Jn 1:19-28
19This is the testimony of John. When the Jews from Jerusalem sent priests and Levites [to him] to ask him, “Who are you?” 20he admitted and did not deny it, but admitted, “I am not the Messiah.” 21So they asked him, “What are you then? Are you Elijah?” And he said, “I am not.” “Are you the Prophet?” He answered, “No.” 22So they said to him, “Who are you, so we can give an answer to those who sent us? What do you have to say for yourself?” 23He said: “I am ‘the voice of one crying out in the desert,/ “Make straight the way of the Lord,” ’ as Isaiah the prophet said.” 24Some Pharisees were also sent. 25They asked him, “Why then do you baptize if you are not the Messiah or Elijah or the Prophet?” 26John answered them, “I baptize with water; but there is one among you whom you do not recognize, 27the one who is coming after me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to untie.” 28This happened in Bethany across the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
JOHN THE WITNESS: John, the son of Zechariah, is so associated with his baptizing ministry in the Jordan River that he is known as the Baptist. But in John’s Gospel, the fact that John baptizes is subordinated to his role as a “witness” (martys in Greek; the English martyr literally means one who gives witness). Although the Fourth Gospel presents John as baptizing, his more appropriate name is John the Witness.
John is already introduced as such in the prologue: “He came for testimony, to testify to the light” (Jn 1:7). Here he begins that function. The scene is like that of a trial. The aristocratic priests in Jerusalem send a delegation to ask him, “Who are you?” They know that John is the son of Zechariah, a devout rural priest. But by his dress and diet, John distances himself from his priestly heritage and acts more like a prophet, a spokesperson of God who declares to the people God’s will here and now.
John denies that he is a messianic figure. Neither is he Elijah, the one coming before the day of the Lord (Mal 3:1), nor the expected “prophet like Moses” (Dt 18:18). He calls himself a witness to the one who is coming after him—shortly identified as Jesus (Jn 1:29). The implication is that anyone who follows John should heed his witness and accept Jesus as one greater than John.
The “trial motif” pervades the whole of the gospel. Aside from John, other characters have to give testimony to Jesus. Jesus himself will be “put to trial” during his public ministry and will give testimony to himself as the one sent by the Father, to testify to the people of what he has seen and heard from God. The readers of the gospel, in turn, have to make their own confession of Jesus.