Jn. 1:29 The next day Yochanan saw Yeshua coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
Here we have the first public identification of the Messiahship of Yeshua by Yochanan haMatbil. With the expression “the Lamb of God” Yochanan was identifying this person with three O.T. concepts. First was the Paschal Lamb of Exodus 12.
Source: Exodus 12
Second was the Suffering Lamb of Isaiah 53. The third is a little more obscure to our way of thinking, but may have been very obvious to the Jewish people of that day. Genesis 22 contains the story of Abraham’s attempt to offer Isaac as a sacrifice. In verse 7 Isaac asks where the lamb is for the burnt offering. In verse 8 Abraham tells him that God will provide for Himself a lamb. As the story goes on an angel of the Lord prevents Abraham from slaying Isaac. Abraham then sees a ram (not a lamb) caught in the bushes and sacrifices it. Until this day God had not provided for Himself a lamb. With Yochanan’s words, he identifies Yeshua as the Lamb of God, and the prophecy of the Abrahamic Covenant is fulfilled.
Sources: Isaiah 53; Genesis 22:7, 8, 13;
Jn. 1:30 “This is He of who I said, ‘After me comes a Man who is preferred before me, for He was before me.’”
Yeshua comes after Yochanan in that He is 6 months younger in His humanity. However, in His deity, Yeshua is pre-existent to Yochanan.
Jn. 1:31 “I did not know Him; but that He should be revealed to Israel, therefore I came baptizing with water.”
If the thought line is true that Yochanan spent most of his years in the care of the Dead Sea Sect, it is very possible that he did not recognize Yeshua as his cousin. However, the main point of this verse is that up until this point Yochanan did not know that Yeshua was the Messiah.
Jn. 1:32 And Yochanan bore witness, saying, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and He remained upon Him.”
The reason that Yochanan knows without a doubt that this is the Messiah is because while he was in the desert he received a revelation from God that the One whom Yochanan sees the Holy Spirit descending and remaining on will be the One who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.
Jn. 1:33 “I did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘Upon whom you see the Spirit descending, and remaining upon Him, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’”
Jn. 1:34 “And I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God.”
Here we do have a major conflict between John’s Gospel and the Synoptic Gospels. All three Synoptic Gospels record that immediately following His baptism, Yeshua went into the wilderness to begin His forty days of temptations and trials. He did not begin to call His disciples until after He returned. In his Gospel, John makes no mention whatsoever about the Lord’s temptation and seems to indicate that the very next day he calls two disciples from John. Evidently this is an oversight by John, since there doesn’t seem to be any other way of explaining it.
No comments:
Post a Comment