Читать книгу New Daily Study Bible: The Gospel of John Vol. 1 - William Barclay - Страница 19

THE WITNESS TO JESUS CHRIST

John 1:6–8

There emerged a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness, in order to bear witness to the light, that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light; his function was to bear witness to the light.

IT is a strange fact that in the Fourth Gospel every reference to John the Baptist is a reference of depreciation. There is an explanation for that. John was a prophetic voice; for 400 years the voice of prophecy had been silent, and in John it spoke again. It seems that certain people were so fascinated by John that they gave him a higher place than he ought to have had. There are, in fact, indications that there was actually a sect who put John the Baptist in the highest place. We find an echo of them in Acts 19:3–4. In Ephesus, Paul came upon certain people who knew nothing but the baptism of John. It was not that the Fourth Gospel wished to criticize John or that it underrated his importance. It was simply that John knew that there were certain people who gave John the Baptist a place that encroached upon the place of Jesus himself.

So, all through the Fourth Gospel, John is careful to point out that the place of John the Baptist in the scheme of things was high, but that nonetheless it was still subordinate to the place of Jesus Christ. Here he is careful to say that John was not that light, but only a witness to the light (1:8). He shows us John denying that he was the Christ, or even that he was the great prophet whom Moses had promised (1:20). When the Jews came to John and told him that Jesus had begun his career as a teacher, they must have expected John to resent this intrusion. But the Fourth Gospel shows us John denying that the first place was his and declaring that he must decrease while Jesus increased (3:25–30). It is pointed out that Jesus was more successful in his appeal to the people than John was (4:1). It is pointed out that even the people said that John was not able to do the things that Jesus did (10:41).

Somewhere in the Church, there was a group who wished to give John the Baptist too high a place. John the Baptist himself gave no encouragement to that but rather did everything to discourage it. But the Fourth Gospel knew that that tendency was there and took steps to guard against it. It can still happen that a congregation may worship a preacher rather than Christ. It can still happen that people fix their attention upon the messenger rather than upon the king whose coming is announced. John the Baptist was not in the least to blame for what had happened; but John the evangelist was determined to see that no one should push Christ on to the sidelines.

It is more important to note that in this passage we come upon another of the great keywords of the Fourth Gospel. That is the word translated in the Revised Standard Version as witness. The Fourth Gospel presents us with witness after witness – eight, no less – to the supreme place of Jesus Christ.

(1) There is the witness of the Father. Jesus said: ‘The Father who sent me has himself borne witness to me’ (5:37). ‘The Father who sent me bears witness to me’ (8:18). What did Jesus mean by this? He meant two things.

He meant something which affected himself. In his heart the inner voice of God spoke, and that voice left him in no doubt as to who he was and what he was sent to do. Jesus did not regard himself as having himself chosen his task. His inner conviction was that God had sent him into the world to live and to die for all humanity.

He meant something which affected people. When people are confronted with Christ, there comes an inner conviction that this is none other than the Son of God. The nineteenth-century Roman Catholic theologian Father George Tyrrell has said that the world can never get away from that ‘strange man upon the cross’. That inner power which always brings our eyes back to Christ even when we wish to forget him, that inner voice which tells us that this Jesus is none other than the Son of God and the Saviour of the world is the witness of God within our souls.

(2) There is the witness of Jesus himself. ‘I bear witness’, he said, ‘to myself’ (8:18). ‘Even if I do bear witness to myself’, he said, ‘my testimony is true’ (8:14). What does this mean? It means that it was what Jesus was that was his best witness. He claimed to be the light and the life and the truth and the way. He claimed to be the Son of God and one with the Father. He claimed to be the Saviour and the Master of all people. Unless his life and character had been what they were, such claims would have been merely shocking and blasphemous. What Jesus was in himself was the best witness that his claims were true.