I Am Not; He Is

Reference

John 1:19-34

Sermon Discussion Questions:
1. Read John 1:19-34, and John 3:25-30.
2. If you were John the Baptist, what temptations do you think you would face while you were famous? And when your fame began to die out? What would Satan's will for your life be?
3. Read Matthew 3:9-10. What was so provocative about John the Baptist's preaching and ministry?
4. The crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold, and a man is tested by his praise. - Prov 27:21. Is there an area of your life that the "furnace of praise" has revealed some impurity in your heart?
5. How can we handle "praise" (or give it) without falling into the trap of the "love of praise"?

What is God’s will for your life?

That’s a good question to consider. Who does God want you to become friends with? How should you respond to this concerning pattern of behavior in your children? What should you do with your time this week? God’s claims on our life are total, and so there is no area of life where His will is unimportant to us.

But, what if there was another being who likewise desired to have a total claim on our lives? What if we considered that question from the infernal perspective? What is Satan’s will for your life?

Perhaps you imagine him attempting to amplify as much suffering as possible in your life? Maybe lose your job and not be able to buy groceries, pay your mortgage, and so doubt God’s existence? Afflict you with Job-levels of suffering on your family or physical health? Or perform some ghoulish spectacle from a horror movie?

Maybe he wants you to fall into some outrageous sin and ruin your life? A new addiction, an affair, an embarrassing lie. Consider the frequent temptations of your life—where is the weakness that he might lean against? As you imagine the ammunition that Satan may be loading into the barrel this moment, I wonder if you have ever thought of these warnings from Jesus:

“But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. 25 “Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry. “Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep. 26 “Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.

Luke 6:24-26

What if Satan’s will for your life was…to make you rich, full, happy, and beloved by many? “Prosperity knits a man to the world. He feels that he is finding his place in it, while really it is finding its place in him,” Lewis, Screwtape. Speaking of a “patient” approaching a successful middle-age, Screwtape advises: “His increasing reputation, his widening circle of acquaintances, his sense of importance, the growing pressure of absorbing and agreeable work, build up in him a sense of really being at home in earth, which is just what we want.”

Long before C.S. Lewis wrote The Screwtape Letters, a 17th century English puritan, Thomas Brooks, wrote Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices:

“Where one thousand are destroyed by the world's frowns--ten thousand are destroyed by the world's smiles! …The honors, splendor, and all the glory of this world, are but sweet poisons, which will much endanger us, if they do not eternally destroy us.”

Now, bear all of this in mind as we turn to study the figure that Jesus described as the greatest man ever born of women, up to Himself: John the Baptist. We are returning to our study of the gospel of John, and we will pick up in John 1:19 with an examination of the ministry of the forerunner of Jesus, a man who experiences a peculiar fame and success, yet remains unmoved by its siren-song.

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19 And this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” 20 He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Christ.” 21 And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the Prophet?” And he answered, “No.” 22 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?” 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.” 24 (Now they had been sent from the Pharisees.) 25 They asked him, “Then why are you baptizing, if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?” 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.” 28 These things took place in Bethany across the Jordan, where John was baptizing.

29 The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! 30 This is he of whom I said, After me comes a man who ranks before me, because he was before me.’ 31 I myself did not know him, but for this purpose I came baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel.” 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.”

John 1:19-34

Backstories

John’s Backstory

All four gospel authors begin their story of Jesus with the introduction of John the Baptist. We don’t know much about this character, but if we look to the synoptic gospels, here is what we can glean:

John is a relative of Jesus (Luke 1:36), whose birth is foretold in Luke’s gospel, where we learn that he will be no ordinary child.
- He will be filled with the Holy Spirit from the point of conception (Luke 1:15)
- He will serve “in the spirit and power of Elijah” (Luke 1:17; cf. 2 Kings 1:8 with Matt 3:4 and Mark 1:6; cf. also Malachi 4:5-6)
- He will be called “the prophet of the Most High” (Luke 1:76)
- He will reside “in the wilderness” (Luke 1:80; 3:2; Matt 3:1; Mark 1:4)
- And He will be the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy of a voice to prepare the people for the coming of the Lord (Luke 1:17, 76; Matt 3:3; Mark 1:2-3)
John’s ministry was marked by summoning people to repent, to baptize, and above all, to identify the coming Messiah (Luke 3:7-18; Matt 3:2, 5-12; Mark 1:4-8).

Here, in John’s gospel we see that John has drawn such a crowd that a delegation from the capital, Jerusalem, has been sent to investigate: “Who are you?”

There are three figures that they think John might be: the Christ, Elijah, and the Prophet.

Who are those people, and why do they think John might be it? To answer that, we need to widen the lens.

Israel’s Backstory

The Prophet

Long before John, Moses led the people of Israel out of Egypt and helped foster the nation as a covenant people in communion with Yahweh. Moses is a remarkable leader; he serves as a kind of judge over the people, a quasi-king to lead, and ultimately the mouthpiece of God; he is an intermediary between God and the people, speaking God’s word to the people, and representing the people to God. God promises that one day He will raise up another Prophet like Moses who will speak God’s words to the people (Deut 18:15, 18), and after Moses dies, we are told: “And there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses,” (Deut 34:10).

Elijah

Hundreds of years go by, and the nation of Israel wanders away from God and begins worshipping false gods. Moses warned the people that if they would obey God, they would be blessed and remain in the promised land. But if they broke the Law, they would be cursed, and would be pushed out of the land and go into exile. And God raises up the prophet Elijah to confront Israel’s rebellion and summon them to repent. And Elijah performs stunning acts of miracles, not since the time of Moses has Israel seen such signs and wonders. And yet, Elijah comes and goes, and the people of Israel remain in their sin. But, the prophet Malachi, the last of all the Hebrew prophets before period of silence between the Old and New Testaments, Malachi looks forward to the final Day when God will set everything aright, judge evil and reward righteousness. Here are the last words that close the Old Testament:

4 “Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel. 5 “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes.

Malachi 4:4-5

As the Hebrew scriptures close, we are to *remember Moses—*there should be another prophet like him, but also we are specifically to remember the law of Moses. Why is the nation perishing? Because they haven’t heeded the Law or the Prophets. Thus, there needs to be another Elijah, a better Elijah who will prepare the people for the coming of the Lord, for the final Day.

So, before God sets everything right, there must be another prophet like Moses who arises, and there must be another of Elijah of sorts (and it isn’t totally clear in the Old Testament that these two figures are separate or the same).

The Christ

Israel had been suffering under occupation for hundreds of years. Starting in 732 BC, the Assyrian empire began to eat away at the northern kingdom of Israel. Then, in 587 BC, the Babylonian empire conquered the southern kingdom and captured Jerusalem. And from that point on, Israel had just been bounced from one ruling empire to another: the Persians, the Medes, the Greeks, and now (at John’s time) the Romans.

And in the shadow of this exile, the prophets arose and spoke God’s word to His people—rebuking them for the sin which had brought the very exile on, summoning them to repentance, and (most importantly) promising that God would restore His people, that He would deliver them from all their enemies. And, that He would do so through the anointed one—that is, the Christ—who would redeem God’s people and then usher in the New Heavens and New Earth.

And this official delegation from Jerusalem come to John and ask: Are you that guy??

I Am Not

In the prologue of the book, the gospel author seems to inorganically insert comments about John the Baptist definitely not being the Christ. We are given this cosmic introduction to who Jesus is as the Word, and how He creates everything, and is the Light of the world…but then we are told:

“6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He 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,” John 1:6-8.

(John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”) - John 1:15

Why did the gospel author feel the need to draw attention to this? It feels so out of place that the translators put parentheses around verse 15! Apparently, the gospel author—and the Baptist himself—felt the need to really draw attention to the fact that John the Baptist really was not the Christ.

The primary mode of John’s testimony seems to be denial: I am not. Again, later in John’s gospel, John re-affirms: “You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.’ (John 3:28; cf. Acts 13:25).

Notice the triple-emphasis in verse 20: (1) He confessed, (2) did not deny, (3) but confessed: I am not the Christ. That’s a strange way of putting it, a kind of rhetorical underlining of John’s denial, isn’t it? I think this is way of communicating that John immediately denies the claim, without guile or false-humility or coy circumlocution, *wink-wink, well, lots of people have been saying lots of things, let’s see…*He does not relish the fact that his preaching is so powerful, that his calls for repentance are so piercing, that people are seriously considering if he might be the savior of Israel!

Now, you may get hung up on this and think: how could anyone think John is the Christ…isn’t that a divine role? Sometimes we may assume that “Christ” is either Jesus’ last name (it is not, it is a title, like “Mr. President”), or that it is a title that marks someone out as the Son of God, or God in the flesh. But no one at Jesus’ time believed that the Messiah would necessarily be divine. He would certainly be a divinely empowered figure, but not God incarnate. And, actually, around the birth of Jesus there was a kind of revolutionary spirit in the air, and many figures attempted to call themselves “the Christ” and lead a violent revolution against the Roman occupiers.

We can actually read about some of them in the book of Acts. In Acts 5:36, we read of a man called Theudas, who “rose up, claiming to be somebody.” I love that humbling description: he *isn’t “somebody” —*he just claimed to be. And he led off a group of about 400 men. But, “He was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and came to nothing.”

John wasn’t “claiming to be somebody.” He was somebody. John was incredibly popular—Mark can just say “all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him” (Mark 1:5). So popular is he, that even after he is killed, the religious authorities fear speaking ill of him whatsoever for fear of how the crowds may turn against them (Mark 11:32).

John’s a big deal.

And he is doing something really unique.

They asked him, “Then why are you baptizing, if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?” - John 1:25

There is something peculiar about John’s baptism that the Pharisees (vs. 24) see as warranting a special identity. Prior to John, there was such a thing as baptism that began to take place in Jewish communities. It was an extension of some of the ritual washings of the book of Leviticus, but was applied specifically to a Gentile who wanted to convert to Judaism. If you were a Greek or Roman, and were interested in becoming a practicing Jew, one of the first things you would do be to plunge yourself under water as a symbolic washing of your ceremonial uncleanness. John’s baptism, however, is unique because (1) he is performing the baptism—previous proselyte baptisms were self-administered—so he is claiming some kind of unique intermediary role, and (2) he isn’t just baptizing Gentiles, but Jews as well. Which makes sense of John’s preaching recorded in the synoptic gospels: “9 And do not presume to say to yourselves, We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. 10 Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” (Matt 3:9-10; Luke 3:8-9).

This is a fairly provocative thing to be doing. John is making a splash on the political and religious scene of the day. He is challenging the powers to be, seeming to create an innovative, fresh spiritual practice, drawing large crowds of people. And it seems to have God’s blessing! Does it not? In fact, though John denies that he is Elijah—Jesus will later affirm that John was in fact the Elijah figure that Malachi spoke of! (Matt 11:14)

John’s modesty, apparently, kept him from seeing himself for who he was. And perhaps that was exactly what God wanted.

Friend, have you ever considered the temptations that John would have faced with that level of success and fame? How would you fare if were in his place? All eyes on you, people hanging your words, you staring out at crowds that are so vast you cannot count them all, and they are all there to hear you, to receive from you, to follow you. And you are not getting famous for being a bad person—you are doing the Lord’s work! But Satan is clever, friends. And he is tireless. If he cannot turn you into a prostitute or a tax collector, he will be happy to make you a Pharisee. Perhaps you slowly begin to believe that it is really you that are the main attraction, the main actor, the purpose of it all.

The praise of men, the smiles of the world, are “sweet poisons” that sink many.

The crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold, and a man is tested by his praise. - Prov 27:21

Suffering and criticism is a kind of furnace that reveals impurities. But so too are the praises of others.

What has the furnace of praise revealed in you? What temptations are you now facing? Do you find yourself fixated on what other people think of you, imagining what would happen with this or that scenario if you had only been there? In the movies that roll in your mind, are you always the main character? Does your follower count or social media presence eat up your attention? Do you subtly bend the truth or airbrush details to make yourself seem more important, more attractive? Do you relish being the person who is called when no one else can fix the problem?

Consider the warning to a young, prospective elder:

“He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil,” (1 Tim 3:6).

"Christian, you know that you carry gunpowder around with you. Desire those that carry fire to keep their distance. It is a dangerous crisis when a proud heart meets with flattering lips" (Flavel)

“Do you take pride in your hurt?” Samuel asked. “Does it make you seem large and tragic?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, think about it. Maybe you’re playing a part on a great stage with only yourself as audience.”

East of Eden

He Is

As we examine the rest of the passage, pay attention to how John thinks of himself:

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.” - John 1:23

I am a voice, just a voice, and my one mission is to prepare the way for someone else. Now crier whose mission is to announce the arrival of the king fools himself into thinking that the crowds have gathered for him.

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 1:26-27

A student of a rabbi in John’s day was expected to do for his teacher whatever a slave would do—except take off the teachers shoes (Carson, PNTC). John here makes no exceptions; in fact, he isn’t even worthy to perform what slaves would be expected to do.
Move your eyes down to vs. 32: “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.” - John 1:32-33
John realizes that his baptism was here to pre-figure the greater baptism that only Jesus can give. John’s ministry was the opening credits, Jesus was the main attraction.

Notice: John sees Jesus and realizes immediately that this is the One that everything He has been doing is for. His ministry, his fame, his influence, all was leading to this “for this purpose I came baptizing.” He defines the purpose of his ministry, of everything, in relation to Jesus.

How can John endure the furnace of praise, how can he resist the temptation of making himself the point? He knows that Jesus is the point. He can say “I am not” because he knows “He is.”

John knows that he is the voice announcing the King, not the king itself.

Jesus is the King; He is the Christ, He is the One who has been given the Spirit without measure and baptizes us with the Spirit; He is the one who takes away the sins of the world! And John knows, he isn’t any of those things. He is one of the sinners who needs his sins taken away! Do you remember what John says to Jesus in Matthew’s gospel when Jesus comes to be baptized?

“I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” - Matt 3:14

How can we be free like John to use the gifts and opportunities the Lord provides, without succumbing to subtly making ourselves little Messiahs?

Understand yourself to be a sinner who needs saving.

Maybe the easiest way to keep ourselves from inserting ourselves as Saviors is to remind ourselves regularly that we are the ones in need of saving.

I am the least of all the apostles - 1 Cor 15:9 (53 AD)
I am the least of all the saints - Eph 3:8 (60 AD)
I am the chief of all sinners - 1 Tim 1:15 (64 AD)

So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’” - Luke 17:10

Pray more

Prayer reminds you that the Lord builds the house, not you. 3. Do not love the praise of men

Not all praise is bad. 18 It is always good to be made much of for a good purpose - Gal 4:18 honor such men, 30 for he nearly died for the work of Christ - Phil 3:29-30

Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. - Matt 11:11

But love of praise is always bad. They make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them. - Gal 4:17 For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. - Gal 1:10 4. Look at how you respond when the praise goes away

26 And they came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, he who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you bore witness—look, he is baptizing, and all are going to him.” 27 John answered, “A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven. - John 3:26-27

John knew that the influence he had, was given by God. And now, it was time for it to go away. How does your heart respond when mediocrity shows up? If you love the praise of men, you will no longer be controlled by faithfulness and joy to God, but by a pragmatic “Whatever it takes” approach to regain the crowds. You’ll feel resentful at the people who appeared to have gotten in the way. And you will feel deeply jealous of the next person who has stolen the limelight.

Make Jesus’ fame, not your own, your joy

You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.’ 29 The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete. 30 He must increase, but I must decrease.” - John 3:28-30

"[God] wants to bring the man to a state of mind in which he could design the best cathedral in the world, and know it to be the best, and rejoice in the fact, without being any more (or less) or otherwise glad at having done it than he would be if it had been done by another. [God] wants him, in the end, to be so free from any bias in his own favour that he can rejoice in his own talents as frankly and gratefully as in his neighbour's talents--or in a sunrise, an elephant, or a waterfall." - Screwtape