The Man that Came from God and is Telling us Everything He Saw
He who comes from above is above all. He who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks in an earthly way. He who comes from heaven is above all. He bears witness to what he has seen and heard, yet no one receives His testimony. Whoever receives His testimony sets His seal to this, that God is true. For He whom God has sent utters the words of God, for He gives the Spirit without measure. The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.
John 3:27-36 ESV
This is John the Baptist talking about Jesus to people that have asked why everyone is leaving John to follow Jesus.
Part of this reply is John calling out the people asking the questions for focusing and thinking about the wrong things. The point here isn’t that John is going to become less popular, John loves that! People that worry about who has the most fans and who has the most followers are talking about earthly things, Jesus is talking about things much more important.
John throws in a little commentary and Jewish hyperbole too. “Nobody believes a word He says, but whoever does, knows for certain that God’s word is true.” John knew what it was like to be ignored. He knew the pain of knowing the truth and watching people walk away. At the same time, he knew the glory of God was showing up and something very significant was about to happen.
God has fully expressed Himself in Jesus, so that all that Jesus said and did can point to who God is, what God is like, how God would be a human but still be God. To pay attention to Jesus is to pay attention to the exact things that God is doing and caring about every single day. So when John the Baptist starts to talk about eternal life, real life in Jesus, and wrath, we can know that it’s not from his own prejudice, anger, or bias.
Jesus was defined by John as “the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” and now John is talking about Jesus as the one who is from heaven and reports on what He has seen. If you read through this and then read the things that Jesus says at the last supper, you realize that John was able to listen to a lot of what Jesus taught. God’s wrath is upon us (John doesn’t say it’s coming, he says it will remain), and by following the Lamb of God, we can pass it to Him and watch Him take it away.