John 1:19-51 - Part B

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That's connectwithskip.com. Now, let's get started with today's message from Pastor Skip Heitzig. Elijah is going to show up and sit in that chair and come. So they always expected the Messiah is going to come, but we're going to know it's the Messiah. Come to set up his kingdom when Elijah comes. So they say, John, are you Elijah?

He goes, nope. Well, now we have a problem, don't we? We have a problem because of the words that Jesus said. If you have a mind to, turn to Matthew.

If you don't, I'll turn to it for you. This is Matthew chapter 11, verse 11. Assuredly, Jesus says, I say to you, among those born of women, there is not risen one greater than John the Baptist. But he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. And from the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force.

For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. Now watch this verse. And if you are willing to receive it, he is Elijah who is to come. It's an odd statement. Are you Elijah? No. Now Jesus, now if you can receive it, he is Elijah who is to come.

Let me confuse you further. If you go forward in the Gospel of Matthew to chapter 17. Now John the Baptist has come and gone.

He is dead. Matthew 17, verse 9. Now as they came down from the mountain, Jesus commanded them, saying, Tell the vision to no one until the Son of Man is risen from the dead. And his disciples asked him, saying, Why then do the scribes say that Elijah must come first? Now the reason they asked the question is because Jesus was transfigured moments before this. Along with Moses and Elijah the prophet. They saw this transfiguration vision on the mountain.

So they asked him about it. Why then do the scribes say that Elijah must come first? Jesus answered and said to them, Indeed Elijah is coming first and will restore all things. So, speaking yet future, now John the Baptist has come and gone.

So he's saying, You know what? Elijah is going to come. Like Malachi said, he is coming. But I say to you that Elijah has come already. And they did not know him, but did to him whatever they wished.

Likewise, the Son of Man is about to suffer at their hands. Then the disciples understood that he spoke to them of John the Baptist. So John says, I'm not Elijah. Jesus said, Well, if you can receive it, it is Elijah. Then he says, You know, Elijah the prophet, the real Elijah, is going to come in the future. But you know, in a sense, Elijah has already come.

And they did whatever they wanted to him. And they go, Oh, he must be speaking about John the Baptist. So what does this all mean?

Here's what it means. When Zechariah was in the temple and offering incense, and the angel Gabriel said, Your wife Elizabeth, though she's an old gal, is pregnant. And she's going to have a son.

You guys are going to have a son together. You're going to call his name John. John the Baptist.

That's the John we're talking about. He will come in the spirit and in the power of Elijah. To turn the hearts of the people back to the Lord their God. And he starts quoting Malachi 4. Now, the angel said he's coming in the spirit and the power of Elijah, not in the person of Elijah. So in a sense, in a type, in a futuristic type, in a shadow, John the Baptist was an Elijah-like forerunner. But since the prophecy in Malachi says he's going to come, Elijah the prophet is going to come. Before the Lord sets up his kingdom, which is yet future. We see that John the Baptist was a partial fulfillment of that, ushering in, in the spirit and power of Elijah, the first coming of Jesus. Whereas the prophet Elijah, literally resurrected, will come in the future to usher in the second coming. I hope that makes sense.

I hope that clears it up. You say, well, where do we find that in the book of Revelation? We know that Jesus comes back in Revelation 19.

Well, it's interesting. If you look at the two witnesses in Revelation 11, and you look at what they do, they sound very suspiciously like Moses and Elijah. Just go some other time. We don't have the time tonight.

We've already taken really too much time on the subject. But go look at the description, and you'll see that Moses and Elijah possibly are the two witnesses spoken about in Revelation. As far as two witnesses to the Jewish nation, you couldn't have two greater witnesses than Moses, the lawgiver, and Elijah, their greatest prophet. And when Jesus was transfigured in the gospels with Moses and Elijah upon that mountain, it says they were speaking about things of the kingdom in one of the gospel accounts.

I love the fact that not only did Moses make it into the Promised Land in that scene. Remember, he wasn't allowed to go in the Old Testament, but he's showing up there in northern Israel with Jesus and Elijah. But also the fact that Elijah the prophet is with him, and they speak about things future, and probably they'll show up in Revelation chapter 11 as the two witnesses.

Now back to John chapter 1. Verse 24, Now those who were sent were from the Pharisees, and they asked him, saying, Why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the prophet? Now what is this the prophet? They said, Are you the prophet? No, I'm not the prophet.

Why are you baptizing if you're not the prophet? When Jesus asked his disciples right before the transfiguration at Caesarea Philippi, Who do men say that I am? Remember, they said, Some say you're John the Baptist. Some say you're Elijah. Some say you are Jeremiah or one of the prophets. The reason they thought Jesus might be Jeremiah or one of the prophets is there was a long-standing tradition that Jeremiah the prophet will also come back, and he will restore the Ark of the Covenant to its proper place in the worship system of Israel prior to the Messiah's arrival to establish his kingdom. But I believe what they are referring to more than that, when they said, Are you the prophet, is if you recall in our study in Deuteronomy chapter 18, Moses said, For the Lord your God will send to you another prophet like unto me, him you shall hear, you shall listen to him.

And that is believed, a long-standing belief, that that is a messianic prediction. Are you the Christ? No. Are you Elijah?

No. Are you the prophet? Either Jeremiah or one of the prophets, or perhaps that prophet referred to in Deuteronomy 18. So they asked him since he says, No, I'm none of those. He said, Why are you baptizing then if you're none of these people? John answered and said to them, I baptize with water, but there stands one among you whom you do not know. It is he who, coming after me, is preferred before me, whose sandals strap, I am not worthy to lose.

Again, please notice, John, just the humble nature of this voice proclaiming the word of life. He says, There's somebody coming, and the one that is coming, the one that you are anticipating, you know what, I am not even worthy to be a household slave to this man. It was the servant's job to unloose and to take off the sandals of a master who had walked the streets and had come home in the evening.

The slave, the servant, would take off the sandals by unloosing the straps and then wash the feet. John the Baptist said, I'm not even worthy to do that. Now, contrast John's words, I'm not even worthy to be his servant, to some of our attitudes when we pray and go, Lord, I deserve better than this. The way you've been treating me, the way you've allowed this to happen in my life, the trials and the tribulations, well, I've served you and I've trusted you. And we start getting angry at God like God should give us what we deserve. You should praise him and thank him every day that he doesn't give you what you deserve, you'd be in hell. That's what we deserve.

I'm not even worthy to be a household slave. These things were done in Bethabara, beyond the Jordan where John was baptizing. Bethabara is where we were a few weeks ago in Deuteronomy.

It's the place of crossing. The place the children of Israel, when Moses said, you're going to cross over the Jordan River, and Joshua in chapter 1 takes them over, he takes them over to this place called the place of crossing, Bethabara. They had been wandering around the wilderness until they crossed over into the promised land. It's the place where the nation was baptized, so to speak. They went through the waters of the Jordan that parted for them and they came over from wandering around into the promised land.

I don't believe that John puts that there without intentionality. I believe that John is directing our attention to just as the children of Israel wandered and wandered and wandered and had no resting place until they came into the promised land. It's time for you to enter into your rest. Quit wandering around through life and wandering off the path and come into the place God has promised you in Christ, life in Christ. You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we get back to Skip's teaching, God desires to work in and through your life as a believer, and he does this through the Holy Spirit who lives in everyone who places their trust in Jesus. We want to help you better understand the Holy Spirit by sending you the Holy Spirit then and now.

A resource featuring two books by Chuck Smith. The book of Acts commentary, Empower, a biblical balance on the person and work of the Holy Spirit, with an introduction by Skip Heitzig. This resource is our thanks for your gift of at least $50 today to help share biblical teaching with more people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig.

Go to connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888 and request your copy when you give at least $50 today to reach people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig. Let's continue with today's teaching with Pastor Skip. So he's baptizing down there where the nation had been baptized at the Jordan River. Now let me tell you about baptism because most people, most people in the world, most religious people in the world think that baptism was invented by Christianity. You know, Christians, we baptize people. That's the ritual of Christians.

It wasn't originally. It was invented by the Jewish people. Did you know that if you wanted to be Jewish in antiquity, you had to go through three, three rituals. Number one, instruction. Number two, circumcision if you're a male. And number three, baptism.

Instruction by a scribe, circumcision by a priest, baptism by or with a witness. It was a symbol that you were proselytizing. You were converting from paganism from whatever you were into before into Judaism. You acknowledge one true living God, the God of Israel. If you wanted to be an Israelite, if you wanted to believe in the one true God, Yahweh, you had to proselytize by those three things. So if you wanted to be a Jew, if you were a Gentile, a pagan, that's what you had to do. Baptism was part of it. Number one, number two, if you were a Jew and you had become ritually unclean by touching a dead body or coming in contact with something that would defile you, before you would go up into the temple area, you would have to baptize yourself.

There was self-baptism. Now if you've been with us to Israel, as you get up to the temple mount on the southern steps just before, you see all these pools dug out on the rocks. They're called mikvahot.

That's the Hebrew, the plural Hebrew for the singular mikvah. A mikvah is a little pool, a ritual cleansing pool. If you've been defiled, you immerse yourself. You get up, towel off, and now you are ready to go up and worship in the temple. So number one, if you're a non-Jew and you want to convert, number two, if you're a Jew and you've been defiled, you get baptized. The puzzling thing to the Pharisees about John the Baptist is he's not calling pagans or Gentiles to convert to Judaism. He's calling Jewish people under God's covenant to repent of their sins and turn to God fully, completely.

It's a baptism unto repentance and trust and belief in the Messiah that he says is going to come. So that baffled these Pharisees. Now Josephus tells us, you know how many Pharisees were alive at the time of Jesus?

Six thousand. Pharisees were strict. They were legalists.

They were very narrow in their interpretation of the law. They were very ritualistic. They believed in miracles. They believed in spirits. They believed in angels. Their opposite counterpart were the Sadducees.

They were the liberals. They did not believe in spirits. They did not believe in the scripture past the Torah.

They didn't believe in supernatural, et cetera. So they were antagonists, the Pharisees and the Sadducees. But John wants us to know that the group that comes to John the Baptist were sent out by the Pharisees, these really strict legalistic Pharisees.

The next day, verse 29, John saw Jesus coming toward him and he said, Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Now John's dad was what? What was his occupation? He was a priest. He was a priest in the temple of Jerusalem. So John, therefore, grew up around temple ritual. He understood what lambs were for.

They were bred for sacrifice. He sees Jesus as, look, there's the Lamb of God. The Lamb God has sent.

And the application is universal, who takes away the sin of the world. What did John the Baptist have in mind when he saw Jesus? Well, perhaps he had the Passover in mind. From the ancient times, you take the blood of the lamb, put it on the lintels and doorposts of your homes. That was the lamb for the family.

Now he's broadening it out. Or perhaps he was thinking of Isaiah chapter 53 that predicts the Messiah's sacrifice. He will be led as a lamb to the slaughter, as a sheep before its shearers is silent.

So he opened not his mouth. Or maybe he was thinking about Abraham bringing his son Isaac and the angel, stopping him, and then predicting to Abraham, saying, the Lord will provide himself a lamb. In the mountain of the Lord, it shall be seen. And Abraham said that to his son, Isaac. He sees Jesus and he said, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. This is he, verse 30, of whom I said, after me comes a man who is preferred before me, for he was before me.

I did not know him, but that he should be revealed to Israel. Therefore, I came baptizing with water. And John bore witness, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove. Why a dove? A dove was an animal of sacrifice. If you couldn't afford a lamb, if you were the poorest of the poor, you could bring a dove. So like a lamb, a dove appearing over Jesus, indicating this is the one. Here's the one who can relate to those who can afford a sacrifice and those who can't.

Rich and poor alike, all people. A lamb or a dove, it's the same person. But he remained upon him. I did not know him. But he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining on him, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. And I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God. Now let me ask you a question.

It's puzzling. Because twice in what we just read, twice in this text, John the Baptist said, I didn't know him. I didn't know him.

How could he say that? He knew him quite well. He was his cousin. He was his second cousin.

We know from the scripture that John the Baptist's mother Elizabeth and Jesus' mother Mary were first cousins, making Jesus and John second cousins. They knew each other. They grew up going to the feast together. John knew that cousin Yeshua's coming to town.

We're going to play and have a blast. They were familiar with each other. He knew him, but he says, I didn't know him. What he means is, I knew him as a cousin, but I surely didn't know all this time that this was the Son of God, the Savior of the world, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

I grew up not having that awareness. And now this dove alights upon him and tells me that's him. That's the one, the one you know as a cousin. You didn't know he would be the Savior, but he is.

That's what it means. So Jesus and John were familiar. They were second cousins.

Now there's something else. It is believed that Jesus' mother Mary and John the writer, John the apostle, not John the Baptist now, John the author's mother, Salome is her name, were sisters, making John the author the first cousin of Jesus, John the Baptist the second cousin of Jesus. Make sense?

Okay. I'm belaboring that point for this reason. It adds to the credibility of the witness of John the Baptist and John the apostle to say this Jesus is the Lamb of God, the Son of God, God in a human body, which John affirms over and over and over again and highlights in this book. Why does it affirm that?

Why does it understate that? Why does it add to the credibility and authenticity of the narrative and the testimony of John? Well, think about it. You have cousins, and the ones that know you, I remember growing up, my family reunion with some of my cousins, and I remember the Dower boys, Peter Dower, John Dower in Minnesota. We had a blast in the summer, but I'll tell you this, my cousin would never say, Skip is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. My cousin Skip, he's God in a human body. Cousins know they're cousins, but these cousins, John the apostle and John the Baptist, their testimony, and it adds to the credibility because of this familiarity. This is the one.

This is the one. I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God. Are these testimonies important?

Well, sure they are. These are eyewitness testimonies, and under the circumstances, they're vital because, you see, there's a whole lot of people who want to say, well, you know, Jesus was a good man, a good teacher, a good example. We'll even say he worked some miracles, but the Son of God, he is not. The Lamb of God, he is not. God in a human body, he is not.

But according to those who knew him best and saw him most, it's exactly who he was. Now, Israel didn't want a lamb. He came into his own.

We read last week his own did not receive him. They didn't want a lamb. They wanted a lion. They wanted the lion of Judah. They wanted somebody to set up the earthly kingdom now. But first he must come as a lamb to take away their sin, otherwise they could not enjoy that kingdom. He will come again as the lamb or as the lion of the tribe of Judah.

But first he comes as the Lamb of God to take away the sin of the world, because sin is the impediment between the world and God. Thanks for listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. We hope you've been strengthened in your walk with Jesus by today's program. Before we let you go, we want to remind you about this month's resource that will help you understand the person and work of the Holy Spirit.

Our two-book bundle, The Holy Spirit Then and Now, with two books by Chuck Smith, is our thanks for your support of Connect with Skip Heitzig today. Request your copy when you give $50 or more. Call 800-922-1888.

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