This was to fulfil the word of Isaiah the prophet: “Lord, who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”
The quote is from (Isaiah 53:1).
Isaiah 53:1 Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
The unbelief of the Jews even in the face of such great miracles was to fulfill prophecy. Did God make things come out this way so that prophecy would be fulfilled? Did He purposely keep the Jews from believing? No, His desire is for all men to be saved (1Tim 2:3-4), but He did know who was and who was not going to believe. Bernard states that the words of Isaiah “had to be fulfilled, for they were the expression of Divine foreknowledge”.
1 Timothy 2:3-4 This is good, and pleases God our Saviour, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.
Note that this prophecy has to do with a failure to believe and a revelation of the working of God. In other words, faith and God’s activity are connected. How? What does all this have to do with nobody coming to Jesus unless the Father first draws them (#6:44, 12:32)?
John 6:44 “No-one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.
John 12:32 But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.”
Who would have thought that of all people, those who were entrusted with the word of God and His promises would be the ones to reject Messiah when He finally came and even manifested Who He was by the miracles He did, which could only have come from God? And yet this is what the prophecy in Isaiah states. The more improbable something is, the more recognizable is God’s hand in the prediction and subsequent manifestation of it.
The reason they didn’t believe the message was that the arm of the Lord was not revealed to them. What this means is that they did not recognize nor accept that it was God doing those signs and miracles through Jesus. The arm of the Lord was revealed, but they didn’t see it so it wasn’t revealed to them.