IN this beautiful scene, or succession of scenes, we have a very striking setting forth of Christ, both in the power of His work and in the attractiveness of His person, the character too of His presentation in contrast with the law; and then its effects upon souls. We may remark the great care taken with regard to John the Baptist that he should not have had a knowledge of Jesus previously. And there had been such a remarkable association between the mothers of the two babes, as we find in Luke 1, that it makes it the more startling to hear the repeated assertion of the Baptist, “I knew him not.” God is setting forth that knowledge which is infinitely above nature, which comes from His own teaching, and the direct testimony of the Holy Ghost. And this was therefore brought forward in a peculiarly forcible way and reserved for this gospel. For we should hardly gather it from any other.
When John does see Jesus coming to him, his utterance here goes far beyond the bounds of Israel or even men at large into the wide scope of God's largest purposes. “Behold,” he says, “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” The law neither brought sin into the world, nor took it out. The law is the strength of sin, aggravating it, but never delivering from it. So far from taking it away, even from the Jew with whom alone it had to do, it only drove its guilt and misery into the awakened conscience. It allowed a man no rest nor comfort that had sin upon him.
But now we have another thing altogether, “the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.” It was God in the depth of His grace; God appearing in the world that He had made, dealing with the sin that the enemy had brought in. And His way was giving Jesus, that He might be the Lamb of God taking away the sin of the world. Such is the first direct testimony of the Baptist given here. Because in fact where sin is not taken away—judged according to God in another—judged in the holy sinless Lamb, that even the world might have full deliverance brought to it, (I am not speaking now of every individual person in the world, but of Jews and Gentiles indiscriminately,) there could be no divine foundation of blessing. This, then, is the first picture brought before us; the full action of divine grace in dealing with the sin that the law could only discover and not remove.
“This is He of whom I said, After me cometh a man which is preferred before me, for he was before me.” His divine glory was essential to give efficacy to the work He undertook. He must in reality be before John, however John might be before Him historically, “And I knew him not; but that he should be made manifest to Israel therefore am I come baptizing with water.” There you have John's part. All he could do was to baptize with water. That was a sort of token or sign to Israel that the Christ was about to be manifested.
“And John bear record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove.” Now you have something entirely different. “And it abode upon him.” But even that is not all. He repeats, “And I knew him not; but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost.” That is, in the 32nd verse, you have the personal seal of the Holy Ghost given to Christ. “Him hath God the Father sealed.” The Holy Ghost came and abode upon Him. But a most blessed truth is brought out in the next verse. The same blessed Person, who was Himself thus sealed, was also to baptize others with the Holy Ghost. There you have the two great divisions of our Lord's work—the Lamb bearing away the sin of the world, which is the crowning work of Christ upon earth; and then His great heavenly work founded upon what He did on earth. And these two things brought home to us by the Holy Ghost, call the Church into its proper place. We have not the Church named as such here or elsewhere in John's Gospel; but the grand features of the Church of God are brought out in these few verses.
Then comes the declaration of His personal glory: “And I saw and bear record that this is the Son of God.” I believe that, in the use here made of that term, “Son of God,” you have a much higher expression of His glory than in verse 49. Because there it is connected with the earth and with Israel. Here you have Nathaniel, the Israelite indeed, and without guile, the type of Israel so to be viewed by God's mercy. He says, “Rabbi, thou art the Son of God: thou art the King of Israel.” Acknowledging Christ according to the titles of glory in Psa. 2, where we learn Messiah is yet to be established in His glory here below. “Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Zion.” And this, too, as Son born into the world. “I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.” Nathaniel, thoroughly entering in spirit, though not in full intelligence into this, confesses the Lord accordingly. And then the Lord unfolds to him His glory as Son of Man also. How wonderfully blessed is the way in which we learn throughout the chapter the manifestation of Christ, and that, too, in our position, as He is specially unfolded to us now: from His being the Lamb of God, bearing away sin, to His heavenly operation in baptizing with the Holy Ghost. “I saw and bare record that this is the Son of God.”
But, besides having thus the full revelation of Christ and His work, (though, in point of time, preparatory to it), we have the unfolding of results in souls. “Again, the next day after, John stood, and two of his disciples: and looking upon Jesus as He walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God.” Here it appears to me that we have something still more blessed than the testimony of the first day. And it is remarkable as showing the ways of God, that it was not when John brought out the full description of Christ's work on earth and in heaven, that we find any particular effect produced upon his disciples. It was when his own soul was raptured at the sight of the Lord, as he saw Him walking before him. Jesus Himself filled his heart now, not His work, not His glory, but Himself. It is his delight, the satisfaction of his soul in looking at Him that we hear now. He says but a few simple words, not half as many as he had used before, in his wonderful testimony to Him. But there was divine power along with them, “Behold the Lamb of God.” It is His person simply, not merely His dignity, but the full grace of His person, as God the Father looked at Him. “And the two disciples heard him speak.” What was the effect? “And they followed Jesus.” John had been their earthly guide hitherto. But now there was the anticipation of what he himself afterward said, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” He had borne his witness to Christ's work and glory, and now his soul is carried away in worship of the Lord. “Behold the Lamb of God!” The effect was most mighty upon the hearts of the disciples that heard the outpouring of his heart. And it is so always. It is a mistake to suppose that the clearest enunciations of truth have the greatest effect upon the hearts and consciences of God's children. What God gives through the Spirit the second day is what He most notices as attended with marked effects upon others.
No doubt, the truth that John had brought out on the first day had done its work in their souls, but this made the testimony so overwhelming that they could not stay away from Jesus any longer. He was not only one who met the law, and all the need that sin had produced, but we have here the other great feature of Christianity and its effects: the attractiveness of Christ, an object made known to us that wins our affections, so that we cannot stay away from Him. It is the Holy Ghost that produces it through the truth; but it is the person of Christ that the heart finds its delight in. Therefore, we find the Lord gratifying this desire that His spirit had wrought in them. He turns and sees them following, and says to them, What seek ye? He loves to hear from themselves that it was not merely that they followed Him because they had heard of certain things that He was going to do. But he asks, What seek ye? They answer, “Rabbi, (which is to say, being interpreted, Master,) where dwellest thou?” In Christ we have not merely God dealing with sin, but makes us one with Him who put bur sin away. And the effect in this world is, the attraction to his person and dwelling with Him. These disciples go away from all that had been previously so blest to them. To have staid now with John, away from Jesus, would have shown that God's object, by his servant John, had failed of its adequate effects. But, no; they follow Jesus. The Lord at once invites them to “come and see. They came and saw where He dwelt, and abode with Him that day.” We are not told where it was; that was of no consequence. On the contrary, I believe it was of importance that it should not be told. Thus, the delight and satisfaction of the heart in Jesus draws us to follow after, and makes us strangers with Him. Companions of an unknown land of glory with Him that we become strangers in the world. John the Baptist himself went away from the cities and the haunts of men and dwelt in the wilderness. But that was in correspondence with the moral sentence of God, that the wilderness was better than the city. To use the language of the Psalmist, “Oh, that I had wings like a dove for then would I fly away and be at rest, Lo, then would I wander far off, and remain in the wilderness,” &c.
But now there is a new and heavenly kind of isolation—an isolation for the Christian. It may be in the very heart of the city; nor need we go to the wilderness to seek it. Christ's dwelling is an unknown spot; it was on the earth, but of heaven. And it is made so to us, because it is companionship with Him that came down from heaven—the Son of man, who, even when on earth, was “the Son of man in heaven.” And it is the more so with us, because of the Spirit sent doll n from heaven, who knits us with Him there. Left here for a little while, we are strangers with Him who is in heaven. And this is Christianity as a practical thing.
And, oh! may the Lord grant that these things may be increasingly true of our souls—that we may not be satisfied merely with having them before our hearts and consenting to them, but that they may be our daily enjoyment.
In Christianity there is no such thought as that man should first work for himself, and then give up a portion of his time for rest. We begin with Christ risen from the dead, when His work for us was done; we enter on a new reckoning of time, not to say eternity, with blessing from God's full grace. We may have to earn our bread day by day; but we are not laboring aright if we do it for ourselves. A Christian is more than any other liable to go astray, unless he be always serving his Master in heaven. Let the work be what it may, where there is a godly doing of it, doing it to the Lord, the heart is kept happy, free from the uneasiness of mind and the care that would corrode its peace. The Lord grant, then, that, delighting ourselves in Jesus, we may be content to be strangers with Him. And allow me to say that it is a harder thing to be an unknown, unnoticed stranger in the world, than to be roughly used and persecuted by the world. The most trying thing to the heart is when we are not counted worthy either of a word or a look. Many could bear to be the objects of stripes or imprisonment much better. How happy it is that the Lord gives us this strangership to the world—communion with His own grace. The world may treat us with scorn or slight, but this only shows after all that their hearts, however given to pleasure, are not happy. Anything that is of Christ makes the world uneasy. The more calm and quiet you are, the more the world is afraid, feeling instinctively that there is something entirely above itself. May we be then where Jesus dwells. Such perfect peace is there; such purity; such love, even to the poor world. We are heirs and representatives, not only of the life of Christ, but of His love.
We shall often murmur and complain if our strangership does not flow from this, that we are with Jesus, and because we have such a blessed portion with Jesus, that what is around us is not worth thinking about.