And besides them, he beholds his
brethren the Apostles who sat with him at the feet of the Prince of peace with
him the majestic testimony from on high, ‘This is my beloved Son, in whom I am
well pleased; he ye Him!’ and who, with him, behold His glory, ‘the glory as
the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth.’ (“That Which Was From
the Beginning,” The
Christian Treasury 32 [1876]: 286)
Ver. 31. And I knew him
not; but that he may be made manifest to Israel, therefore came I, baptizing in
water. The explanation of the first clause of this verse will be best given
when we come to ver. 33. The object which the Baptist here assigns for his work
of baptizing may at first sight seem to be different from that mentioned in the
earliest Gospels, where he is spoken of as sent to prepare the way of the Lord.
Attention to the words used by John will remove all difficulty. ‘Israel’ is not
to be limited to the Jewish nation. It embraces the true theocracy of
God,--neither Jews nor Gentiles as such, but all who will believe (comp. on
vers. 47, 49). ‘Made manifest,’ again, is not a mere outward manifestation, but
a revelation of Jesus as He is. Thus the
meaning of the words is not, ‘I baptize in water in order that Jesus may come
to my baptism, and may there receive a testimony on high:’ but, ‘I baptize that
I may declare the necessity of that forsaking of sin without which no true
manifestation of Jesus can be made to the heart.’ The words in their real
meaning, therefore, are in perfect harmony with the accounts of the Synoptists.
The advance of thought from the unrecognized Jesus of ver. 26 to the ‘made
manifest’ of ver. 31 is obvious. It corresponds to the ‘standeth’ of ver. 26,
and the ‘coming unto him’ of ver. 29; with the fact also, that the one is the
first, the other the second, testimony of the Baptist. (William Milligan and
William Fiddian Moulton, The
International Revision Commentary on the New Testament, ed. Philip
Schaff [New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1883], 4:27-28)
