John 6:67 - Printer Friendly

ESV: So Jesus said to the twelve, "Do you want to go away as well?"

NIV: "You do not want to leave too, do you?" Jesus asked the Twelve.

NASB: So Jesus said to the twelve, 'You do not want to leave also, do you?'

CSB: So Jesus said to the Twelve, "You don’t want to go away too, do you?"

NLT: Then Jesus turned to the Twelve and asked, 'Are you also going to leave?'

KJV: Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?

NKJV: Then Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you also want to go away?”

At the height of His earthly popularity most of the people who had been learning from Jesus walk away (John 6:66). They completely abandon His teachings and His ministry. They do not like what He has taught (John 6:60), so they choose their own preferences over the truth. This illustrates the enormous difference between those who show interest in Christianity versus those who are true believers in Jesus Christ. Hanging out with the crowd and applauding at miracles is not the same as accepting Christ as one's Savior. As soon as the "followers" were put under pressure, they proved that they were not "believers" by walking away.

That context makes this verse important. Jesus now asks the twelve members of His inner circle whether they plan to leave also. What's curious about this is that one of them, Judas, is not a believer either (John 6:71). Challenge and trial don't always separate out every possible non-believer.

This also makes Peter's statement about the faith of these twelve men a bit presumptuous. Peter will claim that "we," meaning these twelve men, have legitimate faith in Christ. But at least one of them does not; Peter does not know as much as he thinks he does.

John 6:60–71 shows the drastic impact of Jesus' teaching on the crowd: most walk away. When confronted with spiritual needs and a spiritual message, most people will turn it down. What society wants is spectacle, material things, and a political savior. The more Jesus insists on being the means to eternal life, the angrier the crowd becomes, until the vast majority simply abandon Him. The twelve disciples, on the other hand, seem willing to follow Jesus, though they are also struggling to accept His recent claims. Peter's declaration will be the third of John's seven witnesses to Jesus' divinity.

In chapter 6, Jesus feeds thousands of people who had been following Him. He does this by miraculously dividing the contents of a small meal, leaving more left over than He had to begin with. At first, the crowd is amazed and they enthusiastically praise Jesus. After sending the disciples across the Sea of Galilee and rescuing them from a storm by walking on the water, Jesus once again addresses the crowd. This time, He emphasizes the spiritual lesson behind His prior miracle. In response, most of those who had been praising Jesus turn away in disappointment.

John chapter 6 occurs some months after the events of chapter 5, bringing the narrative to about one year prior to Jesus' crucifixion. As with the rest of the gospel of John, the purpose is not to repeat information from the other three Gospels, but to focus on Jesus' status as God incarnate. This chapter continues to expand the list of Jesus' miraculous signs and the witnesses to His divine nature. Here, Jesus also gives the first of seven ''I am'' statements found in this gospel. Chapter 7 will once again skip ahead to a major public step in Jesus' path to the cross.

The disciple John wrote the gospel of John decades after the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke were written. The author assumes that a reader is already familiar with the content of these other works. So, John presents a different perspective, with a greater emphasis on meaning. John uses seven miracles—which he calls "signs"— to prove that Jesus is, in fact, God incarnate. Some of the most well-known verses in the Bible are found here. None is more famous than the one-sentence summary of the gospel found in John 3:16.