Exactly Who Was John the Baptist?

Tom:

Our topic for this segment is the gospel of salvation, and we’re going through certain verses in the gospel of John, which relate to the salvation we have in Christ. Of particular concern are the verses which tell us who Jesus is, which is critically important to our understanding of the gospel.  We pick up with John 1, beginning with verse 19:  “And this is the record of John, (that is, John the Baptist) when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who art thou?”  “And he confessed, and denied not; but confessed, I am not the Christ.”  Dave, before I go on I want to especially get down to verse 23, but here you have the Jews, meaning those who are of the priests, the rabbis and so on.  So this was the religious establishment checking out who this guy was who was making some rumblings in the wilderness.

Dave:

Right, they are checking him out, and they are, of course all Israel was looking for the Messiah.  There had been, in fact, a number of pretenders, messiahs who had led uprisings and so forth, and there would continue to be more of them.  So naturally the question would be, Are you the Messiah? And this is what they asked him.

Tom

Right.  Verse 21: “And they asked him what then?  Art thou Elias?” Why would they ask him that?

Dave:

Well, the scripture said in Malachi, the last book in the Old Testament, ends by saying, “I will send Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord, and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.”  So that would be another question.  Well, if you’re not the Messiah, maybe you are Elijah.  He would be perhaps, it wasn’t all that clear, but perhaps he would be the fore runner.

Tom:

“And he saith, I am not.  Art thou that prophet?  And he answered, No.”  Then they said unto him, Who art thou? that we may give an answer to them that sent us.  What saith thou of thyself?”  And he says in verse 23:  “He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Elias.”  Now Dave, he’s quoting from Isaiah:40:3The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
See All...:  “The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”  The question I want to ask about this is what exactly was John the Baptist to do in terms of—here it says “the voice crying in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert the  highway for our God?”

Dave:

Well, the Messiah had been promised, many promises in the Old Testament, and this is really the key event in history, God is going to become a man in order to pay the penalty for our sins, to die for our sins.  He will be rejected, he’s a Jew, he must come of the seed of David, the house of David, and eventually He will rule on the throne of His father David.  But in the meantime, first of all He comes as the Lamb of God to die for the sins of the world.  How would you know who this One was when He came?  Well, the prophets laid it out very clearly [to] the very day that He would ride into Jerusalem, and so forth.  But the fact that He would be crucified, I mean, [there was] so much that the rabbis didn’t understand, or didn’t want to believe.  They couldn’t understand how the Messiah could be killed, and at the same time establish a kingdom that would never be moved, and so forth.  So there were scriptures in the Old Testament.  For example, when the wise men came from the East to Jerusalem saying, Where is He that is born King of the Jews?  Well, the rabbis went to the scriptures and they found where, in Micah:5:2But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.
See All... it said that He would be born in Bethlehem.  So they were checking the scriptures and they were expecting the Messiah.  Unfortunately, they had many false ideas.  For example, when Christ was on the cross they are mocking Him if you are the Messiah, what are you doing up there?  Well the prophets had clearly said He would be crucified, He would be killed, but they didn’t understand that.  And many Jewish people today, this is why they reject Jesus.  They say that He didn’t establish the kingdom, but the Messiah comes to bring everlasting peace and to establish His kingdom and to rule on the throne of His father David.  So, they did not understand that, I mean, Isaiah 53 says, “He is cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of my people he is stricken.”  Daniel 9 said the Messiah would come; He would be cut off, and so forth.  So there was much they didn’t understand.  So, the rabbis are very interested, and John is gathering large crowds, he’s preaching repentance, he’s preparing the children of Israel for the One who will die for their sins.  And you can’t get saved until you know you are lost and you can’t believe in the One who saved you from the penalty of sin until you know that you are a sinner.

Tom:

John the Baptist, Dave, why baptism? Why was baptism important, and is it like the baptism that we take as believers?

Dave:

Baptism was a form of ritual cleansing you could say- sacramental cleansing.

Tom:

For the Jews.

Dave:

See, the sacraments, the rituals, the priesthood, the sacrificial system that God gave to the Jews was a picture of something yet to come.  There were no powers that the priests had—

Tom:

It wasn’t efficacious.

Dave:

No, there was no efficacy for it, it only looked forward.  In other words, the writers of the Hebrews say the water bowls and goats could never take away sin.  You know that, even pagans know that, although it’s the best they can do, they continue to offer it.  But in the case of the Jews, it wasn’t the best that they could do, that there was nothing more that could be done.  No, it was a picture of the more that could be done, that would be done when the Lamb of God would come.  And so John the Baptist even hails Christ as the Lamb of God.  So the rabbis are looking for the Messiah, they are checking this guy out, he’s getting big crowds, maybe he is the Messiah.

Tom:

But baptism then, it was a symbol of cleansing from sin, and the cleansing also had to do, looking forward to death.  The penalty for sin, go to Genesis:2:15-17 [15] And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. [16] And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: [17] But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
See All..., “The day you eat thereof you surely must die.”

Dave:

It seems fairly clear that even John the Baptist baptized by immersion.  It says he’s baptizing in the River Jordan at a place an inn in Salim where there is much water there, to baptize by sprinkling you don’t need much water.  A few gallons would take care of hundreds of people.  And it says when Jesus came up out of the water the Spirit of God descended upon Him like a dove.  John the Baptist witnesses this.  So obviously he lowered Him into the place of death, baptism by immersion.  Now this was not the same baptism that we have today, this was a baptism unto repentance.  The people were coming, confessing their sins and wanting to be cleansed of their sins, but there was no cleansing in that baptismal water in itself.  It only signified you wanted whatever God had, something is coming from God that will cleanse you from sin and this is what you want to receive.   Now, baptism today for a Christian is called Believer’s baptism.  We get that from Acts 8, where the Ethiopian says to Phillip: “Here’s water, what hinders me from being baptized?”  Phillip says, “If you believe with all your heart then you may.”  So baptism for the Christian is symbolic of the fact that he has believed in Christ, that he is identified with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection.  He has gone into the place of death, he’s buried with Christ, this is symbolic of that, and now he comes up out of the waters into new life, to walk in new life with Christ living in him, so this is a different baptism.  In fact, in Acts 19, Paul meets some disciples, and it’s quite obvious that there’s something that’s kind of missing with them, they don’t seem to understand, and so forth.  And Paul says well, have you received the Holy Spirit; are you indwelt by the Holy Spirit since you believed?  They say we haven’t so much as heard that there’s a Holy Spirit, we haven’t heard that.  And immediately, Paul says to what then were you baptized?  Why would he say that?  Because baptism is in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, John’s baptism was not; Believer’s baptism today is.  Well then, if you were baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, you surely would have heard of the Holy Spirit.  And he finds out that they were baptized to John’s baptism.

Tom:

John the Baptist.

Dave:

Yeah, well, Paul preaches the gospel to them, they are saved through faith in Christ, and then they are baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.  So there is a very distinct difference, but neither baptism cleanses from sin.  John’s baptism was symbolic of a cleansing that was to come. Believer’s baptism is symbolic of the cleansing we have received through Christ in His death, burial and resurrection.

Tom:

Both point to Christ, and that’s the heart of this.  Christ is our only Savior, and it’s through God’s Word, through understanding the scriptures that we are going to get to know Him better, to do what pleases Him, and that’s our heart’s cry to everyone listening.

Gary:

We hope you have enjoyed this special edition of Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call.  And now, to tell you more about our ministry, here is TBC Executive Director Tom McMahon:

Tom:

The name, The Berean Call, is taken from the book of Acts, chapter 17, verses 10 & 11, where we find the apostle Paul entering the synagogue in the Greek city of Berea after he had just come Thessalonica.  To these Bereans he preached that Jesus was the long awaited Messiah sent from God.  They were commended for being noble, or fair minded, not only for their willingness to  hear what Paul had to say about the matter, but more specifically, because they searched the scriptures daily to find out whether or not what the apostle was saying was found in God’s Word.  That’s what we hope to encourage through this ministry.  Our mission is to alert believers in Christ to unbiblical teachings and practices impacting the church.  Our prayer is that we can be used of God to stimulate Christians to look to the Bible alone as their rule of faith, authority and practice in living lives pleasing to our Lord and Savior.