John 6:67

With the flesh exposed in its unbelief, many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more. The people, the Jews, and the disciples have all shown the truth of the Lord's words, "The flesh is no help at all." One circle is left — the twelve. And the Lord asks, "Do you want to go away as well?"

In questions it is not only, as people usually say, that a "no" answer is expected. The question puts the thing forward as not so. Or it points to a situation that made the question likely to carry a doubt, or an unwanted, unpleasant possibility — one that can hardly be thought true, and so raises the question. It is not asking for information.

But whatever grief this may have been to His tender heart, His confidence in His Father remained unshaken. Already He had said: "All that the Father gives Me will come to Me," and He desires no more than these. Even now He tells the twelve who remain that He has closed no door behind them. He has given them the chance to go back to what they left in order to follow Him.

They were ready to follow a Christ who could give them bread to eat and make life easy for them. But following a rejected Christ who was about to die had no appeal for them. So "many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him." There were, however, those who were true disciples, like Simon Peter... Peter and his fellow disciples were not drawn to the Lord by loaves and fishes, but to Himself and His words of eternal life.

People falling away tests us all. Those who are not real have often slipped in among the people of God, only to turn away in time. Such sifting times show where all hearts really are... It is not that Peter understood the Lord's position much better than those who left. Much in His teaching puzzled him and disappointed his own expectations. But he did at least recognise the good Shepherd's voice, and so he clung to Him through it all.

There was no one else to whom they could go. To turn back to the scribes, the teachers of the law, would have been to step out of the light of heaven into the darkness of a dungeon. He was the only one in the universe who had the slightest attraction for them.

He saw in measure what He was and what He had. What He is forms the immovable resting-place of our souls as we rest in Him and His work. What He has becomes the everlasting supply to our souls in their many needs. Get those blessed words into your hearts: "You have," and "You are." Then all the need of your soul will find its full answer in Christ.

The Lord's reply showed that He knew better than Peter. The eleven were indeed sound. But one would turn out to be false, and He did not say then which one... No one could deceive Christ. He knew what was in man. He knew that some of the crowd which had followed Him across the water did not believe. He knew who would betray Him.