We Have Found the Messiah: An Exposition of John 1:35-42
The previous passage was accented by John’s verbal testimony of the Christ when he calls out: “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” John the Baptist not only used the sign of water baptism as a testimony, but also spoke. This should remind us that we have to do more than just live the Christian life in front of the world and hope they see the light. The Gospel of John does not promote the idea of secret discipleship. Sooner or later, the secret disciple must become public. There is a saying: “Preach the gospel; if necessary, use words.” As well intentioned as that sounds, there is a major flaw with this type of witness. Yes, it is important that one’s actions agree with one’s words, but it is the preaching and testifying to the Word of God that saves. This is why Paul in Philippians can rejoice that even when Christ is preached from the wrong motives, Christ is preached. God created the universe by speaking. The new creation depends upon the faithful and Spirit-led spoken witness of Jesus Christ. As Paul says, “Faith comes by hearing; and hearing by the Word of God.” This requires that He be preached by those whom God has sent. John the Baptist is the example of this verbal witness of one sent by God.
In this passage, it says that it was the next day. The previous passage was introduced by the same words, and the next passage by a similar means. It is a three day sequence in which one passage naturally leads into the next. In the previous passage, John uses the historical present tense in Greek for the word translated “saw” in most translations into English. The historical present is used to transport the reader/hearer of the text back to the scene as though they were actually there when John the Baptist saw Jesus. Here the seeing is in the past as one would normally expect; however, there is a historical present here. John “says: “Behold the Lamb of God!” This is a repeat of the first half of John’s words which He spoke when he saw Jesus come. By putting this into the historical present, he is placing emphasis on John’s speaking. John spoke the words the day before. He speaks it again on this day. But he also speaks this for all time. We should hear his proclamation in our hearts as though John the Baptist was speaking before us today. We need to hear “Behold the Lamb of God!” again and again that we might fix our hearts and minds upon Him. This becomes the very root of discipleship.
What was the result of John’s habitual proclamation? We see here that there were two of John’s disciples who heard it. Maybe others who called themselves the disciples of John the Baptist heard John. But there was something different about these two disciples. They understood the implications of the Baptist’s words and followed Jesus instead. Why did not others follow. We know later that John still had disciples in the third chapter. But if one listens careful to John’s witness, we will leave off following other teachers, even good and faithful ones like John the Baptist. A teacher that does not deflect attention away from one’s self unto Jesus has failed to communicate the message. It is not necessarily the teacher’s fault. It is not John’s fault that all of his disciples did not leave him to follow Jesus. Isaiah was told in the 6th chapter of his book that the people’s hearts were dull. They would see and not perceive, and hear and not understand.
John spoke and two of his disciples followed. Jesus noticed them and says: Whom are you seeking?” Note again the historical present “say” is used. It is a question that Jesus asks us as well. The verb for seeing is the Greek word which is related to the English word “theatre.” There is a dramatic sense to Jesus’ gaze upon these two. There is more than just a casual seeing here. He saw the earnestness of their following. There would be many who would follow Jesus. The gospel says that there we those who followed Jesus for what they could get out of Him, whether it is be healing or bread. When Jesus failed to meet their expectations, these “followers” deserted Him. Jesus is recorded in John to be that knew the hearts of all men. He could see beyond the outward appearance to the very heart. This is what He was in these two disciples. They really wanted to follow Jesus on His terms and not theirs. So Jesus says the same to us. When He looks upon us, what does He see?
The first response from the disciples was: “Rabbi, where are you staying?” They were asking to become the disciples of the Rabbi and learn from Him. This is properly the first ministry of the new convert. The most important thing one can do when coming to Christ is to learn. Unfortunately in the church today, the popular wisdom says the first thing we do is to take a skills assessment and give them a job to do. This is totally contrary to Scripture. In some cases, we get them into church and give them a ministry even before they become believers. The thought here is that if we get them busy in church, they will overhear and believe later. No, what we need to do is faithfully proclaim the gospel. When the person who hears the word in his or her heart and believes, the proof of faith is that they submit to instruction. This is what these two disciples did. They wanted to come under the roof of their new Rabbi and learn.
Jesus answers by saying: “Come and you shall see.” They are to first come. They don’t understand everything yet. But they will come to see over time. This is an invitation for us as well, as the historical present “say” is used again. No matter how long we have followed Jesus, there is more to see. We see through a glass darkly as Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 13. But we shall see face to face. We are asked to act upon what we already know. We know we are to come. Then we need to learn and grow in our faith. And this desire to learn must be modelled by the teachers in the church. The best teacher is a willing student.
The two disciples responded by following Jesus to where He was staying and remained there that night as it was already late in the afternoon. I would suppose Jesus would have spent the evening teaching these new disciples, the first lesson in a new life of discipleship. I would have suppose they also took supper with Him and went to bed.
In verse 40, we should expect the words: “on the next day.” But it does not appear here. We must wonder if Andrew went out immediately to find his brother Peter on that day, or if for some other reason, John omits the distinction of day. Considering he uses the time marker three times in the passage, why would he do this? Perhaps there is a greater significance to “on the next day” than the division of temporal time. Time is a prominent theme in the gospel, but it is a strange understanding of it. He does use “hour” as in the 10th hour, or four o’clock in the afternoon, in the normal way. But he also uses the word “hour” is a cosmic way to refer to the cross. Perhaps I am making too much here, but I tend to think that Andrew goes to find Peter on the next literal day. He was so excited about what he learned that evening, he could not wait to tell Peter. He finds Him and says: “We have found the Messiah!” It was more than hearing the testimony of John the Baptist. He had heard from Jesus Himself.
We must pause here are reflect upon the word “Messiah.” Where we find “Christ” everywhere in the New Testament, how often do we find the word “Messiah?” The answer here is in John 1:41 and John 4:25. Here the Hebrew term is translated to its Greek equivalent, “Christ.” However in many modern translations, “Messiah” is rendered as a translation of the Greek word “Christ.” The question I ask is that once John translates “Messiah” to “Christ” for His readers, why does he not use “Messiah” after that. If he were following the queue of modern translators, this is what he would have done. From this, we should learn that no two words are identical. There is a common area of equivalence, but they are not equivalent everywhere. The Hebrew idea of “Messiah” tended to be restricted to the Jewish hope that a Jewish Messiah would overthrow the Gentile nations and establish Jerusalem as a new capital. In other words, “Messiah” carries a lot of baggage with it. “Christ,” on the other hand, was the universal term for “Anointed One” which did not carry this baggage. The Messiah was the hope of a Jewish nation, but Christ is Lord over all the nations. The one is parochial, the other universal. The church needs to use “Christ” and not “Messiah.” The two occurrences in John were spoke by Andrew who was new to the faith and needed to grow in his knowledge, and the Samaritan woman who likewise needed to be further instructed. All believers, whether Jew or Gentile are equal. Using “Messiah” places Gentiles in a subservient role in the church. Neither is to be exalted over the other. So when the Presbyterian Confession of 1967 uses Messiah and takes special note of Jesus being a Palestinian Jew and the relation of Jesus to “His people” (Jews), they are making a capital mistake.
Peter then comes to Jesus, and Jesus looks upon Him and said: “You are Simon the son of John.” The Aramaic here is “Simon Bar-Jonah.” This will come into play in Matthew 16 as well as in the 21st chapter of John. How did Jesus know He was the son of John. Did Andrew introduce Peter that way? Or did Andrew introduce himself to Jesus as Andrew Bar-Jonah and Jesus put two and two together? Or did Jesus who knows everything just knew it from His divinity? We can’t tell, but what is important is that Jesus immediately gives him another name, the Aramaic “Cephas” which means “pebble.”
We are presented with an issue here. This Simon Bar-Jonah is not named “Peter” until the 16th chapter of Matthew which was in the middle of Jesus’ ministry. But here, the same Simon Bar-Jonah seems to receive this name from the very beginning. This would seem hard to reconcile, but if one realizes the one name is Aramaic, and that Peter is Greek, we have a possible solution if we look at the comparison between the Hebrew “Messiah” and the Greek “Christ.” Jesus calls Simon “Peter” at Caesarea Philippi which was the site of a pagan temple to Pan which was carved out of the rockface. It had originally been a temple to Ba’al. A source of the Jordan river flowed from a cave under the temple which was called the “Gates of Hades” (Hell). The change of name to the Greek “Peter” indicated a change of mission, and would foretell Peter becoming the first to open the door to the Gentiles and to Gentile inclusion in the church. John 21 at the fishing trip, Jesus again uses Simon Bar-Jonah. When re recognize that Jonah’s mission was to the Gentile nation of Assyria, it is accenting that Peter would also preach to the Gentiles.
We would like to know who the other disciple who is not named did. Who was this “other disciple.” Is it the same as the “Disciple whom Jesus loved” that occurs in this gospel? Is this John the son of Zebedee. The tradition of the early church is almost unanimous that is is, although new speculations have arisen lately. The only mention to John and James is the generic “sons of Zebedee” in chapter 21. This is another one of the great mysteries of the gospel. Why so little attention to them who are so prominent in the other three gospels. There they seem to be self-seeking with a mother who wanted to promote them. If John is the beloved disciple of this gospel, it seems to present a quite different portrait.
Perhaps there is an answer to this in the presentation of John the Baptist in this gospel. The Baptist is presented as being a totally faithful witness. Yet in chapter 3, he still has disciples. Why did he not just send them after Jesus. The other gospels show John having a season of doubt while in prison. He had to send his disciples to ask Jesus. We can see that John the Baptist, as great as he was, was still human. But John just presents the positive aspect of his witness to show us what our witness should look like. We are human and have our failures. But the example still stands.
I think the same is true of the Apostle John. His portrait in the gospel is anonymous. The true witness does not direct attention to one’s self, but to Jesus. John shows a fault after the arrest of Jesus. He uses his influence to bring Peter into the courtyard of the High Priest. Peter fails miserably and denies Jesus three times. But what does John do about it? Nothing! He does not speak a single word in defense of either Peter or Jesus. He stays hidden in the background hoping not to be seen. He is a secret disciple. As we have noted, the gospel does not smile on secret disciples. John has to come out of the shadows. In the gospel he writes, he makes an open and verbal confession that Jesus is the Christ. All followers of Jesus must come into the light and confess Him.
