On the day after John spoke with those men who were sent to him by the Jewish authorities, John saw Jesus coming toward him (John 1:29). However, this isn’t when Jesus approached John to be baptized. That event had to have occurred sometime prior to (probably immediately prior to) John’s meeting with his interrogators (John 1:19-28). This seems apparent by considering John’s words that puts Jesus’ baptism in the past, for although John identified Jesus to his (John’s) disciples as the Lamb of God, he also claimed he didn’t know him (cp. John 1:31). If, originally, John didn’t know Jesus was he whose way John prepared, he couldn’t have identified Jesus as the Lamb of God. Therefore, Jesus’ baptism had to have been on a day prior to the next day (John 1:29), for John had to be given a sign that unveiled the Messiah’s identity (cp. John 1:33).
We have to wonder how much John knew about the Messiah before meeting Jesus, for he points Jesus out to his (John’s) disciples as the Lamb of God. It may be of interest here to understand that Isaiah, from whom John derives his own ministry (Isaiah 40:3-5), also identified the Messiah as a Lamb (Isaiah 53:7-10), who was bruised for our iniquities (Isaiah 53:5) and was an offering for (our) sin (Isaiah 53:10). Thus, the idea that the Messiah would never die (John 12:34; cp. Matthew 16:21-22) wasn’t something John seems to have believed or taught. On the contrary, it is more likely that John understood at least part of Jesus’ mission was that he would die, and that his death would take away the sin of the people, which may be the qualifying marker for John’s own mission of baptizing for the remission of sins (Mark 1:4; Luke 3:3). Thus, John was not only a prophet for the end of the age, meaning the end of the Old Covenant,[1] but also introduced the New Covenant by identifying Jesus as the Lamb of God (John 1:29).
While it is one thing for John to correctly understand that Jesus would die as part of his own ministry and that his death would take away the sin of the world (John 1:29), we need to be careful of how much spiritual understanding we wish to give John. For example, many scholars wish to give John the understanding that Jesus existed prior to his birth, believing that John’s words: “After me comes a man who is preferred before me: for he was before me” (John 1:30), refer to Jesus’ preexistence. Yet, if John really didn’t know the identity of the Messiah prior to the Spirit coming out of heaven to rest upon Jesus (John 1:31-33), how could he have understood that Jesus was God or an angelic creature made flesh (cp. John 1:14)?
We are told by the writer of the Gospel of John that the Word, who was coming into the world, was the true Light who lights every man (John 1:9). Nevertheless, the darkness (man) was not able to understand the Light (John 1:5), until the Light had passed by them (cp. Exodus 33:17-23; 34:6-7), viz. Jesus’ crucifixion, resurrection and ascension into heaven. Therefore, although John and Jesus’ own disciples could understand and receive him as their Messiah (cp. John 1:12-13), they really did not understand he was the Word (God) made flesh (John 1:1, 14), until after his death, resurrection and ascension into heaven (cp. Exodus 33:17-23; 34:6-7).
John’s ministry, therefore, was not to identify God come in the flesh (John 1:14), but to unveil Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah (John 1:31-34). Although John wasn’t able to recognize Jesus as the Messiah (John 1:31, 33) without a sign (John 1:32), he was able to understand that the Messiah, or the Son of God (John 1:34), was the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29) simply by searching the scriptures (Isaiah 53: 5, 7-10) to understand “what manner of time the Spirit of Christ, which was in (John), did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow” (1Peter 1:11). John may not have known the full intent of the Gospel preached later by Jesus’ disciples, but he did know enough to introduce the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29)!
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[1] See my earlier study: John the Baptizer, the ‘End Time’ Prophet!
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