John 6:41

The Jews therefore murmured concerning him, because he said, I am the bread which came down out of heaven. And they said, Is not this Jesus the Son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? how doth he now say, I am come down out of heaven?

The Jews ... John's repeated use of these terms in reference to his own countrymen emphasizes the hostility and antagonism of the chosen people toward Christianity, and shows that at the time he wrote the enmity had become adamant and unyielding. He no longer identified himself as a Jew, thus exhibiting the new identity in Christ, of which Paul said, "In Christ ... there can be neither Jew nor Greek" (Galatians 3:26-28). John's acceptance of the new identity for himself cannot be made the grounds of an allegation that one not a Jew wrote this Gospel.

Murmuring ... implies a malignant and reprehensible opposition. Most commentators detect a break in these verses from the situation earlier in the chapter, indicating that the discussion from here to the end of the chapter took place in the synagogue, where official members of the Jewish establishment took up the argument against Christ. If so, this would account for the more hostile trend of the conversation (John 6:59).

I am the bread which came down from heaven ... Jesus had not used these exact words; but they are a fair and logical deduction from what he had said (John 6:33,35,38). The opponents were correct in their understanding of what Christ meant; but they were aroused and angered by it. Why? Evidently Christ's lowly condition on earth was the great stumbling block to their acceptance of him.

If the Master had come as an all-powerful monarch, in riches, splendor, and earthly glow, they might have been willing to receive him; but a poor, lowly, suffering Messiah, without property or social position, whose chief followers were fishermen, and who had nowhere to lay his head - such a Messiah they reviled and detested, their human pride refusing to believe that such a one came from God. His lowliness and poverty, and finally his death of the cross - these things were the stumblingblock to the Jews (1 Corinthians 1:23).

Is not this Jesus ... according to Ryle, "has a latent sneer in it, which our English versions cannot fully convey. It is as if they said, `Is not this fellow, etc.'"[18]

The son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know ... The conclusion of the leaders in the synagogue at Capernaum that Jesus was the natural son of Joseph and Mary was a deduction based on ignorance. They thought they knew, no doubt, and might even have investigated in Nazareth with a hope of finding some taint in Jesus' background; but, if Joseph and Mary were interrogated by them, one may be certain that they refused to tell the evil rulers of the synagogue any of the marvels that attended the Lord's birth.

There was one thing that the crowd in the synagogue were correct in, and that was their conclusion that Jesus' teaching contradicted their supposition about his being the natural son of Joseph, thus making Jesus' teaching in this place to be an affirmation of his virgin birth.