Smoodock's Blog

Some scholars err in interpreting John 1:15 to mean John the Baptizer was telling us he was announcing the coming of God in the flesh. They assume the words: “He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me” refer to Jesus’ pre-existence. But, how could John have understood such a thing? If we say that John’s theological understanding allowed for either God or some other heavenly being to come in the flesh, how is it that John later wondered, if he had made a mistake in pointing to Jesus as the one, whom John was sent to prepare the way (Luke 7:18-19)? It makes no sense to give John such an understanding of Jesus’ coming, especially in light of the fact that no one was able to understand the Light (John 1:5), until Jesus was leaving (Exodus 33:17-23; 34:6-7) via his crucifixion, resurrection and ascension. We must not put the Gospel narrator’s commentary (John 1:6-9) into the mouth of John the Baptizer.

John was sent by God (John 1:6) to bear witness of Jesus (John 1:15), in that Jesus was the one who was preferred before John. In other words, Jesus was the Messiah. The Messiah must be first, because his authority was, in fact, first before all other authority. No one had more authority or even equal authority to that of the Messiah. Therefore, Jesus was worthy of more honor than John, because the Messiah was more honorable than all. John had no idea Jesus was God, nor did he suspect Jesus was a heavenly being come in flesh, as is supposed by some otherwise very knowledgeable and helpful scholars. John was sent, more or less, as the Lord’s signature upon the Old Covenant, announcing its end. This, vis-à-vis  the time of John’s ministry in the first century AD, was the end of the age (Deuteronomy 31:29). This would be the time when the children of Israel would behave, as though they were of Sodom (Deuteronomy 32:32), yielding the fruit of dragons and asps (Deuteronomy 32:33; cp. Matthew 3:7; 12:34; 23:33). John was sent by God to declare that the time of judgment had come, and the Judge (Jesus) was about to arrive. The Judge would terminate his Covenant with Israel (Sodom) and make a New Covenant (cp. Jeremiah 31:31-37) with his people, namely, those who would receive him (John 1:12).

At this point the writer of the Gospel of John introduces those who would not receive the Word (John 1:11). They were the Jewish authorities, the priests, the Levites (John 1:19) and the Pharisees (John 1:24). They came to John in an effort to intimidate him and get him to incriminate himself either with themselves or, more preferably, with Herod or the Romans. They asked: “Who are you?”

John told them he was not the Messiah (John 1:20), which implies they asked him if he were. Then they asked if he was “Elijah,” whom Malachi predicted would come (Malachi 4:5), or “that Prophet” whom Moses claimed would come (Deuteronomy 18:15). However, John also denied he was either of these. Rather, he was simply a voice in the wilderness crying out: make straight the paths of the Lord, as Isaiah had predicted (Isaiah 40:3-5). Thus, John had given them nothing, which they might use to incriminate him with either the state or the Jew’s religious authorities.

Finally, John’s interrogators asked why or by what authority he baptized (John 1:24-25). The idea here is, that although all gentile proselytes were formally baptized before becoming a Jew, everyone born a Jew was a Jew; he didn’t have to go through an initiation to become one, which was also Nicodemus’ point, when he misunderstood Christ’s idea of the Kingdom of God (John 3:4). Nicodemus was saying: ‘how can a Jew become a Jew?’ In the same manner John’s interrogators questioned his baptism: what is it supposed to do and by what authority do you introduce this new thing into Judaism?

All these things took place in Bethabara (John 1:28), which means house of passage and was near the place in the Jordan where Joshua took Israel over to the Promised Land (Joshua 3:6). Apparently, John had baptized Jesus just prior to the coming of his interrogators (cp. John 1:19), for he replied to those who questioned him that he (John), indeed, baptized with water, but his authority to do so didn’t come from the Jewish authorities. Instead, it came from the one, whose feet John wasn’t worthy to wash. In other words, John wasn’t foretelling the coming of the Messiah, but that the Messiah had already come and stood among them at that very moment, but they didn’t recognize him (John 1:26-27; cp. verses-10-11).