John (Revised Edition)

Tyndale New Testament Commentary

Colin G Kruse

• Publisher: IVP
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781783593156
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Commentary

Among the Gospels, John's is unique. Its structure incorporates long conversations and extended debates, and much of its content is not found elsewhere. Jesus' relationship to the Father and his teaching on the Holy Spirit are given special prominence. Ultimately, faith, believing in Jesus, is at the centre - with signs highlighted to provoke faith and stories of those who responded to Jesus as examples of faith. Colin Kruse shows how the Fourth Gospel weaves its themes of belief and unbelief into its rich Christology.This exegetical commentary on the Gospel of John is part of the Tyndale New Testament Commentaries series designed to help the reader of the Bible understand what the text says and what it means.

2. Jesus’ work in the world (1:19–12:50)

Following the Prologue comes the second major section of the Fourth Gospel, Jesus’ work in the world (1:19–12:50), sometimes called the Book of Signs because it includes reports of seven signs/miracles that Jesus performed. The description of Jesus’ work in the world brings with it the description of the ministry of his relative John the Baptist (1:19–34) and the calling of Jesus’ early disciples (1:35–51), events that took place over a four-day period (1:29, 35, 43).

A. John the Baptist bears witness to Jesus (1:19–34)

i. John’s testimony to ‘the Jews’ of Jerusalem (1:19–28)

19. The evangelist begins his account of John’s ministry, Now this was John’s testimony when the Jews of Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was. This verse contains the first of many references to ‘the Jews’ in this Gospel. While some of these references are neutral and others positive, many have negative connotations and denote Jesus’ adversaries among the Jewish leadership of the day. Great care needs to be exercised by modern readers in their interpretation of these references so as not to misconstrue them (see ‘ “The Jews” in the Fourth Gospel’, on pp. 49–50). The evangelist identifies ‘the Jews’ here specifically as ‘the Jews of Jerusalem’, almost certainly referring to members of the Jewish Sanhedrin, or ruling council. Part of their responsibility was to assess the genuineness or otherwise of those claiming to be prophets or the Messiah. So they sent ‘priests and Levites’ to question him. The Levites’ normal role was to support the priests in temple worship and to act as temple police. In this latter capacity, perhaps, they accompanied the priests to question Jesus.

20. The evangelist describes John’s response: He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, ‘I am not the Christ.’ John the Baptist’s testimony is a disclaimer and the evangelist places very strong emphasis upon the disclaimer by the ponderous way he words it (lit. ‘he confessed, and he did not deny, and he confessed, “I am not the Christ” ’).

21. The priests and Levites were puzzled by John’s response. They probably expected him to claim to be the Messiah as others had done before him and were to do after him (Matt. 24:24; Mark 13:22; Acts 5:33–39; 21:37–39). They asked him, ‘Then who are you? Are you Elijah?’ He said, ‘I am not.’ ‘Are you the Prophet?’ He answered, ‘No.’ The priests and Levites were asking John whether he claimed to be one of the two great figures whose coming in the last days was predicted in the OT, Elijah or ‘the Prophet’.

In Malachi 4:5 the Lord says to Israel, ‘See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes.’ First-century Jews were looking for the coming of this Elijah figure (Matt. 16:14; Mark 6:15; 8:28; Luke 9:8, 19). The teachers of the law were saying that the Elijah figure must come before the arrival of the messianic age, a teaching with which Jesus agreed (Matt. 17:10–11; Mark 9:11–12). When Jesus uttered his cry of dereliction on the cross, Jewish onlookers thought he was calling upon Elijah and waited to see whether he would come to Jesus’ aid (Matt. 27:47, 49; Mark 15:35, 36). When the priests and Levites asked John, ‘Are you Elijah?’ he answered, ‘I am not.’ This is puzzling because John is elsewhere explicitly identified as the Elijah who was to come. The angel who appeared to Zechariah, John the Baptist’s father, told him that his son would ‘go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah’ (Luke 1:17), and Jesus himself identified John as the Elijah who should come (Matt. 11:14; 17:12; Mark 9:13). Jesus apparently had a greater view of John’s importance than he did.

When John denied that he was Elijah, the priests and Levites asked, ‘Are you the Prophet?’ Moses had told the Israelites, ‘The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him’ (Deut. 18:15, 18–19). First-century Jews were looking for the fulfilment of this promise (cf. 6:14; 7:37–40). Early Christian preachers also referred to ‘a prophet’ (Acts 7:37) and explicitly identified Jesus as the one in whom the promise found fulfilment (Acts 3:19–23). It is not surprising, then, that when John was asked if he was the Prophet, he replied, ‘No.’

22–23. The priests and Levites needed to bring back a report to ‘the Jews of Jerusalem’ who sent them, so when John refused to accept any of their categories of identification, Finally they said, ‘Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?’ To this question John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, ‘I am the voice of one calling in the desert, “Make straight the way for the Lord.” ’ John described himself in words drawn from Isaiah 40:3, where the prophet, announcing deliverance for Jewish exiles in Babylon, called for the preparation, metaphorically speaking, of the road to be used by the exiles on their way back to Jerusalem. John saw himself, like Isaiah did, as a voice calling in the desert, in John’s case calling upon people to ‘make straight the way of the Lord’, i.e. to ready themselves for the coming of the Messiah.

24–25. Now some Pharisees who had been sent questioned him. Following John’s exchange with the priests and Levites, some Pharisees took up the interrogation. The Pharisees were the most influential sect of the Jews in the time of Jesus. Here they are described as people ‘who had been sent’, i.e. they were included among those sent by the Sanhedrin to assess and report on John’s ministry. They asked John, Why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet? There are no accounts of John actually baptizing people in the Fourth Gospel. In this respect this Gospel differs from the Synoptics. Nevertheless, such a ministry is assumed and alluded to in numerous places (25, 26, 28, 31, 33; 3:23; 4:1; 10:40). Why did the Pharisees question John about his baptizing ministry? Baptism was not unknown among the Jews. It was self-administered by Gentiles who became Jewish proselytes (and by members of the Qumran sect for ritual cleansing). But John himself was administering the baptism and those he baptized were already Jews.

The way the Pharisees put their question suggests they thought it appropriate for John to baptize if he was the Christ, Elijah or the Prophet. However, the OT says nothing about baptism in connection with any of these figures. Perhaps their question simply reflects an attitude that if John did not claim to be a figure of importance he had no business baptizing people.

26–27. John did not answer the Pharisees’ challenge to his baptizing ministry. Instead, he focused attention upon the one to whom he had been commissioned to bear witness: ‘I baptize with water,’ John replied, ‘but among you stands one you do not know.’ There is some irony in John’s words. His interrogators wanted to know if he was the Christ, but they were asking the wrong person, for the Christ was already among them and they did not recognize him. John then identified him: He is the one who comes after me. He came after John in the sense that his ministry largely followed John’s ministry. John indicated that Jesus was far superior to him when he said of him, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. In first-century Judaism, the task of removing sandals and washing feet was carried out by servants. Normally, a Jewish servant would not be asked to do this, the task being assigned preferably to Gentile servants. By saying that he was not worthy to untie Jesus’ sandals, John was making a clear statement about the dignity of the Christ, which far surpassed his own.

28. The evangelist concludes his description of the exchange between John and the priests and Levites, and then the Pharisees, with the words this all happened at Bethany on the other side of the Jordan, where John was baptizing. This statement includes a puzzling reference to ‘Bethany on the other side of the Jordan, where John was baptizing’. The other side of the Jordan is usually taken to mean the eastern side, a long way from the Bethany we read of elsewhere in the Fourth Gospel, which was located near Jerusalem (11:1, 18; 12:1). This problem was recognized very early in the history of the church, and is reflected in the variant readings preserved in a number of Greek manuscripts, which substitute Bethabara for Bethany. Bethabara is located 19 miles east of Jerusalem on the Jordan River about 6 miles to the south-east of Jericho. Both Origen and Chrysostom favoured this reading, but it is supported by few manuscripts and is not found in the older and more reliable manuscripts. Another possibility is that the Bethany of 1:28 is to be identified with Batanea, an area in the north-east of the country, but this places the site of John’s baptizing ministry a long way from its traditional location. Efforts to locate a Bethany on the east of the Jordan closer to Jericho have not proved successful. The evangelist’s geographical references that can be verified have proved accurate and he deliberately distinguishes this Bethany from the one on the Mount of Olives near Jerusalem. We cannot rule out the possibility that he is referring to another Bethany east of the Jordan, known to him but unknown to us.1

ii. John’s testimony to Jesus as the Lamb of God (1:29–34)

29. After John’s interrogation by priests, Levites and Pharisees, the evangelist tells us, The next day John saw Jesus coming towards him and said, ‘Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!’ The Fourth Gospel does not record, as the Synoptic Gospels do, the baptism of Jesus by John. However, the coming of Jesus mentioned in this verse was not his coming for baptism, because, as 1:32–33 implies, John had already witnessed the descent of the Spirit upon Jesus when he had baptized him. John already knew who Jesus was, and therefore said to those around, ‘Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!’ Christian readers of the Fourth Gospel naturally infer that this is an allusion to the sacrificial death of Christ by which he atoned for the sins of the world. However, it is not certain that this is what the Baptist meant by it. The indications are that he expected the Messiah to carry out judgment against sinners, not to offer himself as a sacrifice for their sins (cf. Matt. 3:12: ‘His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing-floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire’). John may have been identifying Jesus as the apocalyptic warrior lamb referred to in Jewish writings (e.g. 1 Enoch 90:9–12; Testament of Joseph 19:8–9) as did the author of the book of Revelation (Rev. 5:5–10; 17:14), though the latter fused the idea of the powerful lamb/lion of Judah with the sacrificial lamb. By the time the Fourth Gospel was written Jesus had been recognized as the one whose death had atoned for human sins, and the evangelist probably hoped his readers might appreciate its double meaning.

The reference to Jesus here as ‘the Lamb of God’ uses the word amnos for ‘lamb’. It is one of only four references in the NT (John 1:29, 36; Acts 8:32; 1 Pet. 1:19) that do so.2 The word amnos is found 101 times in the LXX, of which 82 are references to sacrificial lambs. The two uses of amnos in the NT outside the Fourth Gospel are clear references to Jesus, who died as a sacrificial lamb: one speaks of Jesus as the servant of the Lord, who ‘was led like a sheep to the slaughter, / and as a lamb before the shearer is silent’ (Acts 8:32); the other refers to ‘the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect’ (1 Pet. 1:19). In the light of all this we are probably correct to say that the evangelist would be happy if his readers took John’s witness to Jesus as ‘the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world’ to have a double meaning. He was both the apocalyptic lamb who judges unrepentant sinners, and the atoning sacrifice for the sins of those who believe. Perhaps the evangelist believed John spoke more than he knew, just as Caiaphas and Pilate were to do later on (11:50–52; 18:39; 19:14–15, 19, 21–22).

In 1:29 Jesus is the one who takes away the sin of ‘the world’. There are a couple of other places in the Fourth Gospel where Jesus’ significance for ‘the world’ is implied. In 3:16–17 God’s love leads him to give his only Son for ‘the world’ so that those who believe might have eternal life, and in 4:42 the Samaritans come to recognize that Jesus really is ‘the Saviour of the world’, not just of the Jewish people.

30. Continuing his testimony about Jesus, John says, This is the one I meant when I said, ‘A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’ Picking up something he said earlier (26–27), John explains that the one coming after me ‘has surpassed me because he was before me’. Jesus came ‘after’ John in that his ministry for the most part followed John’s. When John added that Jesus surpasses him because he was before him, it looks like an allusion to Jesus’ pre-existence as the Word (1–4). However, it is unlikely that John was aware of this. He may simply have meant that Jesus had always been greater than him even though he was born six months later than him (for a more detailed discussion of this statement, see the commentary on 1:15). There may even be intentional ambiguity here, the evangelist suggesting that John spoke better than he knew.

31. John acknowledged that there was a time that he did not recognize Jesus: I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel. John was related to Jesus and therefore knew him personally. What he did not know previously was that Jesus was the Messiah. Now he explained that the purpose of his baptizing ministry was that Jesus ‘might be revealed to Israel’. John was aware that Jesus came to the Jewish people, ‘to Israel’, and the purpose of John’s ministry was that Jesus should be revealed to Israel as her Messiah.

32. The evangelist begins to explain how John came to recognize who Jesus was: Then John gave this testimony: ‘I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him.’ This is a reference to Jesus’ baptism by John and the descent of the Spirit upon Jesus at that time. The Fourth Gospel does not record this event, but the evangelist assumes his readers will know about it. The Synoptic Gospels all describe the descent of the Spirit upon Jesus at his baptism (Matt. 3:16; Mark 1:10; Luke 3:22), but only the Fourth Gospel adds that the Spirit came down from heaven ‘and remained on him’. In OT times the Spirit came upon certain people at specific times for specific tasks. Isaiah 11:2 prophesies concerning the Messiah:

The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of power,
the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.

(Cf. Isa. 42:1; 61:1.)

The evangelist emphasizes the fact that the Spirit ‘remained’ upon Jesus. This is one of the ways in which the evangelist highlights the special relationship Jesus had with the Spirit (another is found in 3:34 where he says God gave the Spirit ‘without limit’ to Jesus).

All four Gospels speak of the descent of the Spirit ‘as a dove’ upon Jesus at his baptism. The symbolism of the dove in relation to the Spirit is difficult to determine, as the two are not connected anywhere else in either the OT or the NT. In Matthew 10:16 Jesus tells his disciples to ‘be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves’. The word translated ‘innocent’ (akeraios) can mean innocent, harmless or pure. If we allow this to guide us, then perhaps it is the purity and gentleness of the Spirit that is symbolized by the dove.

33. In this verse John says again, I would not have known him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ It was the descent of the Spirit upon Jesus at his baptism that convinced John of the significance of Jesus. The one who sent John was God (6) and he told him that the one upon whom the Spirit descended and remained when he baptized him was the one who would baptize with the Spirit. In contemporary Jewish belief the Messiah was to be the bearer of God’s Spirit,3 so John was being told how to identify the Messiah.

John distinguished his ministry from that of Jesus by saying he baptized with water, but Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit. During his earthly ministry Jesus did in fact baptize with water also, though he did not do so personally, but entrusted the actual baptizing to his disciples (3:22, 26; 4:1–2). However, it was Jesus’ future baptizing with the Spirit that John emphasized. This would occur after Jesus’ ‘glorification’ (i.e. after his death, resurrection and exaltation—7:37–39). Jesus is the Spirit-baptizer, and he plunges all those who believe in him into the Spirit. Baptism is one of a number of expressions used in the Fourth Gospel to describe the bestowal of the Spirit upon all believers by the exalted Jesus—others include giving drink (7:37–39), breathing (20:22), and sending the Counsellor (14:15–17, 26; 15:26; 16:5–15). According to the Acts of the Apostles, the first believers were baptized in the Spirit by Jesus on the day of Pentecost (Acts 1:4–5; 2:1–4), and then as the gospel spread, each new believer received the same baptism in the Spirit (Acts 2:38–39).

34. John the Baptist concluded his testimony to Jesus with the words I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God.4 The title ‘the Son of God’, though not a common designation for the Messiah among first-century Jews, w...

Table of contents

• Tyndale New Testament Commentaries
• John
• Contents
• General preface
• Author’s preface
• Chief Abbreviations
• Select Bibliography
• Introduction
• ANALYSIS
• COMMENTARY
• 2. Jesus’ work in the world (1:19–12:50)
• 3. Jesus’ return to the Father (13:1–20:31)
• 4. Epilogue (21:1–25)