John 3.26-36.
When John and his students were baptizing in Enon-by-Saleim, the students came to John to tattle on Jesus:
John 3.26 KWL - The students come to John and tell him, “Rabbi,
- ‘the one who comes after you,’
Jn 1.15 - of whom you testified beyond the Jordan:
- Look, he’s baptizing.
- And everyone is coming to him.”
John’s response was to remind them what he had always taught: His job is to prepare people for Messiah—and here’s Messiah! Why on earth weren’t they rejoicing? He was.
John 3.27-30 KWL - 27 In reply John says, “A person can’t receive anything
- unless it had been given to him out of heaven.
- 28 You yourselves witnessed me say this:
- ‘I’m not Messiah.’
- But I’m the one sent before this person—
- 29 the one who has the bride.
- He’s the groom.
- The groom’s friend, who stood and hears him with joy,
- rejoices at the sound of the groom.
- So this is my joy, fulfilled.
- 30 This person must grow larger.
- And I must shrink.”
I once heard a commentator claim there are no parables in the gospel of John. I don’t know what book he was reading; John has plenty of parables and analogies in it. John uses one right here, to compare himself and Jesus to a groomsman and a groom. (The
In our culture, a wedding is the bride’s party; less so (sometimes far less so) the groom’s. Ancient middle easterners did it just the opposite: It was the groom’s party. It was at his house; he hosted it; he bought the food and drinks. And
This was always John’s role. And goal! Unlike most ministers, who die long before their work ever gets fulfilled, John got to see the fruits of his labors: He got to see the Messiah he’d been proclaiming for years. And his first thought isn’t, “Well now what do I do with my life?” It’s kinda obvious, isn’t it? It’s to celebrate!
No, John didn’t disband his ministry and start traveling with Jesus himself. That wasn’t his duty. He was to keep doing as he was doing, and keep pointing people to Messiah. But people would stop following him, and start following Jesus, as was always the plan. Not only was John fine with this,
Few Christians nowadays are as fine with this as John was. When another ministry grows larger than ours, or supersedes what we’re doing by doing it better, we don’t always respond, “Wonderful! This’ll do so much more for the kingdom than I could.” More often: “Who the hell are they? Who do they think they are? We were the ones toiling in the heat of the day, and they just swoop in and have this huge success? Oh no. They need to respect us. They need to get in line. This is our territory. These are our sheep.”
No it’s not, and they’re not. Everything belongs to Jesus. Either we’re working for him, and always have been; or we aren’t, and were always really working for ourselves. If our beloved boss promotes someone else, either we trust he knows best—like we’ve been claiming he does all this time!—or we never really did trust him;
Basically whenever Christians get jealous fellow Christians, we’re never being jealous for Jesus. We’re actually being jealous of Jesus. We want the success—not for his sake, but for our own. If it’s for his sake, we’ll be thrilled when any fellow Christian, any sister church, any Christian ministry, is doing well. Their successes are our successes, for we’re all on the same team.
Unless we’re not. Unless, instead of groomsmen, we’re there to compete with the groom for his bride.
Whether John the baptist said the next bit.
A number of bible translations don’t attribute this next verses to John the baptist. They don’t put it in quotes. They figure the author of John wrote it; it’s his commentary on the situation.
Why? ’Cause this passage is pretty advanced Christology, and they suspect it’s too high for some hairy thunderer who lives in the wilderness, eating bugs and honey.
There’s a faction of scholars who think high Christology is a later invention of the ancient Christians: That either the apostles didn’t teach it at all, or a small minority like Paul did, and so the Christians added high-Christology ideas to the New Testament. So Jesus’s statements about himself
So once you remove the quotes from this passage, you can take these words right out of the prophet’s mouth, or right out of our Lord’s mouth—and take away the whole point of this gospel: Testimonies. More than once, the author deliberately pointed to the fact he was quoting others.
Once you remove the quotation marks from this passage, you can take these words right out of the prophet’s mouth. Once you remove ’em from the Nicodemus discourse, you can take ’em right out of our Lord’s mouth. And in so doing, you take away the whole point of this gospel: Testimonies. More than once, the author of John deliberately points to the fact he’s quoting other people.
But there’s a lot of snobbish condescension in the idea John the baptist didn’t say this stuff. As if John couldn’t possibly have deep ideas. They’re forgetting that when we’re full of the Holy Spirit,
So I don’t have a problem with making this a John quote. Yes it’s possible John didn’t say it, but it’s just as possible he did. Either way
What John the baptist believed about Jesus.
So as John kindly rebuked his students, he reminded ’em this is the guy he came to proclaim—and this is the guy who knows God best, ’cause he came from God and is God.
John 3.30-36 KWL - 30 “This person must grow larger.
- And I must shrink.
- 31 One who comes from above,
- is above everything.
- One who’s from the earth,
- is from earth, and speaks from earth.
- One who comes from heaven is above everything—
- 32 he testifies to what he’s seen and heard,
- and nobody receives his testimony!
- 33 But one who receives his testimony
- notarizes that God is true,
- 34 for he whom God sends
- speaks God’s words,
- for he gives him the Spirit without a measurement.
- 35 The Father loves the Son
- and put everything in his hand.
- 36 One who believes in the Son
- has life in the next age.
- One who disobeys the Son won’t see life,
- but God’s wrath stays on them.”
The reason I figure John the baptist did teach this passage is because it fits so well with what he taught: Jesus is greater than he, and he must become less. And here’s why. Jesus came from above. He’s above everything. Whereas John was just “from earth,” and all he knew was what he was told. Jesus had the experiences. John just had a message. Jesus has the authority and power. John was just the herald, speaking secondhand stuff which isn’t even close to Jesus’s level of intimacy with the Father.
This is why we gotta follow Jesus. Not John, though John’s great. Not prophets, though (the real ones, anyway) are likewise great. You know how humans are: We build entire sects around our prophets. We even name churches and schools after ’em. John’s followers could’ve easily turned Johannism into a new branch of the Hebrew religion. (Or, to coin a term, they could’ve called themselves Baptists.) But the Johannites were always meant to fold into the Nazarene’s group. The words of John were always meant to point people to Jesus—and the words of Jesus are eternal life.
That’s why we Christians revere John, and why Jesus speaks so highly of him. He understood Jesus far better than anyone else at the time. But like Jesus later said, anyone in God’s kingdom can reach John’s level.
Now for the naysayers: John the baptist, they point out, is the guy
Meh; the “John the baptist with doubts” didn’t exist. That’s a misinterpretation. Here, let’s check out that story again.
Luke 7.18-23 NET - 18 John’s disciples informed him about all these things. So John called two of his disciples 19 and sent them to Jesus to ask, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?” 20 When the men came to Jesus, they said, “John the Baptist has sent us to you to ask, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?’ ” 21 At that very time Jesus cured many people of diseases, sicknesses, and evil spirits, and granted sight to many who were blind. 22 So he answered them, “Go tell John what you have seen and heard: The blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news proclaimed to them. 23 Blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”
But Jesus’s message was not actually for John. Remember John 3: John’s students had grown jealous of Jesus because they didn’t know who he was. Their master knew. They didn’t.
When their master was arrested and thrown into prison, they continued to stick to John the baptist. Not follow Jesus,
Part of the reason for the gospel of John was to fill in the blanks in Luke, and one of those blanks is the misconception John lost heart while in prison. Hey, such an experience might shake anyone. Maybe John cracked a little. But certainly not that far. He knew who Jesus was.
It’s why Jesus followed up with some really nice compliments about John.
And when we get the shakes, Jesus is the one we need to turn to. Go visit one of Jesus’s ministries. Go look at all the people who’re getting blessed by it. Especially if it’s one where miracles happen—where the blind do see, the deaf do hear, as well as the poor hearing the gospel. That’ll unshake your faith.
