1:25
The Pharisees asked John why he was baptising people, if he wasn’t the Messiah or Elijah, nor the Prophet? Effectively, they wanted to know by what authority he was baptising people. Baptism was not unknown. Proselytes to Judaism were baptised, and members of the Qumran community had daily baptisms (based on Ezek 36:25), but in both these cases the people baptised themselves. John carried out the baptism himself.
1:26
John now tells them what he actually wants them to know. The primary message is that they need to lift their eyes up, they need to have a much bigger vision. This can happen to all of us, and can happen to churches, we can get so engrossed in the world as we see it that we are unable to see what God is doing. John was just baptising with water. In other gospels we read that he said Jesus would baptise with fire and with the Spirit, and the same point will be made here in 1:33. Here the emphasis is on the person of Jesus Christ. There is one “among you [who] you do not know”. The Pharisees were focused on the fact that John was baptising, but there was something (or rather someone) far more important that they should have been focusing on.
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