St. John the Baptist's query to Jesus

[kingston1]

Its obvious John knew what was going on.

John 1:29 The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.

When I heard the Gospel I thought this is just like when Christ told John at His baptism, lets do this to fulfill all righteousness, i.e. its the Father’s will. Now Christ is saying, **lets **make it clear, see all these prophecies about the Messiah are coming to pass and John’s great work given to him by My Father of preparing My way before Me is almost complete. John’s place in heaven will be exalted and it will be spoken of for generations within My Church.

With all due respect he did not obviously know since he asked the question. No one doubts that John is higher than man according to Jesus but what Jesus said to follow is that he is still lesser than least in heaven. This means to me, he is the greatest of men, but since he is a man, he like everyone can be confused.

I’m confused why some are saying that because John asked the question and we observe that he seemed confused that we are saying implicitly that John is somehow not a prophet or great.

 

[PennyinCanada]

Just because it’s recorded that these guys came up to Jesus and said “John sent us” doesn’t mean that John did not understand the mission of Christ. It may indeed mean he knew very well. Of course John would send them to Jesus. If he wasn’t in prison, he likely would have taken them himself. What was he doing before he was in prison? He was saying “There goes the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world”. John understood the lamb of the Passover was slaughtered to take away sins for a time, that Christ fulfilled what all those lambs were pointing to. Why else was he proclaiming Christ as the lamb of God? That was not revealed by men but by the Holy Spirit.

 

[PJM]

=psalm51mercy;11502064]St. John the Baptist sent his disciples to Jesus to ask “are you the one?”
Why did he need to do this since he baptized Jesus at the river Jordan?
Didn’t he know already who Jesus was?

He didn’t

He did this for the SAKE of his disciples, KNOWING that he would soon be killed.

 

[Joelle_M]

Yes he did know. That’s why he’s asking.

Think of it like this, you and someone else are going to the movies and the tickets are bought and the car is warmed up and ready to go and the other person is just messing around with their phone when its time to go. So you say, “Are we going or am I going alone?” You know perfectly well you’re going, but you ask the question as rhetorical emphasis to make the point that its time to go, not because you think that the other person has forgotten you’re going to the movies.

Well think of the sense in how that question is asked and apply it to John’s question. He is in prison, about to die, he knows he is a prophet and that Jesus is Messiah and yet there he sits in prison about to die. And so he sends his disciples to Jesus to say, “Are you the Messiah or are we looking for another?” In other words, “GET A MOVE ON MAN I’M ABOUT TO DIE OVER HERE!!!”

And it is clear from Jesus’ response that he takes the question that way. “Tell John the blind see, the deaf hear, the dead are raised…”

Jesus reminds John that He, as God, knows perfectly well what John’s predicament is, but that His mission is not to save John the Baptist but Israel and the whole world; a mission His works and signs show He is about the business of fulfilling. So the Lord is not indifferent to John’s suffering it is just that sometimes God’s salvation for us is not about saving our necks but instead saving our souls.

Thanks for this! Almost 4 years after you posted and clearly it’s still helping people I was racking my brain on this one

 

[JohnR77]

I’m afraid that all the responses so far have failed to understand John’s character. Christ himself states that among those born of women there has risen no one greater than John the Baptist.

You must ask yourself why did John still have disciples? Many of John’s disciples had already left him to follow Jesus and that is exactly as it should have been. As John said, “He must increase, I must decrease”

So here is John in prison, nearing the end of his life, the Christ has come and yet he still has disciples following him instead of Jesus. John knows that they need to follow Jesus instead of him but he also knows that they have to choose to follow Jesus of their own free will. If he ordered them to leave and follow Jesus they would still in a sense be following him as it would be out of obedience to John’s command.

So how does he deal with them? He tells his disciples to go and ask Jesus if He is the one who is to come or should they look for another? How does Jesus respond?
“Go and tell John the things which you hear and see: The blind see and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them.”
Jesus, like John, leaves the choice to follow Him completely up to them. They were obviously fiercely loyal to John, probably zealous, and if you have had any dealings with people in the church who are zealously wrong about something, you know that they have to be treated with great care, otherwise they simply dig their heels in and refuse to budge on their position. John’s disciples needed careful treatment to be able to decide on their own that they needed to let go of John and follow Him whose way John had come to prepare.

John had no doubts at all that Jesus was indeed the Christ. He was a prophet after all.

Yes. John knew who Jesus was.
But we find out in Acts that not all of John’s disciples made the transition to following Jesus.

Acts 19:2-5
He said to them, “Did you receive the holy Spirit when you became believers?” They answered him, “We have never even heard that there is a holy Spirit.”
3 He said, “How were you baptized?” They replied, “With the baptism of John.”
4 Paul then said, “John baptized with a baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, in Jesus.”
5 When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.”

Although we are not certain as to how John knew. He had a special revelation from heaven at the baptism. But John knew even before then. Was it by the way of his guardian angel ? God the Father ? Or maybe it was from his mother who had a unique relationship with Mary?

So, was John going to say, “Because my Mom said …”
Or if it was by way of heavenly revelation maybe that was not enough to convince others.

John knew who Jesus was and he knew Jesus would know the best way to convince them. That is why John sent them to Jesus to ask the question. It was their question. And John knew Jesus would have the wisdom to know how best to convince them what John already knew.

John

.

 

[GLam8833]

Thanx for this thread, OP, it opened my eyes to this
story in John the Baptist’s life.

 

[PJM]

St. John the Baptist sent his disciples to Jesus to ask “are you the one?”
Why did he need to do this since he baptized Jesus at the river Jordan?
Didn’t he know already who Jesus was?

In Ministry NOT every question asked is for self knowledge

GBY

 

[Benadam]

We have to remember that John the Baptist experienced divine revelation. A kind of lifting up in knowledge of God’s plan that was periodic. Like when Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit was able to recognize the Incarnation of Christ when Mary’s voice reached her ears. John the Baptist was also made aware at this time.
Remember it isn’t flesh and blood that reveals the Son. John was filled with this divine knowing when he saw Jesus and proclaimed Him as the Lamb of God. The Holy Spirit lifted John up to this kind of knowing many times during his life I’m sure. But like most encounters with God, it goes away and becomes a memory, subject to faith and human conditions that can sometimes cause doubt.

I don’t buy that John was just sending his followers to Jesus. That may have been a part of his intention. I believe John got his final divine assurance about his mission from Jesus, God on earth rather than from God in heaven.

I’m thinking that in prison John experienced a spiritual dryness as a part of his final purification. Left with only memories of the divine revelations of God’s plan he experienced,along with his approaching death, made him reach out to Jesus for reassurance.

I’m thinking John experienced an agony in the prison as his death approached something akin to Jesus’ agony in the garden as His death approached. Jesus prayed to his Father in heaven and John prays to Jesus on earth. Jesus is comforted by Angelic messengers from the Father and John is comforted by human messengers from the Son.