From: John 1:29-34
The Witness of John (Continuation)
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Commentary:
29. For the first time in the Gospel Christ is called the “Lamb of God”. Isaiah had
compared the sufferings of the Servant of Yahweh, the Messiah, with the sacrifice
of a lamb (cf. Isaiah 53:7); and the blood of the paschal lamb smeared on the door
of houses had served to protect the firstborn of the Israelites in Egypt (cf. Exodus
12:6-7): all this was a promise and prefiguring of the true Lamb, Christ, the victim
in the sacrifice of Calvary on behalf of all mankind. This is why St. Paul will say
that “Christ, our Paschal Lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Corinthians 5:7). The ex-
pression “Lamb of God” also suggests the spotless innocence of the Redeemer
(cf. 1 Peter 1:18-20; 1 John 3:5).
The sacred text says “the sin of the world”, in the singular, to make it absolutely
clear that every kind of sin is taken away: Christ came to free us from Original
Sin, which in Adam affected all men, and from all personal sins.
The Book of Revelation reveals to us that Jesus is victorious and glorious in Hea-
ven as the slain lamb (cf. Revelation 5:6-14), surrounded by saints, martyrs and
virgins (Revelation 7:9, 14; 14:1-5), who render Him the praise and glory due Him
as God (Revelation 7:10).
Since Holy Communion is a sharing in the sacrifice of Christ, priests say these
words of the Baptist before administering it, to encourage the faithful to be grate-
ful to our Lord for giving Himself up to death to save us and for giving Himself to
us as nourishment for our souls.
30-31. John the Baptist here asserts Jesus’ superiority by saying that He exis-
ted before him, even though He was born after him. Thereby he shows us the
divinity of Christ, who was generated by the Father from all eternity and born of
the Virgin Mary in time. It is as if the Baptist were saying: “Although I was born
before Him, He is not limited by the ties of His birth; for although He is born of
His mother in time, He was generated by His Father outside of time” (St. Gre-
gory the Great, “In Evangelia Homiliae”, VII).
By saying what he says in verse 31, the Precursor does not mean to deny his
personal knowledge of Jesus (cf. Luke 1:36 and Matthew 3:14), but to make it
plain that God revealed to him the moment when he should publicly proclaim
Jesus as Messiah and Son of God, and that he also understood that his own
mission as precursor had no other purpose than to bear witness to Jesus Christ.
32-34. To emphasize the divinity of Jesus Christ, the Evangelist includes here
the Precursor’s testimony regarding Jesus’ Baptism (cf. the other Gospels,
which describe in more detail what happened on this occasion: Matthew 3:13-
17 and paragraph). It is one of the key points in our Lord’s life, in which the
mystery of the Blessed Trinity is revealed (cf. note on Matthew 3:16).
The dove is a symbol of the Holy Spirit, of whom it is said in Genesis 1:2 that
He was moving over the face of the waters. Through this sign of the dove, the
Isaiah prophecies (11:2-5: 42:1-2) are fulfilled which say that the Messiah will
be full of the power of the Holy Spirit. The Baptist points to the great difference
between the baptism he confers and Christ’s Baptism; in John 3, Jesus will
speak about this new Baptism in water and in the Spirit (cf. Acts 1:5; Titus
3:5).
“The Son of God”: it should be pointed out that in the original text this expres-
sion carries the definite article, which means that John the Baptist confesses
before his listeners the supernatural and transcendent character of Christ’s
messiahship — very far removed from the politico-religious notion which Jewish
leaders had forged.
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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.
First reading | 1 John 2:29-3:6 © |
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Psalm | Psalm 97:1,3-6 © |
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Gospel Acclamation |
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Or | Jn1:14,12 |
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Or | Heb1:1-2 |
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Gospel | John 1:29-34 © |
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