{He said} (ekeinos eipen). Explicit and emphatic pronoun
as in verse  8 , referring to God as the one who sent John (verse
 6 ). {With the Holy Spirit} (en pneumati hagi(9369)). "In the Holy
Spirit." Here again one needs the background of the Synoptics for
the contrast between John's baptism in water ( Joh 1:26 ) and
that of the Messiah in the Holy Spirit ( Mr 1:8  Mt 3:11  Lu
3:16 ).