It was an appeal which the Jews understood, and to which they could not but respond. Yet the mood was brief. As Jesus, in answer to the appeal that He would evermore give them this bread, once more directed them to Himself - from works of men to the Works of God and to faith - the passing gleam of spiritual hope had already died out, for they had seen Him and yet did not believe.'
With these words of mingled sadness and judgment, Jesus turned away from His questioners. The solemn sayings which now followed [3449] could not have been spoken to, and they would not have been understood by, the multitude. And accordingly we find that, when the conversation of the Jews is once more introduced, [3450] it takes up the thread where it had been broken off, when Jesus spake of Himself as the Bread Which had come down from heaven. Had they heard what, in our view, Jesus spake only to His disciples, their objections would have been to more than merely the incongruity of Christ's claim to have come down from heaven. [3451]
3. Regarding these words of Christ, then, as addressed to the disciples, there is really nothing in them beyond their standpoint, though they open views of the far horizon. They had the experience of the raising of the young man at Nain, and there, at Capernaum, of Jairus' daughter. Besides, believing that Jesus was the Messiah, it might perhaps not be quite strange nor new to them as Jews - although not commonly received - that He would at the end of the world raise the pious dead. [3452] Indeed, one of the names given to the Messiah - that of Yinnon, according to Ps. lxxii. 17 [3453] - has by some been derived from this very expectancy. [3454] Again, He had said, that it was not any Law, but His Person, that was the bread which came down from heaven, and gave life, not to Jews only, but unto the world - and they had seen Him and believed not. But none the less would the loving purpose of God be accomplished in the totality of His true people, and its joyous reality be experienced by every individual among them: All that (the total number, pn ) which the Father giveth Me shall come unto Me (shall reach Me [3455] ), and him that cometh unto Me (the coming one to Me) I will not cast out outside.' What follows is merely the carrying out in all directions, and to its fullest consequences, of this twofold fundamental principle. The totality of the God-given would really reach Him, despite all hindrances, for the object of His Coming was to do the Will of His Father; and those who came would not be cast outside, for the Will of Him that had sent Him, and which He had come to do, was that of the all which He has given' Him, He should not lose anything out of this, but raise it up in the last day.' Again, the totality - the all - would reach Him, since it was the Will of Him that sent Him that everyone (ps) who intently looketh [3456] at the Son, and believeth on Him, should have eternal life;' and the coming ones would not be cast outside, since this was His undertaking and promise as the Christ in regard to each: And raise him up will I at the last day.' [3457]
Although these wonderful statements reached in their full meaning far beyond the present horizon of His disciples, and even to the utmost bounds of later revelation and Christian knowledge, there is nothing in them which could have seemed absolutely strange or unintelligible to those who heard them. Given belief in the Messiahship of Jesus and His Mission by the Father; given experience of what He had done, and perhaps, to a certain extent, Jewish expectancy of what the Messiah would do in the last day; and all this directed or corrected by the knowledge concerning His work which His teaching had imparted, and the words were intelligible and most suitable, even though they would not convey to them all that they mean to us. If so seemingly incongruous an illustration might be used, they looked through a telescope that was not yet drawn out, and saw the same objects, through quite diminutively and far otherwise than we, as gradually the hand of Time has drawn out fully that through which both they and we, who believe, intently gaze on the Son.