John 6:41,42 - Joseph's son?

6:41,42

The Jews now start to grumble about Jesus. This is the first time in this exchange that John has referred to “the Jews”, previously it has been “the crowd”. In using this term John is definitely not being anti-semitic, afterall he was a Jew himself. Rather he is referring to the Jews who opposed Jesus, largely the religious leaders, Pharisees etc. Prior to this they had been concerned only about the “free bread”. Or maybe the crowds were just concerned about the free food, the Jews (religious leaders) had come along to see what was going on and to keep an eye on Jesus, as they had previously done. Remember they had sent people to investigate John the Baptist (1:19), and in 5:16 it says “they began to persecute Him”. In “grumbling about Him” they may have been trying to spread bad reports about Jesus among the crowd. The nature of these “reports” is given in verse 42. Who is Jesus? He is just the son of Joseph. So casting doubt on the validity of the claims Jesus was making for Himself. How could Jesus be “from heaven”?

They were of course wrong in this, for Joseph was not Jesus’ natural father. Jesus did come from heaven. This, by the way, is why the virgin birth is important. It is not a non-essential incidental that doesn’t really matter, and probably isn’t true anyway. It is true and it does matter. Jesus was not the offspring of a human union. He is the Son of God made flesh.