Anno 1524.
V. 29. The next day John saw Jesus coming to him and said, "Behold, this is the Lamb of God who bears the sin of the world.
(1) That is, another day after, when Christ had been baptized before, and the message of the Jews had been with him, and John had already testified several times, which he testifies here, as it is written above, saying, "Behold, this is the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
(2) This saying, and those that follow, I have abundantly dealt with in the postilion, Advent; for this is the voice of John, to cry out the gospel, how Christ taketh away all sin.
V. 30. This is the one of whom I told you: After me comes a man who was before me, for he was before me.
3 Then John tells of his preaching, which he did before he saw Christ or was baptized, and says that he was before him. This is what is said about the ministry: He comes after me; that is, he will preach after me, I will preach before him.
Who has been before me.
(4) This also seems to me to be said of John's ministry, thus: You must not think that he is far off, of whom I say he comes after me; yes, he is so near that he is already there, and has long since walked among you before me, that is, before I came and preached.
For he was before, because I.
5 This may be said of the deity of Christ; as the evangelist always uses to introduce Christ as a God. As if he should say: He was not only before my preaching and coming, but also before I was or was born. However, it may still be said of the preaching ministry that Christ existed before John's ministry began, since it is not special that Christ, God, was before John, if he had been from eternity before the world.
V. 31. And I did not know him.
006 Namely, before his baptism, when he had not yet seen him; though he knew that he was present, yet not which he was, until he saw the dove upon him in baptism.
But that he might be manifested in Israel, therefore am I come to baptize with water.
(7) For John's ministry was to reveal Christ to all the world, and to show him presently, so he had to know him beforehand, according to the person, outwardly; therefore he had to baptize with water, so that Christ would be known to him in the same baptism, and then testified through him; otherwise John's testimony would have been bad, if the Father from heaven had not testified of him beforehand in the baptism; as he says afterwards: I have a greater testimony than John 2c. Therefore John's baptism
*) This statement is taken from Luther's own handwriting, first inserted in the Jena edition (1585), vol. II, p. 355, then printed in the Altenburger, vol. II, p. 403; in the Leipziger, vol. IX, p. 543, and in the Erlanger, vol. 48, p. 411. We reproduce the text according to the Jena edition.
Mostly instituted for Christ's sake, that he might be manifested there by God, and by John; as follows:
V. 32. And John bore witness, saying: I saw the Spirit descend like a dove and remain on him, and I did not know him.
8 That is, until that hour it was unknown to him that the person, Jesus, was the one of whom he had preached, and before whom he had been sent, although he knew that such a person, whom the Spirit would prove, should come before his eyes, that he might know him of whom he had preached. Therefore he says, "I did not know him," that is, I would never have known that he was the one who had not come, which follows:
V.33. But he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, "On whom you are looking," he said.
will descend the spirit, and remain, the same is he who dews with the Holy Spirit.
(9) This was done and said to John when he was first sent to go before Christ, for if he was to show him, he had to make himself known to him, even by outward signs, as God always gives his word by outward signs.
V. 34. And I saw it, and bare witness that this is the Son of God.
(10) This is the evangelical voice: Let Christ, who bears the sin of the world, be the Son of God and man, our own, on whom faith stands; as otherwise it is sufficiently said everywhere what the gospel says, and of whom, what, and for what it preaches (2c).