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Joh_1:34. A still more distinct and emphatic conclusion of what John had to adduce from Joh_1:31 onwards, in explanation of the οὗτός ἐστιν mentioned in Joh_1:30.
κἀγώ ] and I on my part, answering triumphantly to the double κἀγώ in Joh_1:31; Joh_1:33.
ἑώρακα ] i.e. as the divine declaration in Joh_1:33 had promised ( ἴδῃς ). This having seen is to the speaker, as he makes the declaration, an accomplished fact. Hence the Perfect, like τεθέαμαι in Joh_1:32. Nor can the μεμαρτύρηκα be differently understood unless by some arbitrary rendering; it does not mean: “I shall have borne witness” (De Wette, Tholuck, Maier), as the aorist is used in the classics (see on Joh_6:36); or, “I have borne witness, and do so still” (Grotius, Lücke), or “testis sum factus” (Bengel, comp. Bernhardy, p. 378 ff.); but, I have borne witness, that is, since I saw that sight; so that, accordingly, John, immediately after the baptism of Jesus, uttered the testimony which he here refers to as an accomplished fact, and by referring to which he ratifies and confirms what he now has testified (Joh_1:30). Comp. also Winer, p. 256 [E. T. p. 341].
ὅτι οὗτος , κ . τ . λ .] the subject-matter of the μεμαρτ .
ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ ] the Messiah, whose divine Sonship, however, had already been apprehended by the Baptist in the metaphysical sense (against Beyschlag, p. 67), agreeably to the testimony borne to His pre-existence in Joh_1:30; Joh_1:15 : ὅττι θεοῦ γόνος οὗτος , ἀειζώοιο τοκῆος , Nonnus. The heavenly voice in Mat_3:17, in the synoptic account of the baptism, corresponds to this testimony. All the less on this account are the statements of the Baptist concerning Jesus to be regarded as unhistorical, and only as an echo of the position assigned to the former in the Prologue (Weizsäcker). The position of the Baptist in the Prologue is the result of the history itself. That the meaning attaching to υἱὸς τ . θεοῦ in the fourth Gospel generally is quite different from that which it has in the Synoptics (Baur), is a view which the passages Mat_11:27; Mat_28:19, should have prevented from being entertained.
Note.
On Joh_1:32-34 we may observe in general: (1.) The λόγος and the πνεῦμα ἁγιον are not to be regarded as identical in John’s view (against Baur, bibl. Theol. d. N. T. II. 268; J. E. Chr. Schmidt, in d. Bibl. f. Krit. u. Exeg. I. 3, p. 361 ff.; Eichhorn, Einl. II. 158 ff.; Winzer, Progr., Lps. 1819), against which the ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο in Joh_1:14 is itself conclusive, in view of which the πνεῦμα in our passage appears as an hypostasis distinct from the λόγος , an hypostasis of which the σὰρξ ἐγένετο could not have been predicated. The λόγος was the substratum of the divine side in Christ, which having become incarnate, entered upon a human development, in which the divine-human subject needed the power and incitement of the πνεῦμα . (2.) He was of necessity under this influence of the Spirit from the very outset of the development of His divine-human consciousness (comp. Luk_2:40; Luk_2:52, and the visit when twelve years old to the temple), and long before the moment of His baptism, so that the πνεῦμα was the awakening and mediating principle of the consciousness which Jesus possessed of His oneness with God; see on Joh_10:36. Accordingly, we are not to suppose that the Holy Ghost was given to Him now for the first time, and was added consciously to His divine-human life as a new and third element; the text speaks not of a receiving, but of a manifestation of the Spirit, as seen by John, which in this form visibly came down and remained over Him, in order to point Him out to the Baptist as the Messiah who, according to O. T. prophecy (Isa_11:2; Isa_42:1), was to possess the fulness of the Spirit. The purpose of this divine σημεῖον was not, therefore (as Matthew and Mark indeed represent it), to impart the Spirit to Jesus (which is not implied even in Joh_3:34), but simply for the sake of the Baptist, to divinely indicate to him who was to make Him known in Israel, that individuality who, as the incarnate Logos, must long before then have possessed the powers of the Spirit in all their fulness (comp. Joh_3:34). The πνεῦμα in the symbolic form of a dove hovered over Jesus, remained over Him for a while, and then again vanished (comp. Schleiermacher, L. J. p. 150). This the Baptist saw; and he now knows, through a previously received revelation made to him for the purpose who it is that he has to make known as the Messiah who baptizes with the Spirit. To find in this passage a special stimulus imparted through the Spirit to Jesus Himself, and perceived by the Baptist, tending to the development or opening up of His divine—human consciousness and life (Lücke, Neander, Tholuck, Osiander, Ebrard, De Wette, Riggenbach, and others; comp. Lange, and Beyschlag, p. 103), or the equipment of the Logos for a coming forth out of a state of immanence (Frommann), or the communication of official power (Gess, Pers. Chr. p. 374; comp. Wörner, Verhältn. d. Geistes, p. 44), as the principle of which the Spirit was now given in order to render the σάρξ fit to become the instrument of His self-manifestation (Luthardt, after Kahnis, vom heiligen Geiste, p. 44; comp. also Hofmann, Schriftbew. I. 191, II. 1, 166; Godet; and Weisse, Lehrbegr. p. 268, who connects with Joh_1:51),—as in a similar way B. Crusius already explained the communication of the Spirit as if the πνεῦμα (in distinction from the λόγος ) were now received by Jesus, as that which was to be further communicated to mankind;—these and all such theories find no justification from our Gospel at least, which simply records a manifestation made to the Baptist, not a communication to Jesus; and to it must be accorded decisive weight when brought face to face with those other diverging accounts. Thus, at the same time, this whole manifestation must not be regarded as an empty, objectless play of the imagination (Lücke): it was an objective and real σημεῖον divinely presented to the Baptist’s spiritual vision, the design of which ( ἵνα φανερωθῇ τῷ Ἰσραήλ , Joh_1:31, that is, through the Baptist’s testimony) was sufficiently important as the γνώρισμα of the Messiah (Justin. c. Tryph. 88), and the result of which (Joh_1:34) corresponded to its design; whereas, upon the supposition that we have here a record of the receiving of the Spirit, there is imported into the exposition something quite foreign to the text. If this supposition be surrendered, then the opinion loses all support that the descent of the Spirit upon Jesus at His baptism is a mythical inference of Ebionitism (Strauss), as well as the assertion that here too our Gospel stands upon the boundary line of Gnosticism (Baur); while the boldness of view which goes still further, and (in the face of the βαπτίζων ἐν πνεύματι ἁγίῳ ) takes the πνεῦμα to be, not the Holy Spirit, but the Logos (in spite of Joh_1:14), which as a heavenly Aeon was for the first time united at the baptism with Jesus the earthly man (so Hilgenfeld, following the Valentinian Gnosis), does not even retain its claim to be considered a later historical analogy. There remains, however, in any case, the great fact of which the Baptist witnesses—“the true birth-hour of Christendom” (Ewald): for, on the one hand, the divinely sent forerunner of the Messiah now received the divinely revealed certainty as to whom his work as Elias pointed; and, on the other hand, by the divinely assured testimony which he now bore to Jesus before the people, the Messianic consciousness of Jesus Himself received not only the consecration of a heavenly ratification, but the warrant of the Father’s will, that now the hour was come for the holy ἀρχή of His ministry in word and work. It was not that now for the first time the Messiah’s resolve was formed; rather was it the entrance (comp. Act_13:23) upon His great work, the commencement of its realization, which was the great event in the world’s history that marked this hour, when the fulness of time was come for the accomplishment of the counsel of God.