When reading today's passage, a question arises: why does John the Baptist still give no definite answer to the question asked him about his ministry? Indeed, he had every right to define his mission as...
When reading today's passage, a question arises: why does John the Baptist still give no definite answer to the question asked him about his ministry (vv. 19-23)? Indeed, he had every right to define his mission as prophetic, and such an answer would have fully satisfied the commission sent by the Synagogue to check him (vv. 24-25). But John refuses on principle to speak of his ministry as something having significance of its own. He sees his mission only as a preliminary stage necessary for preparing the people for the coming of the Messiah-Christ, and outside the context of this task John's ministry evidently loses all meaning, including for the prophet himself (vv. 25-27).
And it is precisely this view of his own mission that enables John to see and recognize the Messiah (vv. 29-34). For in order to recognize Christ, it is not enough simply to see Him physically. Outwardly Jesus differed little from an ordinary person. Of course, what He said was not something one could hear every day or from everyone, but the main thing was still not in the words. The main thing was in the Kingdom that He carried with Him wherever He went. Therefore, in order to recognize in Jesus the Messiah-Christ promised by God, one had to touch and share in the Kingdom.
But one can share in the Kingdom only on one very important condition: the one seeking it must forget his own importance, forget that he, as well as his deeds and ministries, can mean anything in themselves apart from the Kingdom into which he wants to enter. Perhaps this is why John does not want to testify about himself as a prophet: all the great prophets of Israel had their own mission, and each of these missions was, in a certain sense, self-sufficient. Each prophet was a figure in his own right, and those around him always noticed this, even when, as was most often the case, the prophets themselves wanted nothing of the kind. But in those times, the prominence of the prophet helped accomplish the main task entrusted by God to one or another of His servants. Now, however, the task evidently consisted precisely in pointing to the Messiah and remaining as unnoticed as possible oneself. John the Baptist succeeds in this: he disappears in the radiance of the coming Messiah, and in the radiance of the Kingdom that the Messiah carries with Him.
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1:19 The Jews - Probably the great council sent.
1:20 I am not the Christ - For many supposed he was.
1:21 Art thou Elijah? - He was not that Elijah (the Tishbite) of whom they spoke. Art thou the prophet - Of whom Moses speaks, Deu 18:15.
1:23 He said - I am that forerunner of Christ of whom Isaiah speaks.I am the voice - As if he had said, Far from being Christ, or even Elijah, I am nothing but a voice: a sound that so soon as it has expressed the thought of which it is the sign, dies into air, and is known no more. Isa 40:3.
1:24 They who were sent were of the Pharisees - Who were peculiarly tenacious of old customs, and jealous of any innovation (except those brought in by their own scribes) unless the innovator had unquestionable proofs of Divine authority.
1:25 They asked him, Why baptizest thou then? - Without any commission from the sanhedrim? And not only heathens (who were always baptized before they were admitted to circumcision) but Jews also?
1:26 John answered, I baptize - To prepare for the Messiah; and indeed to show that Jews, as well as Gentiles, must be proselytes to Christ, and that these as well as those stand in need of being washed from their sins.
1:28 Where John was baptizing - That is, used to baptize.
1:29 He seeth Jesus coming and saith, Behold the Lamb - Innocent; to be offered up; prophesied of by Isaiah, Isa 53:7, typified by the paschal lamb, and by the daily sacrifice: The Lamb of God - Whom God gave, approves, accepts of; who taketh away - Atoneth for; the sin - That is, all the sins: of the world - Of all mankind. Sin and the world are of equal extent.
1:31 I knew him not - Till he came to be baptized. How surprising is this; considering how nearly they were related, and how remarkable the conception and birth of both had been. But there was a peculiar providence visible in our Saviour's living, from his infancy to his baptism, at Nazareth: John all the time living the life of a hermit in the deserts of Judea, Luk 1:80, ninety or more miles from Nazareth: hereby that acquaintance was prevented which might have made John's testimony of Christ suspected.
1:34 I saw it - That is, the Spirit so descending and abiding on him.And testified - From that time.