John 1:19-34. What Are You Looking For?
I’m the kind of person who loses things a lot. I simply cannot remember where I put my things, whether it’s my wallet, my phone, my keys, my AirPods, my garage remote, you name it. (Things got so bad that I ended up attaching them all.) Therefore, I often find myself looking for things.
Truth is, we’re all looking for something. A job. A girlfriend. A boyfriend. Recognition. A crew. A mark. Happiness. Success. Peace. Health. We’re all looking for something.
What are you looking for?
Are you looking for the right thing?
If you need your phone, there’s no point in looking for your keys (assuming they’re not attached). Similarly, if you need your AirPods, there’s no point in looking for your garage remote (again, assuming they’re not attached). You have to make sure you’re looking for the right thing.
But then, sometimes, I find myself looking for one thing but realising that I also need something else. I’ll be looking for my wallet, and then, when I find it, I realise that I need my phone even more than I need my wallet—there’s an important message that I need to respond to or something. (Thankfully, my wallet and phone are attached, meaning they are pretty much the same thing.)
Are you looking for the thing you need most?
Are you looking in the right place?
One time, I lost my wallet and pulled apart my entire house in search of it, only to find it a week later in the middle of a forest I’d been walking through. I’d been searching intently but looking in the wrong place.
In John 1:19-34, we meet some Jewish priests and Levites. In their case, they’re looking for the right thing, but they don’t realise that what they’re looking for is more than they’ve bargained for.
They haven’t yet found what they’re looking for, and when they see it, they’re going to be disappointed—they’re going to want to kill the man they’re looking for. But they’re looking in the right place.
They come to John the Baptist. He isn’t the one they’re looking for. But it’s his job to help. And he knows what they really need.
He tells them three things:
“I’m not the one you’re looking for.”
“I’m here to prepare people for his coming.”
“Look, there he is.”
These things John shares with them—they’re really helpful. They help his audience (and us) know the truth, but they also model the mindset we need to have.
“I’m Not the Messiah”
First up, John insists that he is not the Messiah.
In verse 19, we read:
Now this was John’s testimony when the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was.
Testimony. We’ve already met John the Baptist in John 1:6–8 and 1:15. We’ve heard that he came as a “witness” (Greek: marturia) to “testify” (Greek: martureo) about Jesus. Sometimes, people think that John 1:1-18 was just smashed onto the start of John’s Gospel, with no relation to anything else. They think this because it sounds a bit different to the narrative that follows. Verse 19 and the following story give us a pretty clear hint that this is not the case. The guy who testifies to Jesus in John 1:1-18 starts testifying about Jesus in 1:19-34.
Jewish leaders. The Jewish leaders (literally, the “Jews”) in Jerusalem mentioned here are probably the members of the Sanhedrin, a Jewish council made up of the Chief Priests, Levites, Pharisees, Sadducees and Scribes. Whatever testifying John has been doing has caught their attention, hence them sending the priests and Levites.
Priests. The way priests (and Levites) are introduced in the New Testament, it seems likely that they did much the same thing as in the Old Testament: performing sacrifices (Leviticus 1–7), maintaining the Tabernacle/Temple (Numbers 18:1-7), burning incense (Exodus 30:7-8), teaching the Law (Malachi 2:7), interceding for the people (Leviticus 16), and determining ritual purity (Leviticus 13–14). But they could also be sent on errands, e.g., operation investigating John.
Levites. The Levites were those descended from the tribe of Levi. They assisted priests in their duties (Numbers 3:6-9), guarded the Temple and its worship practices (1 Chronicles 23:27-32), and taught the Law to the people (Deuteronomy 33:8–10).
Messiah. In John 1:20, John the Baptist is very clear with the priests and Levites: “I am not the Messiah”. In the Old Testament, the Messiah (Hebrew: מָשִׁיחַ or māšîaḥ; Greek: Χριστός or Christos) is depicted as a divinely anointed king (1 Samuel 2:10; Psalm 18:50), a deliverer who defeats enemies and brings justice (Psalm 2:2), a restorer of Jerusalem (Daniel 9:25-26), anointed to proclaim good news and justice (Isaiah 61:1), and God's chosen servant fulfilling His promises (Isaiah 45:1). John is not this Messiah.
Elijah. Next up, in verse 21, the Levites and Priests ask John if he is Elijah. In Malachi 4:5-6, we read:
5 See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. 6 He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.
If John isn’t the Messiah, maybe he has something to do with the second coming of Malachi, which would usher in the coming of the Messiah, also known as the “day of the LORD”. There’s a bit of “yeah-nah” going on with this question. In John 1:21, John the Baptist denies being Elijah. He’s certainly not “literally” Elijah. He’s a different guy. He’s John. However, Jesus later explains that John came “in the spirit and power of Elijah” (Luke 1:17; cf. Matthew 11:14), fulfilling Elijah’s preparatory role as the forerunner to the Messiah.
The Prophet. Next, the Priests and Levites ask John if he is “the Prophet”. This probably has something to do with Deuteronomy 18:15, which says,
The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him.
John is not the neo-Moses prophet prophesied in Deuteronomy. Jesus is (see Acts 3:22-23).
Importantly, John knows he is not the Messiah (or Elijah or the Prophet). In many ways, he is nothing special. He gets it. The world does not revolve around him.
John knows his place. He’s not the Messiah.
It’s important that we know our place too. We are special to God. We’re made in his image (Genesis 1:26), and he sent His Son to rescue us. But we are not the centrepiece of human history. You are not the Messiah. I am not the Messiah. Someone else is.
2. “I’m Here to Prepare People for His Coming”
In verse 22, the Priests and Levites ask John, “What do you say about yourself?” Who are you?
John replies:
‘I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, “Make straight the way for the Lord.” ’
He’s quoting Isaiah 40:3, which speaks of a forerunner to the LORD (in Isaiah 40:3, the word “LORD” is capitalised, meaning Yahweh)..This person's job is to help people prepare for the LORD's arrival.
The fact that John is preparing people for Jesus’ arrival also clearly implies that Jesus is the “Yahweh” of the Old Testament; he is the LORD John is making straight the way for. When the New Testament speaks of the “Lord,” it’s usually safe to assume that it identifies Jesus as “Yahweh” (though occasionally, there are reasons not to make this connection).
In John’s context, this meant helping people get ready for Jesus’ coming. One way he did that was by baptising people; that is, he dunked people in the Jordan River to remind them that they needed a big spiritual bath, especially as they prepared for the coming of Yahweh.
In verse 25, we hear from Pharisees (a Jewish religious group known for their strict adherence to the Old Testament Law and oral traditions) who are with the Priests and Levites. They ask John why he is baptising.
His answer to this question is pretty much the same as the previous answer.
26 ‘I baptise with water,’ John replied, ‘but among you stands one you do not know. 27 He is the one who comes after me, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.’
In other words, someone truly great is coming.
He’s so great that John’s not even fit to touch his dirty feet. John’s job is to prepare people for the coming of this man.
John baptised people in water. But when the Messiah came, he would dunk them with the Holy Spirit. The reason John “came baptising with water was that he [the Lord, the Messiah] might be revealed to Israel” (John 1:31).
Two thousand years later, there’s a sense in which our job is the same as John’s. Jesus has already come, but he’s also coming again.
Our job is not to prepare people to see how awesome we are. Our job isn’t to prepare people to see how smart we are, or how wealthy we are, or how good at sport we are, or how good-looking we are, or how cool we are. Our job is to prepare people for the Messiah's second coming.
How do we do this?
3. “Look, There He Is”
John shows us how to get people ready for the coming of the Messiah in verse 29:
The next day John saw Jesus coming towards him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”
How does John get people ready for the coming of the Lord? He points him out, clearly and unambiguously: “There he is”.
Look. God’s people have been looking for the coming of the Messiah for a long time. There he is. John tells them to “look.”
It’s interesting, though. They’re expecting a king, the kind we read about in 1 Samuel 2:10, Psalm 2:2, 18:50, Isaiah 45:1, 61:1 and Daniel 9:25-26.
But did you notice that John didn’t say, “Look, the Messiah”? He could have said that. It would have been true.
But instead, he calls him the “lamb”.
The people haven’t been looking for a lamb.
The people have been looking for a King. And they really do need a king. But they also need a lamb. They need to look at him.
We need to look at him too. Later in this article, I’ll talk about how we need to imitate John in pointing people to Jesus. But before we get to that, we need to remember to look at Jesus. We need to look at who he is. We need to look at what he has come to do.
Sin. Why do they need a lamb? John explains why in the next breath.
“Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”
God’s people—in fact, all people—have sinned, rejecting their creator and living their own way. This ultimately results in their suffering, death and judgment (click here for more on this).
Lamb. In the Old Testament, lambs were central to sacrifices for atonement, deliverance, and forgiveness. In Exodus 12:3-13, the blood of the Passover Lamb protected Israel from God’s judgment. In Leviticus 4:32-35, a spotless lamb was offered as a sin offering to atone for individual sins. In Isaiah 53:7, the Suffering Servant is compared to a lamb led to slaughter, a willing and innocent sacrifice for the sins of others. They’re also fairly weak, unimpressive animals.
In the New Testament, the lamb is glorious and majestic. We’re presented with the Lamb King. In Revelation 5, the Lamb is seated on a throne, and all of creation bows down to it. The Lamb is Jesus, “a lamb without blemish or defect,” whose “precious blood” redeems his people (1 Peter 1:19).
God’s people were looking for a majestic, triumphant King who would rule on his throne forever. But the king they needed was also a lowly lamb who would be mocked, beaten and sacrificed for their sins.
The world. This is the kind of king Israel needs to save it from sin. But he’s not just for Israel; he’s for the whole world.
In the New Testament, humanity can be divided into two groups: Israel/the Jews and the Gentiles. Add them together, and you have “the world”.
Obviously, this doesn’t mean that Jesus saves every single person. He only saves those who believe. Instead, the reference to the world means that he saves “all kinds of people”, whether Jewish or Gentile.
The Jewish leaders were looking for the king of Israel. John shows them something even greater. He shows them the king who has come to save the entire world.
Surpasses. John then reminds us of the greatness of this Lamb:
This is the one I meant when I said, “A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.“
John 1:30
Now John is saying, “Look how great this man is. He is way greater than I am. He existed before me. In fact, he existed ‘in the beginning’. He’s the creator. He’s way greater than me. Look: there he is.”
Testimony sandwich. John’s Job is to testify to Jesus. In case that’s not yet clear, John gives us a testimony sandwich in verses 32-34:
32 Then John gave this testimony: “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. 33 And I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptise with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptise with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 I have seen and I testify that this is God’s Chosen One.”
John testifies. I’ve seen this guy. He is legit. I saw the Holy Spirit come down on this guy. He is God’s chosen one.”
In the Old Testament, we see the Holy Spirit poured out on God’s chosen builders (Exodus 31:3), leaders and judges (Judges 3:10, 6:34, 14:6), prophets (Numbers 11:25-26, 24:2; Ezekiel 2:2), kings (1 Samuel 10:10, 16:13), and, perhaps most significantly, the Messiah (Isaiah 11:2, 42:1, 61:1). It’s no small deal that the Spirit has been poured out on Jesus. This is God’s way of testifying that Jesus is God’s chosen Leader, Judge, Prophet, King and Messiah. My builder friends would want me to point out that he is also God’s chosen Builder (in his previous career). He is God’s Chosen One.
And so, John testifies to God’s testimony. He really wants us to know that Jesus is the one we’re looking for.
We need to know this.
And, if we really do know this, if we truly get how great Jesus is, we won’t be able to help ourselves. We’re going to want to copy John. We’re going to want to testify like John.
How exactly do we testify like John?
In a previous series of posts, I laid out a very basic and easy presentation we can share with people. You can click here to check that out.
But we can go even more basic than this. Check out John’s presentation:
Jesus came to take away the sin of the world (1:29)
He’s really great (1:30)
He’s God’s Chosen One (1:34)
If these things are true, surely we’ll want to share them!
Reflection Questions
Pray and Get Going
What kinds of things do you think people are looking for?
Read John 1:19-34
2. Why is it important for John to recognise that he is not the Messiah? Why is it important for us to recognise the same thing?
3 . What is John preparing people for? How is this similar and different to our job?
4. According to verse 29, what do we need to do to prepare for Jesus’ coming?
5. If everything John says is true, how might we imitate him?
6. What might stop us from wanting to testify to Jesus?
7. If John the Baptist heard our answers to question 6, what do you think he would say?
Pray and Give Thanks
