What Does John 7:27 Mean?

(27) **Howbeit we know this man.**—They at once supply a corrective answer to their own question. They know this Man whence He is. He is the carpenter’s son, and His mother, and brethren, and sisters, are well known (Matthew 13:55-56). His brothers, indeed, are part of that multitude (John 7:10). They know that the Messiah will be of the seed and town of David (John 7:42); but they have no knowledge of an earthly home and earthly relations, and all their ideas are of a Being who will not be subject to the ordinary conditions of life, and whose immediate origin no man can know. God’s Anointed living among them as a man, with mother, and brothers, and sisters! This cannot be. What meant the coming in the clouds of heaven of Daniel’s vision (Daniel 7:13), or the coming suddenly to the Temple of Malachi’s prophecy? (Malachi 3:1.) Why did Isaiah tell of His being “Wonderful, Counsellor, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace?” (Isaiah 9:6.) In such thoughts they fulfilled another prophecy of the same Isaiah, which their own Rabbis interpreted of the Messiah, “He hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him” (Isaiah 53:2).