The problem is their familiarity with him, or what they imagine is their familiarity with him. It will not let them believe that a prophet is a prophet, that they have a prophet in their midst. Christ does not stretch the point beyond that. He is a prophet. Yes, he is much more than a prophet, but they have not even got that far. What stops them is their unwillingness to believe that they have not fully understood him. This is a feature of human self-confidence, which is so inappropriate in the presence of God. We are always out of our depth when it comes to God. There are so many things we do not understand, but it makes us uncomfortable to believe that we do not fully understand. We flatter ourselves that we have grasped the truth when in fact we are on completely the wrong track. To approach God and his word, we must be ready to empty our minds of all our opinions and evaluations. But at root is the problem of unbelief. They had enough evidence of him to know that he was from God – even Nicodemus knew that. Unbelief was buttressed by this self-confidence. Faith requires us to go beyond what we already understand and to embrace what God says even though we have to leave behind all our imagined understanding and precious opinions. We have to see ourselves as ignorant before the Lord, and come as little children who know so little.