John 1:29-34

John's Testimony About Jesus

29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! 30 This is the one I meant when I said, 'A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.' 31 I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel."

32 Then John gave this testimony: "I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. 33 And I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, 'The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.' 34 I have seen and I testify that this is God's Chosen One."



Dig Deeper

Have you ever seen someone intentionally lose a race? I have. And it was at an important track meet no less. Most athletes train and compete in order to win, so why would someone intentionally lose a race? As crazy as it sounds, it happens all of the time. Usually in a middle distance or longer distance race, you will see someone break out into the lead and run at a pretty good clip for a few laps. Then, suddenly, they will pull up and go to the back, and oftentimes will even stop altogether and step off of the track, quitting the race. Why would they do such a thing? The fact is that many runners will enter a race with every intention of losing. Their purpose is not to win. Their purpose is to set a pace for the race that is comfortable for another runner on their team so that that person can win the race. Once they have set the pace for the appropriate time they will pull out of the race. Their sole purpose is to assist and set things up for the other runner, it is not about themselves.

John the Immerser certainly wasn't a pace-setter but he does share some things in common with them. John came with a distinct purpose that had nothing to do with winning anything, being anything of any lasting importance, or being about himself at all. He had a distinct job, a specific vocation. In fact, he was so consistently willing to point away from himself that it, at times, confused even his own followers and disciples. But John never wavered. He was not the Messiah, Elijah, or the Prophet. He was a voice, just a simple voice, whose job it was to prepare people for the one to come. Once he had completed that job he would pull up and exit the race. After all, once a pace-setter has done his job, he doesn't need to stay in the race anymore, it's time for the primary runner to take over. For John, that time hasn't quite come yet, but he certainly understands that it is coming and that even now, at the height of his career, it isn't about him, it's about the one that is about to take over.

The day after being grilled about just exactly who he was and what he was up to, John looks up and sees Jesus coming. The beloved disciple who has authored this book, doesn't take the time time to describe the baptism of Jesus by John the Immerser. Like many other scenes in Jesus life that are described in the other Gospels, he seems to assume that his readers will already be quite familiar with those stories, so he merely alludes to them. We can probably, then, conclude that John knew of the other Gospels and meant this account to complement them and explain other aspects of Jesus' ministry. John knows that his role is to point to another, but he didn't always know who. Imagine having the faith that John did to begin his ministry, calling Israel to repent and get ready for the coming of the Messiah, when he didn't even know who that Messiah was. As he sees him approaching on this day, however, he now knows that Jesus is the one and he is more than happy to begin the process in which he will step aside, having completed his vocation of making things ready for God's Messiah.

As Jesus approaches, John boldly declares that he is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. This is a statement pregnant with imagery, allusions, and meaning. There were many common allusions to lamb imagery at the time of Jesus and John probably intends all of them in his statement. The Lamb refers, no doubt (and as we go on we will see that the Gospel writer clearly has this meaning in mind throughout his book but will come to a head in 19:36) to the Passover Lamb. Through the sacrifice of the Passover Lamb, the people were saved, and this is no doubt what the ultimate Passover Lamb will do. John also likely intends for his hearers to hear echoes of the lamb that was led to slaughter in Isaiah 53:7. Certainly John's reference would have brought to mind the lamb of the daily sacrifices. This lamb was offered every morning and evening in the Temple. Finally, it probably reminded hearers of the lamb of Genesis 22:8.

Each of the previously mentioned lambs had a different function or symbolism attached to it but this Lamb would embody all of those things. He would take away the sin of the world. Whatever the different aspects of lambs were in ancient Jewish thought, they were primarily thought of as the animal who was sacrificed in place of sins. This is God's Lamb, though, the one that He has provided to bear the consequences and deal with the problem of sin for the whole world, not just Israel.

This is the one that John has been talking about all along. The purpose of his ministry was not to draw followers to himself but to point to God's Lamb. John acknowledges that he did not know immediately who this man was. He had been searching and waiting but he did not know him. We should not take this to mean that John and Jesus had never meant. The Gospel of Luke makes clear that John and Jesus were cousins and that their mothers knew each other well. That doesn't guarantee that they knew one another but it does make it likely. Have you ever spent significant time looking for your keys, only to find that they were in your pocket the whole time? Sometimes the very thing we're looking for is right under our nose. John was waiting and looking for the Messiah, the Lamb of God and it turns out to be his cousin. Even before he knew for sure who the Messiah was, though, John was busy with his vocation. This should be instructive to those of us who want to know exactly what God has in store for us before we go about doing His business or acting on faith. John did not even know to whom he was pointing, but began pointing anyway.

John is clear, as the other Gospels bear witness, that his baptism pointed people towards repentance and forgiveness of sins (Mk. 1:4; Lk. 3:3). Here though, John informs us that although that was the result of his baptizing, it was not the reason. He began his ministry of calling the people of Israel to return to God so that the Messiah could be revealed. Part of God's plan was that there would be a forerunner to the Messiah and John knew his job well.

John didn't know that Jesus was the promised one because someone had told him that or because he just figured it out, but he can bear testimony to his identity because he saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. The Jews, of course, understood that heaven was the realm of God's presence, while earth was the dimension of human existence. Thus, he is saying that the Spirit broke into the realm of the physical universe in the form of a dove (we are not told whether it was a literal dove or simply looked like one). The dove was not a common Old Testament symbol for the Spirit, but it was an occasional symbol for Israel. It is possible then, and quite in keeping with one of the themes that will become common in John's Gospel, that Jesus is being set out as the true Israel as he receives the Spirit. In the Old Testament it was not unheard of for people to have the Spirit come upon them to complete a specific task but in Jesus' case, the Spirit came upon him and remained on him. Although this was perhaps not an expected thing to happen to the Messiah it would not have been completely shocking as it was often prophesied that the messianic age would involve the renewal of God's people through the activity of the Spirit (Isa. 32:15; Ezek. 36:26-27; 37:14). The sign of the Spirit coming down and remaining on someone was the very sign that John had been given by God to be able to recognize the one that was to come. John doesn't give us the details of how God told him and what precisely He did tell him when God gave John the clues as to how he could recognize the Messiah, but the fact is that John's knowledge of Jesus as the Lamb of God came from God, not man.

John administered a baptism which would reveal the true Messiah, a baptism which would foreshadow and point to the true baptism of the Messiah. The Messiah would also baptize, but not just symbolically. He would baptize people into his own life and dispense the Holy Spirit, keeping the Old Testament prediction that God would renew His people by pouring out His Spirit (Isa. 32:15; 44:3; Ezek. 36:25-27; Joel 2:28-32).

John saw and boldly bears witness to the fact that this is God's Chosen One. In using this language, John connects his testimony concerning to Jesus to Isaiah 42:1 which says, "Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him." Jesus is the Chosen One and now that he is on the scene, John is about to step off the track and let him take center stage.



Devotional Thought

John had a vocation from God to go into the wilderness and preach about and point to the coming of the Messiah, yet he did not even knew who the Messiah was. Do you have that kind of faith? Are you willing to begin to serve God and do His will in your workplace, neighborhood, etc., when you're not even sure of exactly what He has in mind for you to do? Many of us want to know precisely what God's will for our lives is, but oftentimes God won't reveal the full extent of that will until we begin to walk boldly down the path that He has laid out for us.