John 1:22Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Do you see how they press him still more strongly, insist, repeat their questions, and do not withdraw? But John, with meekness, first rejects their false suppositions, and then gives the true understanding of himself.

“What do you say about yourself?” “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness.”

He strongly reproves them as knowing nothing, and by prophetic testimony confirms the ministry or office entrusted to him.

I have come, he says, for no other reason than to say that the awaited Master is already at the doors, indeed, more than that, within the doors. Be ready to go by the way He indicates. You have walked the way of Moses; take up the way of Christ.

The choir of the holy prophets foretold this way to you.

A comparison of sayings concerning the way of Christ.

Isaiah says, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob, and He will proclaim to us His way, and we will walk in it” (Is 2:3).

The voice came before the Word. How can the voice be before the Word? We have heard that Christ is the Word and that John is the voice. Let us listen.

When they said to him, “Who are you?” he answered, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness.” Therefore, beloved, let us reason a little, as much as the Lord grants, concerning voice and word.

Christ is the Word, the Word that does not sound and pass away. For what sounds and passes away is voice, not word.

Therefore the Word of God, through whom all things were created, is our Lord Jesus Christ. John is the voice of one crying in the wilderness.

Which comes first, voice or word? Let us see what word is and what voice is, and then we shall see what comes first.

Those who sent to John were the same men who later sent to the Lord and asked, “By what authority are You doing these things?” (Mt 21:23; Mk 11:28; Lk 20:2).

Since John did not come in order to teach enemies, he did not disclose to them what they were asking about.

For those who questioned him did not wish to learn who John truly was. Rather, they spoke to him with authority: who are you, that you do these things? Therefore John answered them not as disciples, but as enemies.

To everything they asked him, and however they asked it, he said: I am not the Christ, not Elijah, and not the prophet, but the voice. He did not even call himself John or man, although in fact he was both prophet and Elijah and christ.

Having answered all their questions with magnanimity, he now also says who he is: I am the one of whom it is written, “the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare ye the way of the Lord,” and so forth. This saying is explained in the third chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew (Mt 3:3).

As we said earlier, the prophet Isaiah called him a voice because he went before the Word. What he cried out is revealed when it is added: “Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make His paths straight” (Mt 3:3).

Everyone who preaches right faith and good works prepares nothing other than the road of the Lord coming to the hearts of his hearers. Let this power of grace enter. Let the light of truth shine forth. Let it make straight the paths for the Lord, while He forms pure thoughts in the soul through the preaching of good.

When the Baptist gave a decisive answer removing every misunderstanding, namely, that he was not the Christ, those sent asked him, “Are you Elijah?”

The scribes of that time thought and taught that Elijah, the ancient prophet, must come again to earth before the coming of the Messiah (Mt 17:10), on the basis of Malachi’s prophecy (Mal 4:5), which they understood literally.

Then those sent asked John, “Are you the prophet?” From Mt 16:14 and the parallels, it is clear that the Jews of that time expected, before the Messiah’s coming into the world, the appearance not only of Elijah, but also of Jeremiah or one of the ancient prophets. Nothing is known about the basis of this belief.

After such wholly unexpected and undesired answers, those sent finally demand that John tell them who he is. They justify their demand by saying that they themselves must give an answer to those who sent them.

Verse 22. “They said to him, ‘Who are you, that we may give an answer to those who sent us? What do you say about yourself?’”

To this insistent question John, as a preacher of repentance and a strict zealot for lawful order, obediently submits to the demands of his higher spiritual authority. He immediately gives a clear answer, and not a brief one, but a very detailed one.

Those sent were from the Pharisees. They knew Malachi’s prophecy: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord” (Mal 4:5).

Therefore, when they failed to induce John to declare himself the Christ, they began to interrogate him: “What then? Are you Elijah?”

Malachi’s prophecy can be referred to that great and terrible day of the Lord which we call the Last Judgment or the Second Coming of Christ. In any case, it cannot be understood literally.

One cannot suppose that the Old Testament prophet Elijah himself, and not another like Elijah, had necessarily to come. The angel’s words to Zacharias convince us of this. He foretold that his son John would go before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah (Lk 1:17).

“Who then art thou?” and so forth. Those sent must have been perplexed by John’s answers. He is not the Messiah, not Elijah, not the prophet, and yet his appearance testifies that he is an extraordinary man. Who, then, is he?

They could not rely on popular opinion. Moreover, that opinion could not be definite and exact, for there was as yet nowhere and no one from whom to learn it. Therefore those sent ask John himself for a decisive answer: who he is, and what he says about himself. They justify this persistent question by saying that they must bring a definite answer to the Sanhedrin.

As he begins to set forth the history of the earthly life of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Evangelist John begins his narrative directly with the testimony of John the Baptist concerning Jesus Christ as the Savior of the world sent from God.

This belongs to the time after the Baptism of Jesus Christ and His temptation by the devil in the wilderness. The preaching of John the Baptist on the banks of the Jordan drew to him the people from Jerusalem and all the surrounding regions.

Since at that time the Jews were intensely awaiting the Messiah, the members of the Sanhedrin sent a delegation to John to learn who he was. John the Baptist definitely said that he was not the Christ.

Verses 22-23. Those sent, not satisfied with the Forerunner’s negative answers, demand that he say directly who he is. The Forerunner answers: “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare ye the way of the Lord, as Isaiah said.”

The Forerunner answers concerning himself, not from himself, but in the words of the prophet Isaiah, Is 40:3. The prophet’s words are cited not literally, but according to their meaning. According to the prophet: “A voice cries in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord.” I am that voice, says the Forerunner. I am the herald of the coming Lord. Prepare His way.

John the Baptist’s answer contains the third verse of Isaiah chapter 40. We must turn to the first five verses of this chapter in order to understand the full meaning of John’s answer.

We must note that in chapters 40-42, and especially in the first verses of chapter 42, the coming of the Messiah is clearly revealed, as is the very form in which He will appear among His people.

“Behold My Servant whom I have chosen, My Beloved in whom My soul is well pleased. I will put My Spirit upon Him, and He will proclaim judgment to the nations. He will not contend, nor cry out, nor will anyone hear His voice in the streets. A bruised reed He will not break, and a smoking flax He will not quench, until He brings judgment to victory. And in His name the nations will hope” (Is 42:1-4).