Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus.
Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism (or 'baptized the baptism') of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, on [Christ] Jesus. (The word "Christ" is clearly not genuine.) The point of contrast is between two stages in the development of the same Gospel truth-a rudimental and a ripe Gospel; the former represented by John's baptism, in which Christ and His salvation was rather expected than actually come. This state of things, strictly speaking, terminated not with the commencement of Christ's public ministry, but with the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost; as is evident from John's own statement: "I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but there cometh the Mightier than I after me, He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit" - which He certainly did not do until after His ascension. Nor is this affected by the fact that Jesus Himself "made and baptized (through others) more disciples than John;" for as the kingdom was represented as still only in prospect, so "the Holy Spirit was not then given, because Jesus was not yet glorified" (John 7:39). It was this baptism of the Spirit, from the hands of John's risen Master, unto a new life-which made the whole life and work of Christ another thing from what it was conceived to be before that grand event-that these simple disciples were uninformed about, and that Paul communicated to them (the bare subject of which is given in Acts 19:4).