John 1:32-33

This is the apparent contradiction. It is very obvious from Matthew 3 that John knew who He was and here in John 1 he says, "I didn't know Him."

John's approach to this is actually on a much higher level than Matthew's is. It's almost like comparing Abraham and David to the Eternal Word. Jesus indeed is a Son of Abraham and David, but yet He's their Lord. He's infinitely higher than they are.

Whether you realize it or not, our approach to Jesus is very similar to what we see expressed here between Matthew and John. There's no contradiction there at all.

What we first see of Christ, prior to baptism—what is it you recognize about Him first? You might recognize Him as King of a kingdom, Heir of the world. You might recognize Him as being the Savior, and so you accept His sacrifice in your stead and you go on to be baptized. That's what you see of Him.

What John the Baptist is saying here—he's not saying he didn't understand these things. Yes he DID understand them, but once he began to become acquainted with Christ, then more and more of Christ's awesome character and mind and dignity and divinity began to flood into John's mind and he began to say, "I didn't even know Him when I saw Him." That's what happens to us. IF YOU ARE IN THE CHURCH FOR QUITE A PERIOD OF TIME and YOU ARE GROWING, YOU SEE SO MUCH MORE OF CHRIST now than you did then! There is no comparison. Like John, you can say, "When I baptized Him I didn't even know Him."

I know that's the way it is with me. The older I get in the faith, the more I know about Him, the more I see of myself and the less I like myself. That's what John was talking about here. "When I first met Him, I didn't even know Him." Isn't it that way with us when we meet somebody for the first time? Then the second time, we recognize them, but we really don't know them. But the more frequently we spend time with them, the more we come to know them. That's it in a nutshell.

The more we come to know Him, the more we can compare ourselves to Him and we begin, gradually, to see the immensity of purity of nature that none of us have ever known or even conceived of before. It can become overwhelming so that we even wonder whether we were converted when we were baptized.