John the Baptist

John the Baptist and the Coming Judgment

John the Baptist’s preaching is a window into what at least some Jews believed about the coming messianic age.  For the most part, there was a consistent belief that the Lord himself would intervene in some way in history and render judgment.  Israel’s enemies will be destroyed and the nation gathered in a restored kingdom in the land promised to Abraham.  Both Matthew and Luke describe John as declaring that this judgment would be made by a messiah, who is coming soon.

The day of judgment is near in the preaching of John: the axe is to the root, branches which do not produce fruit will be thrown into fire (10). His winnowing fork is already in the hand of the coming one and he is ready to clear his threshing floor (12), consigning the chaff to unquenchable fire (12). The general image John is using is of a final harvest and separation and judgment of those who have not repentant (branches, chaff). This is an good example of continuity between John and Jesus, compare the image of burning fruitless branches here to Matt 7:19, the same phrase is used, Matt 13:29, bundles of weeds are to be burned, Mt 13:42, the tares are to be burned.

While the imagery is agricultural, it is also violent. An ax is a tool, but this particular word can also be a  vicious weapon (Jer 26:22). Branches which do not bear fruit are to be pruned, but the sense here is “to sever completely, to mutilate” (Philo, Spec Leg. 3.179.), to gouge out eyes (PssSol 4:20, Antiq. 10.140), and to totally eradicate something (Job 19:10, 4 Mac 3:2-4). This harvest language is frequent in the Hebrew Bible and the literature of the Second Temple.

While Malachi 4:1 (MT 3:19) compares the day of the Lord to a furnace or an oven, it is Isaiah which seems to be the source for the rich imagery of John’s sermon. It is not surprising that these same texts appear frequently among the DSS applied to the time of the Messiah. Isaiah 30:30-33 is a close parallel to John’s imagery. There the Lord’s raging anger and consuming fire judge Assyria. Verse 33 develops theme of a burning fire in great detail as a fire pit made deep and long, which is ignited by the breath of the Lord like a stream of burning sulfur.

The image of a fiery judgment is very common in the intertestamental literature, I will only summarize a few from the Psalms of Solomon here since that book dates nearest to the time of John’s preaching. In PsSol 15:4-5 the “flame of fire and anger” going out from the Lord to destroy the sinner. PsSol 12:2 compares the wicked man’s tongue to a scorching fire and prays for the Lord to deliver the devout by destroying the slanderous in fire (12:4). Based on Jeremiah 4:11-12, PsSol 8:2 compares the onslaught of invaders to a “raging firestorm sweeping through the wilderness.”

That the one who is coming has a “winnowing fork” in his hand is also a metaphor for impending judgment. In Isa 30:30-33 the Lord will shatter Assyria with his “scepter” (31). This word refers to a weapon that is used as a symbol of tribal leadership, but also as a shepherd’s staff (Mic 7:14, Psa 23:4). The parallel term in verse 32 is a common usually translated“punishing rod” (NIV) or “staff or punishment” (NRSV). Neither of these terms is exactly equivalent to a “winnowing fork,” but there are a remarkable number of texts which indicate salvation in the eschatological period will come from the rod or staff of the Lord. PsSol 18:7 describes the reign of Messiah as “under the rod of his discipline.” This text is ironic in the sense that Isaiah 10:24-27 tells the remnant that they need not worry about the rod of the Assyrians; now in 30:31 a rod is being used against the Assyrians. Perhaps John the Baptist substitutes a similar agricultural tool which is more appropriate for the theme of separation.

A major difference between John’s sermon and the fiery judgment scenes surveyed above is the motif of separation. When messiah comes there will be a separation, not of Israel from the oppressing gentiles, the enemies, the Kittim, etc, but of true Israel from false. At the harvest Israel itself will be shifted. Recall that John is addressing a cross section of Israel and telling them that they are facing a coming fiery judgment if they do not repent. The fate of the unrepentant Israelite is the same as for the gentile – fiery, violent destruction.

If this is the judgment that John expected, what happened to it?  Was he wrong about a coming fiery judgment ? Did John misinterpret the words of Isaiah?  How do the words of John the Baptist foreshadow the work of the Messiah especially in Luke / Acts?

John the Baptist and the Kingdom of God

In the New Testament, the first character we encounter is John the Baptist. This well-known preacher announces the impending Kingdom of God and prepares the way for the ministry of Jesus. John’s audience listened expectantly, wondering if he was the Messiah (Luke 3:15), although he made it clear he was not (John 1:21). John is not a Christian preacher, but rather a distinctly Jewish voice which expresses an understanding of the coming kingdom in Jewish terms, relying on the vocabulary of the Hebrew Bible and the Jewish religious world of early first century Palestine. John is therefore an important witness to Jewish messianic expectations at the time of Jesus’ ministry.

The historicity of John the Baptist is rarely doubted. As John Meier describes him, John is a “wild-card” in the Gospel tradition and all four gospels struggle to “make John safe.” (A Marginal Jew 2:19-22). He is an independent prophet who preceded Jesus and had a following which might be described as a rival to Jesus’ ministry. He was so respected by the Jewish people that after his death he was still regarded as a prophet (Matt 21:26) and still had disciples well after the events of the gospels (Acts 19:1-6). That Jesus submits to the baptism of John is certain – the writers of the four gospels would not have created such a difficult problem for their own theological aims.

John himself does not become a disciple of Jesus and it seems he doubted Jesus was the coming Messiah. In Matt 11:2-3 (cf. Luke 7:18-20), John sent disciples to Jesus to ask him if he is the “coming one” or if they should expect someone else. Does this imply that John had second thoughts about Jesus? Jesus does not condemn this as a lack of faith, however, he praises John as the greatest of the prophets and associates him with the coming prophet of Malachi 3:1; 4:5-6.

John is so significant in the synoptic gospels that his death is recorded in all three synoptic gospels (Mark 6:14-29, Matt 14:1-12, Luke 9:7-9). Even after his death, John still commanded the respect of crowds at Passover who still regarded him as a prophet (again, all three gospels relate this tradition: Matt 21:23-37 / Mark 11:27-33 / Luke 20:1-8). A few disciples of John are mentioned in Acts 19, nearly 30 years after their master had died. When Paul meets these disciples, they claim to only know the “baptism of John” and do not even know that there is a Holy Spirit (Acts 19:1-7).

What was so compelling about John’s preaching that he gathered disciples who continued to following him long after his death, perhaps even rejecting the preaching of the disciples of Jesus? First, John’s preaching was drawn from the Hebrew Bible and declared that the Messianic age was about to begin with a fiery judgment. This is one of the most common messianic expectations in the Second Temple Period and it was popular because many who were looking forward to a Messiah expected him to deal with the nations oppressing God’s people.

Second, there may have been some dissatisfaction with Jesus’ version of the Kingdom of God. The idea that the Messiah would become the suffering servant and die on behalf of others was not a common view. In fact, claiming that the Messiah would die to take the curse of the Law on himself is virtually unique to Christian preaching. For the disciples of John, then, it is at least possible that the rejected Jesus and his disciples because these new “Christians” misunderstood the Messiah.

Is there a contrast between John’s preaching and Jesus with respect to the Kingdom?  Is it possible that John was looking for something different than what Jesus ultimately offered as a Kingdom?

John 3:22-36 – John the Baptist’s Testimony

This is an unusual and unexpected section of John’s Gospel. After one of the most important passages in the entire Gospel of John, the writer uses the words of John the Baptist as a summary of chapter 3.

John the BaptistBut there may be a theological motivation to the inclusion of yet another testimony from John the Baptist at this point in the Gospel. The writer has already made it clear the Baptist was not the messiah. But after Jesus has revealed himself with two signs, there are apparently some disciples of John who have not joined Jesus. They remain loyal to John and they continue to preach the coming of the messiah and offer a baptism of repentance to prepare for the coming Kingdom of God. Jesus is now attracting disciples and followers, and he his gathering more followers than John is. His disciples naturally wonder about this and are jealous of Jesus’s success. They more or less complain to John that the “other guy” is baptizing people too. Maybe they think Jesus is working on “our turf.” John the Baptist must therefore clarify his role once again now that Jesus has begun his ministry.

It may have appeared that Jesus was in competition with John, prompting someone to ask about purification (vs 25). The issue may have been “which baptism is superior, Jesus’s or John’s?” It is disciples of John who had not started to follow Jesus who ask this question. There were at least some disciples who remained with John until he was executed and there was a group of believers who accepted only the teaching of John and not Jesus’s teaching.

In Acts 18, Apollos only knew the Baptism of John and in Acts 19 Paul encounters a group of disciples of John the Baptist who had never heard there was a Holy Spirit. They could have heard John’s preaching after Jesus was baptized and for some reason never heard the teaching of Jesus or the preaching of the Apostles after Pentecost. They returned to Ephesus without hearing the preaching of the apostles.  As remarkable as it is, they were faithful to the teaching of John the Baptist some 25 years later!

It is possible this community still existed in Ephesus when John wrote his Gospel, even though another 25 years have passed. This seems possible to me. The writer of the Gospel of John could be in dialogue with both traditional Jews in the synagogue and the remnants of the Baptist’s movement.

By the end of John 3, the writer introduced Nicodemus as a well-meaning Jewish teacher who did not fully believe the message of Jesus. Hie may have thought becoming a disciple of Jesus entailed an admission he was a sinner in need of salvation. One must be “born again” to be a disciple of Jesus and Nicodemus may not have realized at this point that he was in need of repentance and regeneration.

In a very similar way, this final section of John 3 concerns the skepticism of the disciples of John the Baptist. They wonder if Jesus is superior to their own teacher. Why follow Jesus when it is possible John’s preaching and baptism are actually superior? The Baptist himself says Jesus is superior because he has come from God and is a direct witness to the will of the Father.

Both groups may have been represented in John’s community in the late first century in Ephesus. It is likely there were still Jews who appreciated some of Jesus’s teaching but could not accept his call to repent and surrender to Jesus as the ultimate representative of God.

Jesus is not asking for kind appreciation nor is he in competition with anyone’s “ministry,” still is still looking for disciples to surrender to him and follow him.

John 1:19-28 – Jesus and John the Baptist

When the crowds ask John the Baptist who he is, his answer is a series of confessions concerning who he is not (1:20-21). He “confesses freely” that he is not a messianic figure in such a way that leaves no question, although he claims to be another kind of harbinger of the messianic age. The Gospel of John presents the Baptist as an honest witness honest who gave an accurate testimony concerning Jesus. It is possible that the gospel writer intended John’s three-fold testimony to stand in contrast to Peter’s threefold denial (John 18:17, 25, 27). John the Baptist also denied things, but in his case he was telling the truth!

John the BaptistNot only does the writer state John’s honest testimony in three ways, he confesses three things that he is not (the Messiah, Elijah, or the Prophet). John’s threefold denial of being the messiah is very broad, covering a variety of messianic expectations in the Second Temple Period.

I am not the Christ. The title is messiah, and many Jewish people in the first century expected an ultimate son of David to appear and re-establish a kingdom in Jerusalem. There was no one expectation, in fact, Qumran expected two messiahs. 4 Ezra expected a messiah who would rule for 400 years (ten generations) and then die.

I am not Elijah. Based on Malachi 4:5-6, many Jews believed that Elijah would return before the messiah came. Peter asks about the coming of Elijah after the transfiguration (Mark 9:9-13) and Jesus identified John as the “spirit and power of Elijah” (Matt 11:14, 17:12). Many thought Elijah might come to the aid of those suffering innocently, as reflected in the mocking of Jesus on the Cross (Mark 15:33-36).

I am not the Prophet. The Prophet was a messianic expectation based on Deuteronomy 18:15-18. In that text God says that a prophet like Moses will someday come and God will put his word in that prophet’s mouth. While it is possible the Deuteronomy passage had Elijah in mind, the Samaritans believed that a messianic prophet would someday come and the Qumran community believed that two messiahs, one of David and one of Aaron would eventually arrive to purify the Temple and the Kingdom. Fourth Ezra 2:18 says the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah will return in the last days.

John identifies himself as the “voice crying in the Wilderness” (1:23) This is an allusion to Isaiah 40:3, but the context of this allusion is critically important. Isaiah 40 is a prophecy describing the return from exile after Jerusalem fell in 586. The prophet is inviting the people of Israel to come out of exile and return to the wilderness where the Lord will meet them and lead them back to the land as he did in the original Exodus.

Like the original Exodus, in Isaiah 40 -55 God will meet the people in the wilderness and care for them, although this time it will be like a return to Eden. The wilderness will blossom and water will flow, and the people will enter the Land once again. Cyrus the Great permitted Judah to return to Judea and Jerusalem beginning in 538 B.C., but relatively few exiles returned, most remained in the Diaspora. Those who returned faced hardships (as described in Nehemiah). The return from exile after 538 B.C. did not fulfil the expectations of Isaiah 40-55 for a peaceful and prosperous Israel living in Zion.

For this reason there were many in the first century who seemed to think the exile continued as long as there was no king in Israel and as long as the “times of the gentiles” continued. Daniel 9 seems to show the exile was far longer than the 70 years predicted by Jeremiah, there will be 70 times 7 years until the restoration of peace to the land and the true Davidic king begins to rules from Jerusalem.

John claims to be an apocalyptic messenger preparing Israel for the long-awaited end of the exile.

Did the people who came to hear John preach understand his message this way? Are there any hints in the first few chapters of John’s Gospel that Jesus sees himself as the messiah?