<p>9:29 <i>We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know from where he came</i>- Yet they were claiming that nobody would know from where Messiah came; their position here flatly contradicts the statement in 7:27: &quot;However we know from where this man is; but when the Christ comes, no one knows from where he is&quot;. The sensitive reader is left to perceive this; neither the Lord, nor John the narrator, makes big capital of this glaring contradiction in their position. That is not the way of the Spirit, and it will not be fruitful for us to use this style either- even though religious debate is full of this kind of thing.</p><p>Guilt by association is deeply ingrained in the human psyche- it's one of the most obstinate parts of our nature with which we have to do battle. We tend to assume that people are like those with whom they associate. The association of God's Son with us just shows how totally untrue that assumption is- and He went out of His way to turn it on its head by associating with whores and gamblers. You can see an example of the guilt by association mentality in the incident of the healed blind man here. The Jews accused Jesus of being illegitimate- they mocked the former blind man about his healer: &quot;as for this fellow, we know not from whence he is&quot; (Jn. 9:29). When the healed man stands up for Jesus, the Jews get really mad with him: &quot;You were completely born in sin&quot;- i.e. 'you're illegitimate' (Jn. 9:34). But the record reveals that the Jews knew the man's parents and had just spoken with them (Jn. 9:20). Clearly the mentality of these learned men was: 'You follow a bastard; so, <i>you</i> are a bastard'. Simple as that.</p>