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The unbelieving Jews renewed their question about Jesus' identity in the winter at the Feast of Dedication, still celebrated today as Hanukkah or the Feast of Lights (vv.22-24). His answer included a reference to the evidential value of his miracles (v.25; cf. 5:36; 14:11), which did not produce faith in them because they did not belong to his flock (v.26; cf. 8:47). To those who do belong and listen he gives eternal life (cf. 3:15, 16, 36; 6:40, 47), and they may rest secure in this (vv.27-28). But it is a security that depends on the power of God, with whom Jesus was united in preserving “his own” (vv.29-30).
When the Jews heard all this, culminating in I and the Father are one, they set out to stone Jesus (cf. 8:59) for the blasphemy of claiming to be God (vv.31-33; cf. 5:18; Lev 24:16). His defense was twofold (vv.34-38). First he appealed to Scripture and to a mode of interpretation with which they would have been familiar. If God himself referred to unjust judges as sons of God in Ps 82:6, why were they out to stone the one God endorsed for referring to himself as the Son of God? Then he pointed to his deeds and asked the Jews to judge his origin in God on their basis (cf. v.25; 14:10-11). The Jews were still hostile, but once again he eluded them (v.39; cf. 7:30; 8:59).