There arose therefore a questioning on the part of John's disciples with a Jew£ about purifying. Such proximity of two such leaders, teaching and proclaiming the kingdom of heaven, and baptizing into a glorious hope, a Divine future, and a spiritual change, was certain to excite controversy.
The word ( ζήτησις) "questioning" is used in Acts 15:2 for the dispute at Antioch, and Paul uses the same phrase for dangerous, useless, and angry debate (1 Timothy 6:4; 2 Timothy 2:23; Titus 3:9). It was, perhaps, not the first, and certainly it was not the last, of the controversies which raged over the symbolic purification of the Church.
John's disciples appear to have taken up arms against some particular Jew, who was prepared either to question the right of Jesus to baptize, or the essential value of this ordinance. This "Jew" was apparently maintaining a greater potency for the baptism of Jesus than John could claim for his, and was basing his view upon the testimony which John had already borne to Jesus.
Purifying was the great theme of Essenic and Pharisaic profession. It was without doubt one of the great symbolic purposes of the Levitical legislation. The purification of the flesh was, however, in Christ's teaching, a very small part of the claim for purity.
Nothing less than a spiritual and radical moral change availed, and our Lord insisted on this to the disparagement of the mere ceremonial. This was the first recorded discussion on the nature and value of baptismal purifying.
Would that it had been the last! The question arose among those who had been baptized by John, whether another had any right to administer such an ordinance? Could another receive the confession of sins?