Biblion Bible Commentary
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I Am Not the Christ
John 1:19-28
19 This is John’s testimony, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” · WEB
A delegation asks who he is, and he answers three times by saying who he is not.
This is John's testimony, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, "Who are you?" John 1:19.
The prologue ends and the narrative begins with an interrogation. It is official — priests and Levites, sent from the capital — and the question is the book's own question, asked of the wrong man.
He declared, and didn't deny, but he declared, "I am not the Christ" John 1:20.
The writer piles up the verbs, and the effect is of a man being unmistakable. He confessed and did not deny and confessed — three clauses to record a refusal. The temptation was real and the refusal was total.
"Are you Elijah?" He said, "I am not." "Are you the prophet?" He answered, "No" John 1:21.
Three titles offered and three refused, and the answers get shorter each time. Malachi had promised Elijah before the great day Malachi 4:5, and Moses had promised a prophet like himself Deuteronomy 18:15; both were live expectations, and both are put down.
The denial about Elijah sits oddly beside what is said elsewhere, where he is identified as the Elijah who was to come Matthew 11:14. Both stand as they are: he was not Elijah returned in person, which is what he was being asked, and he came in the spirit and power of Elijah, which is what the angel had told his father Luke 1:17. A man is entitled to deny a claim he is not making.
"Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us" John 1:22. The delegation is under orders and needs something for the file. It is the most human line in the passage.
"I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, 'Make straight the way of the Lord'" John 1:23 Isaiah 40:3.
The only positive identification he will give is a voice. Not a person with a title — a sound, whose entire function is to be heard and not looked at. It is the least self-regarding answer on record, and it is the definition of what the prologue called a witness.
"Why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?" John 1:25. The question is fair. He is conducting a public rite that implies authority, and he has just disclaimed every office that would carry it.
"I baptize in water, but among you stands one whom you don't know" John 1:26.
The answer changes the subject to the only thing that matters. Someone is standing among you, present tense, in that crowd, unrecognized — which is the prologue's the world didn't recognize him John 1:10 happening in front of the reader.
"He is the one who comes after me, who is preferred before me, whose sandal strap I'm not worthy to loosen" John 1:27. Untying a sandal was slave's work, and a Hebrew slave could not be required to do it. He places himself below the lowest rank in the household.
These things were done in Bethany beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing John 1:28. The place is Bethabara , at the river crossing, and not the village near Jerusalem of the same name. The writer dates and locates it, as he does throughout — a man who remembers where he was standing.
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