¹² “I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.”

Amazing as it was for the disciples to have sat under the Lord’s direct teaching—and amazement was a frequent experience of theirs—there was a whole lot more that Jesus could have taught them, but it would have been counter-productive. Not because of any problem with Jesus’ teaching, but the limitation was in their ability to handle the truth. From the beginning, our human ability to handle the truth is limited. God knew that Adam and Eve could not handle the knowledge of good and evil, so forbade them from eating of that tree. The knowledge they gained has caused humans problems ever since. It was not that God wanted to withhold anything good from them, as Satan intimated (Gen 3:5). He was protecting them from TMI (“too much information”) for their own good. You know how that story ended, in rebellion against God’s clear commandment to not eat from that tree, their eyes were opened to knowledge in a way that brought their fall.

Yet, here we see Christ protecting His disciples from knowledge they were not yet ready for. They had enough for the time being. There was coming a time when the jarring truths of the Upper Room would be easier to handle, that is, from the vantage point of Christ’s post resurrection appearances. Their grief and sorrow at His departure would give way to the glorious understanding of God’s wonderful work on the cross and the eternal aliveness and presence of Christ through His Spirit. Hope would be restored and faith re-energized at a new and higher level. But in the Upper Room, they were unable to comprehend much more deep truth. What they had was sufficient to see them through the valley of the shadow of death, which they were about to experience.

The apostle John, chronicler of this gospel account intimates to his readers a similar thought, “Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name” (John 20:30-31). Sufficient is the story, as it is told, for readers to come to faith in Christ. There is much more to the Christian life than what is recorded here in the Gospel of John, but what has been included has been hand selected by the inspired writer for his purpose of bringing people to faith. John does not focus on the grand theological themes elucidated in other parts of the New Testament, like the role of Melchizedek in salvation history (see Hebrews 5 & 7). That is for later study. For the inquirer, sufficient is the Gospel of John for the truths necessary to believe.

Lord, help me never over-complicate the message of salvation in Jesus Christ.