In the final sections of John chapter 1, several theological affirmations are made about Jesus.
In John 1:29-34, John the Baptist calls Jesus the lamb of God.
That language will continue in the following section. John 1:35-36 says:35 The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples, 36 and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!”
Understanding what that means
In the Old Testament, the sacrificial system was instituted to show that sin needed to be atoned for. Sin required a blood sacrifice. It was a complicated and rigorous system. Sacrifices provided temporary atonement. Certain sins required certain sacrifices.
Sacrifices also required worthy animals. A person couldn’t just pick out an old goat that was about to die. It had to be a healthy animal without blemish.
All of that was meant to point to the greater sacrifice. Jesus is the perfect and spotless lamb who is the true and worthy sacrifice.
And so John calls Jesus the Lamb of God because he is the one who was sacrificed to atone for the sins of all who believe in him.
John 1:37, John the Baptist has just made this statement about Jesus and then: The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus.
John the Baptist points to Jesus. His own disciples leave him to go and follow Jesus.
With a respected religious leader like John, that would have been unthinkable. No one wants to lose people.A teacher doesn’t want to lose students. A dentist doesn’t want to lose patients. A hair stylist doesn’t want to lose clients.
But John is happy to point his people to Jesus.
He’s happy to lose his followers to Jesus, because that’s his entire purpose. Pointing people to Jesus.
The text says that they followed Jesus.
Verse 38:
Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, “What are you seeking?”
Quite the question Jesus asks. It has a double meaning.
Yes, it’s Jesus asking the two men who are following him. But it is also a probing question for anyone who seeks to follow Jesus.
What are you seeking?
“What are you seeking?”
What do you want from Jesus. There are many reasons why people try to find religion or turn to Jesus. But not all of them are good reasons.
If you’re a follower of Jesus, why are you following him?
Being a follower of Jesus is an end in itself. You follow Jesus because you get…Jesus. You get God.
That is the greatest promise that the Lord gives to us. Unworthy sinners are invited to know the God of the universe.
Sadly that’s not always the real heart behind a person’s desire to know Jesus.
What are you seeking?
Some people follow Jesus because they have all sorts of issues and think life will get easier.
And for awhile, that might be true.
But you’re still you. You’re still a sinful person. You still have various habits and areas of sin that aren’t productive. And life is still hard.
You get Jesus.
What about when the going gets tough? Because the going will get tough. And then where does that leave you?For some, they’re left disillusioned with faith because it didn’t give them what they wanted.
But the mistake was that they were looking for the wrong thing.
Some are led to Jesus because they’re sold a false gospel and believe that material blessing and physical health are both always the will of God for a believer.
It’s often called the prosperity gospel. It’s not Biblical Christianity. It turns our desires to stuff and not to God.
There are often blessings which result from the Christian life and living according to Biblical wisdom. But that is not meant to be the basis of being a follower of Christ.
Because the struggles still come.
If our hope is rooted in what we think Jesus will give to us, it leads to a faith that is superficial.
Plenty of Christians can see the flaws in prosperity theology. Yet we’re often still drawn to it.
Especially in America.
Why?
Because, in our heart of hearts, there’s a temptation to think that we deserve things to be good because we like to think we’re good. We pray, we serve, we give, we try to follow God.
We do these things and so it can be tempting to be angry with God when things don’t go the way we want them to.
The Bible does not promise the Christian life will be easy. It promises the opposite.
The Apostle James said to count it all joy, WHEN you meet trials of various kings (John 1:2).
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said:
10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew 5:10-12)
You can find verses on suffering in almost every book in the New Testament.
Most notably, it was Jesus who was unjustly tortured and executed. He told his disciples in John 15: If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.
The Apostle Paul was imprisoned multiple times in his life and later executed for his faith. He said in Romans 5:3 we rejoice in our sufferings.
Paul wrote his letter to the Philippians from jail, and was later executed. John the Baptist who’s in our passage this morning. Executed.
The apostles named in our passage this morning: all of them were martyrs.
The world hates the gospel.
The Christian life is hard. And life is hard.
What are you seeking?
Certainly I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with blessings. Christians oftentimes do enjoy blessings in life, because God is good and gracious.
Living Godly lives and living according to Biblical wisdom is the best way to live and so that often bears fruit in life.
But what about when it doesn’t?
Many faithful people follow the Lord throughout their entire lives and continue to suffer and struggle.
What are you seeking? I’m not saying we should desire a life of hardship of drudgery.
That’s not the life God wants for his people. Joy is a fruit of the Spirit. But if Jesus is your everything, you can find joy even in hardship, even in suffering, even in sorrow, even in pain.
What are you seeking?
Is Jesus your chief love and the thing that matters most to you?
Do you want to worship Jesus as your Lord and savior or do you think he’s a genie who will grant wishes?
As we continue in verse 38, we see their response. Jesus had asked “what are you seeking?”
They respond to the question with a question
And they said to him, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), where are you staying?”
They don’t answer the question.
As they try to follow Jesus, perhaps it’s too difficult to spell out exactly what they’re seeking but they ask where he’s staying in the hopes of being with him and being able to talk to him and be in his presence.
He said to them, “Come and you will see.”
Jesus invites them in. He invites them into a relationship. He invites everyone into a relationship, into knowing him.
“Come and you will see.”
Thanks for reading! If you liked this post, please share and subscribe. This post is part of a series where I am looking verse by verse at the Gospel of John.
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, “Let my people go, that they may serve me. 2 For if you refuse to let them go and still hold them, 3 behold, the hand of the Lord will fall with a very severe plague upon your livestock that are in the field, the horses, the donkeys, the camels, the herds, and the flocks. 4 But the Lord will make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt, so that nothing of all that belongs to the people of Israel shall die.” ’ ”
5 And the Lord set a time, saying, “Tomorrow the Lord will do this thing in the land.” 6 And the next day the Lord did this thing. All the livestock of the Egyptians died, but not one of the livestock of the people of Israel died. 7 And Pharaoh sent, and behold, not one of the livestock of Israel was dead. But the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he did not let the people go.
8 And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Take handfuls of soot from the kiln, and let Moses throw them in the air in the sight of Pharaoh. 9 It shall become fine dust over all the land of Egypt, and become boils breaking out in sores on man and beast throughout all the land of Egypt.” 10 So they took soot from the kiln and stood before Pharaoh. And Moses threw it in the air, and it became boils breaking out in sores on man and beast. 11 And the magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils, for the boils came upon the magicians and upon all the Egyptians.
12 But the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he did not listen to them, as the Lord had spoken to Moses.
Introduction
We’re continuing in Exodus this morning, and we’re in a section that looks at a series of ten plagues which were brought upon the Egyptians when Pharaoh refused the Egyptians permission to leave Egypt as the Lord had commanded.
Last week we look at plagues two, three, and four.
This week, we look at the next two plagues.
One thing I’d like to say at the beginning. On a personal note…
I love Exodus. I love these passages. It’s my favorite book of the Old Testament.
And part of why I love these passages is because we see these pictures, and on the one hand, they’re such extreme situations. But at the same time, they’re also very applicable.
Because while it was a long time ago and while it was in a different part of the world in a different culture, people are still people. Faith is still faith. Sin is still sin. And God is still God.
And so while it can all seem so far off and far removed from us, one thing that we see over and over in the Exodus is that we’re really not so different from people of the past.
At the outset, I want to highlight the commentary of Philip Ryken on Exodus which I’ve found especially helpful with this ninth chapter of Exodus.
And so we’ll begin with the fifth plague.
Fifth plague: plague on livestock
Verses 1-4:
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, “Let my people go, that they may serve me. 2 For if you refuse to let them go and still hold them, 3 behold, the hand of the Lord will fall with a very severe plague upon your livestock that are in the field, the horses, the donkeys, the camels, the herds, and the flocks.
4 But the Lord will make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt, so that nothing of all that belongs to the people of Israel shall die.” ’
In the preceding four plagues, we had seen times where Pharaoh was warned.
We had seen times when he had agreed to free the Israelites, until to renege.
But God gives another warning when Moses tells Pharaoh that if he does not release the Israelites, there will be a plague upon his livestock.
Verse 2 into 3 says: if you refuse to let them go and still hold them, 3 behold, the hand of the Lord will fall with a very severe plague upon your livestock
The verse says that the hand of the Lord will cause a severe plague.
It’s noteworthy that in chapter 8, when the Lord brings a plague of gnats, that is the first plague that Pharaoh’s magicians are unable to recreate and they tell Pharaoh this is the finger of God. (Exodus 8:19).
And here, the Lord says that it will be from his hand that this plague comes.
There does seem to be an intensification of these plagues.
This fifth plague is the first plague that brings death.
There have been plagues where death is a result. For instance, fish die when the Nile is turned to blood in the first plague. But the plague was primarily the Nile turning to blood. Or to give another example, during the second plague when there’s an infestation of frogs, the frogs ultimately die.
But the entire purpose of this fifth plague is that it brings death.
And it also foreshadows the death which will happen in the last plague when God strikes dead the firstborn of all of the Egyptians.
That the early plagues were very severe and significant, but they were largely nuisances.
But here, the stakes are getting upped.
The ESV calls this a severe plague.
Some translations will use the word pestilence.
The King James Version uses the term “murrain,” which is not a common word in modern English but refers to an infectious disease.
We don’t know specifically what this plague was, but it does seem to be some zoonotic disease, or multiple diseases which were to cause death among Egyptian livestock.
The passage says:
a very severe plague upon your livestock that are in the field, the horses, the donkeys, the camels, the herds, and the flocks
So this plague will be wide ranging in its impact.
It will impact the food supplies, it will impact the economy.
I made this point last week, but one of the common things that we see in the plagues is a lot of language which mirrors the creation account in Genesis.
Genesis talks of the Lord’s orderly creation.
The plagues are an orderly un-creation.
In Genesis, man is given charge over the animals.
Genesis 1:26:
26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
But here, the livestock is taken away.
Something else that’s noteworthy compared to the other plagues. As I’ve mentioned, many of them are in direct confrontation to Egypt’s pantheon of deities.
Among other things, the Egyptians believed that their creator God Ptah embodied a bull named Apis and that Apis was an intermediary between humanity and the Egyptian pantheon.
The Egyptians would actually keep a live bull in the temple at Memphis which was worshipped. When those bulls died, they were given funerary rights similar to what a Pharaoh was given.
The fact that the bull was such a significant symbol of the divine and of communication with God makes it interesting that shortly after the Israelites were freed from the land of Egypt, when things weren’t going their way, in Exodus 32, in their frustration, they make a golden calf.
There were also other Egyptian deities who could be associated with horns and other cow-like features.
But here in this fifth plague, the livestock of Egypt are under attack.
Continuing in our passage.
Verse 4, as we had seen last week in the fourth plague, the Lord says that he will spare the Israelites from the destructiveness of this plague.’
Verses 5-6:
5 And the Lord set a time, saying, “Tomorrow the Lord will do this thing in the land.” 6 And the next day the Lord did this thing. All the livestock of the Egyptians died, but not one of the livestock of the people of Israel died.
Something that’s worth nothing in this verse.
The passage says in verse 2 that the plague will be upon the livestock that are in the field.
Verse 6 says when the plague happened all the livestock of the Egyptians died.
Does it mean literally every single animal that belonged to any Egyptian died? I don’t think the text supports that because later plagues will make references to Egyptian livestock.
So either the word “all” there is hyperbole and simply means “a lot of the livestock died.”
For my sensibilities, such a rendering doesn’t bother me. It’s possible that this is what it means.
Or perhaps it means all livestock that was in the fields, because those were the animals who were contracting diseases from each other.
Or perhaps it means all kinds of livestock saw death, but is not meant to be taken as exhaustively referring to every single animals.
The ultimate point is pointing us to the vastness of the destruction.
7 And Pharaoh sent, and behold, not one of the livestock of Israel was dead. But the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he did not let the people go.
Verse 7 is very subtle.
Pharaoh sent.
That’s almost awkwardly worded in English.
It can be easy to overlook because it’s just two words.
The plague has been inflicted. Egyptian livestock have died.
And Pharaoh sent.
What that means is that Pharaoh sent people to investigate the conditions in the Israelite territory in the Land of Goshen.
It’s also ironic.
Because in the Hebrew, the word “sent” is used twice in this passage. At the beginning when talking about letting the Israelites go – sending them out. And here in verse 7, where it talks of how Pharaoh sent people to investigate Israel.
In other words, he sent his people to investigate the Israelites, but he did not send the Israelites into the wilderness, as he had been commanded.
So Pharaoh sends people to scout out Goshen and sees that the Israelites did not suffer the same consequences that the Egyptians had.
Application – a time for choosing
Philip Ryken has a helpful observation on this situation as Pharaoh’s investigation.
And what Ryken gets at is the idea that there can be a time and place for healthy skepticism and questioning. Especially for someone who is not a Chrisitan or who does not believe in God.
There can be a time to investigate the claims of Chrsitianity, to look into the person of Jesus, the evidence for his historical ministry, the evidence for the resurrection, and a number of other topics in the Bible.
But there also becomes a time to trust, a time to believe.
I had a friend in seminary. I’ve tried to get in touch with him over the years, but unsuccessfully.
I don’t think he’s walking with the Lord today.
Brilliant guy.
One of the few people I’ve ever known who I will not hesitate to acknowledge that I know he’s smarter than me.
And he had had a church background before seminary.
But it hadn’t been the healthiest church that he had grown up in and he had a lot of questions, and he had a lot of things he wanted to figure out.
Again, there’s nothing wrong with questions.
But for some people, the questions never stop.
And it’s like you have to have it all figured out before you can believe.
You will never get there.
More than a century ago, mathematician, Alfred North Whitehead and philosopher Betreand Russell wrote their famous book Principia Mathematica – Principles of Mathematics.
In establishing the basic axioms and proofs of math, they famously took 379 pages to get to their definitive proof that 1+1+2.
We can’t explain the whole world before we can live in it. We can’t know everything about God before we can believe in him.
There’s a time to question but then there comes a time to believe.
Pharaoh continues to be given evidence but continues to disobey.
We come to the sixth plague.
Sixth plague: boils
Similar to what we had seen from the third plague, this one comes with no warning. Beginning in verse 8:
8 And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Take handfuls of soot from the kiln, and let Moses throw them in the air in the sight of Pharaoh. 9 It shall become fine dust over all the land of Egypt, and become boils breaking out in sores on man and beast throughout all the land of Egypt.” 10 So they took soot from the kiln and stood before Pharaoh. And Moses threw it in the air, and it became boils breaking out in sores on man and beast.
Boils.
Just as a reminder from what we’ve seen in these plagues.
Plagues of the ecosystem when the river is turned to blood and the frogs are driven from the river.
We’ve seen plagues which caused nuisances such as the gnats and flies.
We’ve seen plagues that impact the animal kingdom such as the death of the livestock.
And now we see physical suffering with this plague of boils.
It’s some sort of skin disease.
Various conditions such as leprosy, smallpox, and skin anthrax have all been suggested as possible causes.
Whatever it is, it’s undoubtedly unpleasant.
Moses is told to take handfuls of soot from the kilns and to throw them in the air.
Bricks without straw
There is irony in that. In Exodus 5, Moses first goes to Pharaoh with the command to let the Israelites go into the wilderness in order to have a feast to God in the wilderness.
Pharaoh goes out of his way to punish the Israelites and make their lives just a little bit more difficult.
Exodus 5:6-8:
6 The same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people and their foremen, 7 “You shall no longer give the people straw to make bricks, as in the past; let them go and gather straw for themselves. 8 But the number of bricks that they made in the past you shall impose on them, you shall by no means reduce it, for they are idle.
Straw was used in the brick making process because it helped add some stability to the bricks and also helped with the drying process.
Apparently, the Israelite brickmakers had been given straw but when Moses asked Pharaoh to allow them into the wilderness, as a punishment, Pharaoh made them get their own straw without reducing their quota of bricks.
Now when we come to our passage in chapter 9, the residue from those bricks that the Israelites had been forced to make is taken from the kiln and thrown into the air and the Lord uses that to bring a judgement upon the Egyptians.
This sixth plague inflicts both man and beast.
As we’ve seen in other plagues, this one takes aim at the religion of Egypt.
The Egyptians had several deities associated with healing, and yet here the Egyptians are afflicted with boils but not upon the Israelites.
11 And the magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils, for the boils came upon the magicians and upon all the Egyptians. 12 But the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he did not listen to them, as the Lord had spoken to Moses.
Once again, we see a scene which is almost comical.
The magicians are the people who had recreated the first two plagues.
The plague of gnats, they could not duplicate.
The third and fourth plagues, they didn’t even try to do.
And now we’re at a plague of boils, and they’re in so much pain that they can’t even stand up in front of Moses.
They’re totally ineffective.
It’s also a play on words with verse 10 which says that Moses and Aaron took soot from the kiln and stood before Pharaoh.
But the magicians cannot stand before Moses.
It’s true physically, and it’s also true Spiritually.
They and their false gods have been totally defeated.
Pluralism
In our day and age, pluralism is the flavor of the month.
We like to affirm what others believe and treat other ideas like they’re all equally valid.
But we cannot do that when it comes to faith.
Yes, we must always be courteous, and loving, and gracious.
But we cannot compromise on what we believe.
We can be loving but also lovers of truth..
I made this point last week, but for the various sentiments that people give about religion of “no faith is any more true than any other” or “all roads lead to god” or “all religions are basically teaching the same thing.
All throughout the Exodus, we’re seeing the Lord God and the fake gods of the Egyptian pantheon and it’s again and again pointing us that the Lord is true and that the Egyptian religion was false.
But that’s true today for any competing religion.
When people say that no religion is any more true than any other or that all religions are equally valid, that is making an absolute statement about the religions of the world.
That’s not open minded. It’s arrogant.
If there is one thing that all religions agree on it’s that they’re not all the same as every other religion.
Throughout the Exodus, the Lord is showing himself to be true.
Throughout the history of his people in the Old Testament, God showed himself to be true.
Through the ministry of Christ, God has shown himself to be true and for his promises to be true.
Through the resurrection of Jesus, God has shown himself to be faithful.
And God has been faithful to his church for almost 2,000 years. God has been faithful to change lives. God has been faithful to bless his church and to bless the ministry of the gospel as it has gone throughout the world.
It says in our passage that the magicians couldn’t stand. I take that both literally and figuratively.
That they couldn’t stand because of the painful boils, but that they also could’t stand up to the Lord.
Similarly to what the Psalmist says in Psalm 1.
Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
2 but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
3 He is like a tree
planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.
4 The wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that the wind drives away.
5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
Psalm 1 contrasts the person who delights in the Law of God against he person who does not.
And in verse 5 says that the wicked will not stand in judgment.
And the point of that is that the wicked have nothing to stand on before a holy God.
And Pharaoh’s magicians cannot stand a they’re afflicted by this plague, because they are in sin and are opposing God.
We cannot stand before to a holy God.
But the good news of the gospel is that we have someone who could, because he was the Son of God, he was righteous, he was sinless, he was holy, he was God himself, the word of God who became flesh.
Jesus.
While we are fallen, he is gracious and allows us to be forgiven and to go into the presence of the Lord.
That’s the good news of the gospel.
That when we believe in Jesus,
the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus (Romans 6:10-11).
Thanks for listening! I hope this sermon blessed you.
John the Baptist came to point to Christ, to witness to Christ, to be the bridge between BC and AD.
In John 1:29, John the Baptist sees Jesus.
The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
It’s very possible that John himself did not realize the full magnitude of what he was even saying when he uttered those words.
But it’s impossible for a Christian to miss the meaning. Behold, John commands. Look to Jesus. Look upon the lamb who takes away the sins of the world. A profound theological statement about Jesus and what he did.
Sacrifice and the lamb
Jesus is the perfect and spotless lamb who is sacrificed for sins. It’s a theme that we will see throughout John’s Gospel.
Many of the Old Testament sacrifices call for a lamb. Isaiah 53 has a passage of the suffering servant and talks of a perfect lamb being led to slaughter. There’s the Passover sacrifice where the Israelites scarified lambs before the Exodus and where it was an annual holy day.
And here Jesus is called the Lamb of God.
The ultimate and greater sacrifice. He’s the lamb who takes away the sins of the world. It’s not that sin is just written off or no longer matters. Just the opposite. Sin matters a great deal but it is Jesus who takes away sin, takes away the penalty for our sins.
He takes away the sins of the world. That’s not saying that he takes away the sins of every individual person. John talks about “the world” several times in his gospel and other writings. It is Jesus who bears the penalty for a fallen humanity and for everyone who believes in him.
John the Baptist continues speaking in verse 30: This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks before me, because he was before me.
This is similar to verse 15. There John said: ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’
And what John is doing is looking back at his early prophesy, as pointing to one who was greater than him and he sees Jesus, and he says “this is that man.” John gets at his specific purpose.
Verse 31: I myself did not know him, but for this purpose I came baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel.”
Where John says he did not know Jesus, don’t get too caught up in that. The point isn’t that John the Baptist literally did not know Jesus but that he did not previously know Jesus for who he was: the promised messiah. John was called to baptize so that the savior of the world would be revealed. That’s not primarily about John, it’s about the Lord and the divine plan.
John’s call to repentance, John as the voice of one in the wilderness, John as a witness to Jesus, all of this was part of the divine plan for John’s ministry and purpose in the world as the forerunner to Jesus.
Verse 32: And John bore witness: “I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. 33 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.’ 34 And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.”
This is referring to when Jesus was baptized.
All four gospels agree that John was a witness to the Holy Spirit descending on Jesus. The Holy Spirit is another significant theme of the Gospel of John. Jesus promises to give the Holy Spirit to his believers in John chapters 14, 15, and 16.
In the Old Testament, there were passages that talked of the Spirit being with God’s anointed one.
Isaiah 42:1:
Behold my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
I have put my Spirit upon him;
he will bring forth justice to the nations.
There are others, but just to give a sense of it. John sees that moment. We see Jesus: fully God and fully man having the Spirit descend on him. I used to think “why would Jesus need the Holy Spirit when he’s God?
But I was asking the wrong question. “Why wouldn’t Jesus need the Holy Spirit?”
All three persons of the Trinity are God. All three of them work in perfect unity. They are all equal in eternity, holiness, glory, and power.Again, Jesus is both fully God and fully man, but it is because he is fully man that he needs the Spirit.
And just as he enjoyed fellowship with God during this ministry, because Jesus is also fully God, it makes sense that Jesus would likewise enjoy the fellowship of the Spirit during his ministry.
John sees this moment. He’s a witness to the Spirit descending upon Jesus. And John says in the text that He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’
The same Spirit who filled Jesus during his ministry is given to all people because of Jesus’ ministry. The Spirit equips us with gifts, convicts us of sin, sanctifies us to God.
Romans 8:16 says that the Spirit bears witness that we are children of God.
The Spirit bears witness to those who believe. The one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than John the Baptist. Because we’re blessed to have more of the story.
We have the risen lamb.
Believe in the lamb. Turn away from sin. Point others to him.
Final thought
John the Baptist had a ministry to do for a time in history.
He was not perfect. He was just a man. He lived a shorter life than Jesus. Much of his life was spent in seclusion.But he was faithful.
Yes, we don’t have the ministry that John the Baptist had.
He had a once in history ministry. He was the forerunner to Jesus.
But just because someone has a different ministry or a different way to serve, that doesn’t mean that the ways you can serve the Lord are insignificant. No one would know who John the Baptist was without Jesus. Jesus is the thing that gives relevance and meaning to his life.
But for anyone who’s a follower of Jesus, that’s the case. It’s Jesus who gives meaning. John’s ministry was to point people to Jesus. But that’s the ministry in which every follower of Jesus still shares in.
Pointing people to Jesus in word and deed. Following where the Lord leads. Walking in faith. Standing up for the truth of God.
Those things are a call which all Christians share.
In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus talks of John the Baptist and says:
I tell you, among those born of women none is greater than John. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he” (Luke 7:28).
No one before John was greater than he.
Yet Jesus says that for those who come after, the one who is least in the Kingdom of God is greater. The reason isn’t because we have anything great in ourselves.
It’s because we have a fuller picture of who Jesus is and a fuller picture of God’s revelation to the world.
John did have a once in history ministry to fulfill but he didn’t live long enough to see the fruition of Jesus’ ministry. He never heard about the resurrection or saw the risen Christ.
What are you doing to serve the Lord today? It can be tempting to think that we don’t have what it takes to serve God.It’s not about your own abilities and your own power. John the Baptist was an effective minister without a lot of resources.
You don’t have to have a lot of money to serve God faithfully. John the Baptist certainly did not have that. He came from the wilderness. Other gospels tell us that John wore a garment made of camel’s hair.
You don’t have to have all of the degrees and credentials. John the Baptist didn’t have that….he came. from. the wilderness.
You might think you’re too old. John the Baptist had a ministry that was shorter than Jesus’s. His public ministry was incredibly short lived. You don’t have to have decades of ministry to have a ministry that matters.
You just have to follow the Lord, to love the Lord, to serve the Lord.
What are you doing to serve the Lord? What are you living for?
Thanks for reading! If you liked this piece, please share and subscribe.
John the Baptist is one of the most intriguing people we meet in the gospels. He has a unique role in history as being the forerunner to Christ. In John 1, John the Baptist is being questioned about his identity. He helps clarify who he is by clarifying who he isn’t.
Verse 19: And this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?”
It’s reasonable that they would want to find out who he is. I think it’s important to understand the time in which they lived. For centuries, the Old Testament had pointed forward to one sent from the Lord.
People had all sorts of expectations for the type of ministry that this sent one would have.
This was fulfilled in Jesus but people didn’t yet know Jesus. So all they had were their expectations and assumptions. What Jesus actually did was not quite what anyone expected.
A lot of people expected a great religious teacher. Jesus certainly was that but he was ore than that. But his purpose was to bring freedom not law.
A lot of people expected a great king. Jesus is that too, he’s the king of kings. But he did not have the mighty earthly kingdom that people expected.
Others expected a great general who would lead Israel to victory and back to a restoration of their land in the face of Roman oppression. Jesus is the one who leads his people to battle evil and leads us to Spiritual victory.
And people believed various ideas from those categories.
So you suddenly have this man who’s calling people to repent, who’s baptizing. In the other gospels, we see John calling out religious authorities.
And so people are curious.
Maybe he’s connected to the promised savior. Maybe he IS the promised savior. Others might have been skeptical and thought it would lead nowhere.
Before Jesus, there had been people who claimed to be the promised savior of the world.
Who are you?
They ask.
The Christ
John’s first response to the Jewish leaders is given in verse 20: He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Christ.”
First thing John confirms. He is not the savior.
One thing that’s important to understand. The word “Christ” is not Jesus’ last name. It’s his title. Jesus’ parents were not Joseph and Mary Christ. Jesus is The Christ.
Christ comes from the Greek word “Christus” which means “anointed.” It’s the Greek word for the Hebrew word “Messiah.” They both mean the same thing: anointed.
The significance of that is that in the Old Testament, various divinely assigned offices such as the king and the high priest would be anointed with oil at the beginning of their term. Some of the Old Testament prophets were also anointed.
There are also passages in the Old Testament which were understood as pointing forward to a future deliverer who was anointed.
John the Baptist had an important ministry. But he was not the Lord’s anointed, he was not the Lord’s Christ, and so he’s quick to point that out. He’s not the anointed savior.
Elijah
Verse 21: And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.”
Elijah was a prophet in the Old Testament. Much of his ministry revolved around calling people to faith and proper worship of the Lord. He was obedient to the Lord in his life and ministry.
There are several miracles that God does during the time of Elijah’s ministry. Two more things that are noteworthy about Elijah. The Old Testament tells us that God brought Elijah directly to heaven without dying.
2 Kings 2:11
And as they still went on and talked, behold, chariots of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven
Secondly, the book of Malachi, which is the last book found in our Old Testament concludes with these verses from Malachi 4:5:
5 “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. 6 And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.”
So God says that he will send Elijah before the great and awesome day of the Lord.
So some expected a literal second coming of Elijah. For those reasons, it’s a pretty reasonable question for the leaders to have asked this of John. But he tells them no.
John is not Elijah however it should be noted that John’s ministry is really fulfilling this prophecy about Elijah. John is not a reincarnated version of Elijah or a second coming of Elijah, but he is the one who is sent from the Lord with a divinely given ministry to call people to repentance.
But John confirms that he is not Elijah. So they try again:
The Prophet
Are you the Prophet?” And he answered, “No.”
When they ask John if he’s THE prophet, they’re actually referring to a specific passage. Deuteronomy 18:15 tells Israel about a successor to Moses. This passage also came to be understood as pointing to a grater prophet.
Verse 15: “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—
They wonder if John is this person. In reality, that passage is ultimately pointing forward to Jesus. But once again, John answers the question in the negative. He is not the prophet.
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?”
John isn’t the Christ, he’s not Elijah, he’s not the prophet.
So then who is he?
He answers that in the following section.
Who is John?
Verse 23:He said, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said
They’ve seen who John isn’t. This is who he is. He quotes the text from Isaiah 40. That passage is applied to John in all four gospels.
Isaiah 40 is a passage talking of a future time of deliverance for the people of God. It’s an incredibly hopeful passage. It talks of God’s faithfulness to his people in spite of their sin. It talks of God’s restoration.
The heart of what this is getting at for John is that his purpose is to call people to repentance and preparation for the coming Messiah. And it was John’s job to point us to that messiah.
Thanks for reading! If you like this post, please share and subscribe!
Growing up, I didn’t go to church, but I always thought “there’s gotta be something out there.”
As a kid, I had cousins who were raised Catholic and who went to mass every week. They had a crucifix in their house, and there was this person on it. I didn’t know who he was, or why he mattered, or why he would be on display in someone’s house.
As a junior in high school, I took a humanities class where we spent a quarter of the year studying world religions. It was fascinating to me.
The idea of God made sense.
The idea of a good and loving God made sense. But I didn’t understand where Jesus fit into that. I heard he died for our sins, but I didn’t understand the significance of that.
If you had God, then why did you need Jesus?
I didn’t know who Jesus was. I didn’t understand passages like John 1. It’s a passage that tells a lot about Jesus. And it’ll explain why he matters.
John 1 passage has some of the loftiest verses in the Bible about Jesus:
John 1:1-2 says: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.
It can be so easy to read verses like those for a few seconds and just continue on with the rest of the passage. But it’s a mountain of meaning.
John 1:1-3 makes four affirmations that are four of the most fundamental truths that you possibly can know about Jesus.
1. Jesus is eternal
“In the beginning was the Word.”
John opens up by referring to Jesus as The Word.
I take it almost as a title for Jesus in the beginning of John. In the Old Testament, it is through the word of the Lord that God creates, speaks to his people, makes his promises, and points people to truth.
In Jesus, we see the ultimate disclosure of divine love, wisdom, truth and salvation, and so it is therefore fitting to refer to Jesus as the Word.
In the beginning was the Word.
That means that there was never a time when the Word was not.
And this is very important because right from the beginning of John, it confronts a common error that has existed in the church essentially since the time of Christ.
And that error is thinking Jesus is created. Or thinking that God made Jesus. Or thinking that he was a really good man who was given a promotion and became divine.
He was in the beginning.
This is something that John repeatedly emphasizes in his writings.
In the beginning of First John, he again speaks of Jesus’ eternality in the opening verse when he says: That which was from the beginning, (1 John 1:1)
We also see John referring to Jesus as an eternal being in the beginning of the Book of Revelation.
In a vision of Jesus, John says: When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last
Jesus is the first and the last. He is eternal.
He has always existed. This is something that will continue to unfold throughout this passage, but Jesus is not a created being.
2. Jesus has fellowship with God
The verse continues “and the Word was with God.”
Another absolutely monumental and profound reality from this passage. Think about this for just a moment.
The Old Testament is filled with lofty language of the majesty of God. Rightfully so. Exodus 33, Moses wants to see the glory of God (Exodus 33:18).
God tells Moses in Exodus 33:20: you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live
It’s because God is so vibrant, and righteous, and full of life that it is completely overwhelming for fallen and finite people.
But in that story, we see the glory of the Lord is revealed to Moses and Exodus 34 tells us that when Moses came down from the mountain, his skin was so radiant from beholding the glory of God that people were afraid (Exodus 34:29-30).
He shined so brightly that he had to wear a veil.
1 Kings 8, the Ark of the Covenant is brought into the Temple. And when the priests came out of the Holy Place, a cloud filled the house of the Lord, 11 so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord (1 Kings 8:10-11).
The glory of the Lord was so overwhelming that the priests could not stand to minister.
Isaiah 6, the prophet is given a vision of the throne room of God and he is terrified:
Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” (Isaiah 6:5)
The presence of the Lord is completely awesome as you behold his glory and majesty and life.
If you’ve ever stood at a great waterfall, as the hundreds of thousands of gallons of water crash over the edge every minute, you can feel the power and rush of the water.
That’s awe inspiring in its own right, but it’s no comparison to encountering the eternal and almighty God of the universe.
And yet, with Jesus, we’re told that the Word was with God. Jesus can see God, he can behold the glory of God because he himself is glorious and righteous.
In the beginning, there was fellowship with Jesus and God the Father. Not mentioned in this section, but also with the Holy Spirit. God did not make us because he was lonely or bored or because he needed us.
God had always existed in fellowship with himself. It is eternal and perfect.
This passage does not build the entire Doctrine of the Trinity by itself, but it’s very helpful in understanding a Trinitarian theology.
God is triune.
Jesus was with God.
Something else that matters is that this passage is showing distinction between Jesus and God.
Jesus is not simply God the Father coming into the world.
Rather he exists in fellowship with God. There is no dysfunction in the Holy Trinity. Only perfect unity.
That’s something that’s really hard to wrap our minds around because we’re sinful and fallen. Our relationships and families have dysfunction. Even good relationships, we still have times of hurt or disagreement. It’s all we see and all we know.
And so it is hard to imagine a perfect relationship where there’s no keeping score, where there’s never any resentment or bitterness. Where there’s no sin.
But really that says a lot about us as people. That we’re so dysfunctional and hurtful and sinful that a perfect relationship almost seems weird to us.
Jesus has a perfect relationship with God and that in itself is helpful in understanding the restoration that Jesus brings into the lives of people.
Jesus died to mend the broken relationship. But it’s because there is perfect fellowship within the Trinity that this is possible.
3. Jesus is God
The text continues “and the Word was God.”
The central theme of John’s Gospel. The Lordship of Christ.
Something to consider…
This would have been such a radical idea in the first century.
There’s a prayer that Orthodox Jews recite daily, in many circles, multiple times a day that’s taken from the book of Deuteronomy.
It affirms both that there is one God and also gives the command to love God.
Deuteronomy 6:4-6
4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.
Everyday, multiple times a day reciting these words. The Lord our God, the Lord is one. It was, and is, at the very bedrock of the Jewish belief system.
And John was Jewish. And Jesus was Jewish.
Yet without contradiction, right off the bat in his testimony of who Jesus is, John says “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
John believed and here affirms that Jesus is God.
That is the Orthodox view of Christianity throughout the history of the church.
Jesus is God.
He’s a person of the Trinity.
Borrowing from Wayne Grudem in his book Systematic Theology:
Historical, Orthodox, Biblical Christianity believes the following
There is one God.
God is three persons.
Each person is fully God.
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Again, you can’t build an entire theology of the Trinity from this passage alone. But this passage affirms that Jesus is God and also that there is distinction between Jesus and God.
You might think “that’s so hard to wrap my mind around.”
You’re wrong.
It’s impossible to truly wrap your mind around. You’re not God. We don’t have to know exactly how it’s simultaneously true that we have one God, who is three persons, and each person is fully God.
But the Bible affirms all three of those statements. I mentioned a few minutes ago that the belief in one God was central to Jewish belief.
It’s central to Christianity too. We also believe in one God. But God is triune.
Throughout his ministry, we see Jesus showing his divinity through his miraculous signs.
We see his victory over death. We see his perfect and holy life. He’s God.
All of this taken together in our passage we see: that the Word was with God shows there relationship and distinction.
That Jesus is God shows his divinity.
Again, this matters tremendously.
And we have all of these affirmations right from the beginning of John’s gospel.
If Jesus were not God, then he would not be a worthy sacrifice for our sins. If he were just a great man, he would still be fallible. If he were just a great teacher, he could still be wrong . If he were just a great leader, he would still be finite.
But he is the perfect God of creation. He entered into a sinful creation to redeem humanity.
It also matters because if Jesus were less than God, then not only would he be unworthy of our worship, but the very act of worshipping him would be blasphemous.
From the beginning of the Ten Commandments.
Exodus 20
2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
3 “You shall have no other gods before me.
We’re told elsewhere in the Bible that God is a jealous God. But the gospels show people worshipping Jesus. He never corrects them or deflects worship when that happens.
That is either blasphemous or warranted. There’s no middle ground.
John’s Gospel is that it constantly confronts us with absolute claims with Jesus. Chief among them is that Jesus is God.
That’s an absolute claim. It’s either true or it’s not. If it’s true, the only response is to believe in him, to worship him, to trust in him. If it’s not, the rest of this gospel is meaningless and blasphemous.
4. Jesus made everything
Verse 3: All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.
Again this is speaking to the divinity of Jesus. All things were made through him. All means all.
The ground, the trees, the sand of the beaches, the stars in the sky, the air we breathe, the materials we use to build things, all of it was made by Jesus.
He made every person. Each of us has billions of cells in our bodies. Incredible complexity and structure just within our own bodies. The universe is incredibly big.
I thought this was a fun exercise. So the distance between the earth and the sun is 93 million miles.
If that distance was represented by the width of this one sheet of paper, the distance of our entire galaxy would be a stack of papers 453 miles high.
One stack of papers a mile high is about 15 million sheets of paper. Times 453 miles. With each sheet of paper representing 93 million miles.
And that’s just our galaxy.
There are one hundred billion galaxies.
If you could have an atlas of every galaxy in the entire universe and each page represented an entire galaxy, and if you spent just one second on every page and continually turned pages in the atlas, it would take you more than 31,000 years to flip all the way through the atlas.
The universe is incredibly, unfathomably big.
There are more stars in the sky than there are grains of sand in all the beaches of the world. Yet there are more trees on earth than there are stars in our one galaxy.
And that’s just looking at the amazing size of of our universe. There is amazing creation within our world.
New species of animals are still being discovered. And they’re not all insects or really small animals.
Since 2000, there have been new species of primates discovered. We don’t even yet know everything on our own planet.
Yet Jesus made it all.
There are other passages in the New Testament which speak to this fact.
Colossians 1:16: For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.
We see this language as well in the opening chapter of the Book of Hebrews.
Hebrews 1:10 referring to Jesus says:
You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning,
and the heavens are the work of your hands;
Jesus is the creator. He made everything.
And John states it both ways.
He made everything.
And also there’s nothing that he didn’t make.
All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.
He’s a mighty God.
It’s a lofty passage. It’s a confrontational passage. You affirm these truths or you don’t.
Our society often likes to treat Jesus as something you can take or leave.
Gravity isn’t something that you can take or leave.
Arithmetic isn’ t something that you can take or leave.
Breathing isn’t something that you can take or leave.
Jesus isn’t something you can just take or leave. Jesus isn’t just a nice person or a nice idea. He’s the Lord of creation.
Many cherry pick certain teachings. Others treat him as a great teacher or a great religious leader.
Jesus isn’t one good teacher among other great teachers. He’s God.
The sages of other major religious traditions were born. Buddha wasn’t there in the beginning. Mohammad wasn’t there in the beginning.
But in the beginning was the Word.
There have been great leaders in the world who have influenced nations and movements. Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Gandhi. Some like to just act like Jesus was a wise peace maker who came with a good message.
He’s so much more than that. In the beginning was the Word. And the Word created all things.
Thanks for reading! If you liked this post, please share and subscribe.
This post is the second in a series in studies on the Gospel of John. For more passages in this series, please click here.
