Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJohn Kitto Evening Bible Devotions: August 9
Today is: Friday, April 26th, 2024 (Show Today's Devotion)
Select a Day for a Devotion in the Month of August: (Show All Months)
Mat_3:1-12; Mar_1:1-3; Luk_3:1-17
John now no longer shunned the haunts of men, but moved towards the inhabited districts of, or bordering on, the wilderness towards Hebron, and lifted up his voice to “preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.” This region was, however, but ill suited for the administration of the rite from which he derived his name of Baptist, or rather Baptizer, to large numbers of people. There were here but a few scanty streams, dried up in summer. The nearest large body of water was the Dead Sea. But, besides that the borders of this lake were mostly rugged and precipitous—the natural feeling, and still more the religious awe of the people, would have shrunk from the idea of performing sacred ablutions in these pungent, saline, unwholesome, and accursed waters. John therefore moved northward, proclaiming his mission, and drawing crowds after him as he went. At length he reached the great national river, which, not only as the sole important stream in the land, but as the scene of the Lord’s mighty acts of old, was in all respects suitable for the purpose the Baptizer had in view. He here took his station, most usually at Bethabara, the ford of the Jordan which tradition pointed out not only as the spot where the waters divided to let the hosts of Israel pass, but as the point where the waters parted when smitten by the mantle of his great prototype Elijah. Here, though the adjacent country is wild and desert, the immediate shores of the river afford many objects of picturesque beauty, in the midst of which John addressed the listening multitudes who resorted to him, or performed upon them the rite with which he crowned his instructions.
There has been much discussion whether this rite was then new to the people as introduced by John, or that their minds were already familiar with it, and apprehensive of its general purport from some previous practice. It is said that there was as initiatory purification by baptism of those Gentile converts who were not yet thought worthy of circumcision, or perhaps declined to submit to it; and the question is, whether this rite as an initiation, and to the existence of which there are many allusions in the early rabbinical writings, was ever before this time in use, or was of later introduction. There is no distinct evidence of its higher antiquity; but against its later introduction there is this negative argument, that Jews could not at a later period have been likely to introduce a rite that might seem to be borrowed from the Christians. The question, either way, does not seem to be of much consequence. For while we carefully distinguish between baptism as a rite of initiation, used once for all, and the repeated ablutions for ceremonial purification, it cannot be questioned that the perpetual similitude and connection between the cleanness of the body and the soul, which ran through the Mosaic law, and had become completely interwoven with the common language and sentiment, together with the formal enactment of ablution in many cases, which either required the cleansing of some unhealthy taint, or more than usual purity, must have familiarized the minds of the Jewish people with the ideas on which the higher and more solemn baptismal rite is founded, whether this, or something of the kind, had or had not been previously known to them as a distinct and formal observance. The absence of any surprise on the part of the people, or of any charge of innovation against John in respect of his baptism, does not, therefore, as some have urged, prove that the rite was already in use among them.
The news of John’s appearing, his preaching, and his baptism, spread quickly through the land, and from every quarter people of all ranks and sects hurried to the Jordan, and thronged with deep interest and high-wrought curiosity around him, gathering up with eagerness the strong words that fell from one who spoke with all the boldness and authority of a man who felt himself invested with a Divine commission, and who seemed, if he were not hereafter to break forth into a higher character, to renew in his person the interrupted race of the ancient prophets, silent for more than four hundred years; and whose very appearance reminded them of the rude garb and mortified demeanor of Elijah and other seers of old.
He proclaimed loudly to them that “the kingdom of heaven” was at hand—the long-expected Messiah would speedily appear; and he exhorted them to prepare their souls for his coming; assuring them that God would thoroughly sift his people, and that the unworthy would have no part in the kingdom about to be established. He denounced as false and ruinous the prevalent opinion, that descent from Abraham and the observance of outward ceremonies, were the only requisites for admission to the rights and honors of that kingdom, and exhorted men of all classes and characters to true repentance as the one essential preparation; and as one appointed to make ready a people prepared for the Lord, he employed baptism as a symbol of preparatory consecration to the Messiah’s kingdom. But when those (the Pharisees) who, in their self-righteousness acknowledged no need of repentance, came to him for simple baptism, he repelled them with stern indignation and reproof, until they also should repent, and evince their repentance by their conduct. And to rebuke their reliance upon their Abrahamic descent as the one essential qualification, he gave them the strange and startling intimation that the benefits of the Messiah’s reign were not necessarily limited to the chosen race, for that God was able from the very stones upon the river’s bank, to raise up children unto Abraham. By this, he clearly meant to tell them, that if the Jews disgraced their high descent, God would remove his kingdom from them, and impart it unto strangers—a doctrine of all others the most exasperating to the class of people he then addressed. But the true penitents who came to John found in him a kind and condescending teacher. He gave them no vague and high-sounding words, but adapted his instructions with minute care to their special conditions and circumstances. On the people he inculcated mutual charity; on the publicans (tax-gatherers)—whom, odious as they were, he did not exclude from his followers, justice; on the soldiers of Herod Antipas—who were then passing that way on an expedition against the Arabian King Aretas—humanity, and abstinence from all unnecessary violence and pillage.
These requirements of John appear very moderate in comparison with those of Christ, who demanded at the very outset an absolute surrender of the will and the affections. This difference, as Neander well remarks, arose naturally from the different positions which they occupied. John was fully conscious that the moral regeneration which was indispensable to admittance into the Messiah’s kingdom, could only be accomplished by a Divine principle of life, and knowing that to impart this was beyond his power, he confined himself to a preparatory purification of the morals of the people. Thoroughly understanding his true position and the nature of his office, he felt that he was, as the humble instrument of the Divine Spirit, called not to found the new creation, but to proclaim it. Although there had been no greater prophet—no greater man born of woman—he is never for an instant exalted above measure into a forgetfulness of his really subordinate and comparatively humble office. Convinced that he was inspired of God to prepare, and not to create, he never pretended to work miracles, nor did his disciples, strongly as he impressed them, ever attribute miraculous powers to him.