Cheryl Schatz

allennelson4, welcome to my blog! You have several excellent questions. Let me answer this one straight up. It is impossible for the “I will give” from Jesus to be conditional on those the Father has preselected. It is also impossible that it is conditional on work. Let’s first consider the issue of work. Jesus told the unbelieving Jews that they needed to engage in an activity that involves effort. They needed to put forth an effort to gain eternal food. Now note, that Jesus says that He will certainly give them without qualification. He doesn’t say He will give them if they put forth the effort, and He doesn’t say that He won’t give the food to those who do not put forth the effort. He gives only a blanket statement that He will most certainly give them this food. See also verse 32 where Jesus is connected to the original Manna which was unconditionally given to all. In fact it only works as unconditional or the connection to the original Manna would be lost. You also asked if the certainty of the giving of the bread can be connected to the seeking from verse 26. No, it cannot be connected because Jesus promises to give them the eternal bread even though He goes on to tell us why they cannot believe in Him. The fact is that from the passage, The Giving is unconditional and promised to unbelievers. I will post more on the drawing and “coming to Him” and why this crowd is told that they cannot come to Him. But for now, The Giving is not connected to “the coming”, because Jesus promised to give unconditionally unlike the coming to Him which is conditional. Does my answer make sense?