In this passage which begins with another great 'I AM' saying, the ideas of witness (8:13-14), truth (8:14), judgement (8:15-16) and the divine control over time (8:20), recur. The underlying question which is asked throughout chapter 8 is how we can know that the claims of Christ are true. The divine claim requires divine witness to support it. What the Pharisees said in 8: 13 was correct in an entirely human situation; because a man says that he comes from God that in itself is no proof that he is telling the truth. Something recognizable as spiritual evidence or divine witness- in the man is necessary. What Jesus said (8:14-19) meant that if the Pharisees knew God's will and nature as they claimed to, they would recognize God's truth in Jesus, as others such as the disciples, the Samaritan woman and the government official had done.