John 3:22-36

John Testifies Again About Jesus

22 After this, Jesus and his disciples went out into the Judean countryside, where he spent some time with them, and baptized. 23 Now John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because there was plenty of water, and people were coming and being baptized. 24 (This was before John was put in prison.) 25 An argument developed between some of John's disciples and a certain Jew over the matter of ceremonial washing. 26 They came to John and said to him, "Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan—the one you testified about—look, he is baptizing, and everyone is going to him."

27 To this John replied, "A person can receive only what is given from heaven. 28 You yourselves can testify that I said, 'I am not the Messiah but am sent ahead of him.' 29 The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom's voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. 30 He must become greater; I must become less."

31 The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and speaks as one from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above all. 32 He testifies to what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony. 33 The person who has accepted it has certified that God is truthful. 34 For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit. 35 The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. 36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on them.



Dig Deeper

He really wanted to take his girlfriend to the sports banquet that night but he couldn't because he had to work. Because of that, my friend asked me to take her to the banquet. I was going to go and wasn't planning on taking anyone so it made sense. He would get off of work and meet the group of friends that we were going with and then we would all go out and hang out for the rest of the evening. We had a great time and really had a lot of fun, but when the banquet was over, we waited outside the gym where we were all going to meet my friend. Once he got there, his girlfriend went with him and spent the rest of the night with him. I don't think we talked the remainder of the night. That wasn't my job. Imagine, though, if I had begun to think of myself as her real boyfriend, if I began to lose sight of the role that I had been asked to play. Imagine if I started to get jealous when my friend got there and that this young lady went off with him for the rest of the night rather than being enamored with and staying with me.

John had been given a role as the forerunner to the Messiah. There was no mistake in John's mind as to what he was supposed to do. He was to make the way, to prepare Israel for the coming of her king, to point to the Son of Man. John understood that it was never about him, his role was merely temporary. Jesus was the star and was simply the warm-up act. It seems, though, that some around him may have lost sight of that, if only for a moment. They wanted John to step up and be the man rather than turning all of the attention over to another. John understood, however, that that would be as crazy as it would have been for me to try to be the boyfriend when my role was to simply keep the girl company until the true boyfriend arrived.

John gives us some valuable information in this passage that rounds out the information that we have in the synoptic Gospels. He is the only Gospel author who informs us that there was a slight overlap between the ministries of Jesus and John the Immerser before John was put in prison. After having been baptized by John, Jesus takes his followers not far away to a place with plenty of springs and fresh water and Jesus' disciples (we are told in 4:2 that Jesus did not actually do any baptizing himself) begin to baptize people. This is certainly not the Christian baptism that would be unveiled at the day of Pentecost, when those willing to lay down their lives would be baptized into the life of Jesus Christ (Acts 2:38). No one could hardly have been baptized into the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ before any of those things happened. Rather, this was apparently a connection and continuation of John's baptism of national repentance and renewal for those willing to identify themselves with the new things that God was doing and about to do.

Not only were Jesus' disciples baptizing, Jesus was evidently drawing rather large crowds and a large number of adherents. This disturbed some of John's disciples who were not as receptive to the coming of the Messiah as were some of the others who had already left John and went with Jesus. They no doubt saw this as an arrogant and disrespectful move on the part of Jesus, to associate himself with John and then go out in the same area, doing a similar thing, and surpass John. They were clearly looking at things from a human point of view and had a lot of misplaced loyalty to their teacher, the great prophet John. They were obviously concerned that large numbers of people, which they hyperbolize by calling them "everyone", were going to Jesus.

John's reply is a continued demonstration of his incredible humility and willingness to be used by God only in manner that God had laid out for him. A person can receive only what is given from heaven. This does not mean that John's ministry didn't come from God, in fact we have already been told that he did (1:6). The point is that he had a specific vocation laid out as a forerunner. To reach beyond what God has given us is to commit the same sin that Eve did in the Garden of Eden when she reached out for the fruit of tree that was not hers to grab. John is not the Messiah, and he never would be. If he tried to keep disciples around himself, get jealous, or try to keep people gathered around himself rather than going to Christ, he would be guilty of selfish ambition and reaching beyond what God had given him.

Showing himself to be quite unique himself among most humans, John doesn't show any envy or even try to make some excuse. In fact, he immediately jumps into a justification of Jesus' actions and his success. John is not, he says, the bridegroom, but he is simply the friend who attends the bridegroom. The friend of the groom in a Jewish wedding was important because he set up all the details and brought the bride to the bridegroom, but once his job was done, he wouldn't think of staying and keeping the bride and the attention for himself. Throughout the Old Testament, Israel was seen to be the bride of YHWH (Isa. 54:5; 62:4-5; Jer. 2:2; 3:20; Ezek. 16:8; Hos. 2:19-20). It was common thought in the first century to talk of the Messiah as the bridegroom of Israel as well. John's point is that Israel is the bride, Christ is the bridegroom, but he is only the friend and it is his time to step aside. The bride, Israel, belongs to Jesus not to John. That doesn't bother John or make him feel envious. In fact, it leaves him full of joy because the bridegroom is now here. Contrary to our society today that is obsessed with self-esteem, John understood that his role, his entire purpose was to become less so that Christ could become greater.

Just as he did in verse 16, John the Apostle, appears to break into his own commentary on the scene in an almost imperceptible manner. One of John's primary objectives is to demonstrate that Jesus is the Christ (20:31), so he continues to emphasize that Jesus' origins are not earthly. As important as the ministry and message of John was, John still came from earth, belonged to the earth, and that was the end of the story. John was certainly sent by God but he was a regular human being. He was not, as Jesus is, the doorway and the ladder between heaven and earth. Only about Jesus could it be said that came from heaven and is above all. This is important because good teachers teach about what they know. At this time, only Jesus could come and teach about heavenly things as things that he knew. When Jesus talked about heavenly things, he talked about things that he had seen and heard.

The person who has accepted (a word that denotes a decisive act where someone determines to embrace Jesus' witness) the testimony of Jesus has certified that God is truthful. John uses language in that sentence that speaks of the seal that someone would use to authenticate or give a personal guarantee to a document or item. His point is that those who accept the words of Jesus are putting their seal of acceptance that Jesus is of heavenly origin and that God has revealed Himself through Jesus Christ.

The prophets of the Old Testament, regardless of how great they were, could only claim that the Spirit came upon them in limited measure. It was only the true Son of God who had been given the Spirit without limit. Only Jesus was the true human being who did God's will perfectly and spoke the words of God wherever he went. We must remember here the importance of the truth of being in Christ when it comes to our own lives. What is true of the king is true of his people. Those in Christ, then, have access to the same Spirit without limit. In fact, the only thing that limits the power of the Spirit in our lives is our own lack of faith or obedience. This shouldn't lead us to guilt or feelings of failure, but rather to determination to truly unleash the power of the Spirit in our lives.

The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands, and He loves those in Christ in the same way. It all comes down, for John, to being in Christ. Whoever believes in the life of the Son, will have eternal life. He is the gateway to freedom. But those who reject that salvation will not see life, for God's wrath remains on them. As John made clear in 3:17-21, all humans are already guilty before God as a result of our sin and rejection of God's will. We already deserve and will receive God's righteous judgment and wrath. That is, and we cannot say it too often, the fate of every single human being that lives and dies in their own life. Only those who choose their death and judgment early can enter into the life of the Son of God and have the life of the age to come and a place in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Life is found only in Him.



Devotional Thought

Those who believe the Son, says John already have eternal life, the life of the age to come. Have you really thought about that lately? Do you really make an effort to spread the life of heaven, of God's reality, to those around you in your neighborhood, school, or job? What would it look like if you really unleashed the power of the Spirit and the life of the age to come in your own life and demonstrated to all those around you what it looks like when someone lives in reconciliation with God and His will?