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From this lesson on, we will look at the key view of the entire New Testament in sequence. In this lesson we will begin with John the Baptist, since he was the inaugurator who brought in the New Testament age.
Before John the Baptist came out, Judaism had become a dead religion. The Jews took God’s law and the service of the tabernacle instituted by God and made them into dead ordinances. Not only were there many ordinances for their living, but there were also many religious regulations related to their service to God, including their priestly service and its system. All these became ordinances in letters which could not give men freedom in the spirit. John the Baptist was born under such a background.
John the Baptist was born in a priestly family. He was an Israelite born into a tribe of serving priests, which was the tribe of Levi; hence, he was born a priest. His father Zachariah was an orthodox priest (Luke 1:8).
John the Baptist was not conceived by his parents’ natural strength. Because his mother was barren and both parents were advanced in age, humanly speaking, it was impossible for his conception to take place. But while his father was serving in the temple, an angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, “Do not fear, Zachariah, because your petition was heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John” (Luke 1:11, 13). At the time when there was no hope and when man’s natural strength had come to an end, because of Zachariah’s prayer, God’s operation was able to have a new beginning by His divine act. This was revealed in the case of Abraham and Sarah (Gen. 17:15-19) and in the case of Hannah (1 Sam. 1:5-20).
The conception of John the Baptist was a miracle accomplished by the divine power in the divine way (Luke 1:19-20). It was God who came in to enable his parents to have a son by His power. But the conception of John the Baptist was accomplished merely in a human mother of a human father, without the divine essence being involved, thus bringing forth a mere man who was only filled with the Spirit of God (Luke 1:15) but lacked the nature of God.
Luke 1:57-58 says, “Now the time was fulfilled for Elizabeth to give birth, and she brought forth a son. And her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had magnified His mercy with her, and they rejoiced with her.” The birth of John was miraculous and astounding, causing the neighbors and relatives to rejoice with astonishment.
On the eighth day, John the Baptist was circumcised. This was according to the requirement in Leviticus 12:3. When some were about to call him by the name of his father, Zachariah, his mother answered and said, “No, but he shall be called John.” Then they said to her, “There is no one of your relatives who is called by this name.” When they gestured to Zachariah as to what his child should be called, he miraculously wrote on the tablet, “John is his name” (Luke 1:59-63). The Lord’s forerunner was given this name because God wanted him to be one who would not keep the traditions. For this reason, he was not given a traditional name, but he was given a new name.
“And the young child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day of his presentation to Israel” (Luke 1:80). For John to grow and become strong in spirit means that he was with God and for God, and to live in the wilderness was to be away from the traditions of human culture and religion that God might have a free and clear way to use him as the forerunner of the Savior.
As one who was born a priest, and according to the regulations of the Old Testament, John should have spent much time in the temple. However, he did not stay in the temple; he lived in the wilderness. The wilderness is a place without culture, tradition, or religion. By living in the wilderness John cut himself off from the crowd, from religion and culture, and from the temple of Judaism with all the systems and traditions of its service to God. He was a Jew, but he did not live as a Jew. He was a priest, but he did not live as a priest. On the contrary, he lived as an uncultured person. He put aside human religion, human culture, human practice, human system, all of man’s traditions, the tradition of the priests, and the tradition of serving God; he abandoned them all. This strongly indicates that God’s New Testament economy is contrary to religion and culture. It also indicates that the old way of the worship of God according to the Old Testament was repudiated, and a new way was about to be brought in.
John lived in a way that was absolutely contrary to religion, culture, and tradition and outside of religion, culture, and tradition. He wore a garment of camel’s hair and a leather girdle about his loins, and his food was locusts and wild honey (Matt. 3:4). According to the regulations of the law, John, who was born a priest, should have worn the priestly garment, which was made mainly of fine linen (Exo. 28:4, 40-41; Lev. 6:10; Ezek. 44:17-18); and he should have eaten the priestly food, which was composed mainly of fine flour and the meat of the sacrifices offered to God by His people (Lev. 2:1-3; 6:6-18, 25-26; 7:31-34). However, John acted altogether contrary to traditional teachings. He wore a garment of camel’s hair (the camel was considered an unclean animal—Lev. 11:4) and a leather girdle about his loins, he ate locusts and wild honey, and he lived in the wilderness. All these things were uncivilized, uncultured, and completely contrary to the religious regulations and the Judaic traditions. All this indicates that he had altogether abandoned all the Old Testament traditions, which had fallen into a kind of religion mixed with human culture.
Luke 3:7-14 is a record of the teachings of John the Baptist.
John said to the crowds going out to be baptized by him, “Brood of vipers! Who prompted you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce then fruits worthy of your repentance, and do not begin to say among yourselves, We have Abraham for our father, for I tell you that God is able out of these stones to raise up children to Abraham” (Luke 3:7-8). He strongly pointed out that although the people of Israel were the descendants of Abraham, they had become the brood of vipers, the children of the Devil, having the poisonous nature of the Devil. They needed a change in life and nature to make them children of God to produce good fruit (Luke 3:9).
John taught the people that he who has two tunics should share with the one who has none. He taught the tax collectors to exact no more than what they had been instructed, and he taught those serving in the military to extort nothing from anyone by force, nor to take anything from anyone by false accusation, and to be satisfied with their wages (Luke 3:11-14). Although John lived in a way that was contrary to religion, culture, and tradition, he taught people to live a superior life.
“The word of God came to John, the son of Zachariah, in the wilderness. And he came into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for forgiveness of sins” (Luke 3:2-3). Repentance is a matter of changing the mind, of turning the mind to God. Baptism is a matter of burying the repenting people, terminating them and their way of living so that God may regenerate them and make them a new creation (John 3:3, 5-6; 2 Cor. 5:17). Repentance with baptism is for forgiveness of sins, so that the obstacle of man’s fall may be removed and man may be reconciled to God.
To baptize people is to immerse them, to bury them, in water, signifying death. This indicates that he who repents is good for nothing but burial. This also signifies the termination of the old person, that a new beginning may be realized in resurrection, to be brought in by Christ as the Life-giver. Hence, John’s baptism not only terminated those who repented, but also ushered them to Christ for life. Baptism in the Bible implies death and resurrection. To be baptized into the water is to be put into death and buried. To be raised up from the water means to be resurrected from death.
In the Old Testament while the children of Israel were entering into Canaan, they had to cross the Jordan River, in which twelve stones representing the twelve tribes of Israel were buried, and from which another twelve stones representing the twelve tribes of Israel were resurrected and brought up (Josh. 4:1-18). Hence, to baptize people in the Jordan River implied the burial of their old being and the resurrection of the new. Just as the children of Israel’s crossing the Jordan River ushered them into the good land, so to be baptized brings people into Christ, the real good land.
“As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, A voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare the way of the Lord; make His paths straight. Every ravine shall be filled up, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked places shall become straight, and the rough places smooth roads; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God” (Luke 3:4-6). To prepare the way of the Lord and to make His paths straight is to change people’s minds, to turn their minds toward Christ and make their hearts right, to cause every part and avenue of their hearts to be straightened through repentance, thus preparing their hearts to receive Christ that Christ may enter into them to be their life and take possession of them.
Ravine, mountain, crooked places, and rough places are figures of speech describing the condition of men’s hearts toward God and toward each other and the relationships among men, all of which needed to be dealt with for the way to be prepared for the Savior’s coming.
“Now while the people were in expectation and all were reasoning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Christ [that is, the Messiah], John answered and said to all, I indeed baptize you with water, but He who is stronger than I is coming, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie; He will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire; whose winnowing shovel is in His hand to thoroughly cleanse His threshing floor, and to gather the wheat into His barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (Luke 3:15-17). Here we see that although John preached a baptism of repentance, the goal of his ministry was a wonderful Person, Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He realized that he was only a messenger sent by Jehovah of hosts (Mal. 3:1) to bring people to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and exalt Him as the goal of his ministry.
John testified that he baptized with water, but the One coming, Christ, will baptize people in the Holy Spirit and fire. The Holy Spirit, into whom Christ baptizes the regenerated believers, is the Spirit of Christ and the Spirit of God (Rom. 8:9). Hence, to be baptized in the Holy Spirit is to be baptized into Christ (Gal. 3:27; Rom. 6:3), into the Triune God (Matt. 28:19), and even into the Body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:13). It is through baptism in such a water and in such a Spirit that the believers in Christ are regenerated into the kingdom of God, into the realm of the divine life and the divine rule (John 3:3, 5), that they may live by the eternal life of God in His eternal kingdom. Furthermore, Christ will baptize the unrepenting ones in fire. According to the context, the fire here is not the fire in Acts 2:3, which is related to the Holy Spirit; it is the fire of the lake of fire (Rev. 20:15). What John meant was that if people would truly repent and believe in the Lord Jesus, the Lord would baptize them in the Holy Spirit so that they might have eternal life. If they, like the Pharisees and Sadducees, would not repent, the Lord would baptize them in fire, putting them into the lake of fire for eternal punishment. John’s baptism was only for repentance, to usher people to faith in Christ. The Lord’s baptism either causes the believers to have life in the Holy Spirit, or causes the unbelievers to perish for eternity in the fire.
John the Baptist had the spirit and power of Elijah, and he did the work of Elijah in turning many Israelites to the Lord their God (Luke 1:16-17). Furthermore, he was the first one in the New Testament who was filled with the Holy Spirit; hence, in typology he was the Elijah who was about to come. Concerning John, the Lord said, “And if you are willing to receive it, he is Elijah, who is about to come” (Matt. 11:14). This word means that if the Jews at that time would receive John’s testimony and teaching, John would be their Elijah. However, the prophecy concerning the coming of Elijah in Malachi 4:5 will actually be fulfilled in the great tribulation, when Elijah, one of the two witnesses, will come to strengthen God’s people (Rev. 11:3-12).
Toward the end of the Old Testament age, there were two major sects among the Jews: the Pharisees and Sadducees, who were frequently mentioned in the New Testament. After John the Baptist began his ministry, his disciples produced a new sect, a new religion, called the disciples of John (Matt. 9:14; John 3:25), in addition to the Pharisees and Sadducees.
John the Baptist dropped the old religion and began his ministry in the wilderness outside of religion (Matt. 3:1). However, his disciples made his teachings into a new religion to frustrate men from receiving Christ, just as the Pharisees of the old religion did. The ministry of John the Baptist was to introduce men to Christ that Christ might become their Redeemer, their life, and their all. However, some of his disciples drifted away from his goal, Christ, to some of his practices, making them a religion. To be religious means to do things for God without Christ. Even to do anything scriptural and fundamental, yet lacking the presence of Christ, is religious.
John the Baptist was the forerunner of the Lord Jesus, the voice of one crying in the wilderness (John 1:23). After Christ came out to minister, John should have stopped his work and withdrawn himself from the scene so that Christ might be the only One on the scene, and all those who followed him should have gone to Christ. But because John did not withdraw right away, when his disciples saw that all the people were going to the Lord Jesus to be baptized (John 3:26), they wanted to do justice for their teacher, thus causing John’s work to compete with Christ. If John would no longer have baptized people and would have told all his disciples that they should follow Jesus, not allowing people to follow him, there would have been no difficulty.
At the end John the Baptist was put into prison by Herod the tetrarch and was beheaded. This ending speaks forth, on the one hand, the evil, the corruption, and the darkness of Roman politics; on the other hand, it also shows the result of John the Baptist’s not stopping his work. He once testified strongly saying that He was not the Christ but a messenger sent before Christ. He also aggressively announced that Christ was the Bridegroom coming to marry the bride (the church composed of all the believers in Christ), that he was only a friend of the Bridegroom, and that Christ must increase and he must decrease (John 3:28-30). Since this was the case, he should have withdrawn and no longer baptized people, because the One of whom he testified was already baptizing people. But he was still there baptizing people, causing his disciples to be in rivalry with Christ. Therefore, God had to raise up the environment to remove him and terminate his ministry. Yet the baptism of repentance left by him was still being received by people, though it had become the out-of-date truth, thus becoming a hindrance to God’s New Testament economy (Acts 18:25; 19:1-5).
The Israelites took all that God gave to their forefathers in the Old Testament and made it into dead religious regulations and rituals. Under such a background John the Baptist, through God’s miraculous empowering, was born of his old and barren parents into a priestly family of the Jewish religion of that time. From his mother’s womb he was filled with the Holy Spirit. Though born a priest, he cut himself off from the holy temple and from the traditional religion and culture to live in the wilderness. There he lived in a “wild” way contrary to all traditions of the forefathers. In the wilderness, away from the atmosphere of religion and culture, he was the forerunner of Christ, a voice crying out to pave the way for Christ and introduce Christ. He preached the baptism of repentance and prepared the people’s hearts to receive Christ. He had the spirit and power of Elijah to change the people’s minds, turning them to Christ. He testified for Christ and aggressively declared to his disciples that Christ was the Bridegroom coming to marry the church, that he was only a messenger as the Bridegroom’s friend, and that this Christ must increase and he must decrease. Yet his disciples made his teachings into another religion, causing his work to be in rivalry with Christ. Therefore, God allowed him to be imprisoned, even beheaded, thus removing him and terminating his work which, although unintentionally, was in real rivalry with Christ. The baptism of repentance left by him was still accepted by people and became a hindrance to God’s New Testament economy.
