2: More Important Than You Think!

The Exceptional Messenger
(first book in the series
The John the Baptist Experience)
is now available in paperback and ebook formats.

Christian, have you paid attention to how important John the Baptist really is? And have you considered why the vital importance of his ministry and message should matter to you?

Why is it that the story of Jesus can’t be told without including the enigmatic, camel-skin-clad, long-haired Nazirite prophet called John the Baptist? Stop and consider just a minute. There aren’t a lot of events or messages from the life of Jesus which appear in all four Gospels. All the Gospels include the Last Supper, the trial, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection. Only two include anything of the Birth account of Jesus. Only two have some version of the Sermon on the Mount. How many miracles (not counting the Resurrection) appear in all four accounts? Answer: not many. But all four inspired Gospel writers — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John — are compelled by the Spirit to include events and teaching from the life and ministry of John the Baptist.

Why is that?

For that matter, John the Baptist and his influence keep popping up in the Book of Acts. Jesus is still referring to him just minutes before His Ascension. Peter is compelled to mention him in his teaching (Acts 1:22) and preaching (Acts 10:37; 11:16). The all-things-common, materialism-free, communal economy of the early Jerusalem church (Acts 4:32-37) may well have grown out of seeds planted by John (Luke 3:10-11). Paul must include John in his preaching (Acts 13:24-25). And disciples of John the Baptist are still being encountered in corners of the Roman Empire more than twenty years after his death (Acts 18:25–19:4).

Have you ever thought about that?

Oh, and I should mention something else: At least two, probably four, and perhaps more of Jesus’ Twelve Apostles were disciples of John before they became disciples of Jesus. And we will see that sitting under the teaching of John the Baptist, as well as responding wholeheartedly to his message, was a clearly stated prerequisite for filling the apostolic vacancy left by Judas (Acts 1:21-22).

Who is this guy John the Baptist?

“Prepare the way of the Lord.
Make His paths straight!”

Each of the Synoptic Gospels² ushers in the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ by quoting this verse from Isaiah and then introducing the powerful ministry of John the Baptist. Even in the Fourth Gospel, when John the Baptist is pressed by the religious leaders of his day about where he fits into God’s scheme, the Apostle John records this response from the mouth of Messiah’s Forerunner: “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as said the prophet Isaiah.”

In God’s infinite wisdom, His people could only be heart-prepared for the earthly message of Jesus through the ministry of this one who “baptized… unto repentance.” Every hungry, thirsty soul in Israel had a “John the Baptist experience” which prepared the heart for an encounter with the Christ.

In a day when the faithful in the Church cry out for the coming of Jesus again in revival power – and for His Second Coming itself – we have yet to realize that God, who “changes not,”³ and the Lord Jesus Christ, who is “the same yesterday, today, and forever,”⁴ still decree that the answer to those prayers is dependent on the heart-preparation of God’s people through their own, end-time John the Baptist experience.

In John’s day, only fifty or sixty miles separated Jerusalem, the religious capital, from Aenon (John 3:23), where John baptized.⁵ But the spiritual distance between the two locations was in­cal­cul­able. When God chose to prepare His people for the unveiling of His Son Jesus to the world, His sovereign choice dictated that the work be done neither in the place nor with the methods the religious leaders of the day were using. Everything Jerusalem represented – wealthy trappings of successful ministry, popular ministers, well-dressed worshippers, educated religious leaders, showy buildings, popular fads, shallow thought, shallower spirituality, and comfortably acceptable levels of worldliness and sin – all of this God passed over when it came time to prepare for Jesus the Christ to begin His ministry in the earth. God’s chosen man, method, ministry, and message for this preparation were embodied in the person and preaching of John the Baptist.

God longs to unveil Christ once again to the Church and the world in an end-time revival. But the distance between the “Jerusalem” of popular Christianity today and the preparatory message which beats in the heart of the Lord seems greater than ever. Too many of the leaders of twenty-first-century “Jerusalem” seem to imply that God has lowered His standards, and that His blessing requires new methods. Pop psy­cho­logy and Madison-Avenue marketing methods rule the day.

First and foremost, our “Jerusalem” leadership hardly speaks any more of “sinners,” only the “unchurched.” Secondly, just about any method that succeeds in coaxing and coddling the “un­churched” into God’s Kingdom is deemed acceptable. Speaking plainly about sin is anathema, because, at best, it might lower the listeners’ self-esteem, and, at worst, it might drive them away. In our mad rush to be “seeker sensitive” above all things, we have long since ceased being “Spirit sensitive.” Thus we have become spiritually undiscerning, nearly incapable of sensing or being led by God, the Holy Spirit. We have become like Samson, who “did not know that the Lord had departed from him.”⁶

Ignoring, for a moment, the irony that we lead those “you’re not sinners, just unchurched” people in “the sinner’s prayer,” it’s plain that we still sidestep the issue of dealing with sin, even after telling people that they have been “born again.” For instance, a pastor known to the writer, whose church paid thousands of dollars to a “church-growth consultant,” told his leaders that if newcomers say the “sinner’s prayer” and “become Christians,” the church would just have to accept the fact that these “new Christians” might be living together in sin without benefit of marriage for quite a while, and that the Lord would sort it all out later. A pastor-friend from metro Washington, D.C. recently informed the writer of a “successful” mega-church in his area where the leadership has decided that no mention will be made of the Lordship of Jesus in the salvation message or in discipleship training with new converts for at least the first six months, the desire being to “not scare them away.”

They don’t understand the why of John the Baptist!

John the Baptist came to prepare the hearts of God’s people in his day by preaching repentance, a word we hardly know the meaning of today. No heart can truly be prepared today for the coming of Jesus – whether in regeneration and New Birth, or in revival, or Jesus’ Second Coming – unless it has unreservedly responded to John the Baptist’s message: “Repent, for the Kingdom of God” – and therefore, by implication, the King Himself! – “is at hand.”

A basic assumption in Scripture is that a “foundation of repentance” has been laid, and that it is required before we can “go on.”⁷ The depth and strength of that spiritual foundation is vital to the structure of spiritual life on every level, so it must pass muster with the heavenly Building Inspector. If He doesn’t “sign off” on the work, at some point He has to dismantle the building, bulldoze the substandard substructure,⁸ and lay a new foundation according to the “code” of His divine specifications. Many a believer and so-called Christian alike are mired in fruitlessness and frustration because they have bypassed, wittingly or not, God’s mandatory “John the Baptist experience.”

The Who and Why of John

In order to understand how God lays His approved foundation, to appreciate what it is He does in this “John the Baptist Experience,” we have to come to grips in the Scriptures with John himself, as well as his ministry. In this chapter, we’ll do an overview of the prophecies concerning John and his ministry.

The more we study John the Baptist, the more we read about him, the more amazing his ministry becomes. It makes us focus in and ask, “Why did he have to precede Jesus? What was it about him that made him so special?” Well, for starters, he was filled with the Holy Spirit before birth, and he was frequently mentioned in Jesus’ teaching, as well as in apostolic teaching in the Book of Acts. Additionally, and significantly, he was the sub­ject of five prophecies.

Five Prophecies about John the Baptist

We usually focus — quite rightly — on the many Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament. But other than Messiah, there are no Old Testament prophecies about any man we find in the New Testament except John.⁹ No oracle presages the lives of Peter or Paul or James or the Apostle John. But John the Baptist is the subject of three separate Old Testament prophecies, and two more in the New. The coming of no other prophet is foretold in prophecies;¹⁰ John the Baptist alone holds this distinction.

Three Old Testament Prophecies

Using the pen of the prophet Isaiah, God first spoke of John the Baptist almost 800 years before his birth.

Isaiah 40:3-5 —

Then, about 400 years before John’s birth, God spoke of him again through the last of the Old Testament prophets, Malachi.

Malachi 2:17–3:1 —

And God wasn’t content with giving only one prophecy about John the Baptist through Malachi.

Malachi 4:4-6 —

Two New Testament Prophecies

And as if having a “major” and “minor” prophet foretell John’s life and ministry wasn’t enough, the Almighty sent another prophecy, this time of his conception, birth, and ministry, through the angel Gabriel. In trying to grasp the importance of John the Baptist and his ministry, let’s look aside for just a moment to the importance of this heavenly being who appears four very significant times in Scripture. The angel Gabriel, who stands “in the presence of God,” was used by God twice in the Book of Daniel to unfold the meaning of two deep and sweeping prophecies: the vision of the ram and the he-goat (Daniel 8, especially verses 15-27), and the oracle of the Seventy Weeks (Daniel 9, especially verses 20-27). It is Gabriel who has the incomparable honor of announcing the Incarnation to the Virgin Mary (Luke 1:26-39), the nexus of so many Messianic prophecies.

Now consider this: Gabriel, this specially honored and chosen divine messenger, this unfolder of God’s prophetic plan, this holy herald of Immanuel’s conception, is also tasked with one other profound announcement — the birth of Messiah’s Forerunner. And so we read:

Luke 1:13-17 —

Look at the scope of this angelic prophecy:

• John’s birth requires an angelic announcement like that of Samson of old;
• Like Samson, he will be under a lifelong Nazirite’s vow (more on this below);¹⁴
• “He will be great in the sight of the Lord”;
• “He will be filled with the Holy Spirit” pre-natally, the only human being of whom we know this to be true before Jesus (who was conceived by the Holy Spirit);
• John will reconcile God’s people to Him;
• He will be the Elijah of the Malachi 4:5 prophecy;
• He will be “the forerunner before Him,” that is, the herald of Messiah.

Given the breadth and importance of this oracle in God’s prophetic calendar, is it any wonder that the message would be entrusted to anyone less than the named angel who had delivered those weighty prophecies to Daniel more than five hundred years earlier?

But God has one final word, and this last prophecy came through a priest. The Holy Spirit comes upon John’s priestly father, Zacharias, in a surprising word, as he declares the oracles of God over his son during his circumcision ceremony eight days after John’s birth.

Luke 1:76-79 —

With Zacharias’ ability to speak having been miraculously restored¹⁷ at John’s b’rit-milah ceremony,¹⁸ as the venerable priest poured forth praise to God (Luke 1:59-64) and prophesied from the Holy Spirit, is it any wonder that John should become the ongoing topic of conversation among the awe-struck inhabitants of the hill country of Judea (Luke 1:65)? At a time when spiritual matters and Israel’s fate were uppermost in their minds, in hushed tones the people asked themselves and each other, “What then will this child turn out to be?” (Luke 1:66) And with good reason! “The hand of the Lord was with him” (v. 66) as he continued to grow, and he became “strong in spirit” (v. 80).

The Penetration of the Malachi Prophecy

In Jesus’ day, the righteous and unrighteous alike were uniquely “tuned in” to the wavelength of these prophecies.¹⁹ The Malachi 4 prophecy, chronologically, was the last word they had received from God before four hundred years of prophetic silence.²⁰ For instance:

• Consider the constant expectation evidenced about the Elijah prophecy in Malachi 4:5. The Pharisees and Sadducees who came out to John’s baptism were bold to ask him, “Are you Elijah?” (John 1:21).²¹
• Many people speculated about Jesus that He was Elijah (Matthew 16:14; Mark 6:15; Luke 9:8).
• So ominous was the atmosphere at Calvary that when Jesus cried out, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani,” the hard-hearted and indifferent onlookers mistook it as a cry for the immediate return of Elijah (Matthew 27:46-49 ∥ Mark 15:33-36) and they were half-expectant that Elijah would appear and take Jesus down from the cross.
• Even after Peter, James, and John had seen Elijah with their own eyes on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-4 ∥ Mark 9:1-6 ∥ Luke 9:27-34), they were still trying to work out how this prophecy of Elijah’s return fit into their current framework of understanding (Matthew 17:9-13 ∥ Mark 9:11-13). Jesus made it clear to them — and these three leaders understood — that John the Baptist was the fulfillment of the Malachi prophecy.

The Importance of the Isaiah 40 Prophecy

As far as John’s self-identification, it is the Isaiah 40 prophecy which defines him:

This is how the Apostle John includes this Isaiah 40 oracle about John the Baptist in his Gospel. And such is the importance of this prophecy that the other three Gospel writers include it as well, quoting the same passage (Matthew 3:3; Mark 1:3; Luke 3:4).

In fact, in considering how vital John the Baptist and his ministry are to the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we come to realize that not one of the inspired writers can tell the story of Jesus’ life, ministry, death, and resurrection without introducing John, and then weaving his ministry and teaching into the divine narrative. Consider, for instance, the opening verses of Mark’s Gospel:

Did you notice that Mark says that this John-as-the-fulfillment-of-prophecy presentation is “the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God”? If we are going to preach the Gospel, let’s start from the beginning.

The Holy Spirit leads Matthew and Luke down the exact same path in their God-breathed²³ writing:

Consecrated in the Womb and in Life

We have focused on the prophecies relating to John’s ministry and his birth. The circumstances leading up to his birth fill much of the account in Luke 1, a narrative that leads us to the remarkable conclusion that he was filled with the Holy Spirit pre-natally (Luke 1:15,41,44).

You will recall that God once said to the great prophet Jeremiah:

That’s a powerful ministry-call to the famous “weeping prophet.” But regarding John the Baptist, it’s almost as though God says, “While I formed you in the womb, I filled you with the Holy Spirit!” We know of no other human being (before the Holy Spirit came upon Mary) of whom the Scriptures make this claim. No wonder the Apostle John, writing of John the Baptist’s unique birth, says, “There was a man sent from God whose name was John” (John 1:6).

Take a moment to ponder the order of events. In normal experience, when we consecrate ourselves to God, putting our “all on the altar,” we are filled with the Holy Spirit. John, this baby who leaped in his mother’s womb when he was filled with the Holy Spirit, was specially consecrated from conception. He was a womb-to-tomb Nazirite.²⁴

What is a Nazirite? There is a phrase in the prophecy spoken by Gabriel to Zacharias that requires our special attention: “[He] will drink no wine or liquor, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother’s womb” (Luke 1:15). The clear implication is that this is a lifelong ban, which would put John in a very select company of lifelong Nazirites. In Numbers 6:1-21, the conditions laid out for the Nazirite’s vow of consecration are these:

• No “wine or strong drink,” and nothing that could be considered a product or by-product of the grapevine (Numbers 6:3-4);
• No cutting or trimming of the hair (or beard) for the period of the Nazirite vow (6:5);
• No defilement from touching a dead body, including normal mourning for a close family member’s death (6:6-7ff);
• Certain sacrificial rituals were to be performed at the end of the vow, whether completely fulfilled (6:13-21) or prematurely terminated due to defilement (6:9-12). This included the complete shaving of the head (vv. 10, 18) and the offering of the hair in the sacrificial fire (v. 18).²⁵

Men or women could specially consecrate themselves to God for a period of time. (Jewish tradition tells us that the period was generally thirty days.²⁶) However, two of the greatest judges of ancient Israel were lifelong Nazirites. The best known is Samson, who was “a Nazirite to God from the womb.” (See Judges 13:1-14, in which Samson’s mother, “Mrs. Manoah,” is twice prohibited — vv. 4, 14 — from drinking anything alcoholic while pregnant, as well as eating or touching anything unclean.) The prophet Samuel, too, was specially dedicated to the Lord by his mother, Hannah: “I will give him unto the Lord all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head” (1 Samuel 1:11).

The high priest of Israel was temporarily prohibited from drinking “wine or strong drink” when preparing to enter the tabernacle (Leviticus 10:8-11)²⁷ for the scant few minutes he spent annually inside the Holy of Holies in the presence of Almighty God. By contrast, the Nazirite was prohibited from drinking “wine or strong drink” all during the days of his consecration, the import being that he was continually in God’s presence.

The “bottom line” in a lifelong Nazirite’s vow is summed up in Numbers 6:8 — “All the days of his separation, he is holy to the Lord.” So it was with the Nazirite John the Baptist: holy and separated to God all of His life, and filled with the Holy Spirit in his mother’s womb, as befitting the man chosen by God to be Messiah’s herald.

Inescapable in the Gospels—
and the Book of Acts

We have noted previously that John’s ministry is one of the few events covered in all four Gospels, which is to say that not one of the Evangelists, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, can tell Jesus’ story without telling John’s story. John’s ministry is covered in the events leading up to Jesus’ water baptism (Matthew 3, Mark 1, Luke 3). Jesus then goes forth to face forty days of fasting and testing in the wilderness. Immediately after Jesus’ forty days of temptation, He returns to the place where John is baptizing (John 1:29-36). From that point forward, for a time, John’s ministry is contemporaneous with that of Jesus (John 4:2). After John is imprisoned (Matthew 11:1-6ff), there is still com­mu­ni­ca­tion between John and Jesus, and interaction between John’s disciples and Jesus’ disciples. Even the circumstances of John’s martyrdom are important enough to include in the Divine Record (Matthew 14:3-12; Mark 6:17-29; Luke 3:19-20).

But John’s ministry and influence don’t end with his imprisonment and death. Consider how John, his ministry, and message are never far from the preaching of Jesus, Peter, and Paul:

Jesus

Jesus refers to John and his message throughout His earthly ministry. He clearly equates John with Elijah (e.g., Malachi 4:5; Matthew 11:14), and declares him to be even greater than Elijah, or any other prophet (Matthew 11:7-19). Jesus explains and validates John’s ministry (John 5:32-35). In the last week of His earthly life, Jesus is still reminding the people of John and confounding the machinations of His religious enemies by referring to John’s ministry (Matthew 21:23-32). After Jesus’ resurrection and just before His Ascension, He yet again refers to John (Acts 1:4-5).

Peter

Shortly after Jesus’ ascension, and not many days before Pentecost, the Spirit-inspired Apostle Peter leads the Upper Room band of disciples to focus on the essential need to fill the vacancy of the twelfth Apostle (Acts 1:15-26). The most surprising qualification for the office (one frequently overlooked by readers and commentators) fairly leaps off the page, as Peter declares:

So one of the key requirements for being one of the Twelve Apostles of the Lamb was to have heard and responded to the preaching of John the Baptist. (And probably the requirement extended to having been one of John’s disciples.)

But the Baptizer’s influence doesn’t stop even after Pentecost. Almost a dozen years after John’s death, while preaching in the home of the Gentile Cornelius, Peter can’t omit mention of the ministry of John the Baptist (Acts 10:37). Shortly thereafter, in defending his visit to that same Gentile home, Peter quotes Jesus mentioning John’s baptism (Acts 11:15-18).

Paul

During his first missionary journey (46-48 a.d.) Paul feels compelled to include John and his ministry in his timeline of Israel’s history leading up to Messiah (Acts 13:14-41, esp. vv. 23-25). Just as important, perhaps, is the fact that Paul can assume that his listeners know of John and his ministry, even though they live over 750 land-travel miles from Jerusalem (a huge distance in those days) and almost twenty years after John the Baptist’s death.

Nearly ten years later, and over a thousand land miles from Jerusalem, Priscilla and Aquila, two of Paul’s co-workers, encounter a highly educated, international teacher from Alexandria, Egypt, named Apollos (Acts 18:23-28). “Instructed in the way of the Lord” and a passionate speaker, Apollos was “teaching accurately the things concerning Jesus” — but only so far as he was “acquainted with the baptism of John” (verse 25). Priscilla and Aquila interact with Apollos privately (verse 26), and this man, “mighty in the Scriptures,” this man with a heart prepared for Messiah by the teaching of John the Baptist, becomes an eloquent and powerful Christian teacher and apologist. Not long afterwards, Paul encounters a group of about a dozen faithful followers of John’s teaching in Ephesus (Acts 19:1-7). This encounter opens the door to several fruitful and powerful years of ministry in that city.

More Important Than You Thought?

Are you seeing John the Baptist in a different light? Consider:

• He is the subject of no fewer than five separate prophecies.
• With Nazirite consecration upon him, he is “sent from God” and set apart for the task of being Messiah’s herald.
• Jesus submits to John’s ministry and often refers to the man and his teaching, even up to and including the days just before His ascension.
• Judas’ place among the Twelve could only be filled by someone whose spiritual life and spiritual foundation had been laid by John and his teaching.
• The gospel couldn’t be proclaimed — even through the decades of the Book of Acts — without using John's ministry and teaching as a touchstone.
• Not one of the Spirit-inspired Gospel writers could tell the story of Jesus without interweaving the person, teaching, and influence of John the Baptist.

We are beginning to see how much importance the Lord places on John the Baptist and his ministry. Let’s move on to consider all of the prophetic words spoken about him and over him. Since we’ve seen what emphasis all four Gospel writers place on the Isaiah “voice in the wilderness” prophecy, in the next chapter we will go straight to Isaiah 40, the better to appreciate the famous oracle in its context.

Endnotes: