Note 55 — Chapter I · RELATIONS BETWEEN JESUS AND JOHN THE BAPTIST.

We arrive at a more decisive result by taking into examination the passage John iii. 27–36, where John replies to the complaints of his disciples at the rival baptism of Jesus, in a way that reduces all commentators to perplexity. After showing how it lay at the foundation of their respective destinies, which he desired not to overstep, that he must decrease, while Jesus must increase, he proceeds (ver. 31) to use forms of expression precisely similar to those in which the Evangelist makes Jesus speak of himself, and in which he delivers his own thoughts concerning Jesus. Our most recent commentator55 allows that this discourse of John seems the echo of the foregoing conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus.56 The expressions in the speech lent to the Baptist are peculiarly those of the apostle John; for instance, σφραγίζω (to seal), μαρτυρία (testimony), the antithesis of ἄνωθεν and ἐκ τῆς γῆς (from above and of the earth), the phrase ἔχειν ζωὴν αἰώνιον (to have eternal life); and the question presents itself: Is it more probable that the Evangelist, as well as Jesus, in whose mouth these expressions are so often put, borrowed them from the Baptist, or that the Evangelist lent them (I will only at present say) to the latter? This must be decided by the fact that the ideas, to which the Baptist here gives utterance, lie entirely within the domain of Christianity, and belong specially to the Christianity of the Apostle John. Take for example that antithesis of ἄνω (from above), and ἐκ τῆς γῆς (of the earth), the designation of Jesus as ἄνωθεν ἐρχόμενος (he that cometh from above), as ὃν ἀπέστειλεν ὁ Θεὸς (he whom God hath sent), who consequently τὰ ῥήματα τοῦ θεοῦ λαλεῖ (speaketh the words of God), the relation of Jesus to God as the υἱὸς (son), whom ὁ πατὲρ ἀγαπᾷ (the Father loveth):—what can be characteristic of Christianity, and of the Apostle John’s mode of presenting it, if these ideas are not so? and could they belong to the Baptist? Christianismus ante Christum! And then, as Olshausen well observes,57 is it consistent for John, who, even on the fourth Evangelist’s own showing, remained separate from Jesus, to speak of the blessedness of a believing union with him? (v. 33 and 36).