The Gospel of St. John. Joseph MacRory
voice spoken of by Isaias, which was to call upon men to prepare their hearts to receive Christ. The Hebrew of Isaias may be rendered: “The voice of one that crieth in the wilderness: Prepare ye the way of the Lord (Jehovah), make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” Or, as is more probable from the Hebrew parallelism: “The voice of one that crieth: Prepare ye in the wilderness the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” The Baptist, in applying to himself this prophetic passage, which is also applied to him by the three Synoptic Evangelists (Matt. iii. 3; Mark i. 3; Luke iii. 4), gives merely the substance of the original. It is disputed whether Isaias refers in the literal sense to preparing the roads by which the people should return from the Babylonian Captivity, and only in the mystical sense to the preparation for the Messias, or directly and literally to the preparation for the Messias. The latter seems the more probable view. At any rate, the words as applied here mean that the Baptist is the voice to which Isaias referred (in some sense literal or mystical), and that the burden of his cry in the desert of Judea is, that men who heard him in the desert should prepare their hearts for Christ.
The language is metaphorical, and alludes to the custom prevalent in those days of sending forward couriers to get the roads ready for advancing princes.
| 24. Et qui missi fuerant, erant ex Pharisaeis. | 24. And they that were sent were of the Pharisees. |
24. The Pharisees were a sect among the Jews, so called according to some from their founder, Pharos, or more probably, perhaps, from the Hebrew verb “pharash” (פרשׂ) to separate, as though they were separated from and above ordinary men, owing to their strict observance of the Law. They held many erroneous tenets: thus—(1) They relied for God's favour upon their carnal descent from Abraham. (2) They taught that no oath was binding in which the name of God or the gold of the temple was not expressly invoked. (3) That internal sins were not forbidden; and (4) some of their schools admitted the right of [pg 036] arbitrary divorce. See Matt. v. 33-36; xix. 3; xxiii.
| 25. Et interrogaverunt eum, et dixerunt ei: Quid ergo baptizas, si tu non es Christus, neque Elias, neque propheta? | 25. And they asked him, and said to him: Why then dost thou baptize, if thou be not Christ, nor Elias, nor the prophet? |
| 26. Respondit eis Ioannes, dicens: Ego baptizo in aqua: medius autem vestrum stetit, quem vos nescitis. | 26. John answered them, saying: I baptize with water; but there hath stood one in the midst of you, whom you know not. |
25. Being Pharisees, and therefore versed in the Law, they knew from Ezech. xxxvi. 25, and Zach. xiii. 1, that in the time of the Messias there was to be a baptism unto the remission of sins. They concluded, then, that only the Messias, or some of those that were to accompany Him, could confer this baptism; and, not understanding the import of the Baptist's answer, verse 23, in which he really declared himself the herald of Christ's coming, they ask why he presumes to baptize.
26. The Baptist answers that his is not the baptism foretold by the Prophets, which was to cleanse the sinner, but as he had declared at the beginning of his preaching, a baptism unto penance (Matt. iii. 21). John's baptism consisted in an ablution of the body, accompanied by the profession of a penitential spirit, preparatory to the coming of Him who was to baptize with the Holy Ghost and fire (Matt. iii. 11). It could in no sense be said to remit sin; while the baptism of Christ really remits sin (Acts ii. 38). Hence the Council of Trent defined:—“Si quis dixerit baptismum Joannis habuisse eamdem vim cum baptismo Christi anathema sit.” (Sess. vii., Can. i.) De Bapt.
There hath stood (ἕστηκεν); rather there standeth, the perfect of this verb having a present signification. Many authorities indeed read the later present στήκει. The meaning is not that our Lord was then actually present in the crowd, else St. John would probably have pointed him out, as he did on the following day (v. 29); but that He was already present among the Jewish people, was already living among them.
| 27. Ipse est qui post me venturus est, qui ante me factus est: cuius ego non sum dignus ut solvam eius corrigiam calceamenti. | 27. The same is he that shall come after me, who is preferred before me: the latchet of whose shoe I am not worthy to loose. |
27. Many authorities omit the words: “The same is,” and also: “who is preferred before me,” and then connect with the preceding thus: “But there hath stood One in the midst of you whom you know not, even He that shall come (rather, that cometh) after me, the latchet of whose shoe I am [pg 037] not worthy to loose.” So Tisch., Treg., Westcott, and Hort, and the Rev. Vers. It is not easy to explain why the words are wanting in so many MSS., if they were written by St. John; certainly it is easier to believe that they were inserted by some scribe to bring the verse into closer resemblance to 15 and 30.
In the latter part of the verse, the Baptist declares himself unworthy to perform the lowest menial service for Christ. To loose the sandals of their masters was the business of slaves; yet for even such service to Christ the great Prophet confesses himself unfit.
| 28. Haec in Bethania facta sunt trans Iordanem, ubi erat Ioannes baptizans. | 28. These things were done in Bethania beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing. |
28. Bethania, here mentioned, was situated in Peraea, east of the Jordan, and must be carefully distinguished from the town of the same name, in which Lazarus lived, about two miles east of Jerusalem, but west of the Jordan. Many ancient authorities read Bethabara, instead of Bethania. Origen, though admitting that nearly all the MSS. of his time read Bethania, changed it, on topographical grounds, for Bethabara, in his edition of our Gospel. Bethania, according to some, means the house of a ship (בית אניה), while Bethabara means the house of a ferry-boat (בית עברה); so that, perhaps, they may have been different names for the same place on the Jordan.
| 29. Altera die vidit Ioannes Iesum venientem ad se, et ait: Ecce Agnus Dei, ecce qui tollit peccatum mundi. | 29. The next day John saw Jesus coming to him, and he saith: Behold the lamb of God, behold him who taketh away the sin of the world. |
29. On the day after that on which the Baptist bore the preceding testimony, he saw Jesus coming towards him. This is the first time that the mention of the Holy Name occurs in our Gospel. Jesus (Gr. Ἰησοῦς) is the same as the Hebrew ישׂוע, which is itself a contraction for יהושׂוע, meaning God the Saviour. That our Lord was so called, to show that He was to be the Saviour of men, is clear from the words of the angel to St. Joseph: “And she shall bring forth a son; and thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins” (Matt. i. 21). We cannot be certain whence Jesus was now coming; but it seems very probable that He was coming from the desert after His forty days' fast. We know from [pg 038] St. Mark (i. 12) that as soon as He was baptized, “immediately the spirit drove Him out into the desert, and He was in the desert forty days and forty nights.” Since, then, the present occasion was subsequent to His baptism, as we learn from a comparison of verse 33 with St. Matthew iii. 16 (for the Baptist alludes, on the present occasion, to what took place at the baptism), it follows that it must have been at least forty days subsequent. Christ seems too to have been absent when, on the day before this, the Baptist bore witness to Him, else the Baptist would have probably pointed Him out as present, just as he does on this occasion. All things considered, then, it is likely Jesus is now returning, and that the Baptist here takes the first opportunity of again commending Him to the people.
Behold the lamb (ὁ ἀμνός) of God. The Baptist, in these words, points out Jesus as the Messias, for there is evident allusion to Isaias liii. 7-12, where the Messias is compared to a lamb before his shearers, bearing the sins of many. In referring to Jesus as a lamb, the Baptist recalled this prophecy, insinuated Christ's innocence, and perhaps suggested that he was to be sacrificed. Lamb of God, because offered by God for the sins of men, as we speak of the sacrifice of Abraham, meaning the sacrifice offered by him; or it may mean simply the Divine Lamb. But the first opinion seems more probable.
Who taketh away the sin of the world. Every word is emphatic. Christ not merely covers up, or abstains from imputing sin, but He takes it away altogether, as far as in Him lies. And it is not merely legal impurities that the sacrifice of this Divine Lamb will remove, but sin; and not merely the sin of one race, like the Jewish, but the sin of