John The Baptist And Jesus Christ
JOHN THE BAPTIST AND JESUS CHRIST
JOHN 1:6-13
While all things were being made, the Son left his mark on everything, whether hills, sea or sky—or the human mind.
Verses 6-8. The first paragraph has seen the Word and his work in the divine perspective. Philosophers of various cultures and religions might have used similar terms, at least to some extent. In the second paragraph, we come to earth with a bump! For the great philosophical truths have been brought into focus in human history. The drama has been played out with human actors. “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.”
The Gospel begins with John the Baptist as does Mark (Mark 1:1-11). Matthew and Luke give additional material about the birth of Jesus. But here, at least, is the essential starting point of the apostolic proclamation (the kerygma) (Acts 1:21f.). John is the forerunner (Mark 1:2f.) and the link between the old and the new covenants (Matthew 11:13; Luke 16:16). In John, especially, he is the witness to the incarnation rather as the apostles were to the resurrection (cf. 1:15,32,34; 3:26; 5:33). He was sent from God with divine authority as a prophet. (Jesus, too, was sent from God—4:34; 5:37f., etc.—but unlike John he was God.) John was sent with the purpose of testimony which had as its purpose faith. He was the lamp (5:35) but not the light itself. No higher privilege could be given to any man.
1:9-13. The significance of Jesus Christ is world-wide. He was the genuine light in contrast to the many false lights that seemed to shine, and he came to lighten every man. His sphere of activity had to be the world—made through him (1:3) and loved by him (3:16) but refusing to acknowledge him. So in the Gospel “the world” often comes to mean human society organized apart from God. The rejection by the world of its Maker is brought into sharper focus in the rejection by God’s people of their Messiah. His own home (theologically) is Judea (4:44; contrast Mark 6:4). His own people were the Jews, and again and again in the Gospel the emphasis is on their being Judeans, living in the Promised Land. But God’s purposes are not frustrated. The gospel goes to the whole world and all who receive him in faith are given legitimate authority to become members of God’s family. Their birth, like that of Jesus, is not natural but supernatural. Only those who have experienced it can understand. But there is a human element. The two verbs, “received” and “believed” (1:12) do not indicate two separate actions but, rather, two aspects of the total response to the Savior.
Note 1:9: “coming into the world” is rightly taken by the RSV to refer to Jesus rather than to “every man.”