John 6:64Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Here the Evangelist points out to us the voluntary divine economy of salvation accepted by Christ, and also His guilelessness. The phrase “from the beginning” is not placed here without purpose. It is so that you may know His foreknowledge.

Even before these words, and not only after the Jews murmured and were scandalized, He already knew the betrayer. This was a proof of His Godhead.

They did not receive the light of evangelical instruction, for they were evil and already guilty of many former falls. Therefore wise Paul also testified to us that “blindness in part has happened to Israel” (Rom 11:25).

But since to know God hidden in human form was not a work of ordinary understanding, He says that no one can come to Him who has not yet received understanding from God and the Father.

This is fitting. If “every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (Jas 1:17), how much more must the knowledge of Christ be a gift of the Father’s right hand?

And should not the reception of the truth be counted the highest degree of grace? Since it is the cause of the blessings above, it must all the more depend on divine generosity.

Yet the Father does not give knowledge of Christ to the impure. Nor does He impart the most beneficial grace of the Spirit to those who zealously turn aside into improper unbelief.

For it was not fitting to pour precious myrrh into a pit. Thus the blessed prophet commands that those who wish to approach Christ through faith must first purify themselves by longing for every good work.

He cries: “Seek God, and when you find Him, call upon Him. When He draws near to you, let the wicked forsake his way, and the lawless man his intention.

“Let him return to the Lord, and he shall obtain mercy, because He will abundantly forgive your sins” (Is 55:6-7).

You see, he says, that we must first forsake our former way and withdraw from lawless intentions, so that we may receive forgiveness of sins, evidently through faith in Christ.

For we are justified not by the works of the law (Gal 2:16), but by His grace and by the forgiveness granted to us from above.

But perhaps someone will say: What then prevented Him from forgiving the Jews also, and granting remission to Israel together with us? Would this not have befitted the One who is perfectly good?

And how will He be true when He says to us, “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Mt 9:13)? What shall we say to this?

The proclamation of grace by our Savior was appointed first and foremost for the Israelites alone. For He was sent, as He Himself affirmed, only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Mt 15:24).

Therefore those who wished could believe and ascend to eternal life. Some were noble in their manner of life and seekers of truth.

They received the assisting grace of God and the Father for salvation through faith, and so obtained salvation.

By contrast, the proud Pharisees, together with the hardhearted chief priests and elders of the people, did not wish to believe, though they had been prepared by Moses and the prophets.

Since by their evil will they had already become unworthy of eternal life, they did not receive illumination from God and the Father.

You have a type of this also in the most ancient Scriptures. Those who did not believe God in the wilderness were not permitted to enter the promised land.

So also those who dishonored the Lord by unbelief were not permitted to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, of which the promised land was a type.

And it is not that “God is unjust who inflicts wrath on each one” (Rom 3:5). Being righteous by nature, He will surely determine only what is right, and He directs His judgment according to His nature.

This remains so even if we ourselves do not understand the ways of His divine economy concerning us.

Yet blessed Evangelist says beneficially that Jesus knew all things. He was not ignorant of who would not believe, nor who would become an instrument of impiety against Him.

Through this also it becomes clear that, as God, He “knows all things before they come to be” (Dan 13:42).

Paul, speaking to the Athenians about piety and proclaiming the true God to them, said: “In Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).

Our Lord Jesus Christ ascribes this activity arising in us from God to the Holy Spirit, saying: “It is the Spirit who gives life.” Therefore the Spirit is God, in whom we live and move and have our being.

This is according to the word of Paul and the testimony of our Savior. These sayings also teach that when God is said to dwell in us, it is the Spirit who is dwelling.

Therefore, “there are some of you who do not believe.” Let them believe and open their understanding. Let them open it and be enlightened. For Jesus knew from the beginning who were believers, and who would betray Him.

Judas was there also. Some were indeed troubled and left. He remained, however, in order to plot, not in order to understand. Since he remained for this purpose, the Lord did not keep silent about him.

He did not expose him, but neither did He pass over him in silence. Thus all would fear, though only one would perish. That is, Jesus did not name him, so that all would take His words to themselves and be afraid.

Here the Lord speaks of His ascent to the Father in a broad sense, as an ascent into His glory through sufferings (Lk 24:26). In the visible sufferings lies the beginning of His glory. Having suffered, He died, rose again, and ascended.

It is precisely this initial point, so to speak, of His glory, His sufferings and shameful death, that He points to here. This would be a still greater stumbling block for the Jews than the stumbling block of His present discourse.

If you are now scandalized by My word concerning the bread of life, My Flesh, what will happen when you see My sufferings and shameful death? Will this not be a greater stumbling block for you?

Because of the fleshly tendency of your views, you will not understand that these sufferings and death are the path to My glory and the ascent to where I was before.” Bishop Michael, Explanatory Gospel.

Thus the Lord told the murmuring disciples that the end of His earthly course would scandalize them still more, when they would see Him crucified on the Cross. Yet this death on the Cross would be only the beginning of His ascent to where He was before.

The Lord said, “You think only of earthly and fleshly things. You cannot free yourselves from them even when I speak to you of heavenly things, of the salvation of your souls.

Understand, then, that true life, eternal life, is given not by bodily food, nor by the manna your fathers ate, but by that spiritual food, that heavenly bread, which I give you.

For true eternal life is the life of the spirit, not of the body. The spirit gives life to the body. The Spirit gives life, not the flesh. The flesh profits nothing and does not lead to the blessedness of eternal life.

You think only of earthly and fleshly things. The words that I speak to you are spirit and life. They lead to the perfection of the spirit, to the perfection of your souls, and secure for you the blessedness of eternal life.

But to understand them, faith in Me is needed. I see that there are unbelievers among you. They do not understand Me. Since they do not understand Me, they do not follow Me.

By refusing to fulfill the will of God, they cannot come to Me. The will of My Father is that all should believe in Me and all should come to Me.

He who comes to Me comes according to the will of My Father, and this coming is, as it were, given him by the Father. But to him who rejects the will of God, it is not given by My Father to come to Me.

Therefore I said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father.”

Knowing the thoughts of men, He knew from the beginning who among those around Him believed in Him and who did not. Compare Jn 2:25.

“And who would betray Him.” The betrayer is the representative of all who do not believe in the Lord. He knew unbelievers in general. He also knew in particular the chief representative of unbelief, His betrayer.

He knew from the beginning, as soon as anyone first came to Him. At His first meeting with Simon, He said that Simon would be Cephas, because of firmness tested by a fall.

From the first meeting He also knew the one “who is betraying Him.” The translation “who will betray” is imprecise. Before the Savior’s gaze, the future appeared as a present reality.

During the discourse on the mystical food, according to the Evangelist, Judas was among the unbelievers. John follows Judas with special attention and sketches his evil character (Jn 12:4; Jn 13:2, 27; Jn 14:22). He alone also gives the name of his father (Jn 6:71).

Judas secretly stirred up distrust in others, now by biting jests, now by questions of crafty malice. All this was done behind the Teacher’s back, and also behind the backs of those especially close to the Teacher.

The Savior knew all this and endured it. In all likelihood, the skill of the evil Judas had a great part in the fact that “many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more.”

“Some,” says blessed Augustine, “were scandalized and went away. But that one, Judas, remained, not in order to understand Him, but in order not to understand Him.” More precisely, he remained to share the glory of the glorious Teacher and to gather silver coins by theft.