believing in Him. Although the generally means "said", the New International Version translates it more formally as "declared". This is the first of seven occasions in John's Gospel where Jesus makes a declaration in the form "I am ...". Lutheran theologian Rudolf Ewald Stier counted 35 references to "I" or "me" by Jesus in the remainder of this discourse. At some stage, Jesus must have said to the Galileans, or possibly to others: He refers back to that saying now, but there is no other record of this saying. "Some have supposed it to refer to an unrecorded conversation (Alford, Westcott), or even to some written sentence which is now a lost fragment of the discourse". The interplay between seeing and believing is often referred to in John's Gospel: for example, in , the Jews ask for a sign, so that they may see and believe; after Jesus' resurrection, the "disciple who reached the tomb first" went into the tomb, "he saw, and he believed" (); a week later, Thomas, called the twin, "believed because he had seen" (, a), and Jesus commended all "those who have not seen and yet have believed" (, b). According to , it is the will of God that "everyone who sees ... and believes ... may have everlasting life". Jesus refers to his incarnation as a mission to fulfil the will of His Father, who had sent him (). His mission is 'conservative' in the sense that He is expected "not to lose anything from what he has been given", and 'eschatological' in that He is to raise up the gift of His Father on the last day (). Several commentators have noted that "All that the Father gives the Son" () () is a singular neuter noun: "the whole mass, so to speak, is gifted by the Father to the Son as a unity". Rejected by His own The Jews, including Jesus' disciples, complained among themselves (John 6:41, 43, 52, 60). The features of Jesus' teaching which were challenged were: His claim to have come down from heaven His statement, "I am the bread which came down from heaven" His offer to believers to eat his flesh (and, by extension, to drink his blood). These sayings appear to have stimulated collective debate and intellectual difficulty. The Common English Bible portrays the Jewish community in 'debate' about Jesus' sayings, whereas the Disciples' Literal