1:19-34 The Christ, the Son of God

February 13, 2021

Read John 1:19-34

John now begins to tell the story of the ministry of Jesus, but his main aim is still to introduce us to who Jesus is, in line with his stated purpose that we might believe that “Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God” (20:31). He does this through the witness of John the Baptist which he has already referred to (1:6-8,15) and which he now relates in more detail.

In his insistence that “I am not the Christ” (20) John suggested implicitly that someone else is i.e. the one to whom he bears witness. That’s confirmed by his description of Jesus as the one anointed by the Spirit because the word Christ means the one anointed by God (32-33). The quotation from Isaiah 40:3 tells us that he also recognised Jesus as “the Lord” (23), the title used for God throughout the Old Testament. All this leads to the climax of this section and the pronouncement that Jesus is the Son of God (34). The Father-Son relationship between God and Jesus is at the heart of this gospel and the key aspect of who Jesus is (5:17-18).

There are two other important titles that John the Baptist used for Jesus in this passage and these point us to what he had come to do. Jesus is “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (29), pointing to his sacrificial death on the cross so that our sins can be forgiven (1 John 2:2). He is also the one “who will baptise with the Holy Spirit” (33). To follow Jesus, we need not only cleansing but also new life – the abundant life of the Holy Spirit. Jesus, the Son of God, gives this double gift to all who believe in him (Acts 2:38-39).