John 1:15

[See also the "General Considerations on the Prologue" in the comments of John 1:18.]

Ver. 15. John bears witness of him, and cries, saying:This is he of whom I spoke when I said, He who comes after me hath preceded me, because he was before me. ”

The present, bears witness is ordinarily explained by the permanent value of this testimony; but perhaps it is due rather to the fact that the author transports himself in a life-like way backward to the moment when he heard this mysterious saying coming from such lips; he seems to himself to hear it still. The perfect κέκραγε is always used in Greek in the sense of the present: he cries; this declaration was made with the solemnity of an official proclamation.

According to the reading of B. C. and Origen, we must, in order to give sense to these words: it was he who spake, put them in a parenthesis, as Westcott and Hort do, and thus ascribe to the evangelist the most inept of repetitions. See where these critics lead us by the critical system which they have once for all adopted! The reading of א is equally inadmissible. According to John 1:30, the forerunner uttered this saying on the next day after the deputation of the Sanhedrim had officially presented to him the question relating to his mission. After having expressly declined the honor of being the Messiah in the presence of these delegates, he had added in mysterious words, that that personage was already present and was immediately to succeed him, although in reality He had been already present before him (John 1:26-27).

The next day, he made this declaration again before the people, but this time designating Jesus positively as the one of whom he had spoken on the preceding day, and adding an explanation with reference to that previous existence which he attributed to Him as compared with himself (John 1:30). This second more full declaration the evangelist quotes in John 1:15; because it was the first which referred personally and intelligibly to Jesus, Jesus not being present on the previous day. It may be asked why there is this slight difference between the cited declaration and that of John 1:15, that there John the Baptist says οὖτός ἐστι, “this is he,” while, in John 1:15, the evangelist makes him say: οὖτος ἦν, “this was he.” The first form seems more in harmony with the immediate presence of the one to whom the testimony refers: “This is he of whom I was saying yesterday...You see him there!” This form perfectly suits the original testimony. The form: This was, might have been also suitable in the Baptist's mouth. It only called up the fact that it was He of whom he had thought on the preceding day, when speaking as he had done. But it proceeds rather from the evangelist; for it is natural from the standpoint more remote from the fact, at which he now is.

The testimony here reproduced by the apostle has a paradoxical cast in harmony with the original character of John the Baptist: “He who follows me has preceded me.” There was something in the apparent contradiction of these two verbs to excite the attention and stimulate the mental activity of those to whom the saying was addressed. Many interpreters, as if making a point of depriving this saying of what in fact gives it its point, have assigned to the word has preceded me the sense of has surpassed me (Chrysostom, Tholuck, Olshausen, de Wette, Lucke, Luthardt). But what is there surprising in the fact that he who comes afterward should be superior to the one who goes before him? Is it not so in ordinary life? Does not the herald precede the sovereign? A platitude, therefore, is ascribed to John the Baptist. Hofmann has felt this. And instead of referring one of these verbs to time and the other to dignity, he applies them both to dignity, in this sense: “He who was at first inferior to me (who went behind me as my disciple) has become my superior (goes before me now as my master).”

But Jesus was never in the position of a disciple with relation to John, and no more did He become his master. Besides, the words μείζων and ἐλάσσων would have presented themselves much more naturally for the expression of this idea. Let us remember that the evangelist has as his aim to prove by the testimony of the forerunner the dignity of the Logos incarnate, which is attributed to Jesus; now it is precisely the temporal sense which is adapted to this aim, and if one of the two prepositions refers to time, the other must refer to it also: for the apparent contradiction of the two terms is what gives this saying all its meaning. “He who is my successor preceded me” (Luther, Meyer, Baumlein, Weiss, Keil, etc.). My successor: as to the Messianic work; Jesus appeared on the stage after John. And yet He was before Him. How so? By His presence and activity in the whole period of the Old Covenant. The Christ really preceded His forerunner in the world; comp. John 12:41; 1 Corinthians 10:4, and the passage in Malachi (John 3:1), where John the Baptist found this idea, as we shall see. The perfect γέγονε does not mean existed, but was there (in fact); comp. John 6:25.

On repeating this enigmatical word on the next day, John added to it the phrase which should give a glimpse of the solution of the enigma: because he was before me, or more literally, “ my first. ” Here also, many refer the word first to superiority of rank, not of time, (Chrysostom, Beza, Calvin, Hofmann, Luthardt); but the imperfect was is opposed to this sense; is would have been necessary. Objection is made to the tautology between this proposition and the preceding one, if both refer to time. But it is forgotten that there is a difference between γέγονε, which places us on the ground of history: was there, and ἦν, was, which refers to the essence of the Logos, to the eternal order to which He by nature belongs. He did not pass from nothingness into being, like His forerunner.

If He preceded the latter on the field of history, it was because, in reality, He belonged to an order of things superior to that of time. Many interpreters (Meyer, Baumlein), who take the word first in the same sense as ourselves, say that the superlative πρῶτος is put here for the comparative πρότερος, anterior to, and they cite as an example John 15:18. But John avoids the comparative because it would refer to the relation of two persons, who both belonged to the same order of things, and consequently might be compared with each other. Now it is not so in this case; and any comparison is impossible. Jesus is not only anterior to John; He is, speaking absolutely, first with relation to him and to everything that is in time. Hence the expression: my first. And such, indeed, is also the meaning in John 15:18. For Jesus was not merely persecuted before the disciples, as their equal; He it is who in them is the real object of the persecution. This last clause contains, accordingly, the solution of the apparent contradiction presented by the two preceding clauses. It was possible for Him to be the predecessor of His forerunner, since He appertains to the eternal order.

It is alleged that John the Baptist cannot have uttered such a saying, which already implies knowledge of the divinity of the Messiah, a knowledge which was developed only afterwards in the Church. It is the evangelist, then, who puts it into his mouth (Strauss, Weiss, de Wette), or who, at least, modifies in this way some expression which he had heard from his mouth, and in which the forerunner proclaimed the superior dignity of Jesus (Weiss). On the other hand, Lucke, Meyer, Bruckner and others, defend the historical accuracy of this saying. And, in fact, the pre-existence of the Messiah already forms a part of the teaching of the Old Testament; comp. Isaiah 9:5; Micah 5:1; Daniel 7:13-14. Bertholdt, in his Christologia Judaeorum, p. 131, has demonstrated the presence of this idea in the Rabbinical writings. It is found in the book of Enoch and in the fourth book of Esdras (Schurer, Lehrb. der N. T. Gesch., § 29, 3).

Far from having borrowed it from the Christians, the Jewish theology turned away from it rather, in its struggle with Christianity (Schurer, ibid.). If this saying were, either in whole or in part, a composition of the evangelist, it would be sufficient for him to place it in his Prologue; he would not allow himself to return to it again twice in the course of the following narrative, in order to point out the historical situation in which John had uttered it, fixing exactly the place, the moment, the occasion (John 1:26-27; John 1:30), and marking the progress in its terms from one occasion to the other. Besides, the original and enigmatical form in which it is presented would be enough to guarantee its authenticity. In this respect, it offers a full analogy to the indisputably authentic saying of the forerunner in John 3:30. Let us not forget that there was in the Old Testament a passage which, more than any other, contained, as it were, the programme of John the Baptist's mission, a passage which he must have read again and again, and which was the text of the declaration which occupies our attention. It is Malachi 3:1: “Behold, I send my messenger before me, and he prepares my way.” If the Messiah sends His messenger before Him, that is, in order Himself soon to follow him, and if this sending consists in a birth, it is clear that the Messiah must necessarily exist before His successor. Simple common sense forces upon us this conclusion, which John the Baptist well knew how to draw. Finally, even independently of all this, the forerunner had received special revelations, instructions relative to his mission: “He who sent me to baptize with water, he said to me; ” thus he expresses himself, alluding to a direct communication, a sort of theophany which had been granted to him (John 1:33). It is impossible, therefore, that, with the vision of the baptism to crown this special prophetic preparation, he should not have had his eyes open to understand fully the superior dignity of the One whom God Himself saluted with the title of His well-beloved Son.

The evangelist has made us hear the testimony of the immediate witnesses of the life of Christ (John 1:14), then, that of the herald sent to prepare the way for Him (John 1:15); it only remains for him to formulate that which comes forth from the experience of the whole Church.