“682. THE BAPTIST AND THE DELEGATES—JOHN 1:19-27”

The Baptist and The Delegates—Joh_1:19-27

While Jesus was away in the wilderness, the wonderful success of John the Baptist, the crowds that followed him, and the influence he was gaining over the minds of the people, attracted the serious attention of the ruling authorities among the Jews; and the Sanhedrin or great council of the nation, which was especially charged with the care of religious maters, felt itself bound to send a deputation of its members to ascertain from John’s own mouth the doctrine he taught, and the nature of his claims as a religious teacher—indeed, as a prophet. It is intimated incidentally that those who were sent were mostly Pharisees, whose influence seems at that time to have been paramount in the council. And the delegates framed their interrogatories in conformity with the popular traditions, or even as with the prophetic writings which persons of the Sadducean sect would not have done.

It would appear as if some of the followers of John had begun to question whether he might not be himself the Messiah; and hence the first question is directed to that point. It has been suspected that, as some of the delegates were priests, they would not have been reluctant to have found the Messiah in John, who belonged by birth to their own order. But nothing was better known to them than that the Messiah was to be of the tribe of Judah, and they would not have thought of asking such a question of one whom they knew to be of the Levitical tribe, had not some rumors reached their ears. John, who avowedly did not like the Pharisees, and had on a former occasion called them a “brood of vipers,” answered this and the other questions put to him with remarkable but decisive bluntness. He told them plainly he was not the Christ. “What then,” said they, “art thou Elias?” To this also he answered “I am not!” But did not Jesus himself say that he was? They thought, as we formerly explained, that Elias was to come in his own proper person, and in that sense —the sense of their question—he certainly was not Elias. If they had asked if he came in the spirit and power of Elias, he would have given a different answer. But it may be asked, How they, knowing the birth and parentage of John, could conceive it possible that he, in their sense, could be Elias? The answer is found in the fact that the Jews at this time believed in a sort of transmigration of souls, and might therefore have supposed that John was in a very literal sense no other than Elias. We find a curious instance of their belief in this respect in Luk_9:7, where the Jews take Christ to be John the Baptist resuscitated.

John was then asked by the delegates if he were “that prophet.” This is sometimes supposed to refer to the prediction of Moses, that the Lord should raise up unto them a prophet like himself; but the Jews themselves understood this text to refer to the Messiah, and the question, if thus understood, had therefore been already answered, when he acknowledged that he was not the Christ. They probably meant to ask if he were Jeremiah, to whom tradition assigned the name of the “prophet” who was to rise from the dead at the coming of the Messiah, in order, as it was supposed, to restore to the temple the ark and altar of incense, which he was said to have concealed in a cavern at the destruction of the temple by Nebuchadnezzar. Note: 2Ma_15:13-14; 2Es_2:16-18. To this question John answered by a simple “No.”

Somewhat affronted at the rude curtness of his answers, the delegates reminded him that they questioned him not in their own name, but on the part of them who were authorized to inquire into such matters; and then asked him the plain question, “Who art thou?” To which he replied that he was the harbinger described in the prophet Isaiah, who, according to the custom in the progresses of the Oriental monarchs, was to go before, and, cutting through mountains and bridging valleys to make a wide and level way for the advance of the great king.

The carnal mind of those who had been sent to John, did not allow them rightly to comprehend his reply; and they asked him sharply, why then and by what authority he baptized, if he was neither of the personages they had designated. This was a natural question for persons belonging to a sect so much absorbed in ritual observances to ask. If the rite of baptism was not previously known, and this we have explained to be uncertain, their question demands on what authority he ventured to introduce a new rite. If the rite was known, as used for the initiation of Gentile converts, then their question requires him to state how he dared to extend that rite to Jews also, who had already by the rite of circumcision been placed under the full privileges and obligations of the law of Moses. Their tone is certainly that of persons inclined to exercise their authority in forbidding him to baptize. Indeed, it was probably John’s conviction that the ruling powers regarded him with favor, which occasioned the brevity and reserve of his answers. In reply to their last question, he becomes, however, more full and explicit. He tells them that his was merely a prefigurative baptism—a baptism of water, and that it claimed not to be the real baptism, the baptism of the Spirit—which was the work of one who then stood unrecognized among them, and whom he then forebore to point out, but in relation to whom he was but as a servant or a disciple.

Ancient Sandals

This he expressed by the emphatic figure—“The thong of whose sandal I am not wordily to stoop down and unloose.” The loose shoes or slippers in use among the modern Orientals are easily cast off by the wearer; but this was not the case with the ancient sandals, which, being bound to the feet by thongs, could not be unfastened without some trouble. The operation was hence usually performed by servants, whence the act of unloosing the sandals of another became a popular symbol of servitude. Or it may, in this and other instances, mean no more than scholarship; for we find that, among the Jews, scholars frequently performed this service for their teachers or rabbis; and it is laid down in the Talmud, that “All services which a slave renders to his master, the disciple renders to his rabbi.”

Autor: JOHN KITTO