The Bible Says
John 1:29-30 Meaning

There are no obvious parallel gospel accounts of John 1:29-30. However, John the Baptist’s reaction to seeing Jesus seems to fit the same event of Jesus’s Baptism and appears to be associated with Matthew 3:13-17, Mark 1:9-11, and Luke 3:21-22.

In John 1:29-30, John the Baptist identified Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world and gives a prophetic riddle that reveals Jesus to be both the Christ and God.

* Note for the sake of clarity, this section commentary (John 1:29-30), unless otherwise noted, will use:

• The name: “John” or “the Baptizer” when referring to John the Baptist;

• The terms: “John’s Gospel,” “this Gospel,” or “the Gospel of John” when referring to the Gospel According to John;

• The terms: “the author,” “writer of this gospel,” or “John-Jesus’s disciple” when referring to Jesus’s disciple, John, who was the author of this account.

The author divides the previous interaction(s) between John and the religious leaders at Bethany beyond the Jordan (John 1:28) and the claims John makes in this passage. He makes this distinction through the phrase: The next day (John 1:29a).

The next day refers to the day after John answered the Pharisees’ question about why he baptized if he was not the Christ, Elijah, nor the prophet (John 1:25).

John humbly answered: “I baptize in water, but among you stands One whom you do not know. It is He who comes after me, the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie” (John 1:26-27).

But in a broader context, the phrase the next day is the first indication we have that the writer of this gospel is sequencing its opening events.

It appears that the writer includes five events as occurring within a seven-day timeframe. There are five events in seven days, one event for each “day” with the fourth event begin a three-day journey from Judea to Galilee.

• The first event was when the priests and Levites and/or Pharisees from Jerusalem questioned John the Baptizer in Bethany beyond the Jordan (John 1:19-28).

• The second event was on the next day, when John proclaimed Jesus to be "the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29-34).

• The third event happened “again the next day” (John 1:35a) when Jesus invited Andrew and another of the Baptizer's disciples to follow Him. Andrew also introduced his brother Simon to Jesus on this day (John 1:35-42).

• The fourth event was “the next day” (John 1:43a) when Jesus purposed to go into Galilee, (and possibly to the wedding in Cana), when Andrew introduced Philip to Jesus (John 1:43-51).

• The fifth event is Jesus’s miracle of turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana (John 2:1-11). It was roughly a three-day journey from Bethany beyond the Jordan to Cana in Galilee which is likely why the author says how the wedding took place “on the third day” (John 2:1a). It was the third day since Jesus left Bethany beyond the Jordan. Therefore, this would have been on the seventh day in this series.

By utilizing the seven-day device, the gospel writer may be paralleling the beginning of Jesus’s ministry with the seven-day creation account of Genesis (Genesis 1:2-2:3).

This is what happened on the next day:

He saw Jesus coming to him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (v 29b).

The pronouns-he and him-in verse 29 refer to John the Baptist.

To learn more about John the Baptist, see The Bible Says article: “Who was John the Baptist?”

John saw Jesus coming to him, while John was “at Bethany beyond the Jordan” (John 1:28).

The author of this gospel does not state why Jesus was coming to John. The other three gospel accounts state that Jesus came to John in order to be baptized by him.

“Then Jesus arrived from Galilee at the Jordan coming to John, to be baptized by him.”
(Matthew 3:13-See also Mark 1:9, Luke 3:21)

While it is not conclusive from what the gospel writers say, it appears as if the events described in John 1:29-34 coincide with the Baptism of Jesus in the other three gospels (Matthew 3:13-17, Mark 1:9-11, Luke 1:21-22).

There is a harmony of John 1:29-34 and the other gospel accounts at the end of The Bible Says commentary for John 1:31-34.

When John saw Jesus coming to him, he instantly recognized Jesus’s Messianic identity. John proclaimed: Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

Though Jesus was John’s cousin (Luke 1:36), this was apparently the first time John recognized Jesus as the Christ. John’s proclamation was public-the word Behold is a prophetic command for others to pay attention or take note of what God is doing. John was calling attention to Jesus’s identity as the Christ.

But John did not say: “Behold the Messiah/the Christ,” or “Behold the King.” He said: Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

This depiction presents Jesus as a spotless lamb-such as a Passover Lamb-that is sacrificed to God for the atonement of sin.

In the Old Testament, the Israelites were commanded to offer lambs and other animals as a sacrifice to God. These sacrifices were symbolic of how innocent life was required to atone for the guilt of sin. The entire sacrificial system pointed to the need for substitutionary death in the place of the sinner (Hebrews 9:22). The Law of Moses prescribes:

“But if he brings a lamb as his offering for a sin offering, he shall bring it, a female without defect.”
(Leviticus 4:32)

The worshiper would lay his hand on the head of the animal, symbolically transferring his guilt before it was slain (Leviticus 4:33). The blood of the lamb was then applied to the altar as a means of purification and forgiveness, showing that atonement came through the shedding of blood.

Perhaps the clearest foreshadowing of John's proclamation comes from the Passover.

In Exodus, the Israelites were instructed to slaughter a lamb without blemish and place its blood on their doorposts (Exodus 12:21-23). The lamb’s blood shielded the people from judgment, demonstrating how God accepted the life of the substitute.

To learn more about how Jesus is the Passover Lamb, see The Bible Says article: “Jesus and the Messianic Fulfillments of Passover and Unleavened Bread.”

The prophet Isaiah also builds upon this sacrificial imagery when he prophesies about the suffering servant-the Christ:

“He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth; like a lamb that is led to slaughter…”
(Isaiah 53:7).

John’s description of Jesus as the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world alluded to the sacrificial system, the Passover, and Isaiah’s Messianic prophecy all at the same time.

John’s description was accurate.

• Jesus was/is the Lamb of God.

• Jesus died on the cross for the sins of the world.

There are at least five things about John the Baptizer’s description of Jesus as the Lamb of God that are worth noting.

      1. Jesus’s role as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world is the foundation for humanity’s salvation from the penalty of sin (death) and the world’s reconciliation with God.

From the beginning, sin brought death and separation from God (Genesis 2:17, Romans 6:23). Only a perfect, substitutionary sacrifice could satisfy divine justice “once and for all” (Hebrews 10:11) and restore that relationship. Through His blood, Jesus bore the punishment we deserved, and by His death and resurrection, He conquered sin and death. Jesus’s death removed the barrier of sin for those who believe and brought the possibility of full reconciliation with the Father (John 3:14-15).

The forgiveness of sins is one of the main pillars of the Gift of Eternal Life.

The Gift of Eternal Life includes complete forgiveness, adoption as children of God, and the promise of resurrection. Without Jesus as the Lamb, there is no cleansing of sin and no eternal life. With Jesus, our salvation is fully available and eternally secure.

      2. John the Baptist’s description of Jesus as a sacrificial Lamb reverses expectations of the Christ as a conquering king. 

John’s description spoke to the Messianic role Jesus fulfilled when He came to earth (the first time). Jesus did not assert His political kingdom during His first advent-His “kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36). But Jesus came the first time to offer Himself as a sacrifice to defeat sin and death “and to give His life a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28).

By identifying Jesus as the Lamb, not the Lion or King, John reframes expectations of the Messiah as a suffering servant before He comes as a reigning King. This “surprise” is echoed in Revelation 5, where John hears about “the Lion from the tribe of Judah” but sees instead “a Lamb standing, as if slain” (Revelation 5:5-6).

      3. The phrase Lamb of God implies divine origin and selection.

Jesus is not merely a lamb of God (one of many)-He is the Lamb of God (the one and only). He is literally God’s Lamb-chosen and provided by God Himself for the purpose of taking away sin.

This title alludes to the Genesis account of Abraham and Isaac, where Abraham tells his son, “God will provide for Himself the lamb…” (Genesis 22:8). Just as God provided a substitute in that moment, so He now provides Jesus as the ultimate substitute. This divine provision underscores God's initiative in redemption.

In pronouncing that God’s Lamb will take away the sin of the world, John is echoing the prophetic pronouncement of Daniel’s seventy weeks prophecy. This prophecy set a prophetic “clock” whose predicted time of the Messiah’s coming was approaching, and was likely a reason prophetic expectation was on high alert in Israel. Part of what Daniel prophesied was that during this time the Messiah would “make an end of sin” and “make atonement for iniquity” (Daniel 9:24).

      4. Jesus continually takes away the sin of the world.

The Greek verb that is translated as takes away is in the present-active tense. This tense can convey ongoing action. The tense suggests that Jesus’s role as the Lamb is not confined to a single historical moment (though it was fulfilled at the cross) but continues in effect-Jesus continually removes and takes away sin. The author’s use of the present-active tense emphasizes the ongoing power and sufficiency of Jesus’s once-for-all sacrifice, as the author of Hebrews agrees:

“For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.”
(Hebrews 10:14)

In his first epistle, the author also says how Jesus continually cleanses us from all unrighteousness as we walk in the light and confess our sins (1 John 1:7-9).

      5. Jesus is the Savior of the world.

Jesus’s mission was not only for Israel but for all people-Jews and Gentiles alike. John’s description anticipates the global scope of the gospel (see John 3:16, 1 John 2:2, Revelation 7:9). It also seems to run contrary to the Jewish expectation of a Messiah who would primarily deliver Israel from political oppression. But the universality of the Christ was predicted long before Jesus was born (Isaiah 49:6).

John’s description of Jesus as the “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” is on par with how Jesus is the World-Messiah (Light of Men, Light of the World-John 1:4, 8:12, 9:5) universally and is not a Messiah for the Jews only. Jesus is God’s Son given of love and for the life of the world (John 3:16).

After John exclaimed, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” he used a prophetic riddle to elaborate on who Jesus was in relationship to John’s mission as the forerunner to the Christ. John went on to say:

This is He on behalf of whom I said, ‘After me comes a Man who has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me’ (v 30).

In verse 30 the pronouns-He and Him-represent Jesus, the Christ.

The prophetic riddle is: After me comes a Man who has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.

Earlier in the prologue to his gospel account, the author quoted this riddle from John in support of the author’s claim that Jesus is the Word/Logos made flesh (John 1:14). John’s prophetic riddle immediately followed that claim:

“John testified about Him and cried out, saying, ‘This was He of whom I said, “He who comes after me has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.”’”
(John 1:15)

Now in verse 30, we have the context for when John spoke this riddle. John spoke it when he first recognized Jesus as the Christ and said He was the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! And this was the day after he answered the Pharisees’ question about why he was baptizing.

John’s prophetic riddle contains two essential truths about Jesus’s identity:

The first truth is that Jesus is the Christ.
The second truth is that Jesus is God.

1.  John cryptically points to Jesus as the promised Christ

John identifies Jesus as the Messiah when he pointed to Jesus and said: This is He on behalf of whom I said, “After me comes a Man who has a higher rank than I.”

Chronologically, Jesus began His public ministry after John had already been baptizing and preaching. This is why John states that Jesus comes after himself. Jesus was also born six months after John (Luke 1:26, 36), making Jesus younger by birth order. There is nothing mysterious about this point of chronology.

And we have already seen John describing the coming Christ as “He who comes after me” in John’s answer to the Pharisees’ question, the day before (John 1:27a).

What is mysterious-what forms the first part of the prophetic riddle-is that John says this One who comes after him also has a higher rank than I.

To understand this riddle, we must remember that John was sent as the Christ’s forerunner-the one who fulfills Isaiah’s prophecy about “The voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the LORD’” (John 1:23). As the forerunner, John’s task was to go ahead of the Messiah and prepare the people for His arrival. Therefore, the One who comes after John the forerunner and yet has a higher rank than the forerunner must be the Christ Himself.

And we have also seen John describe the Christ as a Man who has a higher rank than I in his response to the Pharisees’ question when John said of the Christ, “the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie” (John 1:27b).

Until this moment, John described the figure in abstract terms, and the identity of the Christ was a mystery. Now, once John saw Jesus coming to him, the Christ’s identity was a mystery no longer. John said: this is He-the person I have been telling everyone about. He is the Christ.

But importantly, John did not explicitly say: “This is the Christ,” or “Jesus is the Christ” in those simple terms. John said it clearly, but he said it in prophetic code.

One possible reason John identified Jesus in prophetic code instead of plain language was so that the faithful Jews of John’s time-those who knew the Scriptures and were eagerly awaiting the Messiah-would recognize what he was saying, while the Roman authorities or casual listeners who would be enemies of the Christ might miss the layered meaning.

The prophetic code approach identified Jesus as the Christ for the faithful, even as it kept his identity secret to Jesus’s enemies until the proper time.

John may have been protecting Jesus’s mission from premature political attack.

The Jews expected the Christ to be a king-but Judea was under Roman rule. Any clear declaration of kingship could have provoked the wrath of Herod, Pilate, or even Caesar. Herod the Great had already attempted to kill Jesus as an infant (Matthew 2:13-16), and Pilate would eventually sentence Him to death (John 19:15-16).

Another possibility for John’s prophetic riddle and code was that God did not want Jesus’s identity to be fully revealed to all, but rather to those with open hearts and believing faith.

If John had declared too directly, “This is the Christ,” it might have removed the opportunity for faith to be exercised.

“Without faith it is impossible to please God.”
(Hebrews 11:6)

Even Jesus cloaked His identity at times according to His Father’s timing (Isaiah 49:2; Matthew 16:20, Mark 1:34, John 7:4-6). Jesus told Peter that his recognition of Him as the Christ was not from man but from the Father (Matthew 16:17), showing that revelation was divinely controlled. It seems God used veiled words and riddles to draw out true faith while maintaining His sovereign plan.

So, the first part of John’s prophetic riddle identified Jesus as the Christ. And the second part of John’s riddle identified Jesus as God.

After me comes a Man who has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.

2.  John cryptically claims that Jesus is God

John indicates that Jesus is God when he says: for He existed before me.

The conjunction for links this claim-He existed before me-to the previous statement-after me comes a Man who has a higher rank than I.

The second statement logically explains why Jesus has a higher rank than John, Jesus ranks higher than John because Jesus existed before John. This is unexpected, since by all human reckoning, John existed first-he was conceived and born six months before Jesus (Luke 1:26, 36) and began his ministry before Jesus began His.

But John is speaking a second part of the prophetic riddle.

John’s meaning becomes clear when we recall who Jesus truly is: not just a man, but the eternal Son of God. The gospel writer already introduced this truth in the prologue:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
(John 1:1)

The Greek verb translated was is ἦν (pronounced: “éhn”) in John 1:1, and is the exact verb that is translated as He existed here in verse 30.

A more literal translation of John’s prophetic riddle in verse 30 might read After me comes a Man who has a higher rank than I, for He was before me.

In both cases (John 1:1 and v 30), the context and the grammar for He was indicates ongoing, eternal existence-something only God possesses.

Jesus Himself would later affirm this eternal identity when He declared, “Before Abraham was born, I am” (John 8:58).

The crowd was stunned because Jesus was not even fifty years old (John 8:57), yet He claimed to precede a man who had lived two thousand years earlier. It is with Jesus’s divinity in mind that John-who as a human was six months older than Jesus-could declare that Jesus existed before him.

The point John is making in this part of the riddle is that the reason Jesus existed before me is because Jesus is God.

John used a similar expression when he told his disciples: “He who comes from above is above all” a statement repeated twice in John 3:31. Jesus was “above all” because He was and is God, who created all that was created (Colossians 1:16-17).

John’s teaching echoes the structure of his riddle: “He who comes after me… existed before me.”

The He in both statements refers to Jesus. He is not just greater in rank-He is greater in nature. He comes from heaven, and therefore He has a higher rank than all.

John’s statement, He existed before me, presages Paul’s teaching in Colossians 1:17,

“He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.”
(Colossians 1:17)

Jesus is not only the Christ, He is also God the Creator. All things were made through Him (John 1:3), and He sustains all things. That is why His rank is higher-not just higher than John’s, but higher than every name and power in heaven and on earth (Philippians 2:9-11).

In summary, John’s riddle: “After me comes a Man who has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me”-reveals two profound truths. Jesus is the Christ, the human whom God anointed to be king over all the earth, a Man who comes after the forerunner; and Jesus is God, who existed before all.

After declaring Jesus to be the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world and proclaiming Him to be the Christ, as well as God, John goes on to reveal how he knew Jesus was this figure (John 1:31-34). And this will be the subject of the next section of scripture.