John 1:29-42

The story of Jesus’ baptism, which is one of only a handful of stories found in all four Gospels, is so well-known that it’s easy for us to gloss over some rather significant differences between the way the story is told in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) and the way it is told in the Fourth Gospel (John). Human nature tends to conflate similar stories into one, smoothing over the differences by changing or dropping them altogether. But in so doing, we often miss critical details which lead us to an author’s point. Conflation is especially dangerous when it comes to the Gospels because while they all tell roughly the same stories, each Evangelist comes at them from a different viewpoint, creating four different yet compatible portraits of Jesus.

The first place we encounter this issue in the Gospel of John is in the story of Jesus’ baptism. I have written extensively on the theme of identity in Fourth Gospel, and especially its interplay with the Gospel’s frequent water imagery. For this commentary, though, I want to focus just on John’s emphasis on the identity theme in this passage. In order to follow this theme fully in 1:29-42, however, it will be necessary to also look briefly at the passages before and after it.

It makes sense that the Fourth Evangelist would be concerned with the issue of Jesus’ identity. After all, his stated purpose for writing the Gospel is “that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (20:31). In order for people to have “life” (a Johannine word indicating both the rewards of the afterlife as well as a taste of that new reality while still here on earth), they must first believe that Jesus WAS this expected Messiah. So John sets out to make it obvious.

Accordingly, John’s telling of Jesus’ baptism is quite different than that in the Synoptics. For one thing, the text never actually portrays Jesus’ baptism. Instead, John the Baptist sees Jesus coming toward him and declares him to be “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (v. 29) and “he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me’” (v. 30). John then goes on to recount a previous revelatory experience in which Jesus’ true identity was confirmed by the descent of the Spirit in the form of a dove (vv. 32-33). Perhaps the author didn’t feel the need to play out the baptism in real time, as he assumed his audience was familiar with the basic story as told in the Synoptics.

So, the passage before ours had already begun dealing with issues of identity even before Jesus’ arrival on the scene in v. 29. The identity of John the Baptist is discussed first, when priests and Levites from Jerusalem are sent to inquire about who he is (v. 19). It is typical of the author’s concern for issues of identity that he does not begin with a description of the appearance and lifestyle of John, as Matthew and Mark both do (Mt. 3:4; Mk. 1:6). Nor does the Gospel take the time to situate him in his historical context, as Luke does (3:1-2) before launching into the narrative of his ministry. For the Fourth Evangelist, John’s relative time and place are of little consequence; John and his ministry serve no other purpose in the narrative than the revelation of the Christ (1:31). The Johannine Baptist is not a full character in his own right and is allowed to have no personality or identity except as they relate to the identity of Jesus. Everything he does and everything he is centers on the coming Christ.

This becomes clear in his responses to the authorities sent to question him. The first sentence out of John’s mouth in the entire Gospel is focused on describing himself in relationship to the coming Messiah. When the authorities ask, “Who are you?” (1:19) John responds not with who he is, but rather with who he is not: “I am not the Messiah.” (1:20). As Westcott points out “the answer is addressed rather to the spirit than to the form of the question,” for John clearly knew the authorities were not enquiring about his name; they were concerned with whether he was claiming to be the coming Messiah, or perhaps one of the Messiah’s traditional forerunners, Elijah or the prophet like Moses (1:21). John denies all of these identities and instead quotes the words of Isa 40:3: “I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord’” (1:23). This is a foreshadowing of Jesus’ great “I AM” statements later in the Gospel (6:35; 8:12; 10:7, 11; 11:25; 14:6; 15:1). John the Baptist’s use of these theophanic words points away from himself and toward the Lord, just as Jesus’ later identification will point away from himself and toward God.

But the authorities are not satisfied with this answer; in particular, they wonder why John is engaging in an eschatological activity like baptism if he is not one of the expected eschatological forerunners (1:25). John describes the significance of his baptismal ministry as secondary to the ministry of “the one coming after [him]” (1:27), the one who stands among them whom they do not know (1:26). This is the first direct mention of this “one” coming after John and, it is perhaps significant that the very first thing we learn about this person is that he is “not known” to the authorities. John gives little actual information about this mysterious “one,” for he himself does not yet know him (cf. vv. 31, 33), but declares this “one” is so great that John is not worthy to even do the work of a slave on his behalf (v. 27).

The Synoptic accounts of John the Baptist’s words all refer to the “one who is coming after me who is mightier than I.” John, instead, replaces this phrase with “the one among you whom you do not know” (v. 26), indicating a concern for the identity of this coming “one” that is more pronounced than in the Synoptic accounts. It’s possible this is a reference to the popular contemporary theory of the “Hidden Messiah”: the idea that the Messiah would be concealed among humanity and unknown until the proper time for his revelation.

The passage we are examining beginning in v. 29 focuses more on the identity of Jesus as this coming “one,” but, as might be expected from the previous passage, the issue of John’s identity does not disappear just yet as it is only with the revelation of the identity of Jesus that John’s true identity can be fully appreciated. In v. 29 we get the first direct identification of Jesus by John. In this case he declares Jesus to be “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” and then immediately clarifies that this is the man of whom he spoke earlier in v. 27 who was coming after him. He finishes his proclamation with the rather curious statement: “I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel” (v. 31). This is followed by John’s “testimony” about the Spirit having descended on Jesus in a previous revelatory experience which verified Jesus’ identity as “the one,” because John had been told, “He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit” (v. 33). The passage concludes with John’s testimony verifying the event and proclaiming that Jesus is the Son of God (v. 34).

John’s role in the narrative is now nearly complete. He again points out Jesus as “the Lamb of God” in v. 35, at which two of John’s disciples immediately begin following Jesus (v. 37) and, after spending some time with him (v. 39), go out and begin gathering others to follow Jesus (vv. 41-45). Andrew refers to Jesus as “the Messiah” (v. 41) while Philip calls him “him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote” (v. 45). In both cases when the new disciple meets Jesus, he “reveals” something about that person’s character. In v. 42 Jesus reveals Peter’s true nature by changing his name from Simon to Cephas or Peter. In v. 47 Jesus calls Nathanael, whom he has not even met yet, “an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.”

Just as the first half of this passage (vv. 19-34) built up to the climactic reveal of Jesus as “the Son of God” (v. 34), this second passage also concludes with the revelation of Jesus’ identity as “the Son of God” (or “The Chosen One” depending on which textual variation you adopt–v. 49). The difference is that while John the Baptist himself testified to Jesus as the Son of God in the first instance, in this second occurrence it is a disciple, more significantly, a person associated directly with the nation of Israel, who proclaims Jesus’ true nature. This is the pinnacle of the entire chapter 1 narrative. John the Baptist has fulfilled his purpose by pointing out the Messiah and Son of God to his future disciples; it is now time for the disciples to discover Jesus’ true identity for themselves and proclaim it to the world. The fact that the disciple who does this is referred to by Jesus as “an Israelite in whom there is no deceit” (v. 47), and is also compared to Jacob—“Israel” himself—in 1:51, is a hopeful anticipation of the recognition of Jesus’ identity as the Son of God by all of Israel and the fulfilment of the Baptist’s commission to reveal him to Israel.