's, what have you, I." The picture he wants us to get across is that, "I, Jesus Christ, I'm the one standing in front of you in Capernaum. I'm the one 2,000 years later preaching to you in Gulfport through this. I am the source of your nourishment. You are being fed all sorts of other stuff and malarkey in the world around you, but I'm the source of nourishment." That's the teaching point that he's trying to get clear, which I believe is the case. Now, the third camp that really no theologians fall into this, but most of the world does, third camp looks at this and says, "This is just crazy talk."Feed on a body and blood, that's wow. Early on in Rome, you'd hear the talk of all this sort of stuff, the body and the blood, and they thought Christians must be cannibals. That was one of the accusations thrown against Christians early on as rumors spread. Those Christians, ugh, they're cannibals. Have you heard about the body and the blood and all that sort of stuff? So, a lot of people will hear this talk and they'll go, "That's craziness. What is Jesus saying here? That's just weird," right? So, those are the three camps that a lot of people fall into. But what did the people he spoke to in John chapter six in Capernaum, what did they think? What was their response? Let's look at verses 60 through 67 to see. Verse 60. "Now therefore, many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, 'This is a hard saying. Who can understand it?'" Let me stop there before I look at any other verses. Disciples are not followers. The terms are not interchangeable. You can follow Him while being a disciple, but that's not the point. He is talking to the people that He's trained, that He's taught with, those who've interacted with Him at some length. He's talking to His disciples, at which point the most are ever numbered in scripture, in Luke chapter 10 is 70. He's talking to disciples. He's not talking to Pharisees. He's not talking to those who hate Him. He's not talking to those who dislike Him. He's not talking to those who are looking for an opportunity to smack Him around. Those aren't the people He's talking to. He's talking to His disciples. He's talking to the visible church of His day. Look there at verse 60. "Therefore, many of His disciples, when they heard Him say this, said, 'This is a hard saying. Who can understand it?' Now Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples complained about this. He said to them, 'Does this offend you?'" Now see again, He knew the distinction. They talked amongst each other and said, "Who can get this? Who can understand what He's talking about here?" Am I right? Is it just me or has Jesus kind of lost the plot here? But Jesus, it says here in verse 60, He understood within Himself the real problem. The real problem was not that they didn't understand what He was saying. The problem was that they didn't like it and its implications. They were offended by what He said. So he says, "Does this offend you?" Knowing that it did. "Does it offend you?" Verse 62, "'What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend to where He was before? It's the spirit who gives life. The flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, they are life. But there's some of you...'" And He's talking to His disciples, remember, disciples. "'There are some of you who do not believe.'" There were some in the visible church of His day who sat at His feet who didn't believe Him.

You understand that? We mistake the fact that everyone, whoever raises their hand or come down and sought his path at a rally or something, whoever professed anything or said a sinner's prayer, they're automatically believers. No, these are His disciples. And He looks out at them and says, "I know that you're offended, and the reason you're offended is because some of you flat out don't believe." Verse 64, "'There are some of you who do not believe.'" Now, they would've professed that they did, but He says, "You don't. You really don't. You say you do, but you do not." "'For Jesus knew...'" Verse 64, "'For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and even who would betray Him. And He said then, 'Therefore, I've said to you that no one can come to me unless it's been granted to him by my Father.'" Ooh, that froze them out right there because look what they do in verse 66. "And from that time..." When He said that, "From that time, many of His disciples went back, and they walked with Him no more." Jesus says, "No one can come to me unless the Father grants it to him." He says, "You look the part. You're here, you've been my disciples, you've hung out. You've said amen, you've nodded your head at the things that you're supposed to nod your head at, but it never penetrated." He says, "And I've known this all along. Some of you are not my disciples," but here's the real reason, "Because no one can come to me unless my Father in heaven draws him." This is not putting the volition of salvation on the individual to save themselves by choosing to believe. He says, "It can't happen, won't happen, doesn't happen, unless my Father says it will happen." They heard that, first century Arminians, they heard that and they said, "Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. We're good. The other stuff was weird, Jesus. The stuff about the body and the blood, that was weird. But this, we get what you're saying here, and so we're out." And then what happens in verse 67? "Then Jesus said to the 12..." 12, not thousands, not hundreds, not 70, 12. Jesus says to the 12, "'Do you also

want to go away?'"

Remember how the chapter started off. The chapter started off with thousands, thousands running to Him. "Jesus," right? "Jesus," right? "I'm on fire for this Jesus guy." They ran to Him by the thousands. By the end of chapter six, they've all gone. And Jesus looks at the ones left, 12, and He asks them the question, "Do you going to go, too? Are you going to leave, too? Are you going to leave me just like the rest did?" It's a sad trajectory, but it's a true trajectory. How many people across the scope of the visible church have been chasing Jesus, they've been chasing God for what God can do for them, but not chasing God because they want a relationship with Him? How many people chase after God for the pleasures and benefits and blessings and things? That's where the prosperity gospel got cooked up, out of that goofy cauldron. This idea that God exists to fill me, to bless me, to provide for me, to do the things for me, and as long as He does that, we're cool. I'm on fire for Jesus, right? Then what? Then cancer strikes, some hardship strikes, their life doesn't turn out like they wanted to or expected it to. And because they sought God out for what He could do for them, and their circumstances seem to suggest He's not doing too much, they leave.

Alternately, some will chase Him, pursue Him for the blessings that He'll provide, and then someone will dare to open this up and say, "Oh, by the way, here's the things that this God has said about your lifestyle choices or the things you're doing and engaged with." And they'll go, "Ah!"That can't be.

I was told that Jesus loves me the way I am. But he says here these things that, ugh, nope.

He says things here I can't conform to my presuppositions about the universe or about myself. That I can't conform to my understanding of how the world works or about my own nature.

And among the things he says that are very difficult is this, that "no one can come to me unless my Father draws him."

We go on and on with the list of things that he says that the people flat out don't like. And the more they hear those things, the false disciples, the tares amongst the wheat, are separated. Now, here's the thing.

Jesus would regularly return to this point. He would regularly bring up example after example after example where people who claim to be his would depart when the going got tough or when they learn more about him and his expectations for them. Think in Matthew chapter seven, where God's speaking to vast hordes, numbers of individuals who will come to him on that day. That day come say, "Lord, Lord, did we not do this for you? Did we not do that for you?" These are disciples. These are people who have been elders and deacons and served in the church and made contributions and tithed and all that sort of stuff. Many will come to me, not like a couple of guys are going to say to me on that day. Many will come to me on that day, "Lord, Lord, didn't I do this? Didn't I do that? Didn't I do these other things for you?" And what will he say in response? The hardest words you'll ever see in scripture, the sort of words that cause people to hit the doors. He says, "Depart from me, for I never knew you." You thought that we had a thing. You thought that we had this connection. You were never in it for me.

You were in it for what I could do. And yes, you did a number of things to try to make some sort of transactional relationship. You did this, and I did that, and so forth. But he says, "No. I never knew you. You never fed upon me. You took every handout I gave you, every blessing I provided, and occasionally you thought you purchased some of them by doing the stuff." This isn't about the stuff. Depart from me. You never knew me, and I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of iniquity. In Luke 8, Jesus would talk about the parable of the sower. What's the parable of the sower? He says there's going to be a lot of good seed that's going to be spread all over the place. A lot of good seed, and it's going to fall on all sorts of different soil. And initially, in some of that soil, people are going to respond or appear to respond to it, right? They'll appear to respond. But the truth is, when the going gets hard or they get distracted, they're going to fade away, and the seed itself, they're going to perish. Luke 17, 10 lepers run to Jesus. Ten lepers run to Jesus looking for what he can offer them, right? Looking for what Jesus can give. "Jesus, Rabbi, help us, help us, heal us, heal us." And so, he does. He does. All 10. It's not like he cherry-picked and said, "You and you. Eh, you, not so much. You go over there." All 10, he heals. All of them. How many return to glorify him and praise him? How many?

One. You start to see numerically what we're talking about here. Numerically, we're saying vast numbers seek him out for what he can do. A tiny minority seeks him out for who he is.

The examples are numerous. Numerous. More than we have time to go into. I haven't even talked about the 10 virgins who wait for the bridegroom to return. We haven't talked about the two people who built their house, one on the sand and one on the rock. The amount of times Jesus deliberately gives these anecdotes and pictures and parables in order to make all of us, not just people 2,000 years ago, but all of us ask ourselves, "Am I the one on the sand? Am I the foolish virgin? Am I the nine lepers? Am I the people looking for the bread amongst those 5,000? Or am I like Peter, who when put to the point and even asked if I want to go and chase all the other stuff that's out there, I say, 'No. Where could I go? You, Jesus, are the source of eternal life.'" Let's look at that last statement in our final verses. Let's look at verses 68 through 71. Verse 68. "But Simon Peter answered him, saying, 'Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.' Also, we have come to believe, and we now know, you are the Christ." You are the Christ. What a profession this is. You are the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered them and says, "Did I not choose you, the Twelve?" Remember the choice idea that God sovereignly chooses? Well, here it is again. "Did I not choose you, the Twelve? And yet," and this is interesting, "yet one of you is a devil. And this he spoke of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. For it was he who would betray him, being one of the Twelve." Even after it's been narrowed down from thousands pursuing him down to his 70-ish, down to 12, Jesus narrows it even further. He says, "Honestly, it's actually only 11. Eleven of you who are pursuing me because you want to be nourished by me." Are you among the 11, so to speak? Are you among those faithful?

Everyone's inclined to think that they are, but very few are introspective enough to ask,

do my behaviors and my words match up with that profession?

We've taught in our new members class a distinction. It's a distinction between something called the visible church and the invisible church. Now, what's the difference? The visible church is the church you see, right? You're driving down the road and go, "Oh, hey, there's the church. There's First Pres, First Baptist. There's the Catholics, the Methodists, Lutherans," whatever. The visible church is everything that falls under the grand umbrella of Christendom. The visible church is everyone who professes anything. It's the televangelists on at 2:00 o'clock. It's R.C. Sproul and it's Benny Hinn. Take that. It's the visible church is everything and everything in between, right? That's the visible church. In the first century, there was all manner of visible people in the covenant community. They were called Israelites. The Pharisees were amongst the visible church, so to speak, of their time, the visible covenant community. And yet, how many Pharisees would enter into God's kingdom?So here's the thing. The visible church is everything that looks remotely Christ-like, but in truth,

not everyone who's part of that visible body, not every one of them is saved. Not everyone's a true believer. Jesus looked at his own disciples, people who were following around, and says, "I know some of you. In fact, many of you are not actually those who believe in me." The visible body, the visible church, is everything that looks like the church, but the invisible church is the remnant therein. The invisible church are those individuals, those blood-bought born-again sons and daughters of the Most High God, who God has drawn to himself. And I assure you, they are a smaller portion of the larger whole. And I can say that with 100% confidence because scripture, as we've looked at this morning, says it again and again and again. And it almost seems, it's not that Jesus was scared or apprehensive about this, but he was definitely concerned to establish to the ears of those who would chase him down to say, "Be sure about this." He says, "I'll tell you this much. Those who will honestly join me on God's golden shores in the days yet to come, those who will dwell with me on Most High, those who are saved, those who are believers, they have this one thing in common. They were nourished by he who they believe in. They are nourished by me. They don't just nod the head at the things I say and take the things I give them. That's easy and anyone can do it." "But rather," he says, "the invisible remnant therein are those who are actually nourished by me." Let me ask you as we close, what are you nourished by?

What feeds your soul?

What excites you day to day? What allows you to abide good times and bad? It could be any number of answers to that question. The only right answer, the only saving answer is Jesus Christ.

For most of my early Christian walk, and I would dare say even into beginning seminary,

if you were to ask me if I was a Christian, I would say yeah.

I'd like to think I was, probably was.

But

it wasn't until sometime, even in ordained ministry,

that I think I started to really grasp what it means to be nourished by Jesus. And to understand that what we're going to do here, elementally, what we're going to experience here this morning, points to something larger that I desperately need on Monday as much as I need it on Sunday morning, and that is an abiding relationship with my King.

This morning, do you have that? Are you nourished by your relationship with Jesus? And if you say, "I'm not sure where I'm at," then consider today's reading, not only something that's meant to convict you, but something that's meant to invite you and say, "Hey, it could be more than you've made it." You can have more in your interaction with your God than perhaps you're choosing to have.

Will you? Let's pray.

[outro music] To search through an archive of Dr. Holt's previous sermons, please visit us at fpcgulfport.org, or you can look us up at sermonaudio.com. [outro music]