John 1:19

And this is the witness of John, when the Jews sent unto him from Jerusalem priests and Levites to ask him, Who art thou? And he confessed and denied not; and he confessed, I am not the Christ.

The apostle John had already referred to John the Baptist (John 1:6-8); and as it was he who had first turned the eyes of the apostle to Jesus, it was most appropriate that he should have developed that witness more fully. These events were placed in the holy record primarily because of their testimony to the divine Messiahship of Jesus; but, since these things resulted directly in his becoming a follower of Christ, John recorded them in detail. A great deal of time had intervened between the events and their narration; but their importance to the apostle made it natural that his vivid memory would have retained all the details, even apart from his inspiration. The four successive days with their remarkable chain of happenings changed the whole course of the apostle's life. These four days were in the spring, about the first of March, of the first year of our Lord's ministry.

The Jews from Jerusalem ... The word "Jews," by the end of the first century and the time John wrote this Gospel, had acquired a sinister meaning in the entire Christian society, resulting from official Israel's rejection of the Saviour, and from the ensuing hardening of secular Israel, as had been prophesied by the Lord, and which had been treated at length in the writings of Paul, John's use of this word throughout the Gospel was to designate the avowed enemies of Christ; and it should never be understood as including the whole race of Israel, despite the fact that the vast majority of Israel had followed their evil leaders in rejecting Christ. The notable exceptions, beginning with the apostles themselves, included many who were Israelites indeed, and who, along with many Gentiles, composed the true Israel of God, the spiritual Israel.

The Sanhedrin, the official religious hierarchy which condemned Jesus to death, was doubtless the body that initiated this inquiry; and why? The popular report of John's success had reached Jerusalem; and, unthinkably, from their viewpoint he was even teaching that "Jews" needed repentance and baptism! Were they not the chosen people? What brand of teaching was this, then, that demanded repentance of Jews? Also, there had been whispers that this man might be the Messiah; and were not the lords of the Sanhedrin God's chosen instruments for running down and foiling any false Messiah?

Priests and Levites ... Most of the high priestly class were Sadducees, and it is remarkable that some of the delegation were Pharisees (John 1:24). The mutual hatred of those sects raises a question of how the Pharisees came to have a part in the inquiry; but one obvious explanation is found in the invariable tendency of bitterest enemies to unite in a common opposition to Christ. These same two sects made common cause against Jesus (Matthew 22:23-40), despite the fact that Jesus had publicly triumphed over the Sadducees in their position on the resurrection, and despite the further fact that the Pharisees themselves also rejected the Sadducees' position. Those who attribute any mistake to John in his identifying Pharisees as party to the investigation must do so upon an unjustifiable presumption.

Confessed and denied not; and he confessed, I am not the Christ ... The double use of "confessed" derives from the statement in the first clause that there was a confession and the identification in the second clause of what the confession was. The unique construction reflects Jewish idiom. Thus, Josephus wrote of King Saul, "Saul confessed that he was guilty and denied not the sin."[37] Numerous little touches like this throughout the Gospel make it absolutely certain that the writer was Jewish.