Verse 25
25. The Jews Our Evangelist uses the term Jews in its later sense to signify Judaists, or Jewish opposers of Christianity. See note on John 1:19. The best manuscripts have the word here in the singular, a Jew. By comparing this verse with John 4:1, we infer that this Jew was one of the partisans of the Pharisees, who were hearing that Jesus was becoming more prominent than John. His dispute here is with John’s disciples in regard to the superiority of the two baptisms or purifyings. In view of Jesus’s great demonstration and miracles at the late Passover, and the larger and increasingly larger popularity of Jesus’s baptism, the Jew sees the superiority on Jesus’s side. John’s disciples, who share not the humility of their master, still imagine that, as prior to Jesus, as his Baptizer and Testifier, John is the superior.
Purifying This word, as designating the ritual effect of baptism, is here used to designate the rite itself.
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