The true origin of our Lord.
The opportunity again arises of asserting his Divine origin.
I. THE PERPLEXITY OF THE JERUSALEM JEWS RESPECTING THE POLICY AND VIEWS OF THEIR RULERS. "Then said some of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, Is not this he whom they seek to kill? And, lo, he speaketh boldly, and they say nothing to him."
1. The question is put, not by the Jews from foreign lands, who were attending the feast, but by Jews of the city, who understood the various phases of change in the temper and attitude of the rulers toward Christ.
2. They were aware of the plot formed at the Passover before the last to kill him.
3. They were puzzled to account for the passiveness of the religious guides of the nation, in presence of provocations so stinging as these supplied by our Lord's rebukes. They are almost disposed to believe that the rulers recognize Jesus as the Messiah. "Do the rulers indeed perceive that he is the Christ?"
4. Their own obstinate resistance to such a view. "Howbeit, we know this man whence he is: but the Christ, when he comes, no one will know whence he is." They professed to know the parentage and family of Jesus, identifying them with Galilee; but they held that the origin of the Messiah would be utterly unknown. He would appear suddenly as an adult, like another Melehizedek, "without father, without mother." The Scriptures plainly pointed out the tribe, the family, the lineage, the place of the Messiah's birth. Yet they said, "When Christ cometh, no man knoweth whence he is." The nature of their ignorance is soon made manifest.
II. OUR LORD'S EXPLANATION OF THE JEWS' PERPLEXITY. "Ye both know me, and know whence I am."
1. He asserts that they knew him as a man.
2. But asserts at once that they did not recognize his Divine nature.
(a) It was a severe thing to charge the Jews with ignorance of that God whose worship was their boast.
(b) The truth of the Father was staked upon the Messianic mission of the Son. Therefore, to deny Christ was to exclude the Father from the range of their knowledge.