All Glory to God the Father and to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ
We will start with a bit of a review from last week.
Question 1: What were the names of John the Baptist’s parents?
Answer: Luke 1:12-13
12 Zacharias was troubled when he saw the angel, and fear gripped him. 13 But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your petition has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will give him the name John.
Question 2: Where did John the Baptist grow up?
Answer: Luke 1:80
“And the child grew and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his showing unto Israel.”
Question 3: What was John the Baptist’s life dedicated to from birth on?
Answer: Luke 1:15
“For he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink. He will also be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb.”
The term for this is Nazarite. There was some confusion last week over what a Nazarite was. At all times a Nazarite was to control his appetite and passions to be in harmony with God’s moral law. There is more to it than that of course and for a complete study of it, I would refer you to Numbers chapter 6, Judges chapters 13 and 16 and Amos chapter 2. These are all the areas I found to have references to describing what a Nazarite is and the particulars of being a Nazarite.
Question 4: As a Nazarite, what were the foods that John ate that made him stand out from the average Jew?
Answer: Matthew 3:4
Now John himself had a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist; and his food was locusts and wild honey.
Question 5: Who were the two prophets that prophesied that a man would come and be a herald of the coming of Christ?
Answer: Isaiah 40:3
A voice is calling,
“Clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness;
Make smooth in the desert a highway for our God.
Malachi 3:1
“Behold, I am going to send My messenger, and he will clear the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple; and the messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight, behold, He is coming,” says the Lord of hosts.”
So the Jews had ample warning that their Messiah was coming and that a man preaching from the wilderness and clearing the way, as seen in both Isaiah 40:3 and Malachi 3:1
We ended last week with the beginning of John the Baptist’s ministry. Matthew 3 describes all of Judea and the surrounding districts as going out to be baptized in the River Jordan by this man wearing camel hair and preaching to them to repent of their sins. John’s mission can be summed up by one word, “prepare.” He was to prepare the way for the coming of Christ.
Matthew 3:11
11 “As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”
Hundreds, if not thousands, were immersed by him. And his success was solely in the message he proclaimed.
The multitudes said that he performed no “sign,” though they regarded his message concerning Christ as true:
John 10:41
“Many came to Him and were saying, “While John performed no sign, yet everything John said about this man was true.”
This passage appears to indicate that John did not perform demonstrative miracles, as Jesus and the apostles did, found in:
Matthew 10:1
Jesus summoned His twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every kind of disease and every kind of sickness.
The power of John’s preaching, together with the void in Israel’s hearts, did what the Pharisees and Sadducees, with rules added to the backs of the Jews, could never do. You could never be righteous enough according to the law and that was the whole point of the coming of Christ. He, the Divine Light, would come and remove the need for animal sacrifice for atonement. A great example of this in Matthew 22, verses 34 to 46:
34 But when the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered themselves together.
35 One of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him,
36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”
37 And He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’
38 This is the great and foremost commandment.
39 The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
40 On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”
41 Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question:
42 “What do you think about the Christ, whose son is He?” They *said to Him, “The son of David.”
43 He *said to them, “Then how does David in the Spirit call Him ‘Lord,’ saying,
44 ‘The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at My right hand,
Until I put Your enemies beneath Your feet”’?
45 If David then calls Him ‘Lord,’ how is He his son?”
46 No one was able to answer Him a word, nor did anyone dare from that day on to ask Him another question.
The Pharisees and Sadducees also came to John the Baptist wondering if he perhaps was the Christ, this is where we left off last week, with John berating them as a brood of vipers, which must have been very satisfying to those in the crowd that had heard this exchange.
The high priests had gotten curious as to why so many people were traveling to the Jordan River and from the reports that they had received, along with their knowledge of the scripture, they started thinking that perhaps this might be the Christ. So they sent their boys, these soon to be called Vipers, down to the Jordan River to talk to a hairy man with a camel skin garment, to ask him “Are you the Christ?”
John 1:19-23
19 This is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent to him priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?”
20 And he confessed and did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Christ.”
21 They asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” And he *said, “I am not.” “Are you the Prophet?” And he answered, “No.”
22 Then they said to him, “Who are you, so that we may give an answer to those who sent us? What do you say about yourself?”
23 He said, “I am a voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as Isaiah the prophet said.”
You can understand their confusion, they had read the scripture, and this guy was doing his baptism thing in the river, telling people to repent for judgement is coming. This fits their idea of who the Christ might be. John the Baptist says “No, I am not the Christ.” You have to remember the term Christ means Messiah. When we say Jesus Christ, what we are really saying is Jesus the Messiah.
Messiah comes from the Hebrew word, Mashiach, meaning “the anointed one,” or “the chosen one.”
Now these vipers grasp on to the next possibility, which is Elijah. Scripture says he’ll come again.
Malachi 4:5-6
5 “Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord.
6 He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse.”
“Well, who are you then so we can report back to our masters and what do you have to say about yourself.” A bit of paraphrasing there. Reading that from scripture, from something that was written more than two Millennia ago, you can just hear their frustration. They’re going to have to go back to their masters and say no, this man says he is not the Christ, and he is not Elijah, just a man crying out in the wilderness, preparing the way for the True Divine Light. And I like that John the Baptist can quote Isaiah 40 verse 3, the very scripture that prophesied of a man in the wilderness crying out, making the path straight for the coming of the Lord.
And all the while more and more people were traveling out to the Wilderness, to the River Jordan, to hear this man and be baptized, repenting of their sins, for that is what he was teaching.
With that out of the way the next event that happened in John the Baptist’s life was the realization of the prophecy, Jesus came to be baptized.
Matthew 3:13-17
13 Then Jesus *arrived from Galilee at the Jordan coming to John, to be baptized by him.
14 But John tried to prevent Him, saying, “I have need to be baptized by You, and do You come to me?”
15 But Jesus answering said to him, “Permit it at this time; for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he *permitted Him.
16 After being baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and lighting on Him,
17 and behold, a voice out of the heavens said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.”
This must have been a very bittersweet moment for John. The very reason for his existence, predicted so long ago. The reason he did not drink wine or eat grapes, the reason he spent his life in the wilderness and felt compelled to baptize people with water, knowing that he was just the messenger. Jesus walks into his life and says baptize me. What do you do when your creator says to do something? You comply and do it.
And so he did it, and shortly afterward he heard Jehovah Himself telling everyone within earshot “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.”
That was pretty much the culmination of John the Baptist’s work. As we go through the scripture, we will see other references to John the Baptist, of him introducing his disciples to Jesus the Lamb of God. He continued his work, pointing out to his disciples, Behold the Lamb of God. So we will leave John right here, having met Christ, baptizing Him and hearing God the Father saying He is well pleased.
Numbers 6:22-26
“The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace.”