Erika Kirk, the widow of Charlie Kirk spoke at his memorial service yesterday in Arizona. Erika Kirk said “On the cross, our savior said “Father forgive them, for they not know what they do. That man, that young man, I forgive him.” She also said “I forgive him because it was what Christ did, and is what Charlie would do.”
It was an incredible moment and an incredible offer of forgiveness.
One illustration of grace that’s always struck me comes from the late Tim Keller. It’s the idea that all forgiveness is costly.
If I go to your house, and I break your TV, someone has to pay for it.
You might say “You have to pay for that.” Then I’m bearing the cost.
You might say “It’s ok, don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it.” Then you’re bearing the cost.
Maybe you say, “I bought insurance. That’ll replace it.” Then insurance is bearing the cost. And the homeowner paid for the insurance.
Maybe we come to an agreement where we both pay for part of it. Then we’re sharing the cost.
Maybe you say “I was actually going to stop watching TV.” It’s still bearing the cost of not having the thing that was yours.
In any circumstance, someone must pay. Because all forgiveness is costly. It’s easy to picture with tangible things that have a monetary cost. But it’s also true with forgiveness.
Forgiving a wrong is costly. And the greater the wrong, the higher the cost. If someone is 20 minutes late for a meeting, that’s annoying, but a pretty small cost. If someone hurts you or someone you love, that forgiveness comes at a much greater cost.
There’s nothing the man who killed Charlie Kirk can ever do to undo what he has done. There’s nothing he can do to earn her forgiveness, there’s no way he can pay her back or make it right.
The only way he could be forgiven by Erika Kirk was for her to freely give it. Because of hate, she senselessly lost her husband less than two weeks ago. Her children lost their father.
It’s easy to understand why she would hate that man. To many, that feeling would be totally justified. But she responds with forgiveness.
Forgiveness is striking.
The Bible says that all sin and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). We all sin against God in the things that we do that we shouldn’t do. We sin in the things that we should do but don’t do. It’s not just occasional. We sin as a habit, as a way of life, as a matter of course. We could never earn forgiveness from a holy God.
The gospel is that Jesus paid the price for our sin on the cross. That there was no way for us to earn our forgiveness, or to pay for it. And so he bore the cost himself by absorbing the penalty that we deserved.
To some, the cross is foolishness (1 Corinthians 1:18). To others, it is the power of God for salvation (Romans 1:16-17).
Hatred for that man might have been understandable. Forgiveness for him is glorious.
In the Gospel of Luke, as Jesus is being crucified, he asks God to forgive his killers when he says “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
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12 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts, so that they may come upon the land of Egypt and eat every plant in the land, all that the hail has left.” 13 So Moses stretched out his staff over the land of Egypt, and the Lord brought an east wind upon the land all that day and all that night. When it was morning, the east wind had brought the locusts.
14 The locusts came up over all the land of Egypt and settled on the whole country of Egypt, such a dense swarm of locusts as had never been before, nor ever will be again. 15 They covered the face of the whole land, so that the land was darkened, and they ate all the plants in the land and all the fruit of the trees that the hail had left. Not a green thing remained, neither tree nor plant of the field, through all the land of Egypt. 16 Then Pharaoh hastily called Moses and Aaron and said, “I have sinned against the Lord your God, and against you. 17 Now therefore, forgive my sin, please, only this once, and plead with the Lord your God only to remove this death from me.”
18 So he went out from Pharaoh and pleaded with the Lord. 19 And the Lord turned the wind into a very strong west wind, which lifted the locusts and drove them into the Red Sea. Not a single locust was left in all the country of Egypt. 20 But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he did not let the people of Israel go.
Prayer
14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable in your sight,
O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
Introduction
In the summer of 1874, trillions of locusts wrought havoc on the great planes. From Montana to the Dakota and Minnesota, they would make their way to Texas.
There was little that farmers could do to stop them. Word of the coming invasion spread faster than the locusts, but even with advanced warning, there was little to stop swarms of locusts. Some farmers set fires around the perimetrs of their fields, but with so many locusts, there are also accounts of them smothering out fires.
That same summer, Laura, Mary, and Carrie Ingalls along with Ma and Pa moved to Plum Creek in Minnesota. In “On the Banks of Plum Creek,” Laura Ingalls Wilder describes the invasion:
“Plunk! Something hit Laura’s head and fell to the ground. She looked down and saw the largest grasshopper she had ever seen. Then huge brown grasshoppers were hitting the ground all around her, hitting her head and her face and her arms. They came thudding down like hail.
The cloud was hailing grasshoppers. The cloud was grasshoppers. Their bodies hid the sun and made darkness. Their thin, large wings gleamed and glittered. The rasping whirring of their wings filled the whole air and they hit the ground and the house with the noise of a hailstorm…
Grasshoppers covered the ground, there was not one bare bit to step on. Laura had to step on grasshoppers and they smashed squirming and slimy under her feet.…
(she continues)
Then Laura heard another sound, one big sound made of tiny nips and snips and gnawings.… The grasshoppers were eating.… You could hear the millions of jaws biting and chewing.… Day after day the grasshoppers kept on eating. They ate all the wheat and the oats. They ate every green thing—all the garden and all the prairie grass.… The whole prairie was bare and brown. Millions of brown grasshoppers whirred low over it. Not a green thing was in sight anywhere.”
Today, we’re continuing our series in Exodus and looking at the Ten Plagues.
After suffering through a series of plagues, having the ecosystem turned upside down, the deaths of livestock, painful boils, historical hail storms, we see a plague of locusts.
And like the Great Plains invasion of locusts in 1874, we will read of the incredible destruction brought forth by locusts in Exodus.
And so we’ll jump right into the passage this morning. We will be shorter than normal.
And our three points will be the scenes of the passage.
We’ll see the plague warned, we’ll see a failed negotiation attempt, we’ll see the plague brought to fruition, and we’ll see Pharaoh’s efforts to see the plague stopped.
With that, we’ll jump into our passage this morning and look at the plague warned.
The plague warned
Beginning in verses 1-2:
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I may show these signs of mine among them, 2 and that you may tell in the hearing of your son and of your grandson how I have dealt harshly with the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them, that you may know that I am the Lord.”
Verse 2 gets at the generational nature of the work which the Lord is doing in this plague and in all of the plagues.
The Exodus is meant to be a generational event. For the Israelites, it was something meant for their children, and grandchildren, and for future generatyions, up to today as we are given this story as an example of the glorious miracles that the Lord did to free his people from slavery in Egypt.
The Exodus is the gospel of the Old Testament.
It is constantly pointed back to.
Dozens of references to this are made throughout the rest of the Old Testament, while we are constantly pointed to the importance of remembering these events.
It’s mentioned in Exodus 20 when God gives the Ten commandments. During their desert wanderings, the Israelties are pointed back to God’s redeeming work in bringing them out of Egypt. In later generations, the prophets point back to this in contrast with Israel’s failure to follow God’s covenant.
For the Israelites, they had a story that pointed them back to God’s great act of redemption in freeing them from slavery in Egypt.
And for Christians, we have a story that points us back to God’s great act of redemption in freeing us from the slavery of sin through the grace of Christ.
As the Israelites were to tell their children and their grandchildren about what God had done for them, we are called to tell the next generation about what God has done for us through Jesus Christ.
Stories are powerful in communicating lessons, values, teaching us about where we came from and who we are.
And the gospel does all of that.
In his commentary of Exodus, Philip Ryken says: “It explains who we are: the people of God. It explains where we came from: a life of sin and misery. It explains where we are going: to live with Christ in mansions of glory. It explains who God is: the Father of mercy and love. And it explains why we are here: to glorify God by living for Christ.”
Stories are powerful.
A great movie can be enjoyed over and over again.
A great family story can be told and retold and even though you know what happened, it still makes you laugh.
And God’s story matters. In both the Exodus, and the gospel, and throughout the Bible, we see God’s story of redeeming and restoring a sinful humanity to himself.
In verse 2, God says that in telling this story to future generations, you may know that I am God.
The stories of God’s work are powerful.
And it matters that we tell that story.
If I saved your life, you’d tell people about it.
We honor those who do great things to save, preserve, and protect others.
Yet we often don’t tell people about the God who saved our soul.
Why is that?
We’re called to share that story both with our children but also with the world.
Again, through the story of what God has done and is doing in the world, that stirs the human heart. That points people to God. That points people to goodness.
And that points people to true life.
That we were sinful people and we were dead in our sins. But Jesus, the Son of God, came into the world. He lived a life without sin. He lived the life we could not live and died the death that we deserved so that we could have eternal life with him in heaven.
And that’s the truest thing there is. And that’s the greatest reality there is.
And that’s the gospel.
We don’t have to get it all figured out. We don’t have to get everything right. We have to come to Jesus.
Romans 10:13 says that all who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. When we believe and trust in Jesus, there is forgiveness and life.
In Exodus, Moses and Aaron go to Pharaoh with the warning of this plague of locusts.
Exodus 10:3-6:
3 So Moses and Aaron went in to Pharaoh and said to him, “Thus says the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, ‘How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go, that they may serve me. 4 For if you refuse to let my people go, behold, tomorrow I will bring locusts into your country, 5 and they shall cover the face of the land, so that no one can see the land. And they shall eat what is left to you after the hail, and they shall eat every tree of yours that grows in the field, 6 and they shall fill your houses and the houses of all your servants and of all the Egyptians, as neither your fathers nor your grandfathers have seen, from the day they came on earth to this day.’
There we have the official warning of the plague of locusts which will come if he continues to refuse allowing the Israelites to go.
Moses says that they will cover the face of the land so that no one can see the land.
And when he’s had seven other plagues and he’s told a plague of locusts will come, Pharaoh still does not relent. The passage says that the Lord had hardened Pharaoh’s heart.
While Pharaoh doesn’t want to allow the Israelites to leave, some of his advisors are starting to have a change of heart.
Verse 7:
7 Then Pharaoh’s servants said to him, “How long shall this man be a snare to us? Let the men go, that they may serve the Lord their God. Do you not yet understand that Egypt is ruined?”
Pharaoh’s servants look at all of the destruction and feel like their society is ruined and are saying “just let them go. What’s it all for?”
A failed negotiation
Verse 8, we see a brief scene where Pharaoh tries to negotiate. This is something else that we’ve seen in other plagues. Attempts at bargaining with the Lord.
We don’t have any leverage with an all powerful Lord.
Pharaoh will fain willingness to release some of the Israelites.
8 So Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharaoh. And he said to them, “Go, serve the Lord your God. But which ones are to go?
So Pharaoh says that they can go, but then he asks “which ones are to go?”
He doesn’t want all of the Israelites to go. If some stay back, that will increase the likelihood they’ll return.
But Moses has been directed by the Lord and is not in a position to negotiate.
” 9 Moses said, “We will go with our young and our old. We will go with our sons and daughters and with our flocks and herds, for we must hold a feast to the Lord.”
In other words, everyone will go.
In verse 11, Pharaoh will say:
11 No! Go, the men among you, and serve the Lord, for that is what you are asking.”
So Pharaoh was only willing to allow the men to go for this religious pilgrimage. Again, he’s counting on them coming back to Egypt if their wives and children are left behind.
But that will not do.
This worship and God’s plan is not just meant for the Israelite men. It’s men for the entire Israelite people.
And since Pharaoh has again refused to listen to the Lord, he will now have to bear the full force of the Lord’s judgment.
The eighth plague: locusts
Verses 13-15:
13 So Moses stretched out his staff over the land of Egypt, and the Lord brought an east wind upon the land all that day and all that night. When it was morning, the east wind had brought the locusts. 14 The locusts came up over all the land of Egypt and settled on the whole country of Egypt, such a dense swarm of locusts as had never been before, nor ever will be again.
15 They covered the face of the whole land, so that the land was darkened, and they ate all the plants in the land and all the fruit of the trees that the hail had left. Not a green thing remained, neither tree nor plant of the field, through all the land of Egypt.
And the destruction is unleashed.
When the text says that the locusts covered the ground, that’s probably not much of an exaggeration. I think about Laura Ingalls Wilder’s memoir.
I have a couple of clips of locusts that we’ll look at in a moment.
But here are a few facts about locusts.
The desert locust is the most destructive pest on earth.
In many parts of the world, they’re a common nuisance.
But when the conditions are right, when there are heavy rains and wet soil, a physical change happens in locusts which gives the conditions for them forming massive swarms where they begin to reproduce rapidly.
While one locust is insignificant, a massive swarms of locusts can cause almost unimaginable damage.
Some good news for us. The Rocky Mountain locust which plagued the Great Plains in the 1870s actually went extinct in 1902 and North America has no native locust species.
A locust swarm can have over 100 million locusts in a square mile, and a swarm can be the size of a city. Large swarms can have tens of billions of locusts.
Locusts eat nearly their body weight in a day. They will eat crops, flowers, leaves, grains, and tree bark. And if they run out of food, locusts will cannibalize each other. From 2003-2005, swarms did more than $2.5 billion dollars in crop losses in West Africa.
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the number of locusts in a square mile can consume the same amount of food in a day as 35,000 people.
And they’re mobile. A locust can cover 120 miles in a day. In 1988, swarms from Africa made it to England.
Last year, and continuing this year, due to heavy rains, several countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia had plagues of locusts which have impacted the food supplies for millions of people.
In our passage, verse 15 gets at the impact of the locusts.
Not a green thing remained, neither tree nor plant of the field, through all the land of Egypt.
And something to keep in mind. We live in a time and place where there are lots of resources. If we don’t have enough food, there are things that can be done. It might cost more. But we are able to get food.
The Egyptians losing crops to hail in the last plauge and then to locusts in this plague would be incredibly perilous and difficult.
But as we’ve seen with other plagues, the Lord uses something natural to the world as an instrument of judgment.
Sin is serious. And the sin of Pharaoh was serious as he continued to refuse to release the Israelites.
Earlier in the chapter, Pharaoh had arrogantly dealt with Moses and Aaron, but amid the destruction of the locusts, he must again come to them with his tail between his legs.
And that brings us to our fourth and final scene.
Pharaoh’s effort to stop the plague
And as he’s done before, he’ll talk the talk when he says in verse 16:
16 Then Pharaoh hastily called Moses and Aaron and said, “I have sinned against the Lord your God, and against you. 17 Now therefore, forgive my sin, please, only this once, and plead with the Lord your God only to remove this death from me.”
We’ve seen this pattern in some of the other plagues where Pharaoh asks for intervention, he asks for Moses to intercede and go to the Lord on his behalf.
Pharaoh uses a lot of the right language. He talks of his sin and asks for forgiveness.
We’ve seen it before.
And Moses takes this apology before the Lord in verse 18.
Verse 19:
19 And the Lord turned the wind into a very strong west wind, which lifted the locusts and drove them into the Red Sea. Not a single locust was left in all the country of Egypt. 20 But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he did not let the people of Israel go.
The Lord answers the prayer.
The Lord wipes out the locusts in the Red Sea. It’s foreshadowing what will happen to Pharaoh himself in chapter 14.
But how does Pharaoh respond to this prayer being answered?
The section ends by saying that he did not let the people of Israel go.
Once again, Pharaoh reneges.
Here’s what’s so amazing about the whole story.
Pharaoh keeps seeing the Lord answer his prayers, and yet never listens to God, never worships God, never turns to God in faith. Instead, Pharaoh continues to be spared and whatever repentance he just spoke of, we see what is ultimately insincere as we see time and again that he has not been changed.
Pharaoh might say he’s sorry and use the right language in talking about his sin when he’s suffering. That is interesting in itself. He knows the language to use. He has some concept of what he ought to say or why he’s wrong. But whenever things return to normal, he continues in direct rebellion against God.
Empty and faithless words. Wanting God’s blessing but not wanting God. Wanting God’s grace but not wanting to live for God.
There’s nothing new under the sun. People still play these games today. People want cheap grace. People want easy grace. They want God to do what they want him to do so that they can go back to doing what they want to do.
God is patient. He’s slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. But he is also righteous and just. God continues to give chances. Pharaoh has again and again made promises to free the Israelites and then refused. God knows all of this.
But there will be a time when our time runs out.
And there will ultimately be a day of reckoning.
And while God is gracious and merciful, he does not compromise on insincere faith. He doesn’t tolerate phony moralism. And he will not accept disingenuous confessions and repentance. God is all knowing. He knows who we are. He knows our hearts. He knows where our faith is.
Let us not go through life playing games. Let our plan not be a death bed confession.
But let us live for God today. Why? Because that’s the truest way to live, it’s the best way to live, and it’s the blessed way to live.
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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?
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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.
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One of the most intriguing people we meet in the Gospel of John is a man named John the Baptist.
Who is he?
He is not the same John who wrote the Gospel of John. They’re two different men.
He’s often called John the Baptist. That title is referring to what John did rather than a denominational affiliation. It’s not that we had John the Baptist, Peter the Presbyterian, and Paul the Methodist.
John the Baptist is mentioned in all four gospels, and in all of the gospels, he’s introduced prior to the ministry of Jesus. So he’s pretty important.
Between the gospels, they give us accounts of both John’s birth and his death. I can’t think of any other New Testament figure besides Jesus where that could be said.
We find out in the Gospel of Luke that John’s mom, Elizabeth, is a relative of Mary which means that John the Baptist is related to Jesus.
John is a few months older than the Lord. After John the Baptist is born, his father gives a prophecy to his son’s life.
Luke 1:76-77:
76 And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,77 to give knowledge of salvation to his peoplein the forgiveness of their sins,
Luke chapter 1 ends with an interesting note about John:
Verse 80:
80 And the child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day of his public appearance to Israel.
He was in the wilderness until the day of his publican appearance in Israel.
There’s not a whole lot of elaboration on that.
We know nothing about his formative years. He was in the wilderness. Some scholars suggest the possibility that John may have actually be raised within a small community within the wilderness. That’s speculation, but it would make historical sense.
John is related to Jesus, but the gospels tell us nothing about how well they may have known each other. It doesn’t seem like they grew up going to a family dinner every week. When his ministry began, it quickly grew in popularity:
Matthew 3:5-6 says: Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him, 6 and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.
Several years after John’s death, the Apostle Paul is ministering in Ephesus in Acts 19. Ephesus is several hundred miles away from Judea but people talk of the baptism which John practiced, showing that his name and reputation were known throughout the region.
John also faced persecution during his life.
He was arrested and later executed under the Romans in Matthew 14. John the Baptist is mentioned throughout the first chapter of the Gospel of John.
John 1:6-8: There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. 8 He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.
That’s the first thing the author tells us about John. He was sent from God. His ministry was not arbitrary. It was not on a whim. It was not something he just chose to do. He was chosen by God.
Second thing we find out about him: his purpose. Verse 7 says that he came as a witness to bear witness about the light that all might believe through him.
John came into the world to point people to the light of the world.
John 1:19-34 talks more about John and his unique ministry as a forerunner to Christ.
In John 1:22, John the Baptist is being questioned about who he is. In the preceding section, he’s given a series of denials of who he is not. He is not Elijah, he is not the Christ, 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?”
So then who is he?
While John isn’t answering in the affirmative to any of his questions, that does not mean he’s insignificant.
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.
They ask John about his baptism.
25 They asked him, “Then why are you baptizing, if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”
Baptism was instituted in the New Testament for followers of Jesus. But baptism was not a foreign idea prior to that time.
In the first century, when non-Jews would convert to Judaism, they would sometimes do something similar to baptism which was meant to be a cleansing ritual to symbolically wash away impurity and sin.
A difference with John was that he administered baptism. The leaders question his authority.
And he responds by turning the question right back to his purpose in the world.
John 1:26-27: 26 John answered them, “I baptize with water, but among you stands one you do not know, 27 even he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.”
John says that it points to someone who’s shoes he’s not worthy to untie. In other words, he’s unworthy of even doing the most menial and humiliating task. John would need a promotion in order to be worthy of untying Jesus’ sandals.
John has authority to baptize because it’s been given to him by God but that baptism is meant to point to something greater.
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This post is part of a larger study through the Gospel of John. This specific post is part of a 3 part series on John the Baptist from John 1:19-34
