John 1:6,7 - A witness to the light

1:6

John’s gospel is somewhat different from the others in the way that it deals with John the Baptist, indeed he always refers to him simply as “John”, rather than “John the Baptist”, and does not mention any of John’s baptising. Why is this? It is possible that there were some who gave  wrong place to John the Baptist, so John wants to make it clear that John the Baptist’s purpose was to point to and prepare the way for Jesus. Moreover, John the Baptist himself knew that this was his purpose.

“There was a man sent from God “. Unlike the Word, John the Baptist was just a man, but he was sent by God. We can have an unhealthy habit of worshipping people rather than God. God may send someone as a preacher, evangelist, teacher, prophet or whatever, but they are just men. We should respect them and honour them, but respect them for what they are, which is servants of God, and every servant of God has the purpose of pointing people to Jesus. Indeed if someone, or even ourselves, start to point people to ourselves then we need to watch out.

1:7

This verse contains so many of the themes of John. He talks about those who testify to who Jesus is. The role of John the Baptist was to be a witness to testify to who Jesus is. Of course, we can apply this to ourselves as well. Our role is to bear witness to who Jesus is. Jesus is the light, we have already seen light mentioned in previous verses, and it is a word that will be repeated many times in John. And the goal of all this is that people will believe in Jesus.

John the Baptist came not draw attention to himself, but to draw attention to Jesus. Words for testify and witness are used far more often in John’s gospel than in the others. Similarly, believe is used numerous times.

That little word “all” is the centre of much debate between Calvinists and Arminians. Calvinism sees God as having an elect and Jesus came specifically to save and call the elect. His death on the cross was atonement specifically for the elect. So they see the word “all” here, and in similar contexts, as meaning “all the elect”. Arminians, on the other hand, see Christ as opening up the way for people to believe. Now one might say that the text obviously says all and means all, but then we see many instances in John of people not believing. So things are not so simple. Nor am I going to seek to resolve the Calvinist-Arminian controversy! I will say I tend towards the Calvinist side without being hardline on it.