JOHN THE BAPTIST

Richard L. Wilson

JOHN THE BAPTIST

Unless otherwise indicated,

Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION,

Used by permission of International Bible Society.

John the Baptist

John’s New Evangelism

A long line of prophets preceded John the Baptist, men and women who spoke with power under the Spirit’s direction and anointing. They called for repentance and return to the Lord, but usually their ministries aimed at revival from the top down. The hope was that the monarchy and Judaism would be purified, and once again point people to the promised Messiah and salvation in Him through the pictorial Levitical sacrificial system. Some were being saved and changed by those ministries. We sense that those regenerated ones were often applauded, they were seen as promoting moral excellence in the nation. They challenged the others in Israel to appreciate the glory and holiness of Jehovah, and credibly present Him before the world.

Then came John the Baptist. His calling and ministry took on a surprising new tone. It was a bottom-up, grass-roots evangelism focusing on the individual. John’s call to salvation was intensely personal, targeting each and every one regardless of religious rank, position, family line, economic standing, ethnic or national background. The goal was national spiritual renewal through the changed lives of every person in Israel. That would prepare the way for Messiah who would offer to bring Israel into her destiny of ultimate world glory.

John’s Ministry Was Genuine

John’s ministry was not a divine charade, or “demonstration ministry.” John’s father, Zechariah, filled with the Spirit, prophesied that his son would “…give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins” (Luke 1:77). As an adult, John fulfilled the prophecy. We can read about his evangelism in Mark 1:4 and Luke 3:3. The often-interchanged word, “repentance” is used in place of “salvation,” but the intent is obviously the same. Any preacher in any age who is leading people to salvation and sins forgiven must be regarded as having a genuine ministry.

John was Spirit Filled from birth[1]; his prophetic calling was foretold before his miraculous conception. Jesus identified John as His forerunner, the prophesied Elijah. John was the culmination of the later Old Testament prophets (Matthew 11:11–15; 17:11–13; Luke 1:76) eclipsed only by Jesus Himself (Matthew 21:11, 46; Luke 24:19; Acts 3:22).

John’s Prophecies about Jesus

Although John was the God-appointed forerunner of Jesus, John actually foretold very little about Him. Apparently God considered that the earlier Old Testament prophets had adequately covered Messiah’s Person and redemptive work. So, what messianic features were so important in God’s view that John the Baptist would be commissioned to repeat them in the course of identifying Jesus? One feature was Messiah Jesus’ preexistence: “He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me” (John 1:15b). Another aspect covered was the moral excellence of the Coming One: “…the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie” (John 1:27b). John also identified Jesus as the ultimate Sin-Sacrifice: “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29b). Notice that Pentecost also joined the few features cited by John as he introduced Jesus: “The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit” (John 1:33b). It’s interesting that Pentecost would be included because Pentecost didn’t happen until after Jesus left. That speaks to the importance God attached to Pentecost.

The Baptist Background in Jesus’ First Miracle

The first miracle of Jesus’ ministry, the water into wine (John 2:1–11), was an object lesson enlarging on John’s prophecy about Jesus just a few days before. John identified Jesus as the One who would baptize with the Holy Spirit. To bear that out, Jesus’ first miracle pictured Pentecost. The wedding background pointed to the marriage of Christ and the Church, the bride of Christ. And wine was there—speaking of the Indwelling Spirit who works the miracle of regeneration. But, eventually, more wine was needed. So the Bridegroom becomes the Spirit Baptizer and He pours out an extravagant measure of the best wine. This is Pentecost.

Viewing this touching tapestry from a different angle, we recall that some of the disciples have just John to follow Jesus. They may be inwardly pondering, “Did I make the right move?” John’s baptism was a water-baptism testifying to the seeker’s repentance/salvation, and many were responding. Still, John declared that Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit…

Now then, we have six huge stone water jars. They are vessels of earth-materials—like us. Six is the number of humanity. Jesus gives the directive and they are filled with water—probably about 150 gallons. To those former disciples of John, water spoke of the Jordan River, and John’s salvation-baptism, and water symbolizes the Holy Spirit. The statement here is of people coming fully into salvation by the Indwelling Spirit—there were no half measures about John’s ministry. But here stands the One on whom the Spirit had come down and remained, the Lamb of God to whom those disciples had diverted. By the Power of Jesus, symbolically, those Spirit-Indwelt, salvation-filled “people” are suddenly filled (baptized) with the best wine of the Spirit of Pentecost. It’s a miraculous and authenticating sign for those disciples. We are not surprised to read, “He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him” (John 2:11b). They’re sure of it now—following Jesus was the right choice.

The Message of John the Baptist

John’s basic message appears in Matthew 3:1–2: “In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the Desert of Judea and saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.’” John preached Messianic preparation until he was imprisoned. In Matthew 4:12, 17 we have Jesus’ two-fold response to John’s confinement: “When Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, he returned to Galilee...From that time on Jesus began to preach, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.’” Jesus picked up John’s message verbatim and began to preach it Himself. It was the strongest possible endorsement of the genuineness and effectiveness of John’s ministry.

Note the phrases John used: “Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.” “[E]very tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matthew 3:8, 10). This aligns with James’ teaching—faith without works is dead. Jesus had messages with the same theme: The servant that buried his pound and produced nothing was rejected. The branch or tree that bears no fruit is removed and destroyed. The quality of a water source, vine, or tree, is revealed by what it produces. “By their fruit you will recognize them” (Matthew 7:15–20). Paul’s teaching was also a blend of describing what we should be spontaneously due to the fruit of the Spirit, balanced against exhortations such as “…do good to all people” (Galatians 6:10).

Paul summarized the message of John: “Paul said, ‘John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after Him, that is, in Jesus’” (Acts 19:4). Repentance and faith in Jesus—these were the active ingredients in John’s ministry. But those were the same elements that we find in Jesus’ ministry: “Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15). “I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish” (Luke 13:3). “He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die” (John 11:25–26). When Paul summarized his own ministry before Agrippa, he sounded like a clone of John the Baptist: “I preached that they should repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds” (Acts 26:20). “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith” (Ephesians 2:8). Repentance and faith—the universal message of salvation. It worked for Jesus and Paul and every preacher since, it must have worked for John the Baptist.

Analyzing Repentance in View of John’s Ministry

Let’s look at repentance as we most often use the word today: Repentance is a flash flood experience, an intense mode of decision that cannot be maintained for long. It is, by its very nature, necessarily brief. We cannot physically or emotionally cope with the stress of repentance for long. Again, this authenticates the ministry of John the Baptist. God does not play games with a sinner’s readiness for eternal life. He would not have people stirred to repentance under John’s convicting message, and then be forced to dally on salvation’s doorstep for a period of months. God would not have exposed those people to the spiritual dangers of waiting until Jesus would be announced, begin His ministry, and then allow those sin-tormented souls (those who survived that long) to take the one final step. No indeed, when God bids “Come” to the seeker, He means, “Come all the way in—now!” (See 2 Corinthians 6:2) John’s commission to lead people to repentance carried the understanding that people would be ushered fully into the Spiritual Kingdom even as Jesus indicated in Luke 16:16.

Jesus’ Solidarity with John—Versus the Pharisees

Early in John’s ministry the Pharisees were intensely curious about him, but apparently they soon rejected it all as faddish and would not demean themselves to identify with him in any way (Luke 7:30). Jesus would never allow that to stand. When He talked with the Pharisees, regardless of what subject they started on, very often He would set out to establish solidarity between Himself and His own ministry and John and his ministry. If the Pharisees rejected salvation as John taught it, Jesus insisted that He offered no other redemptive plan. If they rejected or despised Jesus, as they did in Luke 16:14–17, Jesus would say, in effect, “I’m not surprised, you already rejected John.” Jesus treated both ministries as a unified package—if any part is despised, all is despised.

Behind Jesus’ response to the Pharisees in Luke 16:16 is the assumption that in sneering at Him, they involve John and the ministries of both men: “The Law and Prophets were proclaimed until John. Since that time, the good news of the kingdom of God is being preached, and everyone is forcing his way into it.” Jesus is combining the two ministries and their results and presenting them at par with each other. Converts through His own ministry or converts through John—it was all the same to Jesus. He wanted the sheep in His sheepfold regardless of who led them to the Door.

The Fresh Revelation Underlying Their Ministries

The Pharisee’s derision of John and Jesus also involved the later revelation upon which their ministries were based. The Law and the Prophets had been preached for centuries. They had preached, “Messiah/Sin Bearer is coming.” Then, after 400 Silent Years, God was again speaking—incredibly good news (or, “gospel,” see Mark 1:1–8; Acts 13:32–33) through His prophet, John the Baptist. John’s fresh revelation was, “The long-awaited Messiah/Sin Bearer is here; He is even now among us!” (See John 1:29–34). Messiah concealed became Messiah revealed. All of what was foreshadowed in the Tabernacle of skins and the Temple of stone became a living, walking, speaking Person. Through all the sacred writings and symbolic structures, God had been communicating. Now that divine communication was personified—the Living Word. The apostle John wrote, “We have seen his glory” (John 1:14), and indeed he had. He was one those few on the Mount of Transfiguration when the veil of the Living Temple was pulled back slightly and John witnessed Shekinah Glory (Revelation 21:22–23). The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world was now the Lamb of God among them as introduced by John the Baptist, and many were trusting Jesus to bear their sins away. What a marvelous burst of new revelation after many centuries of shadows. It answered the yearnings of multitudes and the Kingdom of Heaven was being taken by storm with those joyfully responding.

The Test of Good Results

Continuing the logic and assumptions of Luke 16:16, Jesus was saying, in effect, “You Pharisees accept the authority of the Law and the Prophets. Good! I also have supreme regard for them.” (Jesus did not include their traditions. See John 5:45–47; Luke 16:17.) In the thinking and teaching of the Pharisees, the Law and the Prophets authenticated themselves by their good results. By the standard of results, how much more should Jesus and John the Baptist be accepted—the Kingdom of Heaven was being overrun with people finding eternal life! Again, the thread that Jesus wove through all of this was the solidarity between Him and John.

John’s Influence on Nicodemus’ Interview

That contention (Jesus’ solidarity with John versus the Pharisees’ rejection of John) jumped up quickly in John 3 when Nicodemus interviewed Jesus. The Pharisee opened with compliments, but Jesus cut it short and pointed him back to his spiritual need, the need he had failed to resolve at the call of John’s ministry.

Jesus reiterated the essence of John’s preaching, telling Nicodemus that John’s way was/is the only way. With John’s ministry, first would come the baptism as a testimony of the person’s repentance, then he pointed them to the Lamb of God who would bear away their sin. (The same message we still preach.) The net result was that people were being inwardly changed/entering the Spiritual Kingdom and prepared to be subjects of the Messianic Kingdom. Jesus attached the term, “born again” to the experience. Jesus was commending John’s ministry and underscoring Nicodemus’ need for repentance when He referred to the “water.” (John’s baptizing in the Jordan would have sprung to Nicodemus’ mind [see John 3:5].) Furthermore, Jesus went on to explain what had been happening in the spiritual realm with those were believing and undergoing baptism—new life was being granted by the indwelling Holy Spirit, the Divine Power for both ministries. The resulting salvation was the same for those who believed, whether by John or Jesus.

John’s Ministry Led to Changed Lives

Jesus’ argument with the Pharisees in Matthew 21 contains compelling indication of the salvation-effectiveness of John’s ministry. Verse 32: “For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.” Think about John the Baptist from the Pharisees’ point of view: All that one could see in John personally was a powerful preacher. He healed no one. He worked no miracles. He performed no signs and wonders.

What did the Pharisees witness that should have led them to believe that John’s ministry was authentic and commissioned by the Lord? (See Matthew 21:25.) Jesus knew they “saw” something more. It was something so plainly visible and dramatic that God was holding everyone who saw it responsible to repent and believe. What was it? It was the quietly, visibly, profoundly changed lives of tax collectors and prostitutes. Under the ministry of John the Baptist such people were believing and being born again by the Spirit.

It was John’s intention that his disciples leave him and follow Jesus. Most eventually did. But whether or not they diverted to Jesus, the salvation/Spirit Birth they received under John’s ministry was permanent and they were Heaven-bound. This was illustrated in Acts 19 when Paul found a group of John’s disciples in Ephesus. They were saved but through ignorance they were lacking Spirit Baptism. It was Paul’s joy to bring them up to date.

The Differences Between John and Jesus

There were differences between John and Jesus. One difference was the Father’s plan for each man. John the Voice would decrease (see John 1:23; 3:30) and Jesus—God incarnate—would increase. The ruling powers would behead John as a martyr for his bold witness, and he would go to his great reward. The ruling powers would crucify Jesus, but He would die as Savior, Redeemer, Messiah, and King. He would rise again, substantiating His claims, then go to the greatest possible reward.

Another difference was where their ministries could lead people. John’s ministry, his baptism of repentance, could lead people to Jesus and salvation by the Indwelling Spirit: “Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). Jesus’ ministry would build on that foundation of salvation, but then lead people yet further—into the Baptism with the Holy Spirit. John explained it, “…the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit’” (John 1:33). This prospect of another spiritual dimension is the thrust of Jesus’ parting words: “For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 1:5). This was a final reminder in two ways: (1) What John had prophesied at the first was about to be fulfilled, and (2) Jesus was still fondly claiming solidarity with John and his work.

The element of contrast in Jesus’ statement in Acts 1:5 indicated the glorious prospect that, starting at Pentecost, He could take Spirit Born believers on into Spirit Baptism. This was yet another commendation of how well John had done as an Old Testament evangelist. Jesus always had exceptional praise for John the Baptist. John was commissioned to promote Jesus and at the same time to personally decrease. He did an excellent job of both. I sometimes wonder... could it be that John the Baptist will be the one seated at Jesus’ right hand? We can be sure of this: When the time comes to reward good service, our God knows how to do it.

Considering Luke 7:28

Reflecting on rewards for John the Baptist, some might doubt that he’ll receive any reward at all, quoting Luke 7:28. In this text Jesus is speaking: “I tell you, among those born of women there is no one greater than John; yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.” Does this mean that in Heaven John will be on the very back row? If we study this verse in its context, the intended meaning unfolds quite naturally.

The disciples and the crowd were listening to Jesus as He spoke. But Pharisees and experts of the law would have been there as well—they monitored everything Jesus said so they could spin His words against Him. Let’s frame the situation: There is an argumentative edge in this section, Luke 7:24–35. But it’s clear from verse 29 that the common people were not the ones provoking that tone, they were strong adherents to the ministry of John the Baptist. According to verse 30, the dissenters were the Pharisees. Jesus points out in verse 33, “…you say,” and quotes the Pharisees’ smear campaign to discredit John. In verse 34 He repeats, “…you say,” and quotes their propaganda aimed at discrediting Him. So, it’s evident that Jesus is directing these remarks, including Luke 7:28, mainly to the Pharisees and their cohorts.

Now, these Pharisees often bragged about their family lines—which they proudly traced back to Abraham (see Luke 3:7–8). In Luke 7:28, Jesus is saying, in effect, “You want to boast about your Jewish family line? You are impressed with your natural ancestry? When it comes to Hebrew genealogy, you don’t hold a candle to John—the man you despise! I tell you, among those born of women, there is no one greater than John!”

Think about John’s Jewish credentials: He was a priest in the line of Aaron from both his father and his mother (see Luke 1:5). In addition, it’s possible that through his mother, Elizabeth, he was also in the royal line of David. Elizabeth was a relative of Jesus’ mother (see Luke 1:36). Now, many scholars hold that the genealogy in Luke 3:23–38 which puts Jesus in the line of King David through Nathan, is actually that of His mother, Mary. Elizabeth, sharing ancestry with Mary, may also have been in David’s family line. So, John the Baptist was a priest from both sides, and from his mother’s side, he may also have been linked to royalty. No Pharisee standing there in fancy robes could trump that. Yet, did John’s impressive family line translate into stature in the Kingdom? Did it guarantee merit before God assuring John of salvation and acceptance into eternal Heaven? Jesus laid that notion to rest: “…the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.”

God is Spirit, and the Kingdom of God is, first and foremost, spiritual. Those who are citizens of God’s Kingdom are born into it spiritually. We connect with God only by approaching Him in the realm in which He lives—that’s spiritual; human family ancestry counts for nothing in that realm.

Certainly, John the Baptist was/is in the Kingdom to be sure—in a greatly honored position—but he didn’t get there because of his celebrity family line, no. He got there because by faith he received Jesus, he joined those who believed in His name. On that account alone, John became one of those who were given “…the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent…but born of God” (John 1:11–13).

Luke 7:28 was another warning to the Pharisees. They were assuming that their glowing genealogy guaranteed God’s acceptance and eternal salvation—they needed to follow John’s example and forget about their ancestry. God doesn’t deal in that coinage. Like everyone else, they needed to repent of their prideful sins, trust Jesus for salvation, and be born again by the Spirit—heeding the thundering call of John the Baptist.

[1] As to the Spirit’s administration in the Old Testament, the anointing often went with the office or God’s designated duty, sometimes even if the recipient was not a person of faith. Before the birth of John the Baptist, the Lord assigned to him the life-long offices of Prophet and Forerunner of the Messiah. Thus, John was filled with the Spirit even from birth (Luke 1:15). For his own salvation, however, he still needed to trust Messiah and be Born Again by the Spirit. We can assume that salvation occurred at an early age, although we are not told.