John the Baptist continued his witness to Jesus' identity by identifying Him publicly as the Lamb of God. This witness is a crucial part of the writer's purpose of promoting faith in Jesus.
1:29 The very next day John saw Jesus approaching him--they had been together before (vv. 26, 32-33)--and publicly identified Jesus as the Messiah. "Behold"or "Look"(Gr. ide) is a favorite expression of John's.79Probably his questioners had returned to Jerusalem by this time. The title "Lamb of God"presented Jesus as the Lamb that God would provide as a substitute sacrifice for humankind's sin (Isa. 53:7; cf. Gen. 4:4; 8:20; 22:8, 13-14; Exod. 12:3-17; Isa. 53:12; 1 Pet. 1:19).
"It [the title "Lamb"] combines in one descriptive term the concepts of innocence, voluntary sacrifice, substitutionary atonement, effective obedience, and redemptive power like that of the Passover lamb (Exod. 12: 21-27)."80
"The question in the Old Testament is, Where is the lamb?' (Gen. 22:7) In the four Gospels, the emphasis is Behold the Lamb of God!' Here He is! After you have trusted Him, you sing with the heavenly choir, "Worthy is the Lamb!' (Rev. 5:12)"81
John spoke of sin,' not sins (cf. 1 John 1:9), by which he meant the totality of the world's sin rather than to a number of individual acts.82John seems to have had the common understanding of Messiah that his contemporaries did. This was that He would be a political liberator for Israel (cf. Matt. 11:2-3; Luke 7:19). However, he understood, as most of his contemporaries did not, that the scope of Jesus' ministry would be spiritual and universal. He would take away the sin of the world, not just the Jews.
1:30 Probably some of those to whom John addressed these words were present and witnessed his conversation with the priests and Levites the previous day. John now identified Jesus as the person he had hinted at the day before.
1:31-33 John had not known that Jesus was the Messiah before God revealed that to him even though they were relatives (cf. Luke 1:36). John learned who Jesus really was when he baptized Jesus (Matt. 3:13-17; Mark 1:9-11; Luke 3:21-22). The Apostle John did not record Jesus' baptism, which happened before the events he recorded here. John the Baptist further explained that he carried on his baptizing ministry with Messiah's public identification as a goal (cf. Mark 1:4). The symbolic descent of the Holy Spirit as a dove that remained on Jesus identified Jesus to John the Baptist as Messiah who was to baptize with the Holy Spirit (cf. Isa. 11:2; Ezek. 36:25-26; Mark 1:10).
"Two times in John the Baptist's account he made mention of the Spirit remaining' on Jesus (1:32-33). This is extremely important as a description of the Spirit's relationship to Jesus because permanence is implied."83
In the Synoptics the writers mentioned only Jesus seeing the descent of the Spirit as a dove. John is the only evangelist who recorded that John the Baptist also saw it. The purpose of the baptism of Jesus in this Gospel then is to identify Jesus as Messiah to John the Baptist so he could bear witness to Jesus' identity. Every other disciple was dependent upon a human witness for divine illumination about Jesus' true identity. Baptism with water was essentially negative symbolizing cleansing from something, but baptism with the Spirit was positive indicating the imparting of new life from God.
1:34 John fulfilled this purpose by witnessing that Jesus was the Son of God (cf. 2 Sam. 7:14; Ps. 2:7). This is a title that unambiguously claims deity. The title "Messiah"did not imply deity to many who heard it in Jesus' day. They thought only of an eschatological deliverer. Even the Twelve struggled with this. However, John the Baptist testified that Jesus was God, though doubts arose in his mind later. Son of God does not mean any less than deity. It means full deity (v. 18). This verse is the climax of John the Baptist's testimony concerning Jesus.
The event that identified Jesus as the Son of God for John the Baptist was the fulfillment of God's promise to him that he would see the Spirit's descent and continuation on Him. This was the basis of John the Baptist's witness concerning Jesus.
