Let us drop down to verse 6. We are going to see here, and all the way through chapters 7, 8, 9, and most of chapter 10 the Bible is testifying of the Jews' wrong conception of Jesus Christ, specifically in chapter 7. It carries through the other chapters as well. The reason they have things misconceived is because the teaching that was in their mind, and by which they were going to be judged, was largely based upon tradition, not biblical fact.
This is in the third year of His preaching all over the area, and they are still asking questions about Him. Notice the way Jesus answered them.
They made no connection apparently between the Father and the Son.
Sometimes Jesus' apostles did not quite get the finer points of something, but they had really no problem with the teaching, especially when He said clearly what He meant. But this is the world we are talking about here.
That is why they were so confused. They were using their conception from their worldly tradition rather than from the word of God, and therefore they could not reach a right judgment about who He was and what He was doing.
