John 3:22. After this Jesus and His disciples came into the land of the Jews; He lived there among them and baptized.
When it was fully day, we set out and went into the land of the Jews, which in a way belonged to Jerusalem and lay around it much as a district today lies around its district town. In a few days one could easily walk through the whole land.
Now, what did I do in this land? The verse says that I lived among them and then baptized. The question here is who exactly is to be understood by ‘among them,’ and what the life He lived among them consisted in. By ‘them’ are meant, first, the disciples, whose number had again increased by a few people in Jerusalem, and then also all those who took a believing part in My teaching.
But all who accepted My teaching with full faith were baptized by Me openly with water, but secretly with the Spirit of My eternal love and wisdom, and thereby received the power to be called children of God. This, then, was what My life among them consisted in. The teaching and what I had done were partly recorded by the other three Gospel writers and need not be given here again. The teaching consisted in nothing other than, chiefly, setting out all the gross failings that afflicted the Jews and Pharisees and commending love for God and one’s neighbor.
I first set out all these failings, earnestly urged sinners to repent and warned all who accepted My teaching against falling back into the old leaven of the Pharisees. To confirm My gentlest teaching, as was necessary in this most material age, I performed wondrous deeds, healed many sick people, cleansed the possessed of unclean spirits and accepted ever more disciples.
John 3:23–24. John was also still baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because there was much water there, and people came there and were baptized. For John had not yet been put in prison.
On this journey through the land of the Jews I also came near the place where John was baptizing in the small wilderness at Aenon near Salim, because he had water there, whereas the Jordan in the region of Bethabara contained very little, and what water remained was cloudy, impure and full of foul-smelling worms. That was why John had changed his place. At Aenon he delivered his stern sermons on repentance and also baptized there the people who had accepted his teaching and truly repented.
But there were also many among those who had already accepted My teaching who had not previously been baptized by John. They asked Me whether it was necessary to be baptized by John first. I said to them, ‘Only one thing is necessary, and that is actually following My teaching. But whoever wishes to be cleansed by John first, while he is still freely carrying out his work, will benefit from such a cleansing.’ After these words of Mine, many went and were baptized by John.
John 3:25. Then a question arose between John’s disciples and the Jews (who had come there) about cleansing (that is, about My baptism with water in comparison with John’s testimony).
A dispute soon arose over John’s cleansing and My baptism. For John’s disciples did not understand how I too baptized with water, since they had heard his testimony that I would baptize not with water but with the Holy Spirit. Many Jews who were now already My disciples asserted that My baptism was a true baptism: although I baptized with water like John, My baptism was the only valid one, since I baptized not only with the water of nature but also at the same time with the water of the Spirit of God, and gave those baptized the clearly evident power to be called children of God!
John 3:26. And they came to John and said, ‘Master, He who was with you beyond the Jordan, of whom you testified (that He would baptize with the Holy Spirit), look, He too is now baptizing (with water), and everyone is running to Him.’
After these discussions, John’s disciples went with the Jews to John and said, ‘Listen to us, Master! Look, the very man who was with you beyond the Jordan, of whom you testified that He would baptize with the Holy Spirit, is now also baptizing nearby with water just as you do! How are we to take and understand this? Is this baptizer truly the One to whom you bore the great testimony?’
But John says to his disciples, ‘Go and ask Him: “Are You the One who is to come, or should we wait for another?” Remember what He tells you in reply, and then tell me! Only then will I give you a full answer.’
Several of John’s disciples then come to Me and question Me as John had advised them. But I give them the familiar answer: they were to tell John what they saw, namely, how the blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear, and how the Gospel of the kingdom of God is preached to the poor! And blessed is the one who does not take offense at Me. With this the disciples return to John and immediately tell him what they had seen and heard.