But there are some of you who don’t believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who didn’t believe, and who it was who would betray him.
Parallel Translations
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But there are some of you who don’t believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who didn’t believe, and who it was who would betray him.
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But ther are some of you that beleve not. For Iesus knewe from the begynnynge which they were that beleved not and who shuld betraye him.
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But there are some of you that beleeue not: for Iesus knewe from the beginning, which they were that beleeued not, and who shoulde betray him.
Cross-references (17)
Passages linked to John 6:64 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- John 10:26 But you don’t believe, because you are not of my sheep, as I told you.
- 2 Timothy 2:19 However God’s firm foundation stands, having this seal, “The Lord knows those who are his,” and, “Let every one who names the name of the Lord depart from unrighteousness.”
- Hebrews 4:13 There is no creature that is hidden from his sight, but all things are naked and laid open before the eyes of him to whom we must give an account.
- Psalms 139:2-4 You know my sitting down and my rising up. You perceive my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word on my tongue, but, behold, Yahweh, you know it altogether.
- John 2:24-25 But Jesus didn’t entrust himself to them, because he knew everyone, and because he didn’t need for anyone to testify concerning man; for he himself knew what was in man.
- John 5:42 But I know you, that you don’t have God’s love in yourselves.
- John 6:61 But Jesus knowing in himself that his disciples murmured at this, said to them, “Does this cause you to stumble?
- John 6:70-71 Jesus answered them, “Didn’t I choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?” Now he spoke of Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, for it was he who would betray him, being one of the twelve.
- John 13:10-11 Jesus said to him, “Someone who has bathed only needs to have his feet washed, but is completely clean. You are clean, but not all of you.” For he knew him who would betray him, therefore he said, “You are not all clean.”
- Romans 8:29 For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
- John 6:36 But I told you that you have seen me, and yet you don’t believe.
- John 6:66 At this, many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.
- John 13:18-21 I don’t speak concerning all of you. I know whom I have chosen. But that the Scripture may be fulfilled, ‘He who eats bread with me has lifted up his heel against me.’ From now on, I tell you before it happens, that when it happens, you may believe that I am he. Most certainly I tell you, he who receives whomever I send, receives me; and he who receives me, receives him who sent me.” When Jesus had said this, he was troubled in spirit, and testified, “Most certainly I tell you that one of you will betray me.”
- Acts 15:18 “All of God’s works are known to him from eternity.
- John 8:23 He said to them, “You are from beneath. I am from above. You are of this world. I am not of this world.
- John 8:38-47 I say the things which I have seen with my Father; and you also do the things which you have seen with your father.” They answered him, “Our father is Abraham.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth which I heard from God. Abraham didn’t do this. You do the works of your father.” They said to him, “We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father, God.” Therefore Jesus said to them, “If God were your father, you would love me, for I came out and have come from God. For I haven’t come of myself, but he sent me. Why don’t you understand my speech? Because you can’t hear my word. You are of your father, the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and doesn’t stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks on his own; for he is a liar, and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you don’t believe me. Which of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? He who is of God hears the words of God. For this cause you don’t hear, because you are not of God.”
- John 8:55 You have not known him, but I know him. If I said, ‘I don’t know him,’ I would be like you, a liar. But I know him and keep his word.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (15 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 64. But there are some of you who do…
64. But there are some of you who do not believe. He again imputes blame to them, because, being destitute of the Spirit, they wickedly corrupt and debase his doctrine, and thus turn it to their ruin. For otherwise they might have objected: “You boast, indeed, that what you speak is quickening, but we experience nothing of that nature.” He therefore says, that by themselves it is prevented; for unbelief, as it is always proud, will never understand any thing in the words of Christ which it despises and disdains. Wherefore, if we wish to profit at all under this Teacher, let us bring minds well disposed to listen to him; for if the entrance to his doctrine be not opened up by humility and reverence, our understandings are harder than stones, and will not receive any part of sound doctrine. And therefore, when in the present day we see so few people in the world profiting by the Gospel, we ought to remember that this arises from the depravity of men. For how many will you find who deny themselves, and truly submit to Christ? As to his saying only that there were some who did not believe, though almost all of them were liable to this charge, his reason for doing so appears to have been that, if there were any who were not yet beyond the possibility of cure, they might not cast down their minds in despair.
For Jesus knew from the beginning. The Evangelist added this, that none might think that Christ formed an opinion at random about his hearers. Many professed to belong to his flock, but a sudden apostacy exposed their hypocrisy. But the Evangelist says that their treachery, even while it was unknown to others, was well known to Christ. And this is stated, not so much on his account, as that we may learn not to form a judgment except on subjects which we have thoroughly investigated; for as to their being known to Christ from the beginning, this was peculiar to his Divinity. It is otherwise with us; for since we do not know the hearts, we ought to delay forming a judgment, until impiety be manifested by outward signs, and thus the tree be known by its fruits, (Matthew 7:16.)
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 64 But there are some of you that believe…
64 But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him.
Ver. 64. But there are some of you that believe not] And hence it is that you so grossly mistake me, and that you find no more benefit by me and my words. Unbelief rejects the remedy, frustrates the means, holds a man in universal pollution, Heb 3:12, and leaves him under a double condemnation; one from the law wherein Christ found him, and another from the gospel for refusing the remedy, that blessed bath of Christ’s blood, Zec 13:1, whereunto even the princes of Sodom are invited, Isa 1:10, and for despising it, doomed, Eze 24:13, as a malefactor dead in law, and yet rejecteth the offer of a pardon. In Ket’s sedition, when King Edward VI’s pardon was offered the rebels by a herald, a lewd boy turned toward him his naked posteriors, and used words suitable to that gesture. One standing by discharged a harquebus {a} upon the boy, and struck him dead in the place. {b} How shall those escape that neglect so great salvation, which at first began to be spoken by the Lord? Heb 2:3.
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{a} The early type of portable gun, varying in size from a small cannon to a musket, which on account of its weight was, when used in the field, supported upon a tripod, trestle, or other ‘carriage’, and afterwards upon a forked ‘rest’. The name in German and Flemish meant literally ‘hook-gun’, from the hook cast along with the piece, by which it was fastened to the ‘carriage’; but the name became generic for portable fire-arms generally in the 16th century, so that the type with the hook was subsequently distinguished as arquebuse à croc. According to Wendelin Boeheim, Handbuch der Waffenkunde (Leipzig 1890) 447, 455, the hook of the original hakenbühse was intended to hold on to a wall or other fixed object, partly to support the weight of the barrel and partly to diminish the recoil. Maximilian I (early 16th cent.) introduced the portable tripod which could be put together in the field. The forked rest came in about 1520, with the Spanish musket. ŒD
{b} Life of Edward VI, by Sir John Heywood.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain I may say what I will to you; the…
I may say what I will to you; the Spirit quickeneth, but it doth not quicken all; it only quickeneth whomsoever it pleaseth. You understand not these things, but have most gross conceptions of sublime spiritual things; the reason is, because you believe not: though some of them, questionless, did truly believe, yet the most did not; for we read, Joh 6:66, that many of them went back, and walked no more with him. And though faith be an inward, secret act of the soul, yet Christ knew, and from the beginning, who were believers, and who were not; nay, he had a particular knowledge of that disciple who was to betray him.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain Our blessed Saviour having thus cleared his doctrine, that…
Our blessed Saviour having thus cleared his doctrine, that he was the bread of life which came down from heaven, and that he is not to be carnally, but spiritually, fed upon: he plainly tells the Jews, That the true cause of their stumbling at his doctrine, was their ignorance and unbelief; There are some of you that believe not. Upon which plain dealing of our blessed Saviour’s, many unsound professors did wholly forsake him, and accompanied no longer with him.
Learn hence, That multitudes, who have long professed Christ and his holy religion, may draw back, and fall from their profession, and finally revolt from him.
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2. That it is an evil heart of unbelief, which causes men to depart from Christ, and to make shipwreck of their profession.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain From that time many of his disciples went back,....…
From that time many of his disciples went back,.... Not any of the twelve apostles, for they are distinguished from these in the next verse; nor any of the seventy disciples, for their names were written in heaven, and could not apostatize totally and finally, as these did; but some of the multitude of the disciples, who followed Christ, heard him, and professed to believe in him, and were baptized in his name, but were not true disciples, only nominal ones: they had never heard and learned of the Father, otherwise they would have known what it was to come to Christ, as the Father's gift, and under the drawings of his grace; and would not have been offended at the words of our Lord, just now spoken by him, concerning that sort of coming to him: but from the time he spoke those words; "because of this word", as the Syriac, Arabic, and Persic versions render it; they withdrew themselves from his ministry, they dropped their profession of faith in him, and relinquished him as a Saviour and Redeemer: for finding that he would not be made king, nor set up for a temporal redeemer; and talking of himself as the bread of life, and of coming to him, in a sense they did not understand; they turned their backs on him; and as the words may be literally read, "returned to the things that were behind"; to the world, and to their old companions, to Satan and their own hearts lusts; like the dog to its vomit, and the swine to its wallowing in the mire: their true picture is drawn, in the parable of the unclean spirit going out of the man, and returning, Mat 12:43. And they returned to their quondam teachers, the Scribes and Pharisees, and to the law of works, and to seek for righteousness by it; setting up their own righteousness, and not submitting to the righteousness of Christ; and thus to look back and draw back, is a sad case indeed:
and walked no more with him; never returned to him more, or went with him from place to place as before: never more attended on his ministry, or had any intimacy and fellowship with him: and so it commonly is with apostates from the profession of Christ; they seldom or ever return, or are recovered; it is difficult, if not impossible, which is sometimes the case, to renew them again to repentance.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain But there are some of you who believe not…
But there are some of you who believe not - And so receive no life by them, because you take them in a gross literal sense. For Jesus knew from the beginning - Of his ministry: who would betray him - Therefore it is plain, God does foresee future contingencies:- "But his foreknowledge causes not the fault, Which had no less proved certain unforeknown."
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 64. But there are some of you that…
Verse 64. But there are some of you that believe not.] This is addressed to Judas, and to those disciples who left him: Joh 6:66.
And who should betray him] Or, who would deliver him up. Because he knew all things; he knew from the first, from Judas's call to the apostleship, and from eternity, (if the reader pleases,) who it was who would (not should) deliver him up into the hands of the Jews. Should, in the apprehension of most, implies necessity and compulsion; would implies that he was under the influence of his own free will, without necessity or constraint. The former takes away his guilt: for what a man is irresistibly compelled to do, by the supreme authority of God, he cannot avoid; and therefore to him no blame can attach: but Judas having acted through his own free will, abusing his power, and the grace he had received, he was guilty of the murder of an innocent man, and deserved the perdition to which he went.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Jesus knew from the beginning ... - As this…
Jesus knew from the beginning ... - As this implied a knowledge of the heart, and of the secret principles and motives of men, it shows that he must have been omniscient.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain The flesh profiteth nothing. Dead flesh, separated from the…
The flesh profiteth nothing. Dead flesh, separated from the spirit, in the gross manner they supposed they were to eat his flesh, would profit nothing. Neither doth man’s flesh, that is to say, man’s natural and carnal apprehension, (which refuses to be subject to the spirit, and words of Christ) profit any thing. But it would be the height of blasphemy, to say the living flesh of Christ (which we receive in the blessed sacrament, with his spirit, that is, with his soul and divinity) profiteth nothing. For if Christ’s flesh had profited us nothing, he would never have taken flesh for us, nor died in the flesh for us. --- Are spirit and life. By proposing to you a heavenly sacrament, in which you shall receive, in a wonderful manner, spirit, grace and life. These words sufficiently correct the gross and carnal imagination of these Capharnaites, that he meant to them his body and blood to eat in a visible and bloody manner, as flesh, says St. Augustine, is sold in the market, and in the shambles;[3] but they do not imply a figurative or metaphorical presence only. The manner of Christ’s presence is spiritual and under the outward appearances of bread and wine; but yet he is there truly and really present, by a change of the substance of bread and wine into the substance of his body and blood, which truly and really become our spiritual food, and are truly and really received in the holy sacrament. --- The flesh[4] of itself profiteth nothing, not even the flesh of our Saviour Christ, were it not united to the divine person of Christ. But we must take care how we understand these words spoken by our Saviour: for it is certain, says St. Augustine, that the word made flesh, is the cause of all our happiness. (Witham) --- When I promise you life if you eat my flesh, I do not wish you to understand this of that gross and carnal manner, of cutting my members in pieces: such ideas are far from my mind: the flesh profiteth nothing. In the Scriptures, the word flesh is often put for the carnal manner of understanding any thing. If you with to enter into the spirit of my words, raise your hearts to a more elevated and spiritual way of understanding them. (Calmet) --- The reader may consult Des Mahis, p. 165, a convert from Protestantism, and who has proved the Catholic doctrine on the Eucharist in the most satisfactory manner, from the written word. Where he shows that Jesus Christ, speaking of his own body, never says the flesh, but my flesh: the former mode of expression is used to signify, as we have observed above, a carnal manner of understanding any thing.
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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]
St. Augustine, 27. p. 503, carnem quippe intellexerunt, quomodo in cadavere dilaniatur, aut in macello venditur.
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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]
St. Augustine, 27. p. 503, caro non prodest quicquam, sed caro sola ... nam si caro nihil prodesset, verbum caro non fieret.
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George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain But there are some, &c.--that is, "But it matters…
But there are some, &c.--that is, "But it matters little to some of you in what sense I speak, for ye believe not." This was said, adds the Evangelist, not merely of the outer but of the inner circle of His disciples; for He knew the traitor, though it was not yet time to expose him.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 64. Some… that believe not—They had no living faith.…
64. Some… that believe not—They had no living faith. To them his reference to his ascension, (Joh_6:62,) and his thrilling words of the Spirit, would be but a continuance of the hard saying. Jesus knew—His very humanity, by its close contact with divinity, would be fringed with a supernatural intuition. See note on Joh_2:25.
Who should betray him—Who was going to betray him. It is a simple future participle, and expresses no fatalism or predestination.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 64. some of you that believe not] There were…
64. some of you that believe not] There were some of those who followed Him and called themselves His disciples, who still did not believe on Him. The better order is, there are of you some.
knew from the beginning] It is impossible to fix the exact limits of this; the meaning of ‘the beginning’ must depend on the context (see on Joh_1:1). Here the most natural limit is ‘knew from the beginning of their discipleship,’ when they first became His followers. Comp. Joh_2:24-25.
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who should betray him] Or, who it was that should betray Him. To ask, ‘Why then did Jesus choose Judas as an Apostle?’ is to ask in a special instance for an answer to the insoluble enigma ‘Why does Omniscience allow wicked persons to be born? Why does Omnipotence allow evil to exist?’ The tares once sown among the wheat, both must ‘grow together till the harvest,’ and share sunshine and rain alike.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (64) There are some of you that believe not.—Later,…
(64) There are some of you that believe not.—Later, the word “disciple” became synonymous with the word “believer,” but there are those now following Him just as they would follow any Rabbi, and, regarding Him as a merely human teacher, they fall short of the faith which was the first qualification for true discipleship. They had heard, it may be, the Sermon on the Mount, and such teaching as that of Matthew 13. In part they could understand this, and therefore in part believed; but when faith was really needed, it was found not really to exist: for faith is accepting what is not demonstrable to the mere reason, and seeing what is invisible.
From the beginning.—This is a relative term, and is to be interpreted from the context. It means here the beginning of their discipleship. He saw in their hearts the varying kinds of ground on which the good seed fell, and in their acts and words the varying effects. There were hearts like the hardened wayside, but it may have been ploughed; like the stony places, but that shelving rock may have been broken through; like the thorns, but they may have been rooted up; and all may have become, as some were, like the good and fruit-bearing ground.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain But, he adds, there are some of you that…
But, he adds, there are some of you that believe not. "Some," not many, who were following him yet felt that they could not trust could not accept his greatest revelations, these Divine assumptions, this spiritual position of his. The Divine humanity, the offered life, the cruel death, of the Son of God, the victory over death, the return to the Father, when put into words or when taught in metaphors even, were grounds of offence. The evangelist adds: For (the gar introduces the explanatory clause of the disciple who testified of these things) Jesus knew (knew absolutely, rather than came to know) from the beginning referring to the commencement of his public ministry, when men began to close round him, (Joh_1:43, 48 2:24) not from the beginning of time, or the beginning of their unbelief (Kling); he knew by his Divine penetration into their character, by their manner and spirit, and the nakedness and openness of all hearts before himwho they were that believed not, and who it was that should betray him. Westcott here reminds us that the first indication of the sin of Judas occurs in close association with predictions of the approaching Passion. This foreknowledge of issues is no interference with free self-consciousness in itself. It may imply that the natures thus known contained in themselves the seeds of the future growth. He knew what would be, but he did not compel it. There was possibly some fresh manifestation of feeling, of failing sympathy, even of enmity, which led the evangelist to notice the manner and interpret the mind of the Lord.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
Jesus finishes speaking to the crowd.
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For Jesus knew from the beginning who were the ones ... who it was who would betray him
Here John gives background information about what Jesus knew would happen. (See: Background Information)
no one can come to me unless it is granted to him by the Father
Whoever wants to believe must come to God through the Son. Only God the Father allows people to come to Jesus.
Father
This is an important title for God. (See: Translating Son and Father)
come to me
"follow me and receive eternal life"
translationWords
believe
Jesus
betray
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.