The impact that John the Baptist made on the national psyche cannot be underestimated; he is mentioned by the historian Josephus[1] and had a lasting effect on the early church as well as influencing the preaching of Jesus himself.
John commenced his preaching in the Jordan valley near Jericho. Because it was so much lower and warmer than Jerusalem, Jericho had been extended by Herod the Great to form a winter-capital for the court. ‘The climate is so mild’, says Josephus, ‘that the inhabitants wear linen when snow is falling throughout the rest of Judaea’.[2] This may have been a consideration in choosing a location but there are other, more compelling reasons for choosing this location.
John deliberately chose Jericho because it was the location where Israel first entered the land. He alludes to the significance of this location when he says,
“Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance, and begin not to say within yourselves, ‘We have Abraham to our father’: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham” (Luke 3: 8)
The people were commanded to erect a monument of twelve stones as a memorial, both in the middle of the Jordan and at their first campsite.
Moreover, it was the same spot where Elijah had been snatched away 900 years previously. Although John denied he was Elijah (John 1:21),[3] he did claim to be “like” Elijah in the way he dressed, his ascetic lifestyle, his choice of location and also by his uncompromising preaching.
Just as there was overlap between the ministries of Elijah-Elisha, so also there was between John and Jesus.
A comparison between the preaching style of John and that of Jesus highlights the similarities:
| John | Jesus |
| O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance, and begin not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, That God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. (Luke 3: 7,8) |
Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit. O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. (Matt.12: 33,34)
|
| He answereth and saith unto them, He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise.(Luke 3:11) | And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. (Matt.5: 40) |
| And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: every tree therefore which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. | Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground? And he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it: And if it bear fruit, well: and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down. (Luke 13: 7-9) |
| Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and will gather the wheat into his garner; but the chaff he will burn with fire unquenchable.(Luke 3:17, cf. Mal 2:2,3) |
Jesus cleanses the temple (John 2)
[The temple was built on a threshing floor] |
Jesus (not himself but his disciples) conducted a baptizing mission in Judea similar to that of John (John 3:26) – like John, Jesus associated with soldiers and publicans (Luke 3: 18). The two missions seemed so similar (at first) that after John’s execution the people confused Christ with John the Baptist (Matt. 16:14). Luke informs us that some thought that Jesus was the resurrected John (Luke 9: 7) even Herod thought that Jesus was the risen Baptist (Matt 14: 1).
Notwithstanding the initial similarities between the mission of John and Jesus, their enemies exploited their differences in order to cause friction between the disciples:
Then there arose a question between some of John’s disciples and the Jews about purifying. (John 5:25)
And when the scribes and Pharisees saw him eat with publicans and sinners, they said unto his disciples, How is it that he eateth and drinketh with publicans and sinners?……And the disciples of John and of the Pharisees used to fast: and they come and say unto him, Why do the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast, but thy disciples fast not? (Mark 2:16-22)
John replied that he was but the ‘friend of the bridegroom’; ‘he that hath the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom rejoiceth’ – Jesus added the observation that ‘the children of the bridegroom cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them.’ Jesus had come to call the bride, and to change the waters of baptism into something more substantial – the wine of the new covenant.
After John was imprisoned, he sent two of his disciples to bluntly ask Jesus whether he was the Messiah or not –“Art thou he that cometh or look we for another?” (Luke 7:20) Commentators express the opinion that John in his distress doubted.
The evidence suggests that John asked the question for the benefit of his disciples and not because he doubted the Messianic credentials of Jesus. After all, John had proclaimed Jesus, “The Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world”. Furthermore, John would have known from his mother that the Messiah was a relation. He was given a sign –establishing Jesus’ Messianic calling (the Holy Spirit, descending like a dove) – a sign that he himself had predicted. Later in his ministry John testified to Jesus a second time (John 3:21-36), a testimony acknowledged by Jesus (John 5:33), who declared: “What went ye out to see? A reed shaken with the wind?” (Luke 7: 24). Unlike the general populace, John did not bend or shake to every whim of public opinion – John knew that Christ was the Messiah and testified to it.
Why then did John send his disciples with this question? The Lucan account records that Jesus’ witness about John is preceded by the account of the raising of the widow’s son (Luke 7: 11-17). I. Howard Marshall comments: “Jesus raises from the dead the son of a widow, thereby manifesting the kind of powers to those of Elijah and Elisha (1 Ki.17: 17-24; 2 Ki.4: 18-37) which led the people to conclude that he was a prophet and that through his activity God was visiting his people; at the same time the stress on the helplessness of the widow, deprived of the support of both of her husband and her son, draws attention to the gracious compassion of Jesus in caring for those in distress.” [4]
This event caused problems for John’s followers – wasn’t John supposed to be Elijah? But John was imprisoned. Would he be liberated from prison? Was the Lord’s miracle a reflection that John’s mother Elisabeth was still alive as a widow and that she was about to lose her only son? Would he be restored? Who were they supposed to follow now? If Jesus were the “Coming One” would he act in judgment against John’s persecutors? For these reasons John sent his disciples to Jesus, who did a remarkable thing – he did not speak to them but performed a catalogue of healing miracles, after which he sent them back to John with these words:
Then Jesus answering said unto them, Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached. (Luke 7: 22)
Jesus’ words are a paraphrase of certain Isaiah passages (Isa 35:5-6; 42:7; 61: 1) texts that John was familiar with,
“Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert.” (Isa 35:5-6)
“To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.” (Isa 42:7)
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. (Isa 61:1)
The blind and the lame in Isaiah 35 represented the nation of Israel, whose progenitor Isaac was temporarily blinded to the covenant promises by his love for Esau and whose other son Jacob was made lame (Gen 32: 31,32) through his wrestling to obtain the covenant blessings by his own efforts. Jesus had come to proclaim the Gospel of grace, the “acceptable year” of the Lord (Isa.61:2) – a Jubilee year of blessing and healing – but he deliberately omitted – “the opening of the prison to them that are bound.” The message to John was unambiguous – he would not be released from prison; the message to John’s followers was “Yes, I am the ‘Coming One’ but the role that John envisaged for me (the day of vengeance: Isa.61:2) is not yet.”
Jesus himself testified that John was a burning light illuminating the darkness,
Ye sent unto John, and he bare witness unto the truth. But I receive not testimony from man: but these things I say, that ye might be saved. He was a burning and a shining light: and ye were willing for a season to rejoice in his light. (John 5:33-35)
however, the prologue to the Fourth Gospel makes it clear that John was not “that Light”, (the Messiah) but that he was sent to bear witness of “that Light”(John 1:8). The Johannine idiom is based on the Old Testament vision of the two lamp-stands encountered in Zechariah (Zech 4: 2). It is very probable that the annunciation of John’s birth occurred while his father Zacharias (Luke 1: 5-25) was serving as priest during the Feast of Lights (Hanukkah).[5] Hanukkah was historically connected with sanctifying and cleansing the temple a theme close to the Baptist heart.
Although John the Baptist was an Aaronic priest by inheritance he was raised as a Nazarite (Numbers 6) in imitation of the High Priest, thus intimating that there was a “better priesthood”; a fact he readily acknowledged –
“He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me.” (John 1:15)
John recognized the primacy of Jesus’ priesthood in terms expressed by the kinsman redeemer in the story of Ruth –
“If thou wilt redeem it, redeem it: but if thou wilt not redeem it, then tell me, that I may know: for there is none to redeem it beside thee; and I am after thee. And he said, I will redeem it” (Ruth 4:4).
John confessed that he was not worthy to unloose the Messiah’s shoe (John 1: 27) – the customary symbolism that occurred during the transaction of the kinsman redeemer –
“Now this was the manner in former time in Israel concerning redeeming and concerning changing, for to confirm all things; a man plucked off his shoe, and gave it to his neighbor: and this was a testimony in Israel” (Ruth 4: 7).
On the testimony of Jesus, John was the greatest of the prophets, but the prophets and the law alone could not inaugurate the kingdom. After Moses and Elijah disappeared, Jesus is depicted as a solitary figure, standing alone on the transfiguration Mount, with the divine instruction that we should listen to him. The prophets and the law could only prepare the ground, however great John was; the least in the kingdom of heaven would be greater than him.
The eschatological role of the Law and the Prophets was preparatory and limited pointing forward to the fuller revelation of the Messiah. Within this function they acted as witnesses; but the people failed to heed the warnings:
“And he said also to the people, When ye see a cloud rise out of the west, straightway ye say, There cometh a shower; and so it is. and when ye see the south wind blow, ye say, There will be heat; and it cometh to pass. Ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky and of the earth; but how is it that ye do not discern this time?” (Luke 12: 54, 55)
The people had no trouble predicting the weather, but they could not predict the time of their visitation. When they saw a cloud in the west they knew that a shower was coming, when the southerly wind blew they knew that a scorching heat would follow. Yet God had given them a sign in the person of John the Baptist – he was the new Elijah- the sign that the drought had broken – as in the time of the great prophet, when a little cloud arose from the west, out of the sea, the size of a man’s hand, and Elijah had girded himself up and run before his king to bring the people of Israel good tidings (1 Kgs 18: 43, 44). But now John had been murdered – he had not succeeded in turning the hearts of the children to the fathers –in the words of Malachi- “lest I come and smite the earth with a curse” (Mal 4:6); “for the day cometh and it burneth like a furnace” (Mal 4:1). They chose scorching heat instead of showers of blessing.
Conclusion
The paradox presented to us in the New Testament is that John was at the same time Elijah and not Elijah. The rejection of John was anticipatory of the rejection of the Messiah. John did indeed come in the Spirit and power of Elijah, (Luke 1: 17) but his mission was only partly successful. Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum has pointed out, in light of Mark 9:9-13, that “if Elijah had come before the first coming of Christ and restored all things, then the prophecies of the sufferings of the first coming would remain unfulfilled.”[6] The work of another “Elijah” therefore lays in the future – a prophetic witnessing ministry immediately prior to the Second Advent. Jesus’ designation of John as being “Elijah” precludes a literal appearance (resurrection) of Elijah at the end, for, like John, the two witnesses will appear in the same Spirit and power as Elijah – a reincarnation of the Elijah principle.
[1] Ant. 18.5.2.
[2] War. 4.473
[3] J. A. T. Robinson, The Priority of John (London: SCM Press, 1985), 182-183, comments, “It is indeed particularly remarkable that the Johannine tradition should retain the memory that John denied he was Elijah when Jesus was to say that was just what he was (Mtt.11.14; 17.12; Mark 9.13) and also that John denied being Elijah while still claiming to be the forerunner of the Messiah (3.28) when the Christian church subsequently equated the two roles by identifying ‘the Lord’, for whom Elijah prepared, with Christ. In both I believe the memory is historically correct.”
[4] I. Howard Marshall, The Gospel of Luke: A Commentary on the Greek Text (Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 1995), 283.
[5] The ‘Feast of Dedication’ or the ‘Feast of Lights’ (Hanukkah) was a post-Mosaic feast instituted by Judas Maccabaeus in 164 B.C., when after the recovery of Jewish independence from the Syro-Grecian domination, the Temple of Jerusalem was solemnly purified (the old polluted altar removed) its stones put on a separate place on the Temple mount, and the worship of the Lord restored.
[6] Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum, The Footsteps of the Messiah (Tustin, CA: Ariel Press, 1982), 90.
Is Pentecost Happening Today? (Part 7) – Tongues Shall Cease