1:35-51 Jesus’ First Disciples: “Come and See”
1:19-51
Preparation for Jesus’ Public Ministry
The actual gospel story begins in 1:19. Up to the end of ch. 1 the story is limited to the account of the preparations leading to Jesus’ public ministry, that is, to the witness of John the Baptist and the attendant calling of a number of disciples. Elsewhere, too, John’s ministry is mentioned as the beginning of the gospel (cf. Mk. 1:1; Ac. 1:22; 10:37; 13:24); similarly, it is also said of the disciples that from the beginning, as Jesus’ witnesses, they had been with him (cf. 15:27; Lk. 1:2). But as will appear from what follows, in his account of these two things the Evangelist John goes his own way, one that is most characteristic for his whole Gospel.
Accordingly, the second part of ch. 1 clearly falls into two parts. The first concerns John’s witness, including, in vss. 19-28, his self-testimony to “the Jews” and, in vss. 29-34, his direct witness concerning Jesus. Then, as the immediate result of this witness, John’s disciples come into the company of Jesus (vss. 35f.), and Peter, Philip, and Nathanael are called (vss. 41-51). The section as a whole clearly forms a unit. The last word of the Baptist prompts his disciples to go to the “coming one,” who has now appeared. That John does this exemplifies his significance, not only in its salvation-historical “once-for-allness” but no less as the permanent starting point for the faith and formation of the coming church.
1:19-28
The Forerunner
19 The transition from the prologue to 1:19ff. is smooth, in regard to both the conjunction used (a simple “and”) and the content: “This is the testimony of John,” which picks up the theme begun in vss. 6-8 and 15. This again shows how closely the prologue and the gospel story are linked and how essential vss. 6-8 and 15 are for that connection. It also shows that the Evangelist’s sole concern is the testimony of John concerning Jesus (cf. vs. 6).
What is said about John in vss. 19ff. does not relate to the beginning and course of his ministry but to a time when he had already become generally known and Jesus himself had already come to be baptized by him. This also shows that the Evangelist assumes that his readers know of John and his ministry; hence in writing his Gospel he does not have a primarily missionary purpose. He addresses himself, rather, to an already existing Christian community and seeks to bring it to a deeper insight into what it already knows as the gospel of Jesus Christ (cf. 20:31).
The first testimony of John relates to his own place and calling in the redemptive process, which began with his coming and is presented to a commission of inquiry consisting of priests and Levites sent by “the Jews” of Jerusalem.
“The Jews” in the Gospel of John
Here for the first time we encounter the term “the Jews,” which recurs frequently in this Gospel. Although its meaning in John shows clear nuances, we will have to proceed exegetically from the general usage current in the post-Old Testament period, when both “Jew” and “Israelite” were used to indicate that a person belonged by ancestry to Israel both as a people and as a religious community. Increasingly “Jew” displaced “Israelite.” Whereas “Israel” was still the people’s self-designation, “Jew” was generally used by non-Jews for Jews, and Jews in the diaspora gradually adopted this designation.
As a rule this Evangelist adopts this usage; he rarely uses “Israel” or “Israelite,” and only when he is citing statements made by Palestinian Jews among themselves (1:31, 47; 3:10) or when he is referring to standardized names or texts (1:49; 12:13). He himself lives and writes (as a Jew) in an environment in which the term “Jews” was used exclusively; and he writes for readers who, even if they are themselves Jews, live at a great distance—in time, place, and mind—from the events in Palestine recounted in the Gospel and who therefore need to be more precisely informed in many respects about the customs, etc., of “the Jews” (cf., e.g., 4:9; 19:40).
Obviously this does not mean that “Jew” had a negative connotation for them. The Evangelist speaks of Jesus himself as a Jew (4:9) just as Jesus can say to the Samaritan woman who addresses him as such that salvation is “from the Jews” (4:22). And the Evangelist mentions many Jews who believe in Jesus (8:31; cf. 11:45; 12:11). The feasts “of the Jews” are mentioned with no negative connotation (cf. 6:4; 2:13; 5:1; see also 19:40; 42; 3:1, etc.).
Nevertheless—and this is an important nuance in the Fourth Gospel—“the Jews” are frequently seen in dialogue with Jesus, and the term thereby acquires a strong connotation of “Jews who are hostile to Jesus,” with special reference in many cases (a sharp line of demarcation is impossible here!) to the Jewish leaders and authorities. For instance, it is said that the feast pilgrims—themselves Jews!—dared not speak about Jesus “for fear of the Jews” (7:13; similarly 9:22; 19:38; 20:19), who in that case are those more specifically called “the Pharisees” elsewhere (12:42; cf. also 5:10 with 9:13).
Therefore, this specific sense of “the Jews” is not based on anything inherent in the word itself or on any desire of the Evangelist to give the term itself a denigrating overtone. It reflects, rather, the historical reality that in Jesus’ confrontation with the Israel of his day the people generally and especially their religious leaders did not accept him as the Messiah and Son of God. The use of this designation neither implies a contrast between Jews and non-Jews nor, even less, reflects a racist or anti-Semitic tendency. It represents, rather, the dominant religious decision of the Jewish people themselves. Even then one will have to guard against a generalizing explanation that suggests that this nuance contains an exclusive tendency toward all Jews and everything that is Jewish. There is in this Gospel a spectrum of nuances, from “the Jews” as the people called and chosen by God to salvation (cf. 4:22) to “the Jews” as the leading aristocracy, those that sought Jesus’ destruction (cf., e.g., 5:18; 7:1; 11:8, etc.).1
In ch. 1 there is no pressing reason to take “the Jews” to mean, already here, religious opponents of John and his testimony (cf. 5:33, 35). But Jewish leaders are meant here, and, considering the role they will play in this Gospel, one can say that from the start, in their conduct toward John and his witness to the Light (cf. vs. 7), the “darkness” (vs. 5) is casting its shadow forward.2
At first, the Jewish authorities limited themselves to gathering information, though they soon proceeded to asking critical questions. The use of priests and Levites as emissaries can be understood in light of the fact that John’s ministry was characterized by the baptism to which he called people. In the sphere of “purification” (cf. 3:25) priests and Levites were the most expert and involved.
The core question in this first encounter is: “You, who are you?” The intent, of course, is not to inquire into John’s personal background but into what and who in his ministry and baptism he claimed to be; specifically, as is evident from the questions that follow, what significance he believed he should attribute to himself within the context of the judgment that he was so emphatically announcing and the baptism he offered as a means of escaping that judgment (cf., e.g., Mt. 3:7). In other words, the question concerns John’s “eschatological” or “salvation-historical” identity, which determines everything about his ministry.
20 The terms in which John’s reaction is described characterize it as an answer in a legal examination (in keeping with the forensic meaning of “testimony”). “Confess” and “deny” therefore do not relate to faith but mean something like “clearly acknowledge.” Both verbs are used absolutely: “He clearly stated it and did not hedge.” Then the first verb returns with a dependent clause: “He declared openly ‘I am not the Christ.’ ” The emphasis thus put on the denial (partly by the initial position of “I”) repeats forcefully what has been said in vs. 8 and will be repeated again in 3:28. Many interpreters regard this as polemically directed against the sect of John’s adherents, who regarded him as the Messiah (see above, on vs. 15). It seems hard to determine whether and to what extent the Fourth Gospel would have wanted or would have been able to take a position against this notion—which can only be shown to have existed in a later period. In any case, the repeated emphasis on John’s testimony that he is not the Messiah is not only or primarily to be explained in terms of polemical considerations but rather in terms of “the Evangelist’s desire to portray John as the ideal witness to Christ,”3 one who as much as possible diverted all attention away from himself and onto Christ. In his emphatic and repeated “I am not” he leaves no doubt that the question itself, namely that of the coming of the Messiah, was at issue in a most existential way. But one must not misidentify the person who is the Messiah.
21 This is confirmed by the fact that John not only disclaims all messianic dignity for himself but also rejects the notion suggested by the Jews that he might (believe himself to) be “Elijah” or “the prophet.” To these questions as well John gives the negative answer that he gave to the first, apparently with the same intent.4
It is not easy to say precisely what the role of “the prophet” and of “Elijah”—expected on the basis of Dt. 18:15 and Ml. 3:23—was thought to be, either in regard to their mutual relationship or their position in relation to the coming Messiah. Some scholars think that messianic significance was attributed especially to “the prophet,” specifically in connection with Moses and his miracles.5 The Qumran writings refer frequently to “the prophet,” sometimes in close conjunction with “the anointed one of Aaron” and “the anointed one of Israel” (1 QS 11). Some see in these three figures the three figures referred to here in vs. 25.6 Still, especially in regard to “Elijah,” a great deal remains uncertain here. In any case, at Qumran as here and in 7:40f., “the prophet” and the Messiah are clearly distinguished. Elsewhere in ancient Jewish writings Elijah plays a large eschatological role as the Messiah’s forerunner, as the one whose task it is to prepare the people for the Messiah’s coming and, to this end, to “restore all things” (as summarized in Mt. 17:11).7
However much his public conduct and the spirit and power of his preaching of repentance reminded people of Elijah, John himself rejected any notion that he would identify his coming with that of Elijah redivivus or of “the prophet,” however that was understood. Evidently he knew himself to be the inferior of the coming one (cf. vs. 27) so well that he rejected as unbecoming to himself every claim to a role in which, according to Jewish eschatology, the glory of the coming bringer of salvation would also radiate from him.8 In light of this, one can also understand that later, when John’s ministry had lost its initial appeal among the masses, Jesus called him a prophet, even more than a prophet, and in fact, against all appearances (“if you are willing to accept it”), pointed him out as the Elijah who was to come (Mt. 11:9ff., 14).
22 The emissaries are not content with John’s negative answers. If he is neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the prophet, then who is he? They add that they are asking him these questions as persons who have been “sent.” He must be aware that his public conduct has attracted attention on the highest levels and therefore that there must be an answer. Therefore, “What do you say about yourself?”
23 John’s answer to this question consists of a direct reference to the prophecy in Isaiah 40. It is noteworthy that he refers the words of Is. 40:3 to himself quite explicitly: The last clause of vs. 23 apparently also belongs to what John said. In the Synoptics this reference to Isaiah 40 is an interpretation of the Evangelists or of the tradition they followed. One is inclined to think that the Johannine Evangelist put this (later) interpretation in John’s own mouth. Obviously that is not an impossibility. But neither is the reverse, that is, that the Baptist identified himself with the herald of Isaiah 40. In this regard it may be pointed out that the Qumran sect, which was active in the same region and period as John, also related its existence “in the wilderness” to Isaiah 40. Hence it is certainly not inconceivable that John also made this connection and that the interpretation of the Synoptics is traceable to him and not vice versa.9
By basing his mission on Isaiah 40, John both places it in the light of the great prophecy and expectation of the coming kingdom of God and also clearly distinguishes himself from the one who is to bring salvation. His role is restricted to that of preparing the way for the Lord. He who is coming is near, but his “path” has not yet been made level. The region that he desires to pass through is still desolate and impassable. Therefore the forerunner’s voice resounds “in the wilderness”; it is a cry for straight and level paths, for penitence and conversion, without which the people cannot receive the coming one. So John identifies himself, and in his self-identification, against the background of the great salvation motif of prophecy (cf. Is. 40:1ff.) and over against Israel’s spiritual leaders, the light unmistakably falls on the desperate spiritual condition of the people under that leadership.
Verse 24 first tells the readers, for their further information, that the emissaries are in part also members of the Pharisaic party,10 who in the remainder of the Gospel repeatedly act over against Jesus as the representatives of official Judaism, with or without the cooperation of the chief priests (cf. 4:1; 7:32, 45f.; 8:3, 13; 9:13f.; 11:46, 47, 57; 12:42; 18:3). That these Pharisaic emissaries are mentioned here separately as those who ask further questions in vs. 25 is probably intended to make clear that the most influential party stalwarts among the Jews were involved in this confrontation—which places in even sharper relief the critical element in the confrontation.
25 Their next question does not relate to John’s self-testimony. Apparently their greatest concern was not that he acted as a preacher of penitence. What interested them most in his public conduct was baptism, which he linked with penitence within the context of the message of judgment, thus offering people a means of escape from judgment (“flee from the wrath to come,” Mt. 3:7). Their repeated reference to the Messiah, Elijah, and the prophet does not imply that these figures were expected to baptize, but it does imply that one who baptized with a view to the judgment to come certainly had to possess “eschatological” authority such as these expected figures did. Therefore, “Why—and on whose authority—do you baptize?”
26, 27 John’s answer is plain. In one sentence it describes precisely both his own situation and their involvement in it. Here we have the first half of the pronouncement that we know from the other Evangelists (cf. Mt. 3:11): “I baptize with water.” The second half does not come until vs. 33. With “I baptize” John stands by his own ministry and authority as baptizer, but with “with water” he relativizes the significance of his ministry by immediately linking it with a reference to one “who comes after” him. The opening words thus acquire concessive meaning: “True, I baptize, but.…”11 By stating the matter thus he informs his interrogators at the outset that any self-elevation of which they apparently suspect him is foreign to him. Whoever he himself may be, in comparison to the one who coming after him, even serving that person as a slave would be too great an honor for John.12 This is what he has “to say about himself” (cf. vs. 22). When he baptized, his task consisted in nothing other than pointing away from himself and toward the coming one.
By introducing the coming one to his interrogators in this way John indicates that as long as they occupy themselves with him they do not realize what is really happening in the wilderness in which he preaches and baptizes. After all, the “one [who] stands among you whom you do not know” is he of whose superiority John is utterly convinced. This does not necessarily mean that on that day Jesus was personally present in John’s audience (cf. vs. 29). But it does mean that he who was to come had arrived—his presence among them was an accomplished fact—and therefore that attention to him was a matter of the greatest relevance and urgency for them. Many interpreters think that in “whom you do not know” a theme is being struck that was already sounded in the prologue (vss. 10f.) and that makes itself felt with increasing force as an indictment against “the Jews,” who inquire concerning one who is already among them, though they do not acknowledge him.13 But this is questionable. In vss. 31 and 33 John also says of himself that he “did not know” the coming one before God pointed him out. In the same sense “the Jews” did not know him. They were still at the stage where they needed someone to point Jesus out and make him known to them, and it was John’s task (vs. 31), by his baptism with water, to do just that, to make Jesus known to Israel. But here this point is not yet made in so many words. John ends his testimony to “the Jews”—very characteristically, to be sure!—with “whom you do not know” even while “he stands among you.” If therefore they want to go home with an answer for those who have sent them, it is this: There is more at stake in John’s baptism than they are apparently aware of.
In the repeated reference to “not knowing” and “being revealed” in vs. 31 some scholars see an allusion to the notion—current in certain Jewish circles—that before appearing in public the Messiah would first live a hidden life on earth. Occasionally also 7:27 is interpreted in that fashion.14 Though there could be terminological affinities here, this repeated “not knowing” is intended to stress not correspondence with a certain Jewish pattern of expectation concerning the Messiah, but rather the special and undeniable revelational character of John’s testimony. What drove John to his public action as forerunner of the coming one and to his baptizing “with water” was not his own initiative or his arrogant desire to be something special; it was solely the result of the prompting of the one who sent him to prepare for and identify the coming of him who would baptize with the Holy Spirit (see further the comments on vss. 31ff.). And it was this knowledge that “the Jews” from Jerusalem still lacked, knowledge needed to acknowledge as Messiah this one who stood among them.
The Evangelist restricts the words to “the Jews” to this general statement. The more specific nature and content of the glory of the coming one will not be expressed until “the next day,” when Jesus himself will appear on the scene.
28 The topographical reference with which the pericope is concluded (as elsewhere, cf. 6:59; 8:20; 11:54) marks a division in the text and imparts to what follows its own weight, which leads to the climax of John’s testimony. The reference also underscores the historic importance of John’s conduct and the trustworthiness of the narrative as referring to what really happened in a real place. The actual location of this Bethany beyond the Jordan (cf. 3:26; 10:40) can no longer be ascertained with any certainty.15 Although a symbolic interpretation of the name has been attempted, it has not been persuasive.
1:29-34
“Behold, God’s Lamb!”
29 In this pericope John’s witness to Jesus reaches its climax, no longer as his response to questions from “the Jews” but as his reaction to the appearance of Jesus himself. Now—on “the next day”—there is no mention of “the Jews” or, indeed, of any audience, though an audience is of course assumed. Nor is there any further explanation of Jesus’ coming to John. The readers’ knowledge of the person of Jesus, who appears here for the first time, is assumed, as is knowledge that at a certain time he went from Galilee to the Jordan and answered the general call to be baptized (Mt. 3:13). We are not, therefore, dealing with Jesus’ first encounter with John. Though it has not been described, John’s baptizing activity has already been taking place (vs. 33). But all these historical details remain unmentioned.
What is at stake here is John’s central witness that he gives about the coming one, as he stands face-to-face with him, in the solemn form of a revelational utterance:16 “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” The first part of this pronouncement is repeated in vs. 36. The pronouncement is clearly intended, both there and there, as the descriptive statement most characteristic of John’s witness.17
What follows in vss. 30ff. provides a more detailed account of how John came to understand that Jesus was the coming bringer of salvation. While these explanatory statements clearly reflect traditions that we also find in the Synoptics, the opening pronouncement itself (“Behold, the Lamb of God …”) is exclusively Johannine and on the face of it does not appear to find further explanation in vss. 30ff.
Many scholars even believe that this first pronouncement cannot be understood within the limits of the Baptist’s message itself since, they assume, it refers directly to the expiatory power of Jesus’ sacrificial death. John would thus, in his first witness to Jesus, be anticipating everything that was still to come and immediately saying “the last thing” about Jesus without giving any further explication of it. But even if one rejects this argument and ascribes such foreknowledge of Jesus’ future sacrificial death to John’s special inspiration as a prophet,18 the objection remains that the pronouncement is still not clearly integrated into the context. And the same objection applies no less to the view that it is a later Christian interpretation of Jesus’ coming and work, specifically of his death, that the Evangelist put in the mouth of John the Baptist as basic to the understanding of the Gospel.19 For with however much justification one can say that all historical gospel stories contain interpretive elements in their construction, this does not mean that the Evangelists put into the mouth of just anyone, at just any point in the narrative, all that the church gradually came to confess on the basis of the gospel narrative without the least concern about the historical context. Here, how should one view the idea that at the center of the Baptist’s witness the Evangelist put into his mouth a pronouncement about Jesus for which the context contained not a single explanation or even a point of contact?20
It is not surprising, therefore, that many scholars have been unable to content themselves with explaining vs. 29 as something imported—an explanation that does not arise from the context—but have taken great pains to arrive at a solution within the framework of John’s own witness.
Various attempts deserve mention:
a) According to one view, the pronouncement about the Lamb of God reflects the heavenly voice that John heard at the baptism of Jesus and by which, according to the Synoptic tradition, Jesus was designated (with an allusion to Is. 42:1) as God’s beloved Son, in whom God was well pleased (cf. Mk. 1:11; Mt. 3:17). Hence, proceeding from this identification of Jesus with the Servant of the Lord in Isaiah 42, the Baptist is said to have referred here especially to the sequel of this prophecy in Isaiah 53, where the Servant vicariously takes the sins of others on himself and is compared, in his voiceless suffering, with a lamb (though not with a sacrificial lamb: cf. Is. 53:5f.). In favor of this view is that it moves in the direction indicated by John himself in vss. 30ff. Against it is that for his “knowledge” of Jesus John does not appeal to the voice that spoke at the baptism (about which he is completely silent) but to the descent of the Spirit onto Jesus. Also, even if one should insist on thinking of the voice, the objection remains that one cannot, certainly not directly, derive from the allusion to Is. 42:1 the proclamation of Jesus as the suffering Servant of the Lord who expiates the sin of the world.21
b) Other scholars believe that this last objection could be resolved if for this utterance (“Behold, the Lamb of God”) one went back to the Aramaic. Άμνóς is said to be the translation of ṭalyâ, which, besides “lamb,” can also mean “servant” or “boy” (παῖς). The assumption then is that in the Greek tradition a shift took place from the originally intended “servant of God” to “Lamb of God.” This change in the Greek is supposed to have arisen in connection with the concept—which later emerged in the church—of the Messiah as the sacrificial lamb.22 But apart from the general objection (see above) that for this explanation one has to appeal to the voice at the baptism, to which the Baptist does not refer, there are other objections against this subtle hypothesis. Ṭalyâ is not the most obvious translation of ʿebed in Is. 42:1f. One would rather expect Aramaic ʾabdāʾ since ṭalyâ usually means “boy” and not “servant.” Furthermore, τοῦ θεοῦ is not used of the Servant in Isaiah 42.23
c) Similar objections have to be advanced against Schlatter’s view, which is that the Baptist’s pronouncement is based on Jesus’ willingness to be baptized by John and thus to put himself in the company of sinners.24 It is just as true of the baptism as it is of the voice from heaven that it is not mentioned.
d) Dodd has suggested an entirely different background against which to understand John’s pronouncement about the Lamb of God.25 He points out that in the Old Testament the lamb is “not the characteristic sin-offering” and that the widely favored opinion that the reference here is to Christ as the true paschal lamb is highly improbable because that symbolism is nowhere mentioned in the story of Jesus’ suffering and death and because the indirect evidences cited for it are weak.26 Also the expression “take away sin” need not be understood in the sense of “vicariously bearing sin away” but can also very well refer to “removal,” that is, more an act of power than one of expiation or atonement. Dodd also believes that in the expression “Lamb of God” we are dealing with an original messianic title of power, as it is in Revelation, where the lamb shares in the omnipotence of God (Rv. 22:1, 3) and battles against God’s enemies (14:1-5; 17:14; cf. 5:6). This image is said to occur elsewhere in apocalyptic literature where the people of God is pictured as a flock and its leaders as horned sheep or rams,27 as in Revelation, which mentions a many-horned lamb.
Others such as Barrett28 and Brown29 have followed Dodd partly in attributing this supposed apocalyptic understanding of the “Lamb of God” to John the Baptist. The church, they say, later associated John’s pronouncement with the expiatory function of the Lamb. According to Barrett, it was in reflection on the Lord’s Supper that these different elements came together.30 The expression then refers to Jesus as the eschatological, true, God-given Lamb in whom the paschal meal celebrated at the exodus finds its eschatological fulfillment. Thus, though in the Baptist’s saying the title is said to have a historic point of connection, in later reflection it came to be joined with other elements, namely expiatory death, passover, and eucharist.
However weighty the objections that Dodd has advanced against the traditional interpretation and however much there is to be said for the view that in vs. 29 we are dealing with a title of power (see below), the basis for the apocalyptic significance of the lamb as an image of power and of messianic leadership of the people of God is weak. The material culled from a few scattered utterances in Jewish apocalyptic literature is certainly not adequate to support the conclusion that we are dealing with an existing messianic title of power.31 And in the Revelation of John the horned lamb does serve as a representation of Christ’s position of power, but it does so as the image of the crucified one, now exalted, whose violent death is determinative for our understanding of the figure (“a lamb standing as though it had been slain,” Rv. 5:6, etc.).
e) The view of P. J. du Plessis is based on extensive and astute structural analysis and is affirmed against all “diachronic” explanations of ἀμνóς. He, too, believes that John’s pronouncement relates not to Jesus’ future suffering and humiliation but rather to his power and glory. This is the case with the “taking away of sin,” which is further described as the “baptism with the Holy Spirit” in vs. 33, that is, as the authority and power to take away sin. And it also applies to ἀμνóς, a term that must be understood in the context—in terms of the glory of the coming one as the only begotten of the Father and as the Son of God—as a terminus gloriae, that is, as the expression of the tenderness, love, and glory that proceed from God to Jesus as his only begotten Son. “If one now asks,” writes du Plessis, “precisely why he uses the word ἄμνος, it is not because the word itself carries the tenderness, love, and glory, but because, in and by his argumentation, the author assigns this meaning to the word.”32
Although, as will be clear from what follows, we consider du Plessis’s analysis of John 1 most illuminating, specifically in the manner in which he wants to see the pronouncement of vs. 29 explained as totally rooted and integrated in the context, this filling out of the word ἀμνóς purely on the basis of the context and without clear points of contact in what the word means “as such” seems a bit forced. From a semantic point of view, the combination “lamb” and “sin” is too specific for the exegete to ignore the intrinsic connection between the two concepts; all the less because (see below) the idea of plenary authority inherent in this pronouncement, as correctly pointed out by du Plessis, thereby need not be abandoned.
In light of the total picture, the pronouncement in vs. 29 can hardly be understood other than as John’s pointing to Jesus as the Lamb of God because it is Jesus who will effect the reconciliation of the world to God. On closer scrutiny, the thesis that such a description of Jesus in the language of Israel’s sacrificial cult would not fit in the context of John’s preaching is hard to maintain, at least as long as one guards against overinterpretation,33 that is, against any interpretation not based on the context here but on any of a variety of specific expiatory motifs derived from elsewhere, such as Isaiah 53, Christ as the true paschal lamb, or the institution of the Lord’s Supper.
In general one can say, as does Schlatter, that where penitence and conversion are the issue, as in John’s preaching, “the matter of sacrifice takes on the greatest importance.” After all, in Israel the ministry of reconciliation was centered not on a ritual of baptism but in the temple service, and that not only incidentally at the high points of the liturgy but rather in the continual daily morning and evening sacrifice of a one-year-old lamb.34 We do not know John’s attitude toward the ministry of sacrifice practiced in Jerusalem. But it is clear that—though himself the son of a priest—he did not fulfill his mandate of calling people to faith and repentance from sin within the setting of the temple service but, like the Qumran sect, distanced himself from that setting. And his criticism of the official Judaism of the day is just as unmistakable from what else we know of him (cf. Mt. 3:7ff.) and of those who opposed his public ministry (cf. Jn. 1:19ff.), namely, that they included “priests and Levites.”
This is not to say, of course, that the whole idea of the ministry of sacrifice as the foundation of communion between God and his people and of his indwelling in Israel was for John a strange or objectionable thing. When on the day after his meeting with the temple authorities he points to Jesus as the Lamb of God, there is rather implied in this most striking, absolute description that, in place of and as the fulfillment of the continual (tāmîd) sacrificial lamb in the temple service, God himself is now, once and for all, providing the true (“eschatological”) Lamb (cf. Gn. 22:8) that takes away the sin of the world. The idea that in this statement John immediately, by implication, also refers to Jesus’ death as the way in which God would vicariously take away the sin of the world is a conclusion for the support of which one can of course adduce all sorts of material from the outside (“diachronically”), but which is by no means prompted by the words of the text as it stands (or by the Gospel as a whole).35 All that is said here in one splendid and comprehensive pronouncement is that from now on Jesus acts and answers for the reconciliation and indwelling fellowship between God and his people symbolized till now by the lamb—and does so for the whole world. The pronouncement limits itself to that general and foundational thought: Jesus is the Lamb, as he is also the temple (2:19) and as the rituals of the great festivals in Jerusalem and the meaning of the sabbath find their fulfillment in him (see the comments on 7:37ff.; 8:12; 7:22ff.).36
Certainly in all this lies the continuity between the old and the new (see the comments on 1:17). But at the same time it is clear that in Jesus the boundaries of the old are absolutely transcended in regard to the place of worship, the manner of God’s indwelling, the way of reconciliation (cf., e.g., 4:21ff.), and also the effect of all this for the whole world. It is—as is clearly apparent from the context (see the comments on vs. 30)—that wholly other and superior dimension in the effectuation of reconciliation between God and the world that the Lamb of God, as presently pointed out by John, provides, and that not only with a view to John’s own mission but also with reference to the entire dispensation of salvation in force up to this point.
For that reason, those interpreters who speak here of a terminus gloriae or title of power (see above) are correct in substance. Jesus is the Lamb provided by God, but in this passage not in his capacity as one who will humble himself to death, but in his God-given power and authority to take away the sin of the world and thus to open the way to God for the whole world. That all this will also require him to give himself for the life of the world will emerge in ever clearer terms in what follows, that is, in the disclosure by Jesus himself of the deepest secret of his mission (see the comments on 3:13ff.; 6:51ff.; 10:15, 17f.; 13:8). But there, too, in keeping with the nature of this Gospel’s soteriology, this will be constantly accompanied by an appeal to the “power” granted to Jesus by the Father. It will be depicted, that is, as the self-surrender of the Son of man who descended from heaven (see the comments on 3:13ff. and 6:53), “into whose hands” “the Father has given all things” (13:1, 3) and who has “power to lay down his life and to take it up again” (10:17f.).
But, as we have said, it was not in the nature of John’s mission to anticipate all this in a single “cryptic saying” but rather, at the first appearance of the coming one to Israel, to point out, in its fundamental significance, the reversal in the divine dispensation of salvation that the Lamb was to accomplish (cf. 1:17); and that not only for the worshipers in the ceremonial temple service at Jerusalem but for all those in the world who worship God in spirit and truth (cf. 4:21-24).
30 All this is true all the more because, as stated earlier, the pronouncement in vs. 29 does not function structurally as an isolated foreign element in this context but has the form of an emphatically positioned revelational utterance that will be elaborated and further explained in what now follows37 and will be echoed in vs. 36. In fact, closer inspection shows that vs. 29 constitutes a new beginning of the witness of John to the one greater than he—a witness that began in general terms in vss. 26 and 27.
In vs. 30 John repeats in slightly different terms the statement of vs. 27, but this time in direct reference to Jesus as he comes walking toward John and as John proclaims him as the Lamb of God. For—as John now says emphatically—he had Jesus in mind when he spoke of him as the one who came after him but was before him (“This is he of whom I said …”).38 Of that superiority—already articulated in vs. 29—he provides further evidence in vss. 31ff.
The opening words of vs. 31: “I myself did not know him,” repeated in vs. 33 and with the same emphasis as here,39 are also to be understood here as a pointer to the provisionality and subordination of John’s own role in the history of salvation. He did not belong to or enter into the company of Jesus’ disciples, not even as Jesus’ least important slave (vs. 27; cf. Mt. 11:11). Instead, he came as the one who had to prepare for Jesus’ coming. Hence: “I myself did not know him; but for this I came baptizing with water: so that he might be revealed to Israel.” Equally typical is the expression, used already in vs. 26 and repeated in vs. 33, “baptize with water.” There, too, we see the inferiority and provisionality of John’s mission. His mission and power did not extend beyond cleansing with water those who, in response to his call for repentance, came to be baptized. He could not remove the sin itself. Still, for this purpose he did come and was sent so that by his baptism with water he might reveal the coming one to Israel, that is, make that one known in his true significance. That baptism was intended to get Israel on the right track, where the people could look for and, as it were, go out to meet the coming one, the one who—perhaps against their expectations—had to do above all with their sin, both in judging it and redeeming them from it; and not only with their sin but also with the sin of the whole world. That is why John’s call to penitence and to conversion preceded the coming of Jesus. And when John saw Jesus coming toward him to receive the testimony of the forerunner in the hearing of all the people, John’s prophetic proclamation was therefore also completely determined by the sin of the world: “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” For as such Jesus had to be “revealed”: as the one who would take away sins (cf. 1 Jn. 3:5).40 Accordingly, it is of that revelation that John gives a further account in vss. 32 and 33.
Verse 32 introduces this with the appropriate forensic terminology: “And John bore witness: ‘I saw [cf. 1:14] the Spirit descend as a dove from heaven, and it remained on him.’ ” This is of course a reflection of the event recounted in the Synoptic Gospels and assumed to be familiar to the readers: the descent of the Spirit onto Jesus, permanently equipping him for his divine mission. But the whole historic sequence remains unmentioned here. All that matters is the revelational event—that which legitimated John’s ministry and on which his witness concerning Jesus was based—and the accompanying voice of God, which enabled John to understand the event’s redemptive significance.
This voice from heaven is described in vs. 33. Again John says, “I myself did not know him” (see the comments on vs. 31). Here everything is focused on the divine designation of Jesus as “the coming one,” the one on whom John would see the Spirit descend, the one who “baptizes with the Holy Spirit.” By this God himself identifies Jesus as not only the bearer but also the dispenser of the Spirit.
The clause used to describe this, “baptize with the Spirit,” is of special importance for the understanding of this entire pericope. In the nature of the case it functions as the—now finally disclosed—complement of John’s repeated baptizing with water. The baptism with the Spirit makes clear again, and now in its full significance, the absolute superiority of the coming one over his forerunner: Whereas John baptized with water, the coming one baptizes with the Holy Spirit as the possessor and dispenser of the reality to which John with his water baptism only pointed. And because the baptism with the Spirit is the fulfillment of what John did with water, the redemptive significance of the Spirit is revealed above all in its cleansing, sin-removing power,41 and thus the proclamation in vs. 29 is also rooted in the revelation that was granted to John.42
The two utterances in vss. 29 and 33 determine, in their interrelationship, the content of the Baptist’s great initial witness to Jesus. The second does so in the language of John’s own mandate (baptism), the first in the language—so much more characteristic of Israel’s religion—of the sacrificial cult. John thus puts all the emphasis on the redemptive significance of the coming one, on his identity as “the Lamb of God” and his “baptizing with the Holy Spirit,” when in vs. 34 he concludes his testimony with “I have seen and have testified that this one is the Son of God.” This “seeing” and the witness based on it refer again to the revelation granted to John—specifically, one suspects, to the voice that sounded from heaven at the time of the revelation (cf. Mt. 3:17; Mk. 1:11; Lk. 3:21).
“This one” and “the Son of God” are codeterminative, and both have, in a sense, predicative significance: On the one hand, the title “Son of God” is strongly emphasized as the divine identification of Jesus as the Christ.43 John’s witness in this regard forms part of the foundation of what the Evangelist seeks to accomplish with his entire Gospel (20:31). On the other hand, “this one” is also emphatically positioned; it refers to the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit and thus takes away the sin of the world. This summarizing conclusion of John’s witness refers, then, to both the person and the redemptive significance of the one whose forerunner he is. Accordingly, it is that specific meaning implied in “this one” that in vs. 36 forms the link between vss. 29-34 and the following pericope, which speaks of what happened “the next day” (vs. 35).
At the same time this casts light on the peculiar and significant structure evidenced in the witness of John, which is once more continued in vs. 36, specifically in the way this witness is distributed over three days (cf. vss. 29 and 35) so that the whole of it acquires a clear salvation-historical meaning. The conversation with the Jews is on the first day. On the third day John directs his disciples toward Jesus. So the middle day—with John face-to-face with Jesus as he walks toward him, without any input from others and at the apex of John’s mission as it were—marks the division between the old and the new, between what is past and what is to come. What lies behind John and belongs to “yesterday” is the ministry in the temple with the “continual” daily offering of the lamb, a ministry performed by priests and Levites and limited to the sanctuary of Israel. What lies behind is also the law given through Moses, with its interpreters and scribes. What is to come on the new day is that which God, in his Son, now and once for all time, puts in place, and not only for Israel’s sin but for the whole world’s sin.
It is for that reason that on the third day the proclamation of the Lamb of God is repeated, now as the pivotal issue of the new dispensation being inaugurated here. At the same time the proclamation thus becomes the Baptist’s last word, the utterance by which he also expressly directs his disciples away from himself and into the company of the coming one. His greatest day was, in a sense, his last. He brought salvation history to a boundary that he himself was not allowed to cross (cf. Mt. 11:11). All that was left for him to do was make room, to “decrease,” to leave the scene (cf. 3:30). But for his disciples his last word on the third day is the first and foundational reference to the new era inaugurated for them and to their new worldwide horizon as the future agents of the ministry of reconciliation (2 Co. 5:18ff.).
1:35-51
Jesus’ First Disciples: “Come and See”
The section that now follows forms the transition from the public ministry of John the Baptist to that of Jesus. It still belongs to the introduction of the actual gospel story insofar as it first, before proceeding to the account of Jesus’ first public action (2:1ff.), tells the story of a number of encounters between Jesus and persons who were prepared to join him and who were later called his “disciples.”
These stories have no parallels in the Synoptic Gospels. Scholars have compared them with the “call” stories in Mk. 1:16-20 and Mt. 9:9, and in part this comparison is valid (cf. 1:43). In any case, we learn here how the Gospel can later refer to Jesus’ “disciples” (2:1ff.). It does not mean that the Evangelist was either ignorant or critical of the Synoptic “call” stories. He assumed, rather, that his readers were familiar with the main lines of the tradition according to which Jesus was accompanied by disciples from the beginning and that there were not five or six but twelve (6:67; 20:24), though this Gospel never lists their names or tells how most of them were called. Hence the encounters described here, by which Andrew, Peter, and Philip became disciples, are not to be viewed as “call” stories competing with Mk. 1:16ff.; 3:16 par., but rather as a report that the Fourth Evangelist edited for his own purpose and that goes back behind the “call” stories known from elsewhere.44 Only once does this Gospel mention Jesus calling someone (Philip in vs. 43), and we do read of the first two disciples “following” Jesus (vs. 38). For the most part the initiative does not come from Jesus; it comes either from the (future) disciples themselves or from those who themselves have already found Jesus and are now bringing others to him—Andrew bringing his brother Simon Peter and Philip bringing (his friend?) Nathanael.45
All this can give us a measure of insight into the Evangelist’s purpose in giving these stories. We have three main points here: First, we see more clearly here than anywhere else the connections among John the Baptist, his disciples, and Jesus. Jesus’ first followers are disciples of John and they follow Jesus at John’s instigation. Here lies the confirmation of the datum—fixed and fundamental elsewhere in the New Testament but finding its historical clarification only here—that the apostolic tradition concerning Jesus Christ begins with the public ministry and baptizing activity of John (cf. Ac. 1:21, 22; 10:37, 39; 13:24, 26).
Second, it is of paramount importance that the ones brought on the scene here act not only as models of the later church’s faith46 but also as witnesses of the revelation in Jesus Christ. They are those who are with Jesus “from the beginning” and as such are his witnesses (15:26); they represent the “we” of 1:14 not only as the first members of the church but also as its founders. As such they also constitute the salvation-historical transition from John as forerunner to Jesus as the coming one (see above). John placed them “on track”: “Behold, the Lamb of God!” (vs. 36), but while he had to stay behind, they crossed the threshold of “the kingdom of heaven” (cf. Lk. 16:16); in Mt. 11:11ff. they no longer belong to the sowers but are among the reapers (cf. Jn. 4:37ff.).
But all this does not yet come explicitly into view here. What is of greatest importance here and what makes their witness fundamental for the whole coming church is expressed three times (twice in vs. 39, once in vs. 46) in the invitation “come and see,” an invitation to see for themselves who Jesus is (cf. 1 Jn. 1:1ff.). They accept this invitation and immediately confess—in a variety of ways but unanimously nonetheless—Jesus as “the Anointed” (vs. 41), “him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote” (vs. 45), “the Son of God and the King of Israel” (vs. 49). It is this remarkable and in a sense overwhelming messianic confession of Jesus by his disciples that the Evangelist lays down as the foundation of his entire Gospel. He thus bases his work unambiguously on the foundation—common to the entire church—of the apostolic tradition, a reality that finds its confirmation no less explicitly in his definition of his Gospel’s aim in words identical with those of the first witnesses: “that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that thus believing you may have life in his name” (20:31).47
And third, some have been astonished that in the Fourth Gospel, in distinction from other accounts, the disciples already at their first encounter come to make such positive and unrestrained pronouncements about Jesus’ messiahship. That in turn has been viewed as proof that from the beginning the Evangelist put his christology into the disciples’ mouths without taking account of the historical situation. One can, indeed, point to proleptic features (cf. vs. 42), but in these encounters what comes no less to expression—and is a recurrent and dominant motif in the entire Gospel—is that the messianic fulfillment in Jesus exceeds in a number of ways the expectation present in Israel. However immediately focused on Jesus as the Messiah the disciples’ initial faith was—and that in response to the witness of John the Baptist—it was gradually and increasingly faced with a revelation of glory for which the traditional hope of salvation had neither adequate categories nor sufficient space beyond what is merely human. This comes out specifically in the pronouncement made to Nathanael at the close of ch. 1 and later extended to all the disciples—“You will see greater things than these”—and in the immediately following announcement of what they would see (vss. 50f.). It is the prospect of this glory, which was already described in the prologue as “that of the Father’s only begotten,” that was held out to the first witnesses and that was bound to shape their faith in Jesus as the Messiah further (cf. 2:11).
In this manner the Evangelist certainly also reflects what the church, in its ongoing struggle in relation to Jesus’ messiahship, needed and would always need: a faith in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, a faith for which the standards could not be derived from traditional opinions or from ever-changing assumptions but only from the witness of the revelation of his glory in the flesh.
The story itself can best be divided into two parts: 1:35-42 and 1:43-51. The first part tells of the encounter of the two disciples of John with Jesus (vs. 37), immediately followed by the “winning” of Peter by his brother Andrew, one of the two. The second tells of the calling of Philip and, in close association with it, the “winning” of Nathanael. The harmony of the construction also appears from the striking similarity in diction between vss. 40f. and vs. 45. What we have here, then, is two stories of two encounters each, with the second of each pair (Peter and Nathanael) as the consequence of the first (Andrew and Philip).
Verses 35-37 mention first two disciples of John who at his direction follow Jesus. Their action “the next day” (see the comments on vss. 27-29) is shaped by their position as the link between John the Baptist and Jesus’ circle of disciples. They are among those who heard John’s repeated testimony, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” (vs. 36), and they are therefore expressly mentioned again in vs. 40 as “the two who heard John and followed Jesus.” The report of their passing from John to Jesus is very graphic. That “next day” John again saw Jesus walking, not this time toward him, but still apparently for some reason spending time near him. John, then looking at Jesus, repeated his testimony of the day before, but this time obviously for the special benefit of the two disciples who were “standing” with him. And the two “heard him say this” and understood that he was not just repeating what he said earlier but was addressing them personally. And they “followed” Jesus, a statement full of content but at this point meaning simply that at John’s direction they followed Jesus’ walking.
38, 39 What follows is even more graphic. The encounter is described as a tentative and mutual examination ending with Jesus’ invitation to accompany him to where he was staying and with a precise time indication. An eyewitness report could not be clearer in its description of what happened.
No less remarkable is that the entire story, however vivid, seems to confine itself totally to the “exterior” of the encounter. With some justification it has been said that it contains “all, apparently, facts of no particular importance; and yet the essential meaning of the narrative is hidden behind these events.”48 To be sure, interpreters have with varying degrees of validity sought to give deeper, at least more “loaded,” meanings to certain components of the story: first to the word “follow” in vs. 37 (see above) and then to Jesus’ question, “What do you seek?”49 and the disciples’ counterquestion, “Rabbi, where are you staying,”50 or more inclusively to the combination “follow … seek … stay.”51 These are attempts to give more content to the supposed exemplary character of this first encounter. But the question is whether the Evangelist wants to be understood in that fashion.
The most characteristic feature of the general character of these encounters seems to lie rather in the answer that Jesus gives to the question of the disciples: “Rabbi,52 where are you staying?”—namely: “Come and see” (vs. 39a), which is immediately echoed in their action (vs. 39b) and then repeated by Philip in vs. 46.53 By itself this combination of imperatives is not unusual, but here it functions as an invitation extended by Jesus himself to the two disciples to come and ascertain with their own eyes what they want to know about him. But it is striking that this “come and see” should at this point relate only to Jesus’ place of residence and that the result of the entire encounter should twice be described in terms of “staying”: “They came and saw where he was staying,54 and they stayed [that is, “dwelled”]55 with him that day.” The narrative of this first encounter is concluded with the statement that it was “about the tenth hour.” “All, apparently, facts of no particular importance,” only the “exterior” of the events!
Only apparently, however. In connection with the repeated and therefore emphatic “come and see” this thrice-mentioned “staying,” that is, “dwelling” (vs. 38, twice in vs. 39), does in fact acquire an importance that is strongly reminiscent of an essential element in the core pronouncement of the prologue in 1:14: “He dwelled among us.” The unforgettable beginning for Jesus’ first followers is precisely dated—down to the hour: Not only did they see that he lived among them and where he lived among them, but at his invitation they also stayed with him that day, and he spent time with them as a human among humans. So this encounter becomes the basis of all subsequent encounters in the sense that Jesus, though he was so much greater than John, nevertheless accepted them into the fellowship of his life and teaching.
And there is more to be said. However much this pericope is focused on “dwelling,” it is striking that it ends there and that about that first encounter in Jesus’ dwelling place not another word is said, neither of Jesus’ self-revelation to them nor of their confession of him as the Christ. All this differs from what we learn of the subsequent encounters. That there was further discussion about who Jesus was is not only inherent in the situation itself but also evident from what Andrew said later: “We have found the Messiah!” (vs. 41). But this is merely an indirect statement about that first meeting and is intended as the introduction to and theme of what follows.
Furthermore, and no less striking, in this first report the identity of the two, though they are the first to follow Jesus, is kept hidden from the reader. The anonymity of one, Andrew, is lifted after the narrative as a way of introducing the second encounter (vs. 40). It is therefore all the more striking that the only person whose name remains unmentioned in all these encounters is that of Andrew’s companion. The idea that the Evangelist did not know this person is unacceptable. Therefore, we can hardly avoid the conclusion that the anonymity is intentional. From ancient times it has been viewed as a clue that this unidentified first disciple was none other than the Evangelist himself, who for reasons of modesty wished to remain in the shadows. But most recent interpreters want nothing to do with such a close bond between Evangelist and eyewitness.56 Nevertheless, many are convinced that the Evangelist maintained the anonymity for a reason; and it is natural then to think of the likewise anonymous disciple “whom Jesus loved,” who plays an important role in the Gospel from ch. 13 on.57 Whether this provides a clue to the authorship of the Fourth Gospel (cf. 21:24) is a question that cannot be resolved here but will have to be addressed later.
The idea that in the anonymous disciple of vss. 35ff. we are in fact dealing with the disciple whom Jesus loved is also interesting because it rests not just on the anonymity of both but also on the relationship of both to Peter. In Peter’s first appearance in the Gospel he clearly comes second and has to learn the message of the Messiah from his brother Andrew and from Andrew’s anonymous companion (“we,” vs. 41). But Jesus immediately assigns to Peter the prominent place that he holds in the entire tradition. By comparison with him the anonymous disciple remains completely in the shadows, though it was he and Andrew who were the first to hear the “news” from John and to follow Jesus. Similarly, the disciple whom Jesus loved is in some respects repeatedly “ahead” of Peter (cf. 13:23; 20:4, 8; 21:7) but much less in the foreground than Peter.
If this resemblance is not accidental, then both the anonymity of Andrew’s companion and the great sobriety with which—for all its vividness!—this first encounter is described come to stand in another light and in a wider context, and that all the more if one relates this account to 21:24. That this unnamed disciple was, along with Andrew, the first to follow Jesus could explain the special relationship between him and Jesus that gave him the name of “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” though of course this point cannot be derived from what we have said with absolute certainty.
40 By way of introduction to the second encounter (see above) Andrew is named as one of the two who heard John speak and who followed Jesus. The description of Andrew as “Simon Peter’s brother” (cf. also 6:8) assumes that the readers are more familiar with Peter than with Andrew. Some interpreters relate Andrew’s prominence in the Fourth Gospel with a supposed tendency in Asia Minor to accord him (likewise Philip, mentioned in 6:5ff. and 12:22) a certain priority.58 But it is questionable whether, if he was such a familiar figure to the readers of the Gospel, Andrew would be introduced, and this more than once, as Simon Peter’s brother. A more natural explanation would seem to be that the Evangelist himself was especially familiar with Andrew (and with Philip).
41 It is then further said of Andrew—without any time indication in order not to lose the connection with the preceding scene59—that he “first” found his brother Simon and told him: “We have found the Messiah!” “First”60 has to be taken with the entire sentence and means that Andrew, before doing anything else,61 informed his brother Simon of what he and the other disciple had experienced. That he immediately sought out62 his brother can be considered natural and apparently assumes that Simon was in the neighborhood. Against this background we can perhaps also understand Andrew’s enthusiastic exclamation, “We have found the Messiah!”: He is communicating not a sudden discovery but an encounter with and the identification of the one whom John had already announced as being present among them (vs. 26). Therefore Andrew might expect his brother to give immediate credence to the exclamation.
Finally, special attention is called for by the way in which the Evangelist has Andrew describe Jesus with the Semitic term Messiah, which he then translates into Greek for his readers: “which means ‘anointed.’ ” We find similar translations also in vss. 38 and 42. These Semitic terms make apparent both the Palestinian-Jewish background of the Gospel and that the Evangelist is addressing those among his Greek readers for whom this background still meant something, namely Hellenistic Jewish Christians (and Jews in general). This is true particularly of “Messiah,” which the Evangelist—the only author in the New Testament to do so—uses here and in 4:25. Use of the term enables him to make clear to Hellenistic Christians—for whom “Christ” functioned simply as a proper name for Jesus—that this name was the translation of the Jewish title Messiah (“anointed one”), which played such a large role in Jewish eschatology as the designation for the one “of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote,” as Philip puts it in vs. 45.
It is the anointed one of whom Andrew speaks to Peter and toward whom the Evangelist wants to direct the faith of his readers (cf. 20:31). This is also evident from the large place the messianic king occupies in this Gospel (vs. 49; 12:13; 18:36f.; 19:19ff.), partly to resist nationalistic and this-worldly messianic expectations present in Israel (cf. 6:15). Hence, on the basis of 1:41, it has been correctly emphasized that when the Evangelist states as the aim of his Gospel that his readers may “believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God” (20:31), he is not making the title “Christ” subordinate to “Son of God” but rather wants it understood in its full significance as referring to “the anointed one.”63
42 Of Peter’s reaction to Andrew’s announcement we hear only that he let himself be brought to Jesus by his brother. The whole encounter is focused on the way in which Jesus approaches Peter and speaks to him. The pronouncement is very similar to the report of the giving of the same name in Mt. 16:17f. (“you are,” and Simon’s father’s name is mentioned in both). It is striking here that, as in vs. 41, the Aramaic form of the name, Cephas, is used, which emphasizes all the more the meaning of the name Peter,64 and that Simon’s father is called John here, not Jona as in Matthew. All this suggests that the Fourth Evangelist was using a separate early tradition.
The giving of the name means in this context primarily that, in virtue of his special knowledge of people (cf. vss. 47f.; 2:15, etc.), Jesus knew, when he saw Simon coming to him, what their relationship would be. There is no evidence that Jesus already knew Andrew and Simon. Like Philip, the two brothers came from Bethsaida, a city in Galilee (vs. 44). But that need not mean that Jesus knew them from earlier contacts. The words “looking at him” and the subsequent giving of the name mean not that Jesus recognized Simon but that he “read” him, so to speak.
The giving of the name involves not just a characterization of Simon as Peter, that is, as a rock of a man, a trustworthy person,65 but also his significance as a future disciple and apostle of Jesus, even though no further explication like that in Mt. 16:18 is given. For that reason it is proper to ask whether this first giving of the name is to be understood as a prediction.66 However this may be, the main thing is that here, at the very beginning of the Gospel, Peter is immediately presented as the “rock-man.” Thus the Evangelist unmistakably brings out for the church the reliability of the apostolic witness—a reliability attested by Jesus—the historic foundations of which are laid bare here.
In vss. 43-50 we have the second pair of closely related encounters with Jesus, first that with Philip, then through Philip’s mediation the one with Nathanael. Again there is mention of “the next day,” apparently the day after the day introduced in vs. 35. Accordingly, the things narrated in vss. 35-39 and in vss. 40-42 must all have occurred on one day (see also the comments on vs. 41).
Verse 43 brings with it a number of problems. Who is the subject of vs. 43a: still Andrew, or Jesus? But Jesus is not mentioned until vs. 43c. Other scholars think that the text as we have it is based on changes made by the Evangelist and that originally the subject was either Andrew, who after “first” (vs. 41) finding Simon Peter then finds Philip, or Andrew’s anonymous companion, who, after Andrew “as the first,” finds Simon, then himself finds Philip.67 According to this view vs. 43b is not original. Others go still further, considering all of vs. 43 secondary and identifying Philip, who is not mentioned until vs. 44, as himself the unnamed companion of Andrew from vs. 35.68 But this is all very hypothetical,69 and although not everything is equally clear, we will have to go by the text as it has been transmitted. The best evidence argues for thinking immediately of Jesus in vs. 43a.
The call of Philip is briefly described. It takes place on the following day, on which Jesus plans to leave for Galilee, though it is not altogether clear when and where Jesus encounters Philip. In view of vs. 44, it seems likely that Philip, Andrew, and Peter, all of them from Bethsaida, form one group, have gone together to John, and have become his disciples. When Jesus decides to go to Galilee (with his new followers: cf. 2:11), he sees in that grouping a good reason for inviting Philip also to join and follow him. That may also explain the plural Philip uses in speaking to Nathanael (vs. 45).
Like Andrew, Philip repeatedly comes to the fore in the Fourth Gospel (cf. 6:7; 12:21ff.; 14:8f.). The Evangelist here clearly draws his material from his own source, which enables him to write about these two in all this detail. But he does not pause to enlarge on the calling of Philip. Just as Andrew is important especially as a link to Peter (vs. 40), so Philip is important as a link to Nathanael.70 The story of this connection forms the conclusion and, in a sense, the climax of the whole pericope of vss. 35-51.
45 The parallel roles of Andrew and Philip are also reflected in the sentence construction of vss. 44 and 45, which conforms entirely to that of vss. 40 and 43. Here again “finding” means more than accidental encounter;71 rather, it represents a purposeful act of looking for and going to a person. It assumes a relationship of familiarity or friendship between the two as well as the desire of Philip to make Nathanael a fellow participant in that which possessed him (“we have found!”).
Nathanael’s name occurs only once more in the New Testament, in 21:2, where we learn that he came from Cana. It is not certain that he was one of the Twelve. In the course of time he has been identified with more than one of the men named in the lists of the apostles. The hypothesis most deserving of attention identifies him with Bartholomew, whose name follows that of Philip in all the lists except in Ac. 1:13. That would correspond with the present story, but is of course no proof.72 But the special place that Nathanael’s encounter with Jesus and Jesus’ subsequent utterance (vss. 50f.) occupy in the story leads one to suspect that from that moment on Nathanael followed Jesus along with the other four mentioned here and that he belonged to the circle of those always around Jesus from this point on.
It is not clear when and where Philip found Nathanael—already before the departure to Galilee or later in Galilee itself. Considering Nathanael’s divergent, initially negative, attitude, one does not get the impression that he also belonged to the disciples of John. In any case, Philip did not find him in their company (vs. 48). For that reason it is very well possible that Philip found Nathanael in Cana, Nathanael’s home and the place where Jesus was to perform his first great miracle.
Philip announces to Nathanael the great news similarly to the way in which Andrew announced it to Peter. The idea that the words “him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote” convey something more than the title “Messiah” and that they demonstrate a gradual deepening of insight on the part of the disciples73 is not persuasive. After all, with the one word “Messiah,” that is, “anointed,” Andrew had in mind no one other than he who was expected by Israel on the basis of Old Testament prediction.74 It is true that here the repeated “we have found” clearly has the added value of the “we” of the eyewitnesses on which the entire Gospel is based (1:14; 1 Jn. 1:1ff.).
46 As already mentioned, Philip’s words encounter no little resistance in the mind of Nathanael, resistance evoked by the presentation of the announced bringer of salvation as “Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” This is the first time that Jesus is described as such. In the nature of the case, Jesus’ identity and place of origin could not remain unknown, certainly not to people from Galilee. But whereas this information presented no problems to the disciples who were called first, no doubt in part because of the testimony they had heard concerning Jesus from John, Nathanael apparently had to go by Philip’s words alone. His objection concerned Nazareth as Jesus’ place of origin (he does not mention Jesus’ father); in this connection this suggests not that the town had a bad reputation but that it was considered totally insignificant. In raising the issue, Nathanael formulated what for many Jews was to remain an offense and a hindrance to the acknowledgment of Jesus as the Messiah. They not only did not generally expect a Messiah to come from Galilee (cf. 7:41, 52), but certainly least of all from Nazareth, a town mentioned nowhere in the Old Testament or in literature of Nathanael’s time. “Can anything good be expected to come from such a place?” is Nathanael’s condescending reaction to Philip’s enthusiastic message.
Philip, undaunted, only answers: “Come and see.” He does not engage Nathanael in discussion. Meeting Jesus himself would have to convince his friend. The expression “come and see” is characteristic for the entire pericope in vss. 35-51 (see the comments on vss. 39 and 51). Though this “seeing” does not by itself yield proof of Jesus’ true identity, it is nevertheless the undeniable and unique privilege of those who were with Jesus “from the beginning.” Reflected, above all, in this “seeing” is the manner in which the revelation of God in Jesus Christ has entered history in the “flesh.” The seeing is, as such, part of the foundation of the later church. In that sense one can say that the “come and see” of vs. 39a, repeated in vs. 46, is of decisive importance as a motif for the thrust of the whole pericope.75
47 When Nathanael follows his friend and lets himself be taken to Jesus, we witness again what we saw in Jesus’ encounter with Peter: At first “sight” (cf. vs. 42) Jesus “sees through” the person with whom he is meeting (cf. 2:25; 4:18ff.). This supernatural “knowing,” which brings Nathanael to the confession that Jesus is the Son of God and prompts the Samaritan woman to acknowledge Jesus as a prophet, also occurs from time to time among “men of God” in the Old Testament (cf. 1 Sa. 9:19ff.). In the case of Jesus, however, it comes to the fore in all sorts of ways (cf., e.g., 11:4, 11-14), including with regard to his own future (cf. 3:14; 6:64, 70; 13:1, etc.). It constitutes a part of his plenary authority and his preparation as the one sent by the Father (cf., e.g., 3:34f.). Here, as in 4:18ff., it functions as a means to lead people who are still in the dark about Jesus to the discovery that before they knew him they themselves were already known by him: Their own attitude and life history or life secret were an open book to him. It is that discovery that pulls each of them up short and breaks through the wall that had been separating them from Jesus.
Jesus’ statement about Nathanael, uttered as he sees Nathanael coming toward him, is very positive—despite Nathanael’s initial skepticism: “Behold, truly an Israelite in whom there is no guile!” The adverb “truly,” “in truth,” goes with the entire statement and must not be taken, as so many interpreters do, as an adjective with “Israelite” (“Behold, a true Israelite”).76 Nathanael is being described—on account of his faith—as a typical representative of the true (“spiritual,” cf. Ro. 2:28ff.; 9:6, etc.) Israel.77 So the uniqueness of Nathanael is not that he is, in distinction from other Israelites, a true Israelite, but that he is “an Israelite in whom there is no guile.” It is unlikely that “no guile” refers by anticipation to Nathanael’s faith, of which he has given no evidence. Nor can it be an allusion to his reaction to Philip’s message, which required no special honesty or sincerity. It is, therefore, a reflection of texts like Ps. 32:2 in which uprightness is closely bound up with a person’s relationship to God (cf., e.g., Is. 50:9; 1 Pt. 2:22; Rv. 14:5). Thus the reference is not primarily to the true Israel but to the inner disposition associated with the knowledge of the true God as this is found in Israel. By thus welcoming Nathanael, Jesus ignores Nathanael’s initial rejection of Philip’s announcement and lays bare the pure disposition that nevertheless animates Nathanael.
48 Nathanael, feeling that Jesus “sees through” him and knows him, asks in perplexity how that can be. Jesus informs Nathanael further about this precognition: Before Philip called Nathanael, Jesus already saw him sitting under the fig tree. Did Nathanael’s sitting under the fig tree occasion Jesus’ favorable opinion of Nathanael? A long list of explanations have been advanced.78 All of them either (1) assume some special event under the fig tree not mentioned here but known to Jesus and Nathanael, (2) attribute a certain symbolic meaning to sitting under a fig tree (cf. Mi. 4:4; Zc. 3:10; Ho. 9:10), or (3) think of the fig tree as a place where a rabbi might study and teach.79 But all this is highly uncertain. The important thing is that by mentioning this concrete situation, one that Nathanael could verify, Jesus gave evidence of knowing Nathanael in advance. The phrase “before Philip called you”80 may mean that Jesus did not receive his knowledge from Philip. It seems more likely, however, that Jesus wants to convey that the calling of Nathanael was not just an act of Philip but that Jesus understood himself to be involved in Philip going to Nathanael (cf. 2 Ch. 5:26), who was thus one whose heart was upright before God, one of the “true worshipers” known and sought by God (cf. 4:24; 6:37, 45; 10:14, 27b).
49 For Nathanael the discovery that he was thus known by Jesus was so overwhelming that he gave up all resistance and, in the strongest language at his disposal, confessed Jesus as the Messiah. In that moment he understood that Philip had spoken the truth about Jesus. But we cannot regard his confession, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” as proof of deeper insight by comparison with what Andrew and Philip had already asserted. But it is true that under the enormous impact of Jesus’ knowledge, Nathanael uttered his confession with the greatest possible emphasis and assurance (“You are … you are …!”).
Both “Son of God,” with which he acknowledges Jesus (whom he addresses as “Rabbi”: cf. vs. 38), and “King of Israel” are intended—in line with Old Testament predictions and Jewish expectations—as messianic titles (cf. 2 Sa. 7:14; Ps. 2:7; Mt. 16:16; Ro. 1:4, etc.).81 The notion that here and elsewhere (cf. 20:31) “Son of God” completely overshadows “King/Messiah,” thus proving that in Johannine christology the typically Jewish categories are blurred, is in conflict with all that has preceded in vss. 35ff. (see the comments on vs. 41), which in fact depicts all these initial encounters in colors derived from Old Testament and Jewish future expectation.82 However much the fulfillment in the coming of Christ surpasses that expectation (see also the comments on vss. 50, 51) and, specifically, pushes the Sonship of Christ back to “the Beginning,” this does not mean that in the Fourth Gospel “Son of God” has acquired an exclusively ontological significance abstracted from its “official” messianic meaning. Accordingly, in this connection “Son of God” and “King of Israel” have the same meaning, and the movement from the first to the second is not anticlimactic.83
Conversely, it is no less incorrect, on the basis of this second title, “King,” to ascribe to Nathanael a national-political view and with that to think that Jesus has called Nathanael, in a deprecatory sense, a real and unadulterated Jew (“a blunt and guileless Israelite,” vs. 47) and is about to correct rather than accept Nathanael’s confession (vss. 50f.).84 It is true that vis-à-vis the crowd in 6:15 and before Pilate in 18:15f. Jesus will reject every worldly understanding of his kingship, but this does not mean that the messianic title “King of Israel” or “King of the Jews” has in the Fourth Gospel an exclusively negative sound (cf. 12:13; 19:19ff.). The witness to Jesus as the messianic king is part of the inalienable content of the Fourth Gospel, just as faith in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, understood in that same sense, belongs to the undeniable goal of the Fourth Gospel (20:31).85 It is this very content and faith that the story of these first encounters intends to undergird with its witness.
50, 51 Still, all that has been said till now and has been “seen” by each of these disciples in their first encounters with Jesus is only a beginning of what is to come. However persuaded they are in those first encounters that Jesus is the Messiah, the content of that confession will prove to be much greater than they have been able to comprehend. That is the essence of Jesus’ reaction to Nathanael’s confession. Whether vs. 50 is a question or an observation is uncertain but of little consequence. The main thing is that Nathanael will not be able to stop at what has impressed him thus far, which is that Jesus knew and understood him before he knew Jesus. He is to see greater things.
The promise of that greater future is made to Nathanael (“and he said to him”), but it is immediately extended in a solemn manner to all: “Truly, truly I say to you.…” In the New Testament the double “amen!” occurs only in John, and there only in the mouth of Jesus. For many scholars this unique use of “amen” constitutes proof that words thus introduced belong to the most authentic tradition.86 The word thus uttered with great solemnity constitutes the conclusion of what precedes as well as the emphatic announcement of what is about to be realized. Some interpreters believe, and here the second introduction at the beginning of vs. 51 is taken as evidence, that the pronouncement in vs. 51 comes from another context.87 However this might be, it cannot be denied that in the present context, in what follows as well as what precedes, the pronouncement is very appropriate. After all the testimonies and confessions concerning Jesus’ messiahship from others, Jesus for the first time speaks about himself.88
And here it becomes evident that the belief that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, will acquire a content that can no longer be expressed in the traditional messianic terms but far surpasses them. Jesus gives expression to this by speaking of himself in the third person, and hence entirely in keeping with his use of this title “Son of man” both in this Gospel and in the Synoptics. He uses the title, in accord with its origin in Dn. 7:13ff., of him who, clothed by God with heavenly glory, is to exercise God’s rule on earth. The use of this title at the beginning of Jesus’ self-revelation is of special importance for the understanding of the entire Gospel. Together with “Christ” and “Son of God” it forms the foundation of that revelation. This self-designation is an expression of the utterly transcendent character of Jesus’ messiahship and functions thus as an alternative to “Son of God.” The two titles are used together repeatedly with no clear distinction or transition (cf. 3:13-15 with 3:16 and 3:31ff.; 5:26, 27; 6:62; 12:23 with 12:28; 17:1ff.).
In the vision in Daniel 7 the appearance of the Son of man is depicted as a theophany: The Son of man is to “come on the clouds of heaven,” words used elsewhere only of God. The phrase “one like a son of man” does not point to human origin but rather suggests a humanly recognizable form in the manifestation of divine glory (cf. Ezk. 1:26b, 28b). At the same time this Son of man is he to whom is given (by “the Ancient of Days”) divine glory and unlimited kingship. In this respect Daniel 7 reminds one of the divine characteristics attributed elsewhere in the Old Testament to the messianic king as coregent and son of God (cf. Is. 9:1-6; 2 Sa. 7:14; Pss. 2:7ff.; 110). But the way in which Daniel 7 speaks of the Son of man far surpasses those features. To be sure, the Son of man is also distinguished from God (“The Ancient of Days”), but his appearance on the clouds and his divine “glory” and possession of unlimited power impart to his kingship an absolutely transcendent character.89
Although the use of the title Son of man in the Fourth Gospel needs to be examined on its own merits90 and though it evidently made an enigmatic impression on those who heard Jesus use it,91 in this first announcement of Jesus to Nathanael its general thrust already comes significantly to the fore. As in 3:14f., the pronouncement about the Son of man is linked with a high point in the history of salvation, namely, Jacob’s vision at Bethel, where both the continuity and the unanticipated progress and fulfillment of God’s saving work in history find expression.
The opening words, “You will see heaven opened,” cannot, to be sure, be traced back to an equivalent statement in the story of Jacob (though there is mention there of “the gate of heaven”); rather, they belong to the apocalyptic language in which use of “Son of man” is often clothed (cf. Ac. 7:56; Mt. 26:64 par.; Jn. 6:62, etc.). This “seeing,” however, is bound up with images from Jacob’s dream. The story of Jacob’s dream describes a ladder set on earth and with its top reaching to heaven. At the top of the ladder stands the Lord, who in the uncertain situation in which Jacob finds himself confirms—by this vision and by the oracle associated with it—the promise made to Abraham, and then promises Jacob divine protection on the way he must go (cf. Ps. 91:11). The pronouncement in Jn. 1:51 does not mention the ladder. It is, rather, the Son of man himself who links heaven and earth, while the angels who ascend and descend on him (as on the ladder in Jacob’s vision)92 represent the heavenly powers at his disposal. But whereas elsewhere angels are attributes of the heavenly existence of the Son of man (cf. Mt. 13:41, 49; 24:30, 31; 25:31ff.), the special character of their action here is that they maintain the link with heaven for the Son of man on earth (cf. Mt. 26:53; Mk. 1:13; Lk. 22:43). The author specifically has in mind here—as is evident also from the “greater things” promised to Nathanael—the divine glory manifest in his descent as that of the incarnate Word (1:14; 2:11; 11:40; 17:14). From now on the disciples will be witnesses of that glory and will become conscious, as they join and follow him, of being under the “opened” heaven. Accordingly, the statement is not related, as some interpreters would have it,93 to one specific event in the life of Jesus (e.g., the transfiguration) but much more to the continuing—and from now on intermittently visible—glory present in Jesus’ self-revelation in words and works and in his constant communion with the Father (cf. 8:29; 12:28ff.).
Our text clearly alludes to Jacob’s vision, but it contains no explicit reference to Jacob himself. Nor does Jacob fulfill in his story in Genesis 28 the role attributed here to the Son of man.94 The angels did not ascend and descend on him. He was not the bearer of the heavenly power but, like the disciples here, the one whose eyes were opened to that power in the vision granted him. Still, we are certainly not dealing here, any more than in similar allusions (cf. 3:14f.), with imagery arbitrarily borrowed from the Old Testament. Jacob received this vision, as we learn from the divine oracle associated with it in Genesis 28, as the bearer of the promise to Abraham and thus as one of the great witnesses to the God of the Old Testament. Hence, as we noted earlier, we see in the Fourth Gospel both salvation-historical continuity and subordination of the sacred past to the coming of Jesus Christ, which transcends that entire past. What Jacob saw and heard as Israel’s patriarch and as the bearer of the divine promise is what from now on the disciples will see and hear in full bloom as witnesses called by Jesus and founders of the coming church—in the glory of the Son of man. In that “seeing” they will therefore be those whom Jesus elsewhere calls “blessed” because they have seen and heard what many prophets and righteous people longed to see and hear but did not (Mt. 13:17)—and that not only for the edification of their own faith but as persons involved together in the (“eschatological”) time of salvation now dawning.
Other interpreters see something very different underlying “the ascent and descent of the angels of God” here, namely, the ascent to the Son of man and the descent onto95 the Son of man—two figures that need to be distinguished. The first is the Son of man in his heavenly glory; the second his appearance in the flesh. What Jesus promises his disciples is said to exist in seeing the connection between the two in their interaction with him, a “seeing” that is also a participation on their part in the heavenly world as a spiritual (mystical?) vision.96
But this view has two fundamental flaws. In the first place, there is no basis in the Fourth Gospel whatever for the simultaneous existence of a heavenly Son of man and an earthly Son of man. On the contrary, the motif that governs the entire Johannine view of the Son of man is precisely that the heavenly Son of man descended from the place “where he was before” (cf. 6:62) and that only by way of that descent could he later ascend and impart life to humanity (see the comments on 3:13f.; 6:27, 53, etc.). Secondly, as is evident from the entire context of which vs. 51 is the conclusion and climax, “you will see heaven opened” refers not to personal experiences of the heavenly world in which the disciples are to take part “in the spirit,” but to their witnessing the glory of the descended Son of man as the glory of God in the flesh. In this respect one can say that “you will see” constitutes the climax of the motif that governs the coming of the disciples to Jesus in this entire pericope: “come and see”; and thus that the last word of the introduction to the gospel story brings to expression, in one all-embracing salvation-historical pronouncement, the theme of the story that now follows.
1. See the very balanced discussion by W. Gutbrod in TDNT III, pp. 375ff. (pp. 377-79 on the Fourth Gospel) and the extensive documentation in R. Leistner, Antijudaismus im Johannesevangelium? 1974. On the word “Israelite” see the comments below on 1:47.
2. On the structure of ch. 1 see also J. Willemse, Het vierde Evangelie. Een onderzoek naar zijn structuur, 1965, esp. p. 236.
3. So correctly W. Wink, John the Baptist in the Gospel Tradition, 1968, p. 105. He continues: “John is made the normative image of the Christian preacher, apostle and missionary, the perfect prototype of the true evangelist, whose one goal is self-effacement before Christ: ‘He must increase, but I must decrease’ (3:30).” See also Wink’s well-documented and careful views of the supposed anti-Baptist tendency in the Fourth Gospel.
4. Here in any case there can be no question of a polemic against the later adherents of John since there is no evidence that they identified John with Elijah or “the prophet.”
5. On the combination “miracles,” “a prophet like Moses,” and “Messiah,” see at length Nicol, The Sēmeia in the Fourth Gospel, 1972, pp. 81-90; see also the comments below on 6:14f.
6. Cf. G. Richter, “ ‘Bist du Elias?’ Joh. 1,21,’ BZ 6 (1962), pp. 79-92, 238-56; 7 (1963), pp. 63-80; A. S. van der Woude, Die messianischen Vorstellungen der Gemeinde von Qumran, 1957, pp. 80-89, against H. Braun, Qumran und das Neue Testament I, 1966, pp. 100f.
7. See Strack/Billerbeck IV/2, pp. 764-98; J. Jeremias, TDNT II, pp. 928-41: “No biblical figure so exercised the religious thinking of post-biblical Judaism as that of the prophet Elijah …” (p. 928).
In his Dialogue with Trypho Justin Martyr mentions the Jewish expectation that it was Elijah’s task to anoint the coming Messiah to office. By this act he would not only make the previously hidden Messiah known to the people, but would also make the Messiah aware of his messianic calling. M. de Jonge defends the hypothesis that all this is implied in the question posed to John and that for that reason John gives a negative answer (Jesus: Stranger from Heaven and Son of God, 1977, pp. 87f.). But in the Jewish writings themselves there is at best indirect reference to Elijah’s anointing of the Messiah and no evidence at all that the “hidden Messiah” was unfamiliar with his future task (Strack/Billerbeck IV/2, p. 797). So it is questionable whether de Jonge is right in saying that “John knows Jewish conceptions like that defended by Trypho and his colleagues” and that “in the view of the Fourth Gospel calling John Elijah did imply that” (p. 89). On whether the idea of the “hidden Messiah” plays any role in this connection, see below in the comments on vs. 26.
8. On this see also Jeremias, TDNT II, p. 937; see also Brown, Comm. in loc.
9. For this view see also H. Braun, Qumran und das Neue Testament I, p. 9.
10. ἀπεσταλμένοι without οἱ has the best textual support. But even then the translation is uncertain. Should one translate “and they were emissaries from the Pharisees,” which would mean that the Pharisees were behind the delegation mentioned in vs. 19, or “and there were emissaries from the Pharisees”? It would seem in any case that there is no mention here of a second delegation.
11. Though μὲν … δέ is lacking in the most important manuscripts, the meaning of those particles is implied, as appears from their insertion in a great many other manuscripts.
12. Typically hyperbolic: unworthy to untie “the thong of his sandal”!
13. So Bultmann, Comm., p. 91; see also, e.g., H. Seesemann, TDNT V, p. 118.
14. For this view see, e.g., Strack/Billerbeck II, pp. 488f., 339f.; S. Mowinckel, He That Cometh, 1954, pp. 304f.; Bultmann, Comm., p. 91; Brown, Comm. I, pp. 53f. For the view of M. de Jonge, see above in the comments on vs. 21.
15. For the presumed location, see G. Dalman, Orte und Wege Jesu, 19243, pp. 96, 98f. Other scholars identify it with the Bethany where Lazarus lived, which was much closer to Jerusalem (P. Parker, “Bethany beyond Jordan,” JBL 74 [1955], pp. 257ff.). But in that case Βηθανία πέραν τοῦ Ίορδάνου would have to mean “Bethany that lies across from the point of the Jordan where John had baptized,” which seems rather forced, especially in view of 3:26; 10:40, where “beyond the Jordan” refers to the region east of the river. The reading Βηθαβαρα (e.g., Sinaitic Syriac, Origen) offers little support for a specific location and has a weaker textual basis.
16. On this see esp. M. de Goedt, “Un Schème de Révélation dans le quatrième Evangile,” NTS 8 (1962), pp. 142ff.
17. See also B. Olsson, Structure and Meaning in the Fourth Gospel, 1974, p. 51: “The heart of John the Baptist’s revelation of Jesus is that he is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Later Olsson speaks of the Baptist’s “chief message.”
18. Cf. Grosheide, Comm. I, pp. 135f.
19. So, e.g., Schnackenburg, Comm. I, p. 301. About the Evangelists’ method of weaving the “interpretatio Christiana” into the historical narrative he writes: “The evangelists were not interested in historicizing their narrative, they followed another literary genre in which the narrative was employed in the service of faith, by means of a presentation which developed more fully what was already contained in germ in the historical elements.”
20. We may assume that all this is why Bultmann (who himself is not overscrupulous on this point!) believes that the pronouncement in vs. 30, which he characterizes as an “oracular utterance,” cannot be original with the Evangelist himself but derives—at least as far as the first part is concerned—from the source that he used. “For the Evangelist the title must have seemed specifically Old Testament and Jewish, for he does not use it again” (Comm., p. 96). However, though in this manner the Evangelist himself is no longer primarily the responsible party, it remains hard to accept that—from purely traditional motives—he makes the Baptist utter as a central pronouncement something that he himself felt to be more or less alien. Also, in this way “the problem” is merely shifted from the Evangelist to his source.
21. So, correctly, Schnackenburg, Comm. I, p. 301.
22. E.g., J. Jeremias, TDNT I, p. 338; O. Cullmann, The Christology of the New Testament, 19632, pp. 71f. A similar explanation in terms of ambivalent word use (Aramaic ʾimmar = “lamb,” pronounced as ʾimrâ = “word”) is offered by A. Negaitsa and C. Daniel in “L’Agneau de Dieu est la Verbe de Dieu,” NovT 13 (1971), pp. 24-36. Against this, however, see, e.g., P. J. du Plessis, “Zie het Lam Gods,” in De Knechtsgestalte van Christus (Festschrift for H. N. Ridderbos), 1978, pp. 120-38, here p. 125.
23. See also Bultmann, Comm., p. 96, n. 3.
24. See Schlatter, Comm., p. 51; see also below.
25. C. H. Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, 1963, pp. 230ff.
26. Ibid., p. 233. See also the similar verdict in Bultmann, Comm., pp. 96f., n. 4.
27. E.g., 1 Enoch 89:46; Testament of Joseph 19:8.
28. C. K. Barrett, “The Lamb of God,” NTS 1 (1954-55), pp. 210ff.
29. Brown, Comm., in loc.
30. Barrett, “Lamb of God,” p. 217: “I suggest that there is the crucible in which the strange amalgam of John 1:29 was fused.”
31. As Bultmann, Comm., p. 95, n. 3, also concludes in connection with similar views advanced by Lohmeyer and Spitta.
32. Du Plessis, “Zie het Lam Gods,” p. 130. Du Plessis appeals to the Afrikaans original of J. P. Louw, Semantics of New Testament Greek, 1982, and adds: “One of the great gains resulting from linguistic and semantic analysis is, in fact, the insight that a word does not simply have a meaning but that a word is given a meaning.”
33. Against this, see also du Plessis, “Zie het Lam Gods,” pp. 124ff. He speaks of “semantic overloading.”
34. Cf. Ex. 29:38-46, where in connection with this daily tāmîd offering there is also mention of God “dwelling” with his people and revealing “his glory,” words immediately reminiscent of Jn. 1:14. Schlatter, Comm., p. 47.
35. Nor does the verb αἴρω carry the connotation of substitution in the sense of “taking on oneself” or “bearing,” but means, here as elsewhere in John, “take away,” “remove” (cf. 2:16; 5:18ff.; 10:18). In that more general sense of “taking away sin,” it occurs also in 1 Jn. 3:5 in a statement using the same words as those used here. Elsewhere in 1 John there is mention of “the blood of Jesus his Son (that) cleanses us from all sin” (1:7) and of “the expiation (ἱλασμóς) of our sins” (2:2; 4:10), which clearly refers to Jesus’ death as an offering for sin. Although, as is evident from 1 Jn. 3:5, there is a close affinity between the pronouncements in the Gospel and those in the letter, there is in the expiation texts of the letter no mention anywhere of Christ as the Lamb of God, an indication, in my opinion, that in the Johannine line of thought “Lamb of God” is not specifically linked with Jesus’ expiatory death.
36. Cf. also M. D. Hooker, “John’s Prologue and the Messianic Secret,” NTS 21 (1974), p. 43. On the “Lamb of God,” etc., she writes:
The title is puzzling and no satisfactory explanation has ever been given. Perhaps it is best understood in relation to the Evangelist’s arrangement of signs and discourses, by which he shows Jesus to be the one who is the fulfilment of all the Jewish festivals: in him are brought together all the functions of the old ritual—but now they are effective for the world.
37. On this see at greater length de Goedt, “Schème de Révélation.”
38. Apparently he is referring to the situation recounted in vs. 27 even though he uses different words there. But already in vs. 15 the Evangelist cites the pronouncement in vs. 30. We are repeatedly dealing here with pronouncements of John known from tradition, not with precise points in time. For the exegesis of vs. 30 see further the comments on vs. 15, though the pronouncement does not function here exactly as it does there. In the prologue the superiority of Jesus over John is specifically mentioned in connection with the glory of the Word that was with God. But in vs. 30 we are dealing especially with Jesus’ superiority over John in a salvation-historical sense. In the divine order, in which both had a place and a role, the Baptist is not first even though as forerunner he was first on the scene; he was first who came after John but around whom everything revolved.
39. See the comments on vs. 26.
40. In similar-sounding words and clearly reflecting the present context: “He appeared to take away sins,” ἐφανερώθη ἵνα τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἄρῃ. See also de Goedt, “Schème de Révélation”: “We believe in effect that the final clause ἵνα ἐφανερωθῇ τῷ Ίσραήλ defines the goal attained by the oracular designation ‘the Lamb.’ ”
41. Elsewhere, too, the purifying power of the Spirit is described as the gift of the messianic age. See, e.g., Schnackenburg, Comm. I, p. 304; apart from the Old Testament prophets see also 1 QS 4:20f.: “God, by his truth, will cleanse all human works … to banish the whole spirit of perversity from each person’s members and to purify that person of all wicked deeds by the Spirit of holiness.”
42. Cf. here also de Goedt, “Schème de Révélation”: “This revelation [of Jesus as the one who baptizes with the Spirit] constitutes the very origin of the oracle of manifestation [“behold, the Lamb of God”].” See also du Plessis, “Zie het Lam Gods,” pp. 128, 132.
43. In vs. 34 many prefer the reading ὁ ἐκλεκτòς τοῦ θεοῦ, “the elect one of God,” also understood in connection with the voice from heaven (cf. Schnackenburg, Comm. I, pp. 305f. and the literature cited there). Not so Bultmann, who does not understand the title “Son of God” in a specifically messianic sense but thinks that it is intended to “outdo” the messianic titles. In his view, the μαρτυρία of John, “even if it is addressed in the first place specifically to the Jews, is nevertheless directed beyond them to the whole world. For the whole world shares the expectation and knows of the glorification of sons of God” (Comm., p. 93). But the reading “Son of God,” if it is original, must be interpreted in connection with the voice from heaven reported by the Synoptics, i.e., in a messianic sense, as referring to the bringer of salvation designated by God and placed in his service (cf. Is. 42:1, which also mentions the Spirit of the Lord). This is the meaning it must have had in John’s mouth as in that of Nathanael and Martha (1:49; 11:27). This is not to deny that in the Fourth Gospel this title obtains a deepened significance in connection with what is said about the incarnation of the Word (cf. 1:14, 18). But this does not mean that thereby every use of the title “Son of God” by the Baptist, Nathanael, and others is wrenched from its historical connections.
44. See also Bultmann, Comm., p. 100; Schnackenburg, Comm. I, pp. 306f.
45. See also the extensive form and tradition-critical examination of the text by F. Hahn in “Die Jüngerberufung Joh 1:35-51,” in Neues Testament und Kirche, ed. J. Gnilka (Festschrift for R. Schnackenburg), 1974, pp. 172-90, esp. pp. 177ff.
46. So Hahn, “Jüngerberufung,” p. 182. See also below.
47. See also W. C. van Unnik, “The Purpose of St. John’s Gospel,” in The Gospels Reconsidered, 1960, pp. 166-96, esp. pp. 174ff.
48. Bultmann, Comm., p. 100.
49. Bultmann, Comm., p. 100: These “first words that Jesus speaks in the Gospel” constitute “the first question which must be addressed to anyone who comes to Jesus, the first thing about which he must be clear.” Somewhat differently Schlatter: “For fellowship with him there is no other condition than that they seek him and come to him” (Comm., p. 53).
50. Schnackenburg, Comm. I, p. 308: “The request probably indicates a desire to hear Jesus expounding the Scriptures on the all-decisive question of the Messiah (cf. v. 45).”
51. M. É. Boismard, Du Baptême à Cana, 1956, p. 75: “the type and model of every call to become a disciple of Christ …; to follow and to seek, that is what Christ requires …, to find and to remain, that is the reward.…”
52. For the translation see below in the comments on vs. 42.
53. Cf. Strack/Billerbeck II, p. 371: “This unusually frequent use serves to call the readers’ attention in advance to something new, weighty, serious, recognized.…”
54. ποῦ μένει.
55. παρʼ αὐτῷ ἔμειναν.
56. Bultmann, e.g., speaks of this identification as “purely wishful thinking” (Comm., p. 101, n. 3). But the assumption that the author of the Gospel could not be an eyewitness is also hard to accept in this context.
57. So, e.g., Hahn, “Jüngerberufung,” p. 184; H. Thyen, “Entwicklungen der johanneischen Theologie,” in L’Évangile de Jean, ed. M. de Jonge, 1977, pp. 259-99, esp. pp. 274ff. and the literature cited there (n. 41).
58. This is said to be evident from the Papias fragment in Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiae 3.39.4, which has Andrew first in a list of the disciples, followed by Peter and Philip; see also C. H. Dodd, Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel, 1965, pp. 303ff.
59. So Brown, Comm. I, p. 79.
60. The text is uncertain. Some important witnesses read πρῶτος instead of the widely (and correctly) accepted reading πρῶτον. In connection with πρῶτος it is sometimes suggested that Andrew was the first to find his brother and that the other disciple later found his own brother (James?). But this seems far-fetched. Other scholars think that Andrew is still the subject in vs. 43a. In that case πρῶτον would indicate that Peter was found first and Philip second. But this view of vs. 43a also runs into difficulties. See further below.
61. Cf. Hahn, “Jüngerberufung,” p. 186. He, too, opts for πρῶτον as an indication of the close connection between vss. 35-39 and vss. 40-42: “It serves then not to open a longer series but to emphasize an immediate consequence. It is assumed here that, immediately after being with Jesus, hence still on the evening of the same day, Andrew persuaded his brother Simon to become a disciple.”
62. εὑρίσκει (vss. 41a, 42) has the connotation not of an accidental but of purposeful finding.
63. See esp. van Unnik, “Purpose,” pp. 174f.
64. Cf. also Hahn, “Jüngerberufung,” p. 184, n. 52: “The use of the name Simon Peter in vs. 40 shows, to be sure, that awareness of the titular character of Κηφᾶς/Πέτρος was already diminishing and therefore had to be expressly called back to mind.”
65. So Lindars, Comm., 116; he believes that this refers only to “Jesus’ estimate of Simon’s character” and that no allusion is made to Peter’s symbolic significance for the founding of the church (as in Matthew 16).
66. Bultmann therefore takes future tense κληθήσῃ as predictive. Brown, however, refers to texts like Gn. 17:5, 15; 32:28, in which a new name not only indicates a future role the person is to play in salvation history but also responds to the situation of the moment, even though the future tense is used: “from now on you will be …” (Comm. I, p. 80).
67. Cf. Bultmann’s analysis, Comm., p. 101, n. 3.
68. So Thyen, “Entwicklungen der johanneischen Theologie,” p. 275.
69. Cf. the criticism of Hahn, “Jüngerberufung,” p. 176: “The alleged tensions are not enough for us to assume a division into two levels.”
70. Again in 12:21ff. Andrew and Philip work together to bring others to Jesus.
71. Bultmann calls εὑίσκει in vss. 41, 43, and 45 “unintentional finding,” in distinction from εὑρήκαμεν in vss. 41 and 45 (Comm., p. 101, n. 4; cf. also H. Preisker, TDNT II, pp. 769f.). But the idea that Andrew’s “finding” of his brother and Philip’s calling by Jesus were coincidental is hard to accept and is not therefore likely in the case of Philip’s “finding” of Nathanael either.
72. See also Brown, Comm. I, p. 82, and the literature cited there.
73. So apparently ibid., pp. 77, 86.
74. “The law and the prophets,” in both Jewish and Christian usage, refer to the entire Old Testament (cf. Lk. 16:16, 29; Ro. 3:21).
75. So Hahn, “Jüngerberufung,” pp. 182, 187.
76. So, e.g., Bultmann: “one who is worthy of the name of Israel” (Comm., p. 104, n. 4; cf. also Barrett, Comm., p. 184). Such adjectival use of an adverb is very unusual, and if all the emphasis were laid on Nathanael being a true Israelite, then everything would be said, so that the relative clause that follows would be useless. Furthermore, such pregnant use of “Israel(-ite)” occurs nowhere else in the Gospel (F. Büchsel, TDNT III, 386: “We do not detect in John any extension of the name to the new people of God. The true Israelite is the man who is bound to the Law, and therewith to God”). See also J. Painter, “Christ and the Church in John 1:45-51,” in L’Évangile de Jean, p. 360.
77. On this see at length S. Pancaro, “ ‘People of God’ in St. John’s Gospel,” NTS 16 (1970), pp. 123ff.; idem, “The Relationship of the Church to Israel in the Gospel of St. John,” NTS 21 (1975), pp. 398ff.; idem, The Law in the Fourth Gospel, 1975, pp. 293ff., 513.
78. See the overview in Hahn, “Jüngerberufung,” pp. 187ff.
79. Strack/Billerbeck II, p. 371, mention a talmudic passage in which the learned are described as “those who occupy themselves with the Torah under the olive tree, the vine, and the fig tree.” But can merely sitting under a fig tree be considered proof of Nathanael’s disposition? Sometimes scholars try to prove too much (cf. Bultmann, Comm., p. 104, n. 6). Against this explanation, see at length also C.-H. Hunzinger, TDNT VII, p. 753.
80. Described by Betz, TDNT IX, p. 303, as “the mighty [bevollmächtigt = “authoritative”] summons into the place of salvation.”
81. See also Strack/Billerbeck I, pp. 17ff.
82. Cf. van Unnik, “Purpose”; Barrett, Comm., pp. 185f.
83. So, correctly, Barrett, Comm., in loc.
84. So Painter, “Christ and the Church,” pp. 360f.
85. Cf. van Unnik, “Purpose,” pp. 177ff.
86. See, e.g., Lindars, Comm., p. 48, who cites J. Jeremias and E. Käsemann. Elsewhere, “amen” is usually an affirming response to something said by others (e.g., 2 Co. 1:20). It sometimes occurs as such in the double form, whether as confirmation of a curse (Nu. 5:22) or of praise (Ne. 8:6; Pss. 41:13; 72:19).
87. See the overview in F. J. Moloney, The Johannine Son of Man, 19782, p. 246. The transition from singular (vs. 50) to plural (vs. 51) is also seen, with no change in address, in 3:7: “Do not marvel [singular] that I said to you [singular], ‘You [plural] must.…’ ”
88. One finds a similar pattern in Peter’s confession, which is followed by Jesus’ testimony concerning himself (Mk. 8:29, 31ff. par.); cf. also Mk. 14:61f.; Mt. 26:63f., where a pronouncement concerning the Son of man follows, introduced by ἀπʼ ἄρτι ὄψεσθε. Scholars therefore (probably correctly) consider the reading ἀπʼ ἄρτι in Jn. 1:51 to be secondary (derived from Mt. 26:64).
89. On this see also W. Bittner, “ ‘Gott-Menschensohn-Davidssohn.’ Eine Untersuchung zur Traditionsgeschichte von Daniel 7, 13ff.,” Freiburger Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Theologie 32 (1985), pp. 343-72, and the literature cited there.
90. For extensive literature and discussion thereof see, e.g., the summarizing work of Moloney, Johannine Son of Man.
91. See also the comments on 9:35f.
92. ἐπὶ τòν υἱòν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου corresponds to bô. Έπί + accusative here has the same meaning as ἐπί + genitive in Gn. 28:12 LXX (ἐπὶ αὐτῆς [= κλῖμαξ, “ladder”]): It says not where the angels are going but where they are, as often in New Testament Greek (cf. BDF §233.1).
93. For this see Moloney, Johannine Son of Man, p. 38.
94. As assumed by some scholars at least with regard to the descent of the angels onto him (see below).
95. In which case ἐπί indicates not “where” but “where to” (cf. n. 92 above).
96. Cf. H. Odeberg, The Fourth Gospel Interpreted in Relation to Contemporaneous Religious Currents in Palestine and the Hellenistic-Oriental World, 1929, pp. 33-42. He goes back to a speculative Jewish distinction between the heavenly image of the true Israel and the earthly reflection of that image, and he applies that distinction to Jacob, who in his sleep receives a heavenly vision. According to this view, then, the angels do not descend on the ladder but on Jacob. Odeberg believes that Jn 1:51 should be interpreted in accordance with this pattern: The angels ascend to the heavenly Son of man and descend down onto the earthly Son of man.
According to G. Quispel the angels ascend on the exalted Son of man into heaven, but in their descent come on Nathanael, “the Israelite in the true sense of the word, in whom, unlike Jacob of old, there is no guile. It happens in his experience of faith in the exalted Christ.” Quispel develops this explanation on the basis of certain ideas and speculations of Jewish mysticism (Quispel, “Nathanael und der Menschensohn [Joh I 51],” ZNW 47 [1956], pp. 281-83).