Who are you?

He must increase, but I must decrease.  --John 3:30

Who are you?  How would you identify yourself?  How would others identify you?

We come across these questions in the next passage of Scripture that I want to talk about today.  If you have read my last two entries in this forum, you will recall that I have started an expository study of the Gospel of John.  We started with John's identification of Jesus.  He is the Word of God, present in the beginning with God, the very Creator of our world and everything in it.  Next we see that John the Evangelist introduces John the Baptist.  He was a man sent from God, who had come to bear witness of the Light of God, the very Word who was in the world and had made the world but who was hidden from the eyes of men.  True to his mission, John bore witness of Jesus, and cried out, "This was He of whom I said, "He who comes after me ranks before me, because He was before me." (John 1:14).

Let's now read the testimony of John the Baptist:

And this is the testimony of John, when the Jews send priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, "Who are you?"  He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, "I am not the Christ."  And they asked him, "What then?  Are you Elijah?"  He said, "I am not."  "Are you the Prophet?" And he answered, "No."  So they said to him, "Who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us.  What do you say about yourself?"  He said, "I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, 'Make straight the way of the Lord,' as Isaiah the prophet said." (Now they had been sent from the Pharisees.)  They asked him, "Then why are you baptizing, if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?"  John answered them, "I baptize with water, but among you stands One you do not know, even He who comes before me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.  These things took place in Bethany across the Jordan, where John was baptizing.  The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!  This is He of whom I said, 'After me comes a man who ranks before me, because He was before me.'  I myself did not know Him, but for this purpose I came baptizing with water, that He might be revealed to Israel."  And John bore witness: "I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on Him.  I myself did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, 'He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.'  And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God." --John 1:19-34

So here is the situation at the time.  A man, John, was preaching near the Jordan River.  He was apparently a fiery speaker, as he was gathering a rather large following.  Not only did he have disciples (Andrew and John may have been disciples of John before they began following Jesus), but he also had many people coming to hear him preach.  Apparently he spoke with such conviction that he convinced the people to perform a ritual cleansing that involved immersing themselves in the river.  We will get into the Jewish origins of baptism a little later.  For now, let's just say that his preaching and baptizing caught the attention of Jewish leaders in the Sanhedrin.

The Jewish leaders, particularly the Pharisees, wanted to know more about this itinerant preacher who was influencing so many Jewish people.  They sent a committee to interview John the Baptist, probably to make sure that his message was kosher--that is, in line with Jewish teaching and Jewish Scripture.  When these men addressed John, they asked him three questions:

1. Are you the Christ (that is, the Messiah)?
2. Are you Elijah?
3. Are you the Prophet? 

John was very up-front about who he was.  When the men asked him who he was, his first admission was that he was definitely not the Messiah.  He anticipated their question, and answered it forthrightly.  Jews had been looking for the Messiah for centuries.  There had been several people pop up over time claiming to be the Messiah, but all had been proved false.

Following that admission, the Jews wanted to know if he was Elijah.  They knew that the Old Testament prophet had been translated into heaven, that he had not tasted death.  It was their belief that Elijah would return one day to herald the coming of the Messiah.  Malachi 4:5 says, "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes." Even today Jewish households will set a place at the Passover Seder for Elijah.  Some may even leave the door open, or send the youngest family member outside to look for him.  In Jewish tradition, Elijah symbolizes hope and redemption, representing the promise of future salvation.  John's answer is interesting.  He denied being the physical embodiment of Elijah, even though later on Jesus did identify John's ministry with that of Elijah (see Matthew 11:13-14, Mark 9:11-13).  In fact, when the angel appeared to Zechariah to foretell the birth of John the Baptist, one of the prophecies that were fulfilled in John was this: "And he will go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared." (Luke 1:17).

If John was not the Messiah and not Elijah, the only other possibility in the minds of the Jewish leaders was that John might be the Prophet spoken of in Deuteronomy 18:15-19.  Moses said,

The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from among you, from your brothers--it is to Him you shall listen--just as you desired of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, "Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die."  And the Lord said to me, "they are right in what they have spoken.  I will raise up for them a Prophet like you from among their brothers.  And I will put my words in his mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command Him."

I believe that this was a Messianic prophecy, but the Jews might have been open to the possibility that it could be a different person.  So they asked John the Baptist whether he was the Prophet that Moses had spoken about.  Again, John's answer was no.

When all the other possibilities were exhausted, they asked him, "Well, who are you then?"  John's answer did not point to himself, but to Jesus.  John quoted to them Isaiah 40:3 and Malachi 3:1, saying, "I'm the voice of one crying in the wilderness, 'Make straight the way of the Lord'."  The Enduring Word Commentary says, "The religious leaders wanted to know who John was, and he wasn’t really interested in answering that question. He wanted to talk about his mission: to prepare the way for the Messiah."  He was not at all interested in promoting himself, but rather in fulfilling his destiny to point others to Jesus.

Isn't that what we are called to do as well?

The Jewish leaders then shifted their line of questioning.  They wanted to know by what authority John was baptizing people.  Again, from the Enduring Word Commentary:

The Pharisees wondered about John’s authority if he was not actually one of the prophesied ones they had in mind. Yet John’s work of baptizing perfectly suited his calling, as he explained.
“His baptism was apparently distinctive in that he administered it personally; it was not self-administered as proselyte baptism was.” (F.F. Bruce, Scottish evangelical scholar).  I baptize with water: John’s baptism demonstrated the humble willingness to repent, be cleansed, and prepare for the coming Messiah. Yet John’s baptism gave nothing to help someone keep clean. The work of Jesus and His baptism of the Holy Spirit represents more than John’s baptism.
Jewish people in John’s day practiced baptism. It was an outgrowth of ceremonial washings, but only for Gentiles who wanted to become Jews. In submitting to John’s baptism, a Jew had to identify with Gentile converts. This was a genuine sign of repentance.  “It is not unlikely that John’s baptism followed the pattern of proselyte baptism, which required a renunciation of all evil, complete immersion in water, and then re-clothing as a member of the holy communion of law-keepers.” (Merrill Tenney, professor of New Testament and Greek at Wheaton College, 1944).  “The novelty in John’s case and the sting behind the practice was that he applied to Jews the ceremony which was held to be appropriate in the case of Gentiles coming newly into the faith…to put Jews in the same class was horrifying.” (Leon Morris, Australian New Testament scholar).

You will recall the story of Naaman in 2 Kings 9:1-15, when the prophet Elisha instructed this Gentile General to dip seven times in the Jordan to be cleansed from his leprosy.  The Hebrew word for "dip" used in this narrative is also translated "plunge"--that is, to immerse oneself.  This may be the origin of the concept of baptismal regeneration, that is, the idea that baptism is a means to wash away our sins.  If that is so, then why was Jesus baptized?

Perhaps it is enlightening to read from One For Israel--Bible Teachings From a Messianic Perspective.  (See https://www.oneforisrael.org/bible-based-teaching-from-israel/was-baptism-originally-jewish/)

The Hebrew noun for a ritual bath (mikveh) can help us understand a bit more about the Jewish notion of immersion. Often the Hebrew language reveals keys in the Hebrew thought behind the words. The word mikveh shares the same root as the word for hope (tikvah), for line (kav) and alignment, and the concept of hoping or waiting on God (kiviti l’Adonai).
Here is what Strong’s Lexicon has to say about the word:

מִקְוֶה miqveh, mik-veh’;
something waited for, i.e. confidence (objective or subjective);
also a collection, i.e. (of water) a pond, or (of men and horses) a caravan or drove:—
abiding, gathering together, hope, linen yarn, plenty (of water), pool.

and the same root word:

קָוָה qâvâh, kaw-vaw’;
to bind together (perhaps by twisting), i.e. collect; (figuratively) to expect:—gather (together), look, patiently, tarry, wait (for, on, upon).

The ideas of binding together, or twisting together, of yarn, gives us a good mental picture of what it means to align ourselves with God, and wait for him. We gather ourselves and bind ourselves to his word and to him, we line ourselves up with him, and wait for him in confidence and hope. When you read that the Psalmist says he waits upon the Lord, this is usually the word he is using. The linked concepts of mikvah (collected pool of water) and tikvah (hope, confidence) are played out beautifully in Jeremiah 17:5-6, where the prophet poetically expresses the ideas through the metaphor of trees either rooted and flourishing beside water when we trust in God, or drying up for the lack of water when we put our trust in man. A few verses later, Jeremiah summarizes, "Lord, you are the hope (mikveh) of Israel; all who forsake you will be ashamed (or dried out).  Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust because they have forsaken the Lord, the spring of living water."

This is a word play – the text actually says “The Lord is the MIKVEH of Israel, and all who forsake him will be ashamed or dried out!” So it makes more sense now that Jeremiah continues, to say that when we turn away from this mikveh of water and hope, we will be ashamed, which can also be translated “dried out”. Through this word play, Jeremiah deliberately points us back to the analogy of the man who trusts in God being like a tree beside plenty of water, and the one who leaves God ending up in dry, dusty shame.  A “Mikveh” of living water represents the bounty and resources of the new life that we can enjoy in God. Those who put their hope in God, choosing to align their lives with him, will never be dried out, but will always have fresh life in him.  Next time you see someone being immersed in water to signify their new life in Yeshua, the hope of Israel, the mikveh of Israel, call to mind all that he said about being the water of life, the well of living water that springs up to eternal life… because that’s exactly who He is!

 John's Gospel is different from the synoptic Gospels, in that John's narrative here speaks of Jesus's baptism in the past tense.  In all likelihood, John's narrative in verses 29-34 happened after Jesus was baptized, and after He had been tempted in the wilderness for 40 days.  John bore witness of what He had seen: that Jesus submitted to the Jewish rite of ritual cleansing in the living water of the flowing river (emphasizing that He Himself is the Living Water).  John bore witness that the Spirit of God descended on Jesus when He had come up out of the water.  John bore witness that Jesus is the Lamb of God, who (by His sacrifice) takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29).  Finally, John bore witness that that Jesus is the Son of God (John 1:34).

When we are baptized today, we have a different understanding of its meaning and symbolism.  We are not baptized in order to gain salvation, but rather as an act of obedience.  It symbolizes our identification with Christ--with His death, burial, and resurrection.  It is a physical representation of our spiritual renewal.  We are showing the world how we are washed in His blood, plunged into His mercy, immersed in His grace.

We call him John the Baptist; perhaps a better name for him might be John the Witness Bearer.  Who do people say you are? They may say you are Mary the Secretary, but you ought to live your life as Mary the Witness of the Living Water.  You may be known by the world as James the brick layer, but you ought to be known rather as James the Witness of the Resurrection.