The Role of John the Baptist in the Fourth Gospel: The Witness

 

 

The Fourth  Gospel sheds light on our understanding of the life of John the Baptist from the perspective of early Christianity. Whereas the three Synoptic Gospels depended on John's own understanding of himself as the one who had come to prepare the way and did not elaborate much on that except by adding a citation from Malachi, or having Jesus directly proclaim John as the promised Elijah in Malachi, the last Gospel created a groundbreaking job description for John's role in the providence.

John 1:6-8 proclaims:

⁶ There came a man sent from God, whose name was John. ⁷ He came as a witness, to testify about the Light, so that all might believe through him. ⁸ He was not the Light, but he came to testify about the Light.

This revolutionary description appears in the very same Prologue where the groundbreaking description of the Word being God appears. The author of the Fourth Gospel, no doubt, had taken time to cast basic early Christian teachings in more profound theological terms.

What does this introduction of John the Baptist accomplish?

First of all, it gives a new role to John, that of a divinely sent witness. Secondly, it makes John's work critical in the acceptance of Jesus. Thirdly, it does not lose time in placing John in a lower position before Jesus.

This description of John in the Prologue should be recognized as a guideline to what we should expect doing throughout the Gospel. In fact, we should ask ourselves how come John occupies such a prominent position in the first 18 verses of the Gospel, which have been regarded as a type of hymn to the Word-made-flesh work of salvation, and to the life, sacrifice, and victory of Jesus as God's Son. Though Moses is also mentioned, it is extremely in a brief comparison between the Law and the Grace of God. The more detailed description of John plus an additional verse (15) where the narrator has John describe his own work, manifests the great value given to him by the author of the Prologue.

The introductory verses invest on John the greatest work any prophet would had love to have had. In realizing his mission all John had to do was deliver convincing testimonies about Jesus.

John already had the people believing in the possibility of his being the Messiah or some important messianic figure. The very beginning of the Fourth Gospel brings an official group sent by the religious leaders on a messianic quest. This group interestingly elicits the first testimony from John. In other words, John had to testify first to his own role in God's immediate work.

Thus we find in John 1:19 This is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent to him priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?”

The Gospel of John uses the word Jews close to 70 times. Sometimes they represent the opposing group against Jesus, but not on this occasion. The came looking for the Messiah or an important figure that could fulfill their expectations.

The religious leaders had been looking at John's work and they were well aware of how the people supported him greatly. This official investigation wanted to ascertain what was John's appreciation of himself, and why he was conducting a special type of purification work. The leaders determined themselves to have John speak clearly about his role. For them John had not done so before. His own proclamation about himself, as we shall see, was not satisfactory.

As John answers the first question by correctly rejecting the role of Messiah, the obvious implication is that the: who are you? question precisely referred to this concern.

The next two questions teaches us about the messianic expectations of the Jewish people of the time. 1:²¹ They asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” And he said, “I am not.” “Are you the Prophet?” And he answered, “No.”

Tradition sees all these denials as John humbly submitting himself to Jesus. Accordingly, Jesus represents the fulfillment of all of these roles.

This idea fails to grasp the historical dimension of this drama. This Gospel represents the events that occurred on 1st c. Israel around the person of Jesus. We cannot superimpose our own theological or traditional understandings about what the events meant.

These two questions indicate what other two figures the Jews of that time associated with the coming of the Messiah. For them these figures were separate persons. Nobody was expecting a messiah that would also fulfill the role of Elijah.

For that reason the questions followed a logical order. John had been working in such a way that he had to be one of these figures. If he is not the most important, then perhaps the second most important, and if not, then he should be the last one.  

This being the case, what has John done then?

He has practically rejected any role in the opening messianic times.

This is serious.

For one, the religious leaders will not want to lose time with someone going off on his own carrying unauthorized ministries. 

Precisely this concern is immediately expressed on the next question. 

1:²² Then they said to him, “Who are you, so that we may give an answer to those who sent us? What do you say about yourself?”

The Jewish religious leaders know who is John. His father, Zechariah, had been a chief priest when John was born. But, they have not idea who he is in terms of a providential identity; and he has rejected all the possible ones,so they want to know if he fills a role that has a basis in biblical prophecy.

In other words: "John, we have no idea what role you can play in the work of God to liberate Israel and establish his kingdom. We are a little bit confused. Can you please tell us precisely if you represent someone sent by God?"

John brings out a prophecy from Isaiah that instead of clarifying the issue makes it more difficult.

He says: “I am a voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as Isaiah the prophet said.”

This comes from Isaiah 40:3. Though even the disciples of Jesus and Jesus accepted this self-identification of John they mixed it with the prophecy from Malachi of the return of Elijah.
Why did John did not do this, which seems to have been his practice? Perhaps we will never know exactly but his failure to do what Jesus did gave raise to the problem for the Jewish religious leaders of not seeing where John could fit in the messianic drama.

In fact, one scholar says that John has practically declared himself to be an 'anonymous' voice. Traditionalist may not see anything wrong with this. However, John had been introduced in this Gospel as the central witness for Jesus.

Can a witness be anonymous?

NO.

This conclusion fits perfectly with the textual basis provided by the author as in the next sentence the envoys ask John:

 “Why then are you baptizing, if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”

 In other words, those who knew the Law and the Prophets well understood that there were only a certain  number of approved roles for anyone to carry out an authorized ministry. Otherwise, whatever good value John may have had upon the people ultimately he was conducting an unauthorized ministry.

John offers a quasi-testimony to an unknown figure.

“I baptize in water, but among you stands One whom you do not know. ²⁷ It is He who comes after me, the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.” ²⁸ 

 
Two problems with this testimony. First, as stated above, what type of testimonial work identifies someone by indicating that among you stands One whom you do not know.  Second, from the point of view of the envoy, John had eliminated any basis for doing any type of witness to a messianic figure.



For this reason, the envoy leaves John. They had come to the right person and done the right thing. The had come to the one with the mission of delivering convincing testimonies in favor of Jesus. They expressed the most important concerns related to the messianic quest.

They left completely lost, not knowing what to do with John's work and completely unaware of who this nameless person that John had pointed to was.

How can anyone think that this testimony achieved the intended purpose?

We showed in the beginning that John had been given a new role in the Christian tradition; one that placed him as the most important witness to Jesus.

Then why does John not play the same role during the entire drama of the Gospel?

We shall examine this on the next post.