John 1:15 Commentary and Bible Study

This is about Christ’s eternal being, his pre-existence. How did John the Baptist know about that? He was the first prophet since Malachi given to the Jews for four hundred years. He is often called the last prophet of the Old Testament. Some dispute about that – No, he cannot be the last prophet of the Old Testament because Christ himself was the last prophet of the Old Testament and the first of the New. But certainly he is the last prophet of the Old Testament period, even though he trails all the others by four hundred years, because if we define Old Testament prophets as those who announced Christ and spoke of him, then John the Baptist is the last in that sense.And he is also the fore-runner of Christ. The final prophet foretold by the prophet Isaiah, foretold in Malachi. God inspires him and teaches him, and he knows who Christ is. He sees his divine attestation and his baptism. And even before then, he spoke of him, and pointed him out, and identified him. ‘John bare witness of him (by inspiration of the Spirit of God) and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake.’ And then he says, ‘He that cometh after me is preferred before me.’ John the Baptist was a Levite, a priest’s son, but a prophet. But he says, Christ was before me. He pre-existed me and he is far greater. That is what the term translated ‘preferred’ means. He ranks far over me. John the Baptist speaks with astonishment. He follows me, he is younger than me but he is before me. He left heaven itself, and all his glory, his reign and his power, and the place of purity, and came in to this world to be humiliated, and to suffer and to die, to save us, to stand in our place, to be our representative, to take eternal agony and weight of our sins upon himself.