Thursday, April 28, 2011

Preferred

John the Baptist was the Son of the high priest Zachariah and his wife Elizabeth (Lk 1:5-20, 57-66). Elizabeth was already pregnant with John when the angel Gabriel brought the message to Mary that she would conceive the Messiah (Lk 1:26). That of course means John was physically older than Jesus by about a half a year.

John the Baptist says, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me is preferred before me, because he was before me” (John 1:15). In other words, “regardless of the fact that I was born first, Jesus existed before I was conceived.”

John is pointing out that Jesus was fully God and he was fully man. After establishing this he says, ”And of his fullness we have all received, and grace for grace” (John 1:16). We know he understands us because he was fully man, (Heb 4:15-16) and we know he has the right and ability to forgive us because he was and is fully God (1 John 1:9).