Tag: christ

Who is John the Baptist (John 1:19-28)?

On By AaronIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Who is John the Baptist? Not only is this our question today but it was the question of the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Scribes back in the day.  Everyone wanted to know… but we will get to that.

John’s story begins with his father Zechariah.  He had been chosen to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense (Luk 1:8).  Both he and his wife Elizabeth were righteous before the Lord (Luk 1:6).  John was born into a good Jewish family with parents who were earnest in their desire to obey the Lord and who eagerly awaited God’s next move.  Interestingly, although they were considered righteous before the Lord, they were childless.  “Barrenness was often considered a sign of God’s displeasure and judgment (Stern 1992, Lk 1:7).”

“Everyone would know about John.”

To be chosen to burn incense Zechariah had to be a priest.  The priests serving in the temple had to be descendants of Moses’ brother Aaron and the primary duty for which they were most known was to offer sacrificial animals on the altar (Stern 1992, Mt 2:4).  The priests were organized into twenty-four groups and each served in the Temple for one week (Stern 1992, 1:5).  The duties of the individuals in those groups were then determined by lot and in this case, Zechariah had been chosen to burn the incense (Clarke 1810-1826, 356).  While I find this all interesting none of it is critical to understanding what is going on in the Gospel of John except to answer why John’s testimony would be significant.  “The incense for which Zechariah was responsible symbolized the prayers of the entire nation. At that particular moment Zechariah was thus the focal point of the entire Jewish nation (Walvoord and Zuck 2004, 203).”  Everyone would know about John.

So, Zachariah goes to the altar of Incense and while he is there an angel appears.  Naturally he was afraid, but the angel tells him not to worry, “your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John (Luk 1:13).”  The angel gives some instructions and then prophesies that John will, “go before [the Lord their God] in the spirit and power of Elijah (Luk 1:15-16).”  Zechariah though, he doesn’t really believe the angel and asks, “How shall I know this (Luk 1:18)?”  He wants a sign.  As if an angel by the altar isn’t enough.  That’s about all this angel could take and he responds, “I am Gabriel.  I stand in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news.  And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take place (Luk 1:19-20).”  And so, Zechariah did not say another word until John was born.  I am pretty sure, that would have been talked about among the priests… and if it was talked about among the priests it was talked about in all of Israel.

John the Baptist is not The Christ

Now, did you catch that.  The angel said that John the Baptist, would come, “in the spirit and power of Elijah.”  That is the second identity that the priests and Levites asked about, “What then?  Are you Elijah (Joh 1:20)?”  But first, the Christ.  In the Greek, Χριστός or Christŏs, (pronounced khris-tos´) which means anointed, i.e. the Messiah (Strong 1890, 78).”  John’s birth was so extraordinary that it was quite possible he could be the expected Messiah.  While the Messianic expectations of Jesus’ day were probably more diverse than any other part of Jewish thought at the time there was an expectation none the less (Scott 1995, 307).  Before the writer of the Gospel of John can introduce Jesus as the Messiah it must be shown that John the Baptist was not.  And by John’s own testimony he is not the Christ and/or the Messiah.

John the Baptist is not Elijah

Now, back to Elijah.  Not only was there an expectation at the time of a Messiah but there was an expectation that, “the coming of the Messiah and the final age [would] be announced by a prophetic forerunner, frequently identified as Elijah (Scott 1995, 288).”  The expectation was the result of Malachi’s prophecy at the closing of the Old Testament.  “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes.  And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction (Mal 4:5-6).”  If John weren’t the Messiah, he could be the preliminary Elijah.  But John also says that he is not Elijah.  Now there is a subtle difference here.  While John is not Elijah, because he has come in the power and spirit of Elijah Jesus declares him to be the “Elijah who is to come (Mat 11:14).”

John the Baptist is not The Prophet

They now ask John if he is the Prophet.  This was in reference to the Prophet spoken of in Deuteronomy; another messianic expectation.  “The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brother—it is to him you shall listen— (Deu 18:15).”  When they separated the identity of the Prophet from the identity of the Messiah the Levites were showing their confusion.  Peter, speaking about Jesus, would later set them straight, “The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers.  You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you.  And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people (Act 3:22-23).”

“…the voice of one crying out in the wilderness…”

John 1:23

So, who does John say that he is?  His response is that he is, “the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said (Joh 1:23).”  This was a call to repentance but it was also an allusion to the glory of the LORD.  John the Baptist is quoting from Isaiah 40:3 the allusion comes when we read all the way to verse 5.

3    A voice cries:
“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord;
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
4    Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.
5    And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
and all flesh shall see it together,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken (Isaiah 40:3-5).”

John was saying that he was not the Christ, he was not Elijah, and that he was not the Prophet.  But in his response to the Levites he was saying that the, “the glory of the Lord” was about to be revealed in Jesus. The “glory of the Lord” was the expected Messiah. The writer of the Gospel of John was establishing right up front that John the Baptist was not that expected Messiah.

Thanks for reading and do not forget to subscribe to my e-mail below.  I am working on some great things and I would hate for you to miss out.  Jesus’ Baptism isn’t described in the Gospel of John but if you would like to know my thoughts on baptism I posted them in a blog here. 

Photo by Thomas Vogel on Unsplash

Clarke, Adam. Adam Clarke’s Commentary On The Bible. Public Domain, 1810-1826.

Scott, J. Julius. Jewish Backgrounds Of The New Testament. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1995.

Stern, David H. Jewish New Testament Commentary. Clarksville: Jewish New Testament Publications, Inc., 1992.

Strong, James. Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance. Abingdon Press, 1890.

Walvoord, John F., and Roy B. Zuck. The Bible Knowledge Commentary. Dallas: Cook Communications Ministries, 2004.

These resources are available in the Faith-Hope-Love (Life) Store.

By clicking submit, you agree to share your email address with the site owner and Mailchimp to receive marketing, updates, and other emails from the site owner. Use the unsubscribe link in those emails to opt out at any time.

Processing…
Success! You're on the list.

Baptism… That Which Unites Us

On By AaronIn Uncategorized2 Comments

When the writer of Hebrews tells us to, “leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation… of instruction about washings (Heb 6:1-2)” we have to ask the question what are the elementary Christian instructions about washings?  Many English translations translate Greek baptismôn into baptism and render the passage, “teaching about baptisms (LAB)” or “the doctrine of baptisms (NKJV)” but this can be a little misleading.  David Stern commenting on this scripture notes that the, “Greek baptismôn is the normal New Testament word not for the immersion which accompanies coming to faith (Act 2:37, 8:38, 16:32; see Mat 3:9) but for washings or purifications, of which the initial immersion is but one.” 

In the Old Testament there were laws relating to unclean people, food, and other objects as well as the requirements for cleaning them (Scott 1995, 254).  “There were indeed numerous prescribed ceremonial washings for all practicing Jews, both natural-born and proselytes; these washings were a major part of the requirements to become clean after contracting defilement (Scott 1995, 344).”  In the Gospel of Mark we read, “…the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly, holding to the tradition of the elders… (Mar 7:3-4).”  The Jews at the time of Jesus were so zealous that at the Wedding of Canna, recorded in the Gospel of John, were found six stone jars that could each hold twenty or thirty gallons of water (Joh 2:6).  That is from 120 to 180 gallons!

“…these ceremonies were never intended to make a person clean or undefiled.”

The Old Testament makes a clear distinction between clean and unclean; defiled and undefiled.  To be defiled or to be unclean was to be ceremonial disqualified from worship during special times and seasons.  But here is the rub, these ceremonies were never intended to make a person clean or undefiled.  They were used to teach the concept of clean and unclean and then to illustrate that we are all unclean.  Isaiah, prophesying to Israel, declared, “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment (Isa 64:6).”  Isaiah was speaking to those who were practicing the ceremonies!  Jesus later explained, “Hear me, all of you, and understand: There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him (Mar 7:14-15).”  It is our hearts that defile us and none of us are capable of changing our hearts.

If then, we are unclean and defiled, how are we to get clean?  That is the central question of all Scripture.  That is the central question of God’s plan of redemption.  How is God going to make us clean?  The blood of Jesus has cleansed us from our sin (1Jo 1:7).  That was the mission of His first coming and He was sufficient for the task and the task is complete.  “He [Jesus] is the propitiation for our sins, and not for our only but also for the sins of the whole world (1Jo 2:2).”  He has washed us with His blood.  Grotesque when you take it word for word but when you understand that “His blood” is a reference to the only sacrifice sufficient to pay the debt owed to justice for your sins and that the debt has been, in fact, paid then it leaves the realm of the grotesque and enters the realm of the revolutionary.

“Confess your sins to God and He is faithful to forgive them.”

First John 1:9

Just the other day I was reading in Isaiah and found this gem.  “Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes… (Isa 1:16)”  Do you know at the time that this was written there was not yet a propitiation for sin?  Jesus had not yet paid the penalty for their sins.  The command to wash yourself or make yourself clean from your evil deeds was impossible and God’s perfect justice could never forget the debt.  Almost 2,000 years ago God took care of that impossibility and today you can wash yourself and make yourself clean.  Confess your sins to God and He is faithful to forgive them (1Jo 1:9).  Revolutionary then and still revolutionary today!

“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him (1Pe 3:18-22).”

“Your Baptism into Christ was an event in which you identified with His act of sacrifice on your behalf and became identified with Him as one of His own.”

Baptism then, is not a washing that can remove your uncleanliness.  It is an identification with “the” washing that has removed your uncleanliness.  Your Baptism into Christ was an event in which you identified with His act of sacrifice on your behalf and became identified with Him as one of His own.  Soldiers speak of their baptism by fire.  That moment, after which they are forever identified with those who have also experienced combat.  It is something that they each share that binds them into an identity that apart from that baptism cannot be shared.  The Israelites were baptized into Moses through the sea and the cloud not because those things served as a ritual of initiation but because everyone who was not an Israelite could point to those things and say there goes someone who passed through the Red Sea and followed the pillar of fire (1Co 10:1-4).  I too can point to my own Christian baptism as the moment I was united with every believer in Christ as a believer in Christ not because the water made me clean but because going through the water pointed to the one who did make me clean.

People have asked me, “do you need to be baptized to be saved?”  The answer is yes!  You must be identified with Christ to be saved.  And although that baptism may not look like the baptism found in our contemporary church it must be there.  The thief on the cross was not sprinkled or immersed and yet he was baptized into the Cross of Christ!  The real question is not whether you need to be baptized to be saved the real question is have you been baptized?  Have you accepted the cleansing that can only come from the sacrifice of Jesus and have you identified yourself with Him in a way in which He will identify Himself with you?

This was a continuation of a previous post. You might want to check it out here. Thanks for reading and do not forget to subscribe to my e-mail below.  I am working on some great things and I would hate for you to miss out.

Photo by Vince Fleming on Unsplash

By clicking submit, you agree to share your email address with the site owner and Mailchimp to receive marketing, updates, and other emails from the site owner. Use the unsubscribe link in those emails to opt out at any time.

Processing…
Success! You're on the list.