John 1:37

Ver. 37. “ And the two disciples heard him speak thus, and they followed Jesus. ”

John's word, which was an exclamation, was understood. It is very evident that, in the thought of the evangelist, these words: “ And they followed Jesus,” conceal, under their literal sense, a richer meaning. This first step in following Jesus decided their whole life; the bond, apparently accidental, which was formed at that hour, was, in reality, an eternal bond.

The Testimonies of the Forerunner.

We have still to examine three questions which criticism has raised in regard to these testimonies.

I. Baur and Keim maintain that the narrative of the fourth Gospel denies, by its silence, the fact of the Baptism of Jesus by John; and this for the dogmatic reason, that it would have been contrary to the dignity of the Logos to receive the Holy Spirit. Hilgenfeld himself rejects this view (Einl. pp. 702 and 719): “The baptism of Jesus,” he says, “is supposed, not related.” The second testimony of John John 1:31 f., mentions it as an accomplished fact, and John 1:32-33 imply it, since their meaning can only be this: “Among the Israelites who shall come to thy baptism, there shall be found one on whom, when thou shalt baptize him, thou shalt see the Spirit descend....” Holtzmann has recognized the indisputable bearing of this passage. But if the fact is not related, it is simply, because, as we have discovered, the starting point of the narrative is chosen subsequently to the baptism. If the Logos-theory in our Gospel were to play the part which, in this case, Baur and Keim attribute to it, it would exclude from the history of Jesus many other facts which are related at full length by our evangelist.

II. It has been regarded as inconceivable, that, after such a sign and such declarations, the Baptist could have addressed to Jesus, from the depths of his prison, this question: “ Art thou he that should come, or are we to look for another ” (Matthew 11:3)? Strauss has derived from this proceeding of John, a ground for denying the whole scene of the baptism. Some of the Fathers supposed that the forerunner wished thereby only to strengthen the faith of his disciples by calling forth a positive declaration, on Jesus' part, respecting His Messianic character. But the terms of the Synoptical account do not allow this meaning. Two circumstances may be alleged which must have exercised an unfavorable influence upon John's faith; first, his imprisonment (Meyer), then the malevolent disposition of his disciples with regard to Jesus (John 3:26), which might have reacted at length on the already depressed spirit of their master.

These two circumstances undoubtedly prepared the way for the shaking of faith produced in John; but they cannot suffice to explain it; we must add, withBaumlein, the fact that there was in John, besides the prophet, the natural man who was by no means secure from falling. This is what Jesus gives us to understand when, in His reply, He said, evidently thinking of John: “ Blessed is he who is not offended in me ” (Matthew 11:6 comp. with John 1:11). Lucke has explained this fall by the striking contrast between the expectation, which John had expressed, of a powerful and judicial activity of the Messiah in order to purify the theocracy, and the humble and patient labor of Jesus. A comparison of the reply of the latter to the messengers of John (Matthew 11:4-6) with the proclamations of John (Matthew 3:10; Matthew 3:12) is enough to convince us of the justice of this observation. But to all this we must still add a last and more decisive fact. It is this: John did not for an instant doubt concerning the divine mission of Jesus and concerning this mission as higher than his own. This follows, first, from the fact that it is to Jesus Himself that he addresses himself in order to be enlightened, and then, from the very meaning of his question: “Art thou he that should come or are we to look for another (literally, a second)?” We must recall to mind here the prevailing doubt, at that time, in relation to the prophet, like to Moses, whose coming was to prepare the way for that of the Messiah (according to Deu 18:18). Some identified him with the Messiah himself; comp. John 6:14-15: “It is of a truth the prophet....They were going to take him by force, to make him king. ” Others, on the contrary, distinguished this prophet par excellence, from the Messiah properly so-called; comp. John 7:40-41.

They attributed, probably, to the first of these personages the spiritual side of the expected transformation, and to the Messiah, as King descended from David, the political side of this renovation. John the Baptist had, at first, united these two offices in the single person of Jesus. But learning in his prison that the work of Jesus limited itself to working miracles of healing, to giving forth the preachings of a purely prophetic character, he asks himself whether this anointed one of the Holy Spirit would not have as His part in the Messianic work only the spiritual office, and whether the political restoration and the outward judgment announced by him would not be devolved upon a subsequent messenger; to the divine prophet, the work of pardon and regeneration; to the King of a Davidic race, the acts of power which were destined to realize the external triumph of the Kingdom of God.

This is precisely what the form of the question in Matthew expresses: ἕτερον, not ἄλλον : a second (Messiah); not: another (as Messiah): this expression really ascribes to Jesus the Messianic character, only not exclusively. At the foundation, this distinction which was floating before the eyes of the Baptist had in it nothing erroneous. It answers quite simply to the two offices of Jesus, at His first and second coming. At the first coming, pardon and the Spirit; at the second, judgment and royalty. The Jewish learned men were led by the apparently contradictory prophecies of the Old Testament, to an analogous distinction. Buxtorf (Lexic. Chaldaic. p. 1273) and Eisenmenger (Entdeckt, Judenth. pp. 744f.) cite a mass of rabbinical passages which distinguish two Messiahs, the one, whom they call the son of Joseph, or of Ephraim, to whom they ascribe the humiliations foretold respecting the Messiah; the other, whom they name the son of David, to whom they apply the prophecies of glory. The first will make war, and will perish; for him the sufferings; the second will raise the first to life again and will live eternally. “Those who shall escape from the sword of the first, will fall under that of the second.” “The one shall not bear envy against the other, juxta fidem nostram,” says Jarchi (ad. Jes. 11.13). These last words attest the high antiquity of this idea.

III. Renan (Vie de Jesus, pp. 108f.) draws a poetic picture of the relation between “these two young enthusiasts, full of the same hopes and the same hates, who were able to make common cause and mutually to support each other.” He describes Jesus arriving from Galilee with “a little school already formed,” and John fully welcoming “this swarm of young Galileans,” even though they do not attach themselves to him but form a separate band around Jesus. “We have not many examples, it is true,” observes Renan, “of the head of a school eagerly welcoming the one who is to succeed him;” but is not youth capable of all self-abnegations? Behold the romance: the history shows us Jesus arriving alone and receiving from John himself these young Galileans who are for the future to accompany Him. We can understand how there is in this story a troublesome fact for those who are unwilling to explain the history except by natural causes.

The manner in which John the Baptist, at the height of his ascendant and his glory, throws himself immediately and voluntarily into the shade that he may leave the field free for one younger than himself, who until then was completely obscure, cannot be explained by the natural generosity of youth. Conscious, as he was, of the divinity of his mission, John could not thus retire into the shade except before a divine demonstration of the higher mission of Jesus. The conduct of John the Baptist, as attested by our four evangelists, remains for the historian, who does not recognize here the work of God, an insoluble problem. Before closing, one word more on a fancy of Keim. This scholar alleges (I., p 525) that, in opposition to the Synoptical account (comp. especially Luke 3:21), our Gospel makes Jesus the first of all the people to come to the baptism of John. Where do we find in John's narrative a word which justifies this assertion? But: sic volo, sic jubeo!

IV. We are now able to embrace the Messianic testimony of the Baptist in its totality. First, the calling of the people to repentance and baptism, with the vague announcement of the nearness of the Messiah. He comes! (See the Synoptics.) Then, the three days which form the beginning of the narrative of John: He is present! Behold Him! Follow Him! Finally, the last summons: Woe unto you, if you refuse to follow Him! (John 3:28-36.) This totality is so much the more remarkable as the particular elements of it are scattered in several writings and different narratives.