I didn't know him, but for this reason I came baptizing in water: that he would be revealed to Israel."
In the Synoptics the writers mentioned only Jesus seeing the descent of the Spirit as a dove. John is the only evangelist who recorded that John the Baptist also saw it. The purpose of the baptism of Jesus in this Gospel then is to identify Jesus as Messiah to John the Baptist so he could bear witness to Jesus’ identity. Every other disciple was dependent on a human witness for divine illumination about Jesus’ true identity in John’s Gospel. Baptism with water was essentially negative symbolizing cleansing from something, but baptism with the Spirit was positive indicating the imparting of new life from God.