John 1:35-42

³⁵ The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. ³⁶ When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!”

 ³⁷ When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. ³⁸ Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, “What do you want?”

   They said, “Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”), “where are you staying?”

   ³⁹ “Come,” he replied, “and you will see.”

   So they went and saw where he was staying, and they spent that day with him. It was about four in the afternoon.

 ⁴⁰ Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. ⁴¹ The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah” (that is, the Christ). ⁴² And he brought him to Jesus.

   Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas”(which, when translated, is Peter [Rock]).

The next day, the Baptist again points at Jesus and screams “THAT GUY!” and the two disciples who happened to be with him become the Baptist’s first two success stories. In direct contrast to certain leaders of the modern church who equate success with attendance, the Baptist seems to equate success with exodus (pun intended, if it help drives the point home). While his ministry doesn’t approach fulfillment until 3:25-36, the ball must get rolling sooner or later, and it is these two faithful Jews who take the first step, literally. They start walking behind Jesus, following him, without the courage to actually say anything or to really approach him. As is characteristic of Jesus throughout the gospels he takes the initiative in engaging the interested. He turns and asks them what they want, a question loaded with profundity when posed by the Lord of the universe. But these disciples don’t know Jesus is the Lord of the universe. But they want to know, hence their response: “Rabbi, where do you live?” Here John adds the note that “rabbi” (a Hebrew word) means “teacher” (a Greek word). An initially puzzling response to modern ears, what these disciples mean to imply is that their curiosity demands quality time with Jesus, and can’t be satisfied by a roadside chat. And Jesus obliges their request. “Come and see” was a rabbinic phrase that meant, more or less, “lets go figure this out together”. John notes that they spent the day with Jesus. Coupled with fact that this meeting took place around 4 p.m. (the tenth hour), John implies that these disciples stayed the night at Jesus’ house as well, taking us to verse 40.

The next day begins with one of these disciples, Andrew, completely beyond lit up from his time with Jesus, finding and then bringing his brother Simon to the Messiah who the unnamed disciple and himself have found. It’s the first thing Andrew does. Simon is brought before Jesus who, more obvious in the original Greek, gazes searchingly at Simon. When Jesus does speak he renames him.

A note. John is writing his gospel so that the first-century unbeliever (regardless of ethnicity or religious affiliation) would read his story and subsequently come to faith in Christ (20:31). He goes about this by revealing, up front, just who Jesus of Nazareth is. He is the one through whom all things were created (1:3), the Word of God become flesh (1:14), the fulfillment of the Law given through Moses (1:17), and the only one who can reveal the Father (1:18). Not until this cosmic-eternal understanding of Christ is laid bare does John begin his narrative, and in doing so seems to say to the reader, “this is whom I’m talking about, now watch him walk around and blow everybody’s mind”. The scope of Jewish messianic expectation was totally, insufficiently narrow compared to the Messiah they received in Christ, and so we have a consistent theme running throughout every scene and conversation in John’s gospel: Jesus, at every turn, stretches, expands, transcends, the hopes and dreams of his contemporaries. Back to verse 42.

Jesus renames Simon. Do you know anyone who has been renamed mid-adulthood? I don’t. And though I might know one or two individuals whose self-confidence might lead them to believe in their right to do such a thing, I have yet to hear of their acting in such a way. And there is good reason for that. Today, just as in the first-century, renaming someone, let alone a complete stranger, would be considered an act not only ridiculous but most likely insulting. It implies the possession of a profound authority of the namer over the named. Of course Jesus knows this, but it is neither arrogant nor insulting in verse 42. Jesus is God. Again, the disciples, at this point in the story, don’t know this. They know Jesus is the Messiah, but they’re incapable of thinking in categories beyond those described in the study of 1:19-28.

Re-read that post again, if you must, in the attempt to wrap your ahead around the contrast between the Pharisaic/Jewish messianic expectation and the messiah described in John 1:1-18. Additionally, the quality of Jesus’ renaming of Simon is reminiscent of episodes of renaming in the Old Testament (Genesis 17:5, 32:29). Jesus isn’t just demonstrating his authority over Simon, but is speaking prophetically into Simon’s life. By calling him Rock he is identifying/describing a quality of Peter’s character. Only adding to the beauty of this scene is the fact that Peter will be anything but a rock throughout the entire gospel narrative. Remember, Jesus eventually calls him Satan, and Peter is infamous for his three-fold denial of Jesus in his greatest moment of need. But Jesus does indeed see what truly lies within a person (2:25). Jesus saw the entirety of Peter’s person after one pondering glance, looked deep beneath the dime-a-dozen fisherman, the stupid (Mark 9:5-6), selfish (Mark 8:32-33), and cowardly (Mark 14:66-72) man in front of him to the man who would become the leader of the church in Rome, the man who, when arrested and condemned to crucifixion, felt unworthy to die the same way as his Lord and so was crucified upside down. This is the messiah who was sent to Israel and the world. John 1:1-18, meet Simon, a Jewish fisherman.

John 1:29-34

29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! 30 This is the one I meant when I said, ‘A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’ 31 I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel.”

 32 Then John gave this testimony: “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. 33 And I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 I have seen and I testify that this is God’s Chosen One.”

The story of the Baptist continues in verse 29 on the day after his encounter with the Pharisees, and identifies for the first time in the narrative the mysterious figure that stood anonymously in the crowd that witnessed the interrogation. Of no minor significance are the words chosen by the Baptist to identify him. And to appreciate them, another bit of history is in order.

The Messiah. Looking at this character of Jewish antiquity through the lens of modern Christianity causes most to make too much of him. The fact is, though the Jews did expect a messianic figure to rise and lead Israel along the road to vindication, he was not necessarily expected to be the one who would rule Israel once she was re-established, nor was he seen as a miracle-worker, or a prophet, or even an exceptionally godly man. This is especially true of Jewish expectation by the time we reach the first century. It is a highly relevant fact that there were multiple men, before Jesus and after, who claimed to be the Messiah. And people were always there to believe and to support him. And always, in these contexts, one’s military resistance of the pagan oppressor, Rome, evidenced one’s messiahship. In fact, it was the evidence of messiahship. Leading the children of Abraham in the quest of vindication and kingdom establishment was synonymous with being the messiah. And though it is easy to find biblical support for such an expectation the Jews of first century Palestine mainly derived it from the example they had in Judas Maccabaeus, a hundred or so years before. Remember- his overthrow of the Persian sub ruler, Antiochus Epiphanes, was so dramatic that it is celebrated annually 2,000 years later. Imagine the fire that lingered just 100 years later… The embers of revolution were everywhere, waiting only for some light breeze to transform them into flames.

And this is why the Baptist’s description/introduction of Jesus is so striking. He notices a man approaching, recognizes him as the one whom God had revealed to him by sending his Spirit to dwell in him (the indwelling of the Spirit implying messianic activity), but does not exclaim what every other Jew in the world would have exclaimed if they had the opportunity to reveal the messiah. What the Baptist should have said was, “Look, there is the Davidic king who will liberate us”. What the Baptist does say is, “Look, there is the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world” (v. 29, NJB).

So where does this statement come from? It is clearly foreign to the expectations of the Baptist’s contemporaries, but it is also just as biblical as their expectations. Though the phrase chosen by the Baptist (“Lamb of God”) is a tricky one to locate, of the many possible sources there is one that fits the context of the story better than the others, and that is the lamb mentioned in Isaiah 53:7. Though the entire chapter of Isaiah 53 (go read it now so I don’t need to explain it!) is overtly messianic it was almost completely neglected, given almost no voice, in the messianic hopes of first century Israel. And it is no mystery why. The figure described in Isaiah 53 did not correspond at all to the type of figure that the circumstances of first century Palestine seemed to require in order for the kingdom of Heaven to be established. The story of the Lamb in Isaiah 53 has nothing to do with military overthrow, or national vindication, at least the type of vindication everyone was expecting. And so Israel had no room for Isaiah 53 in their theology. But the Baptist was the exception to the rule. Why was he the exception? Or how was he the exception? These are questions we can’t really know the answer to. We must be satisfied with knowing that he was just different, and not only different, but divinely accurate. Not that the Baptist had a complete understanding of the depth of Jesus’ mission, but it is safe to say he was in the ballpark, at least compared to the Pharisees.

The Baptist follows one radical statement with another by confessing another quality of the coming Lord that transcended the hopes and dreams of Israel, that is, His pre-existence. The Baptist is basically just a baller. And Jesus himself says this (more or less) in Luke 7:28. The Baptist’s confession in verse 31 is fairly self-explanatory. John, the author of this gospel, unpacks verse 31 for us in the gospel’s opening prologue. The Baptist then reveals the essence of his ministry, which has, more or less, been taken for granted up to this point in the study.

Not until verses 32-33 does John include the scene of the Baptist’s story that is central in the Synoptic accounts, that is, the actual scene of Jesus’ baptism. Heaven opens and the Spirit descends on Jesus in the form of a dove and remains in him. Remember, the Baptist is telling this story in the past tense. He baptized Jesus at least a day or two prior. And the passage climaxes in such a way that brings the story of the last 15 verses to an end while simultaneously propelling the reader into the rest of chapter 1. The Baptist, to drive the point home further in the heads of his disciples, says emphatically that Jesus of Nazareth is God’s Chosen One. The emphasis lies in the confession beginning with “I have seen and I testify”. He is being as clear as possible. After all, his purpose is to reveal Jesus of Nazareth to Israel (v. 31).

There is a tension here worth noting. Let’s not forget the commotion the Baptist’s ministry has caused. The Jews sent to question him are sent from Jerusalem, the geographic and theological center of Israel, and the hype around himself is so extravagant that he actually needs to tell people he is not the Messiah, or the eschatological prophet, or Isaiah returned from heaven. At this point I would like to make a joke about how ridiculously awesome I would have to be for anyone to ever worry about my being any of those three figures, but I’ll leave that to the imagination of my readers. The point, though, is that the Baptist’s entire purpose is to point people to someone else! And despite his efforts not everyone listens to him. In fact the giant majority do not. How do we know this? Verses 29-34 seem to be addressed to a crowd of some sort. At least to more than a couple people. But there is no evidence of anyone doing what John is implicitly telling them. By pointing his finger at Jesus and practically screaming “THAT GUY!!!” he means for them to do what the two disciples do the next day, in verse 37. But to find out you have to keep following my blog.

John 1:19-28

 19 Now this was John’s testimony when the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was. 20 He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, “I am not the Messiah.”

 21 They asked him, “Then who are you? Are you Elijah?”

   He said, “I am not.”

   “Are you the Prophet?”

   He answered, “No.”

 22 Finally they said, “Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”

 23 John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, “I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’”

 24 Now the Pharisees who had been sent 25 questioned him, “Why then do you baptize if you are not the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”

 26 “I baptize with water,” John replied, “but among you stands one you do not know. 27 He is the one who comes after me, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.”

 28 This all happened at Bethany on the other side of the Jordan, where John was baptizing.

 (New International Version)

This story begins the narrative of the Gospel of John, following the prologue, and opens with a scene consisting of two main characters, John the Baptist and members of a Jewish sect known as the Pharisees (according to v. 24).  To begin to appreciate the former we must understand the latter, so a bit of history is in order before we get under way.

The Pharisees. As we will see it is of significant importance that the priests and Levites who were sent to question John the Baptist were of the group known as the Pharisees and not, lets say, members of the Sadducees or the Essenes. The story of the Pharisees begins back in 161 BC at the Maccabean Revolt. The Jewish Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 BC and, from then clear up to 161 (426 years!) the land of Israel was oppressed and dominated by foreign, blasphemous, pagan rulers. Israel existed throughout this time of ironic exile (remaining in the land while enduring a state of exile) in a state of growing confusion and tragic tension: if Israel is THE elect of the ONE true god, THE people through which He plans to save the world, how can so many nations so easily and thoroughly oppress them? How can they continually be defeating by pagans who believe their gods are the greatest? Their circumstances challenged not only their military strength but also their entire tradition, theology, and way of being. Eventually one of these subsequent rulers committed the single most heinous crime one could commit against Israel and Yahweh: he established worship of himself in the Temple. His arrogance was his downfall. He severely misjudged the fervor of the Jewish people and, by a group led by Judas Maccabaeus, was defeated and run out of Jerusalem (this event is celebrated annually, to this day, at Hanukkah). IT had happened! Israel and her God had finally been vindicated like the prophets said they eventually would be! But things did not turn out how they were supposed to. The government set up by Judas and his followers was a perversion of that which God ordained in the times of David and Solomon. Its perversion lay in its uniting of the separate offices of priest and king.  Israel, though seemingly vindicated, was not ruled how God intended at all. Things, then, had not changed very much.

This is where the Pharisees come into the story. There were three general means of response to this perverse Israel: 1) play the power game, win favor among the elite, and more or less sell out 2) desert Israel, deem it corrupt beyond repair, and establish an independent community, a private and “true” Israel 3) remain faithful to Israel despite her corruption and do one’s best to reform her from within. Option one will at least later come loosely to be known as the Sadducees. Option two would come to be known as the Essenes. The sect who established the community at Qumran and wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls is a classic example of the Essenes. Option number three would come to be known as the Pharisees, the very same group who approached John the Baptist by the river Jordan in 28 AD. 

Long-story-short, Rome walks into town in 63 BC and takes over without meeting any resistance and now things are really back to the way they were a hundred or so years ago, with at least one additional negative aspect. Israel has been in exile for over half a millennium, but at least in the past they understood why. Throughout those periods of exile God rose up prophets to announce to the people that they had rebelled against Yahweh in whatever number of ways, and that He would re-establish them once they became repentant and changed. But by the time Rome comes to town Israel has not heard from a prophet in hundreds of years. All signs, everywhere you looked, pointed to His absence and desertion. And then, out of the wilderness walks John the Baptist. Dressing in the manner of a prophet, speaking like a prophet, acting like a prophet, and multitudes of people begin treating him like a prophet. One can imagine the excitement. Hundreds of years of (apparent) silence on behalf of Yahweh now broken. And John’s message? “Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven has come near” (Mt. 3:2, NIV). There wasn’t a message more thrilling to the people of Israel. Vindication was just around the corner, and in order to be a part of it one must repent (signified by baptism).

To Pharisaic ears John’s message sounded oddly familiar. Israel, existing in a state of subjugation to Rome, was not a nation in a political or geographical sense. She did not have her own physical borders or national government, making the questions of who is “in” and who is “out” much harder to answer (this question, who are the true children of Abraham, dominates John 8). Ideally, members of the nation of Israel could be easily identified- they walked the streets everyday. Israelites were those living under Israeli rule and within her borders. But, having no rule or physical borders, some serious redefinition needed to take place for her to survive the military, cultural, economic, and political imperialism of Rome. Of course the sell-outs (Sadducees) weren’t very worried about this. And neither were the Essenes. The former didn’t have reason to worry very deeply about Israel’s existence, because it didn’t really affect their own. The latter chucked the whole project and started over in the desert. No, it was predominately the Pharisees who shouldered the burden of at least trying to sustain Israel’s traditional identity, and they did this by emphasizing, in the everyday life of the people, the three national symbols they still had: the Temple, the Torah, and the festivals. The strict observance of these three symbols in the everyday lives of the Israelites would be the means of preservation of national identity. This is why we see Pharisees so deeply concerned when Jesus seemingly violates the Sabbath, or eats with his disciples with unclean hands, or talks about destroying the Temple. Jesus is (very knowingly) threatening the very identity of Israel, at least in the Pharisaic mind.  Also, it is paramount that we understand that the means by which national identity was being preserved were also the means by which the Pharisees sought to demonstrate their faithfulness to the God of the covenant, so that when He did vindicate His people, when the kingdom of Heaven did come, He would have no doubt about who were His own and who were not.

Back to the comment on familiarity. The message of John the Baptist: repent, for the kingdom of Heaven has come near. The message of the Pharisees: don’t act like that, but act like this so that you can be a part of the kingdom whenever it comes. Now there are many minor differences that I need not point out, which are immediately apparent, but the main difference between the two messages lies in their style of presentation. Basically John the Baptist is dressed, speaks, acts, and is treated by the people, as if he were a prophet sent from God. The Pharisees aren’t, don’t, don’t, and aren’t, because they’re not. And, obviously, they know this, hence the depth and severity of their curiosity when their representatives come face-to-face with the Baptist.

This depth and severity of curiosity is evidenced in the type of questions they pose to him, and John completely understands. He knows what people are saying about him despite the content of his message and he responds accordingly to question #1 which is simply “who are you?” He responds, “I am not the Christ” (Jn. 1:20, NJB). Questions #2 and 3 address the other (almost equally) exciting possibilities of John’s identity: “are you the prophet promised by Moses in Deuteronomy 18 who is to appear prior to our vindication? Or are you Elijah come back to us from heaven as it was promised you would in order to reveal the Messiah to us?” To both of these (paraphrased) questions John adamantly replies “No”. They press him further, “well you must be somebody because you’re causing an enormous uproar, and times are such lately that we can’t afford to be ignorant of your identity, so who are you?!” John reluctantly gives in (bringing us to v. 23) and quotes a passage from Isaiah, “I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’” Though he still doesn’t say much about his identity, he does testify to his intention/purpose, to literally prepare the way for the Lord who is coming. This passage John quotes (Isaiah 40:3) originates in an ancient practice. Say you live in a fairly large city that is far away from the heart of your nation or kingdom, and it is common knowledge that your king or ruler was on his way to visit. People would literally go out to the road or highway or whatever, and prepare it for his coming. This meant lowering the high spots, filling in the low spots, and doing one’s best to smooth it. John is evoking this exact image. He, via proclamation and baptism, is preparing the way for the Lord who is near, nothing more, nothing less. What is interesting is that the other Gospels have no problem identifying the Baptist as Isaiah returned, but John avoids this. Why? Because, to a degree greater than the other Gospels, the Gospel of John is Christocentric (a fancy term meaning “Christ-centered”). His emphasis on the person of Christ is also why he never refers to Jesus’ mother by her name, Mary, and only as “Jesus’ Mother”. The chief aim of John’s ministry is to ready the people of Israel for their soon coming Lord (not that the Baptist or anyone has any idea what this means).

The Pharisees (v. 25): “so if you aren’t anyone special how do you justify your actions?“ They were right in posing this question to John, because the ritual of baptism was most often reserved for proselytes (another fancy word, denotes gentiles who fully converted to Judaism). So despite the increasingly vague similarity- content-wise- between the message of the Baptist and the Pharisees, the former is undeniably distinguished from the latter in the quality of his message (given explicitly in the prophetic style) and the required response to his message (“repent and be baptized”, versus “adhere more fiercely to the national symbols”). But the question of authority remains. And the Baptist’s response subtlety turns the question back onto the Pharisees: “you’re worried about the authority, or lack thereof, behind my radical behavior, but the one coming after me is standing among you right now, and I am not worthy to perform even the most humbling of favors for him”.  Again, the supreme humility of John: the undoing of someone’s sandal strap (v. 27), in the first century, was so servile that servants alone were permitted to do it (foot-washing lower still…), and John, whose presence and actions are viewed by some as messianic and earn him comparisons to Moses and Isaiah (the two greatest figures of Judaism), confesses his radical inferiority to the mysterious figure in the crowd. Note also the implication of John’s response. This entire episode with the Pharisees is taking place after John’s baptism of Jesus- John has already had the Messiah revealed to him, though Jesus has yet to begin his ministry. And note also the recurring theme of Christocentrism: John answers their fifth enquiry pertaining to his person by pointing beyond himself to the coming Lord. He is incapable of more or less.

Prologue

These next several posts are the written versions of Bible studies I have led over the last few weeks. Because I am writing largely from memory they have a feel to them that is distinct from the actual studies I led. Some information might be included here that was not mentioned in the studies, much information used in the studies is excluded. This happened both intentionally and inadvertently. Intentional editing took place for the sake of brevity. Writing takes much more work and time than speaking. Inadvertent editing took place because it just does. Also, I found myself (again for brevity's sake) paraphrasing the verses as I went along. This saved me energy and space. Kind of like interpreting on the fly. It will make sense if you read the paraphrase along with the actual text. I hope.

Also. The goal of these studies was and is to help you, the 21st century North American, see the characters, stories, and truths of the gospel of John as they would have been seen by a late-first or early-second century Jew or Greek, who knew nothing of Jesus until they came across this story. At least I hope to move you in this direction of understanding/appreciation. This explains my emphasis on history and cultural background. And I am passionate about doing this, and willing to take this approach when given the opportunity to speak in front of thousands at our Bible studies, because I have found it deeply impacting on a personal level. The logos of God did not become incarnate in Orange County last week but in Nazareth around 4 BC and, though Scripture is eternal and speaks in every culture and time period, when and where Scripture happened adds volumes of meaning to what it proposes to say. I hope at least one or two of the study attendees can now attest to that.

Also. Thanks to my friends who encouraged me to do this. I'm not very confident many will read these, let alone enjoy them, but it is worth doing if only for the personal benefit of having my thoughts on record. If I survive 2012, along with the internet, it is very possible and likely that my thinking will change with time and records such as these might likely prove a useful way of tracking this growth, assuming I will be fortunate enough to call it that with any integrity at all.

Also again. On the off-chance that anybody reads these, and on the still offer-chance that anybody has questions, feel free to e-mail me or facebook me. I prefer facebook, but I'll take what I can get.