The people walking away from Jesus did not take Him by surprise.
They had listened to His teaching and found it difficult to accept. Some complained. Many turned back and walked with Him no more. Their departure changed the company around Him, but it revealed nothing about their hearts that He had failed to see. John tells us Jesus knew from the beginning who did not believe and who would betray Him.
He turned to the twelve and asked whether they would also go away. Peter answered that there was nowhere else to go. Jesus had the words of eternal life, and they believed He was the Christ, the Son of the living God.
It was a faithful answer, spoken in a company that still included Judas.
Jesus identified the betrayal within that smaller group, too. Judas had not joined the departing crowd. He remained beside the other disciples, occupying a place that could persuade people of something it could never persuade Christ to believe. Remaining among the twelve did not conceal his heart from the Lord.
The crowd had grown smaller. The Lord’s knowledge had not grown larger.
Years later, John wrote about people whose departure from the believing community accompanied denial of Christ. He explained that their leaving made their lack of genuine belonging apparent. They had shared the outward association, but their departure exposed what that association had concealed.
God had never mistaken their profession for saving faith. Other people could be impressed by the claim, and the person making it could even be deceived about himself. Neither kind of deception could make Christ misread the heart. Their leaving brought something into public view; it did not bring new information to God.
A person may present his departure as proof that he has found a better way. He may speak with the same confidence he once used to profess Christ. The change in his confession, however, cannot establish the truth of another path. Rejecting the Savior does not overturn His authority any more than claiming His name could fool Him.
The choice remains the person’s own. God does not need to manufacture rebellion to bring its truth into the open. He can use a freely chosen departure to expose a profession that had persuaded others. Human rejection remains accountable to Him, even when He uses it to reveal what people could not previously see.
Jesus spoke of a final judgment in which people would appeal to their religious accomplishments as evidence that they belonged to Him. They would point to what they had said and done in His name. His answer would reach beneath those credentials: He had never known them.
Their performance would not correct His knowledge.
Peter’s story keeps that warning from becoming a verdict we pronounce over everyone who falls badly. The disciple who confessed that Jesus had the words of eternal life would later deny knowing Him. His confidence in his own courage would fail under pressure, and the failure would be painful and real.
Jesus knew that night was coming, too. Before the denial, He warned Peter that Satan desired to sift the disciples as wheat. He also told Peter that He had prayed for him and spoke of his return. The man about to fail would afterward have work to do strengthening his brothers.
The Lord had neither excused Peter’s sin nor mistaken it for the whole truth about Peter.
His return would not require Jesus to discover that He had misunderstood him. The Shepherd knew His sheep before the sheep understood how far he could stray. Peter’s confidence in himself could collapse without making Christ’s knowledge or care collapse with it.
That leaves no room to call rebellion harmless. A life can contradict a profession, and its fruit deserves honest attention. Religious language cannot turn cruelty, deceit, or persistent rejection of Christ into faithfulness. Recognizing that wrongdoing, however, does not give us everything the Savior knows about the person committing it.
Someone may leave a congregation without abandoning Christ. Someone else may remain in a pew while refusing Him. A wandering believer may need correction and restoration; a false profession may be coming into the light. Watching a person walk through a doorway does not tell us which heart stands behind the movement.
Christ’s promise to keep His own rests on His faithfulness, not on our ability to identify everyone correctly.
Back among the twelve, Peter had spoken sincerely while Judas remained beside him. One would deny the Lord and return. The other would betray Him. Their closeness to Jesus had not made their hearts interchangeable, and their outward places had never confused Him.
As events unfolded, people would learn more about both men.
Jesus would not have to revise His understanding of either.
“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.” —John 10:27–28
—Jeff Wager
#WagerEssays #TheEssayDepot #WhatGodSays #Apologetics #Theology