Howbeit we know this man whence he is: but when Christ cometh, no man knoweth whence he is.
Jesus was teaching at the Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem amid dispute over His identity, while the rulers watched Him, tried to entrap and silence Him, and sought to humble Him before the people. The speakers said with mistaken confidence that they knew His earthly origin because they knew where He had grown up, while holding that when Christ came no one would know where He was from. Their expectation held the specific ideas that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, then disappear, and return with no one knowing where He came from, with some thinking He would have no natural human relationship. They stumbled because He came from humble, obscure circumstances of poverty with a natural human relationship to humanity, and because His human origin was known many did not recognize Him as Messiah.
Their claim reflected minds closed to the prophecies that pointed out how and when He would come, and this expectation blinded them to those prophecies. He answered that they knew Him and His earthly origin but did not know the true God who had sent Him, declaring that He came from the Father who sent Him. Those living according to God's will and willing to do God's will would have recognized His Son, for people recognize truth when they are willing to do God's will. The surrounding teaching shows that a true teacher seeks the glory of the One who sent Him rather than His own glory.
The verse belongs to Christ's rebuke of people who claimed to know the law yet failed to keep it, setting their judgment of those moved by the Holy Spirit against their own disobedience and misuse of what God had entrusted to Israel. It belongs to the account of Jewish leaders who set themselves up as judges and censors over people moved by the Holy Spirit to declare God's word, even though they themselves failed to keep the law.
Jesus was teaching at the Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem amid dispute over His identity, while the rulers watched Him, tried to entrap and silence Him, and sought to humble Him before the people. The speakers said with mistaken confidence that they knew His earthly origin because they knew where He had grown up, while holding that when Christ came no one would know where He was from. Their expectation held the specific ideas that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, then disappear, and return with no one knowing where He came from, with some thinking He would have no natural human relationship. They stumbled because He came from humble, obscure circumstances of poverty with a natural human relationship to humanity, and because His human origin was known many did not recognize Him as Messiah.
Their claim reflected minds closed to the prophecies that pointed out how and when He would come, and this expectation blinded them to those prophecies. He answered that they knew Him and His earthly origin but did not know the true God who had sent Him, declaring that He came from the Father who sent Him. Those living according to God's will and willing to do God's will would have recognized His Son, for people recognize truth when they are willing to do God's will. The surrounding teaching shows that a true teacher seeks the glory of the One who sent Him rather than His own glory.
The verse belongs to Christ's rebuke of people who claimed to know the law yet failed to keep it, setting their judgment of those moved by the Holy Spirit against their own disobedience and misuse of what God had entrusted to Israel. It belongs to the account of Jewish leaders who set themselves up as judges and censors over people moved by the Holy Spirit to declare God's word, even though they themselves failed to keep the law.