He it is of whom I said, A man comes after me who takes a place before me, because he *was* before me;
John the Baptist has just pointed to Jesus as the Lamb of God. Now he explains why this Man is greater than he is. His words sound like a riddle: someone arrives later, yet stands first, and existed before the man announcing Him.
The verse holds three things at once: time, rank and being.
Then John witnesses to the greatness of the One Who, as the Lamb of God, will do this work. He says, "This is He of whom I said, 'After me comes a Man who ranks before me, because He was before me.'" In time, Christ came after John. In position, He stands far above John, because He existed in eternity before John.
John was born before Jesus was. That fact settles what the last phrase must mean.
The words "because He was before me" could only be used of a Divine Person. In fact John the Baptist was a few months older than the Lord in human birth. So it is clear that when he said the Lord was before him, he meant His Deity. In short, Jesus was Jehovah.
He did not say "a spirit" or "an angel." He pointed to a Man — and said that this Man existed before him.
John the Baptist (who came on earth six months before Jesus) said again, "A MAN comes after me," but One who, in honour and dignity, "ranks before me," because, in His eternal existence, "He was before me." We can understand and rejoice in what is said about His exalted place. But who can explain how a "MAN" — the Word become flesh — who came "after" John was also "before" him? Yet we know this is a fact God has revealed.
John says this right after calling Jesus the Lamb. A sacrifice that size needs a Person of that size.
His divine glory was essential to make the work He undertook effective. He must really be before John, however much John came before Him in history. "I myself did not know Him, but for this purpose I came baptizing with water, that He might be revealed to Israel." There you have John's part. All he could do was baptize with water.
John says the same thing three times in one chapter. He is not defending his own standing. He is defending Christ's place above every servant God has sent.
The Baptist says that Jesus was truly before him, though He came after him. He repeats it as if guarding it jealously (vv. 15, 27, 30)… In this the Holy Spirit, who spoke through John, honours Jesus as the great Subject of all God's eternal purposes, God's own great appointed One, to whom all other appointed things pointed. So, though He came after them, He was before them… For it was the Son alone whom God had set up from everlasting, the great first Object of all His purposes. Every prophet and every appointed thing was only His servant, to bear witness to Him.
Earlier in the chapter John made the same point to the religious leaders, but left its reason out.
It is interesting and instructive to note that to the Pharisees John says nothing (verse 27) about Christ's eternal existence before him. Yet that is the ground of Christ taking first place over him, though He was born after him. Compare verses 15, 30.
This bold public cry is worth setting beside what John said later, in prison.
No one could have given a bolder witness than John the Baptist on the day at Bethabara. In front of the whole crowd he cries, "This is He of whom I said, 'After me comes a Man who ranks before me, because He was before me.'" But when John finds himself inside the prison walls, when the crowds have gone, when the witnessing time is over and the waiting time has come, then under the stress of this new trial he cries, "Are You the one who is to come?"
- After me — in plain history, Jesus began His public work later than John, and John never denies it.
- Before me — in rank He takes first place. John speaks for every prophet and every appointed thing God gave. All of them are servants pointing to the Son.
- Was before me — the cause of that rank is eternity. John was the older of the two by months, so the claim can only be a claim of deity.
- A Man — the One who existed before John is the Word become flesh; commentators state it as revealed fact rather than explain it.
- Therefore the Lamb — this glory is not decoration. It is what makes the work He came to do effective. John could only baptize with water.
and I knew him not; but that he might be manifested to Israel, therefore have I come baptising with water.
John was asked why he was baptizing, and his whole answer comes down to one purpose: to bring Someone else into public view. Yet twice in a few verses he says he did not know Jesus. How can a man announce someone he does not recognise? And what did the water have to do with it?
His confession is not that Jesus was a stranger to him. One writer weighs the exact sense of the words:
"Knew Him not." Some cite Matthew 3:14 as contradicting this. But the comparison seems to show that the Greek here can hardly mean John knew nothing of our Lord at all, which in itself is very unlikely — though we must allow that they grew up in different parts of the land. John did not know Him as Messiah before this.
Only God could fill that gap. Even John the Baptist, the greatest born of women, had nothing of his own to say about who Jesus was:
When Jesus was here, though truly Man, visible to mortal eyes, faith alone could really grasp who He was. Without some communication from God, no human heart was ready to receive Him. That communication came either direct or in the written Word, which they had, so they were responsible. Even John the Baptist had twice to say, "I did not know Him." He was the greatest born of women, filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother's womb, and the same is said of no other man.
John's lack of any earlier knowledge of Jesus did not weaken his witness. It made it weigh more.
Because the Baptist had not known Jesus before, his testimony was all the more solemn and clearly from God. Whatever inward conviction he had as the Lord came for baptism, it did not stop the outward sign. Nor did it stop the witness he bears to His Person and His work, as he had borne before it.
John also shows where his knowledge did not come from:
John is careful to show that his knowledge of the glory of the Person of the Christ lay completely outside the flesh. He did not get it from any natural knowledge of the Lord, or from being connected with Him by family ties.
John's baptism was never an end in itself.
There you have John's part. All he could do was to baptise with water. That was a kind of token or sign to Israel that the Christ was about to be revealed.
The water also said something about the people who went into it:
This was the basis of John's baptizing. It put Jews in the place of death, owning their total ruin under law. That was the only proper moral preparation, since the Lord of glory was present.
John explains his own work, and none of it was meant to gather people around himself:
He answers the question of the Pharisees, "Why do you baptize?" He was closing up the old order by baptism, to reveal Christ to Israel as the great Centre of the new order of blessing. He was not there to reveal himself. He hid himself so that Christ "might be revealed".
The word does not mean that Israel would believe:
Its true force is that what existed but was hidden has come into view. Faith of course gains by it, and in some cases it becomes a testimony to others. But the revealing is complete whatever its effects. This is true even where the verse names the people to whom the revealing was made, as John 1:31 makes certain. For our Lord was revealed to Israel; yet they, His own, did not receive Him. God brought Him to light for the very people that refused Him.
There is a lesson in the herald's own blindness for anyone who now speaks of Christ to others:
He adds also that he had been blind as to His glory, as the world itself was. Divine love and power alone brought us out of the state we were in. Being aware of that will make us rely on the same grace for others, and on nothing else but grace.
- Unknown. Christ stood among His own people, and no one knew Him. John's "I did not know him" means he had not known Him as Messiah, not that they had never met.
- Revealed. No one could identify Him by natural means, not even the greatest born of women. It took a word from God, received by faith.
- Water. John's baptism was a token to Israel that the Christ was about to appear. It put those who accepted it in the place of death, owning the nation's ruin.
- Hidden. John closed the old order and stepped out of sight, so that Christ, not the herald, would be the centre of everything new.
- Refused. God brought His Son into full view for the very people who turned Him away. The revealing was complete whether they believed or not.