EXPLANATORY AND CRITICAL NOTES
John 6:69. And we believe and are sure that Thou art the Holy One of God.—This is the reading of all the great MSS. א, B, C, D, L, and is adopted by Tischendorf, Tregelles, etc. If this reading is to be received, we are probably to understand Peter’s confession as referring to Jesus as sent into the world to do the Father’s will, and as having His authority sealed by His mighty works and holy life.
John 6:70. Hath a devil.—διάβολός ἐστιν, i.e. one having the qualities of him who is called ὁ διαβολος.
John 6:71. Judas Iscariot, etc., rather Judas the son of Simon Iscariotes.—Iscariot is no doubt אישׁ קריות (Ish-Kerioth), a man of Kerioth, a town or village belonging to Judah (Joshua 15:25). But Westcott suggests that, as the true reading in Joshua is Kerioth-Hezron, this Kerioth might be identified with the Kerioth (Κεριώθ) of Moab (Jeremiah 48:24).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— John 6:66-71
The relation of different classes of men to the Saviour.—A time of testing had come for the followers of the Saviour. In His discourse in the synagogue of Capernaum, He had advanced into regions of thought not only far above, but alien to the desires of many among them. And they were not, we may think, of the number of the Jews who murmured (John 6:41-42), nor men who were inimical to the Redeemer. They were those who would willingly have continued to be His disciples; but His late teaching proved a stumbling-block, the prospects He held out were not such as they anticipated, His yoke to some of them was not easy, it may be, and thus we read that many went back. They were—
I. Those who separated themselves from Jesus.—
1. Many of those who had never really come to Christ, and remained spiritually unchanged, were more and more offended at His teaching; indifference, lukewarmness, faintheartedness, doubtless characterised them. His demands were too great for their little souls. The spiritual life and kingdom to which He pointed had no charms for them.
2. Thus they go without one word more from Him. Not by such followers would the world be won for Him. Rather will He choose a small handful of faithful, self-sacrificing men; for only such, guided by His Spirit, would turn the world upside down (Acts 17:6).
3. As Gideon’s army at the spring of Harod was purged from all the fainthearted and unfit (Judges 7:3-7), so that by the three hundred left God saved Israel from the Midianites, thus the ranks of Jesus’ disciples were freed from unfit and encumbering elements. They had put their hands to the plough and turned back, etc. (Luke 9:62). Such Jesus does not retain in His service—or rather they go back willingly, freely, from Him into the old life and the old ways.
II. Those who willingly and joyfully remained with Him.—
1. It is to the twelve our Lord addresses Himself in the memorable question, “Will ye also go away?” Did no others remain? That is an idea hardly to be entertained. But those five disciples already chosen, and the others who had associated themselves more closely with Him, stood nearest. And, as He saw the departing many, seeking some solace for His grieved human heart, He asked the others this question.
2. And the answer was, without doubt, cheering and grateful to the Son of man, “despised and rejected,” etc. Simon Peter, here as ever the spokesman, if not the representative of them all, confessed their loyal adhesion to their Master. He and they did not probably understand much that had been spoken in the synagogue. But they knew what Christ was—what peace He had brought to their souls; they had seen His wondrous works, and heard His heavenly teaching which those works explained and illumined. To whom else could they go? from whom else hear the words of eternal life? Nay, all they knew and had seen led them to believe and know that Jesus was the Christ—as He claimed to be—and the Son of the living God.
3. Our Lord desires a willing service. He had chosen these disciples; but those who were really His consecrated themselves freely to Him, under the blessed free constraint of His love and His Father’s drawing.
III. The traitor in the ranks of the disciples.—
1. The gleam of joy which fell on the Saviour’s path at the manifestation of His disciples’ faith and love was again clouded by the thought that even in this inner circle lurked a traitor.
2. “One of you is a devil,” our Lord had to say sadly. Judas remained, although he should have departed; for his adherence to Peter’s confession was evidently hypocritical. He remained, cherishing in his heart those carnal and earthly ideas of Messiah’s kingdom, probably resolving that he would watch the Saviour’s movements, and force Him to declare Himself Messiah in a temporal sense (all Judas would have cared for), or——
3. That Judas was wholly unmoved by the Saviour’s holy life and loving works and heavenly teaching can hardly be held in view of his bitter remorse (Matthew 27:3-5).
4. The patience with which our Lord endured the presence of this spying traitor (who was, moreover, a thief— John 12:6) was wonderful. But His Father willed that it should be so—for some purpose it was necessary that it should be so (see on John 6:64)—and His will rose, even in this, into loving acquiescence with His Father’s will.
IV. 1. Consider Him who endured such contradiction, etc. (Hebrews 12:3).
2. Consider the necessity for earnestness in religion. The religion of Christ will not admit of half-hearted adhesion, of lukewarmness, etc. Christ does not desire such disciples (Revelation 3:16). And in the ears of many in all the Churches His words of blame to Laodicea still apply, “I would thou wert cold or hot.”
3. The continuance of a hypocritical profession may lead in the end to awful results. Nothing more surely hardens the heart, and freezes the springs of faith and feeling, than a false and hypocritical profession of religion (James 1:22; 2 Timothy 3:13; Isaiah 29:13-14, etc.).
(See Illustrations, Chap. John 13:18 seq.)