The priests and the Levites came to the Jordan River in Bethany to ask John the Baptist who he was. John told them in no uncertain terms that he was not the Christ.
They asked,
“Are you Elijah?”
John answered,
“I am not”
They asked,
“Are you the prophet?”
John answered,
“No.”
They asked,
“Then who are you?”
John answered,
“I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Make straight the way of the Lord.”
Then they asked him,
“Why do you baptize if you’re not the Christ or Elijah?”
John said,
“I baptize with water. In the midst of you is standing someone who you do not know. He is the one for whom I am preparing the way. I am not even worthy to untie his sandals.”
The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said,
“Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is the one I was talking about when I said that a man was coming before me because he was before me.”
(John was six months older than Jesus and was explaining that Jesus was eternal and existed before anything else that was created.)
John then said,
“I have seen the Spirit coming as a dove out of heaven and descending upon him. I did not recognize who Jesus was, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, when you see the dove descending and abiding on him then you will know that he is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.
And I did see it with my own eyes and have given testimony to the fact that Jesus is the Son of God.”
