John 6:40 Commentary and Bible Study

Although it is difficult to divide it up precisely, from this point in the discourse Christ is speaking of Calvary. He is at the end of the so-called great Galilean ministry. There is about one year to go before Calvary and his passion. He is very soon going to be rejected by many of his Galilean followers – people besides the disciples and those who understood and grasped his ministry and message. These were people who followed him in large numbers forming great multitudes from Galilee, who loved the spectacle of the miracles, who felt sure in themselves that here was the one who would be the political Messiah and deliverer of Israel from the Roman yoke. He was to disappoint them as he increasingly put it to them so plainly that he had come to suffer and to die. He had come as a spiritual Redeemer. He had come to purchase and to secure forgiveness and everlasting life for all who trusted in him.What distinguished those who really knew Christ from the people who had followed him in Galilee for more than a year but who were now about to turn away from him? The significant word is ‘seeth’. Some didn’t really see him. They saw a man, a mighty miracle worker, like one of the Old Testament prophets. They saw the national hope of Israel, but also a fallible teacher who could get it wrong. They saw a great man, and some of them had left their homes to follow him, but they did not see one who had come to make atonement for their souls. They did not come to him with their spiritual needs. Here there was a blockage in their minds. He therefore makes it plain in sentence after sentence that he is sent from God, that he is divine, that he is the Son of Man – a term that the Jews used, which comes from the book of Daniel in the Old Testament, and which they understood to refer to the Messiah, the Saviour. This is not a matter of race, it is a matter of grace to individuals. You must come individually, with your heart to God, and repent and seek him.We come then to the subject of the drawing of God, the drawing of people to himself. We see here in these coming verses the utter resistance, the obdurate, rebellious attitude of the majority of the people, and Christ will assert that people are only changed from rebels into seekers, from those who are hostile to him, from those who need him and love him and look to him, if the Father draws them. They will not change their minds by themselves. This will require an initiative of God, an action of God.