Commentary on John 1:29-42

We begin “the next day” in this passage, because one day has already transpired in verses 19–28, in which John gives testimony about who he is: not the Messiah, nor Elijah, but “the voice of one crying out in the wilderness” (1:20–23).

John the Testifier

John is an intriguing character, but he is portrayed differently in John’s Gospel than in the Synoptics, which is the material out of which our imagination of John the Baptist is mostly shaped. Here, there is no clothing made of camel’s hair or eating of locusts and wild honey (Matthew 3:4; Mark 1:6). There is no background about John’s mother, Elizabeth, and her relationship to Jesus’ mother, Mary (Luke 1:5–24, 39–45, 57–66).

It is John whose practice of baptism is being questioned by the Pharisees in the passage before this one (1:24–28). But note that in John’s Gospel, John “the Baptist” doesn’t baptize Jesus, as far as the reader witnesses. (Thus, Baptism of the Lord Sunday was celebrated last week with a reading from Matthew’s Gospel.)

In John’s Gospel, John the Baptist is the testifier to Jesus’ identity. He sees Jesus coming and declares, “Here is the Lamb of God” (verse 29). He reiterates his prior testimony (verse 30). He testifies to the Spirit descending upon him from heaven (verse 32). John testifies that the one who sent him also gave him the sign to look for in discerning the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit (verse 33). “And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Chosen One” (verse 34).

Whereas the Synoptics’ encounter with John the Baptist may open homiletic space for reflections on baptism, the portrayal in John’s Gospel opens space for the preacher to address the role of testimony in Christian life, and the role of John as testifier to Jesus’ identity.

The Lamb, the dove, and the water

We tend to read scripture as if the earth images—the landscape, the animal figures, appearance of water, skies, stars, et cetera—are simply the background, the mise-en-scène, for the human activity of the text. But the landscape, the animal, the vegetal, the aquatic, and the celestial speak throughout the text of scripture. John’s Gospel is no exception.

This passage is full of ecological imagery. On the next day, John sees Jesus coming toward him and he declares: “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” This is the first animal image appearing in this passage, and one more symbolic than literal.

Margaret Daly-Denton notes that the “Lamb of God” imagery has many possible symbolic meanings in John’s usage: the lamb provided by God instead of Isaac (Genesis 22:8, 13), the paschal lamb (Exodus 12), the servant led as a lamb to the slaughter (Isaiah 53:7), and the male lamb or young ram that was the first sign in the Babylonian zodiac that was part of first-century Jewish imagination. But, she cautions, John is known for layering meaning upon meaning, and “to accept one symbolic meaning does not require dismissing the others.”¹ We would do well not to import our own atonement theology into John’s portrayal of the Lamb of God, as we may run counter to John’s own portrayal of Jesus’ death later in the Gospel.

In 1:32, John testifies, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him.” The second animal image appears in the passage, and one both literal and symbolic.

The Spirit descending like a dove appears in all four Gospels. Yet, we often treat this animal appearance of the Spirit as something entirely symbolic, rather than an expression of God’s incarnation in the feathery flesh of the dove. Mark I. Wallace suggests, “The Christian belief in the incarnation of God in Jesus and the embodiment of the Holy Spirit in the baptismal dove should actually mean something in practical, spiritual terms, not simply serve as points of theological doctrine.”²

Preaching amid climate collapse, a planet on the brink, our life and death bound up with the fate of the multitude of other species, what would it mean to take the image of God’s Spirit incarnate in a dove as a sign of God’s presence with all creation? Throughout the Psalms, the vegetal, animal, aquatic, geologic, and celestial bodies join in praise of God. Here, the Spirit descends as a dove testifying to the identity of Jesus alongside John the Testifier. At very least, this text gives us the opportunity to help congregations hear the earth speak in the telling of the Good News.

In 1:33, we hear John describing his own mission to baptize with water, the activity for which “the Baptizer” is most known. Water is a third earth-image in this text. Even in the wilderness where we meet John, the waters of baptism—and new life—are flowing.

Where are you abiding?

John testifies, “Look! Here is the Lamb of God!” But now enter two disciples who begin following Jesus, seemingly without Jesus noticing at first.

David Ford argues that three questions raised in this passage (and the one immediately preceding it) will extend and deepen throughout the remainder of John’s Gospel:

1. Who are you? (1:19)
2. What are you looking for? (1:38)
3. Where are you staying/dwelling/abiding? (1:38)

The rest of the Gospel, Ford argues, can be seen as a response to these questions.³

The final question, “Where are you staying?” contains much to unpack for our congregations. The term could mean simply where Jesus is dwelling at the time. But it also carries the connotation of remaining and abiding, and is the same word used for the Spirit “remaining” on Jesus in verses 32–33.

“Come and see,” Jesus says, an invitation to would-be disciples ancient and modern.

And the disciples went and “remained” with him that day. Then Andrew found his brother, Simon Peter, to testify, “We have found the Messiah” (verse 41).

And the question is raised for us: As we remain with Jesus, how is our testimony shaped by our abiding with the one who John, the dove, and Andrew testify to as the Lamb of God (verse 29), the one who baptizes with the Spirit (verse 33), and the Messiah (verse 41)? What will we say of Jesus?

Notes

1. Margaret Daly-Denton, John: An Earth Bible Commentary: Supposing Him to Be the Gardener (New York: T&T Clark, 2017), 51.
2. Mark I. Wallace, When God Was a Bird: Christianity, Animism, and the Re-Enchantment of the World (New York: Fordham University Press, 2019), 165.
3. David F. Ford, The Gospel of John: A Theological Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2021), 44.