Charles Ellicott Commentary John 1:15

"John beareth witness of him, and crieth, saying, This was he of whom I said, He that cometh after me is become before me: for he was before me." — John 1:15 (ASV)

John bore witness of him, and cried.—Better, John bears witness of him, and cries. The latter verb is past in tense, but present in meaning. For the sense, compare the note on John 7:37. The writer thinks of the testimony as ever present, ever forceful. He had heard them from the lips of the Baptist twice on successive days; he himself records them three times within a few verses. (John 1:30.) They are among the words stamped on the heart in the crisis of life, and as fresh in the aged Apostle as they had been in the youthful inquirer.

He remembers how he heard them, and from whom they came. That wondrous spiritual power among them, which all men felt—whose witness men would have accepted had he declared that he himself was the Christ—uttered his witness then, and it still holds good now. It is quoted here as closely bound up with the personal reminiscence of John 1:14, and with the thought of John 1:6-7.