John 1:19-28

John the Baptist Denies Being the Messiah

19 Now this was John's testimony when the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was. 20 He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, "I am not the Messiah."

21 They asked him, "Then who are you? Are you Elijah?"

He said, "I am not."

"Are you the Prophet?"

He answered, "No."

22 Finally they said, "Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?"

23 John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, "I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, 'Make straight the way for the Lord.' "

24 Now the Pharisees who had been sent 25 questioned him, "Why then do you baptize if you are not the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?"

26 "I baptize with water," John replied, "but among you stands one you do not know. 27 He is the one who comes after me, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie."

28 This all happened at Bethany on the other side of the Jordan, where John was baptizing.



Dig Deeper

When I was still in high school, I wanted to become more active in my community, so my parents allowed me to begin to volunteer at a local political campaign office. Most of the things I did there were to assist the campaigns of local politicians who were running for small offices like clerk of courts. The campaign office was also responsible for the national presidential election at the time but I didn't do much for that except for delivering a few yard signs for people. One day, though, we were informed that the son of the man running for president of the United States was coming into our town to give a speech for his father. I was assigned the job of going down to where he was arriving and escort him back to the campaign office so he could be taken on to where he was speaking. The problem was, I had no idea at the time who this son was. All I knew back in 1988, was that his name was the same as his father's who was running for president. Because I was expecting him but didn't know who he was, I was preparing to have to ask some questions when I got down there to determine who he was. As it turned out, some older ladies who were connected with the campaign office came and relieved me before he got there because they wanted the prestige of escorting him, but I realized then that when you're expecting someone and don't know who they are, the only way to get around that is to ask questions.

Early first century Israel was full of Messianic expectations. Nearly all of the different groups and factions in Israel at the time were waiting for God's Messiah to come rescue His people. They didn't all agree on what exactly the Messiah would be or what he would accomplish, there was no one common expectation, but virtually everyone believed that they were living in the time when the Messiah would indeed come. When news reached the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem, then, that there was someone creating quite a ruckus out in the wilderness around the Jordan river, their ears no doubt perked up. They needed to know who this guy was, what he was doing, and did he think of himself as the Messiah. Of course the best way to determine if he was the one they were waiting for would be to go ask questions.

There were some disturbing things for the Jewish leadership about this man known as John the Immerser (the word translated "baptist" or "baptize" actually means "to immerse," so when people spoke of John the Baptist in the first century, they would have heard "John the Immerser"). Perhaps the most troubling aspect of his ministry was why he was out in the wilderness baptizing Jews. Up to that point, ceremonial washings were used in Judaism for non-Jewish converts to demonstrate the cleansing that they were undergoing in becoming Jewish. This why it would have been puzzling, even troubling that John was baptizing Jews. They were already God's chosen people, set apart to be holy. Why, then, would he be calling them to undergo a baptism? Of course, that was the whole point for John. They weren't God's holy people. They had abandoned God's way long ago, but now the Messiah was coming and they needed to get ready for that. They needed to repent and turn to God's ways and His will so that they would be prepared for what the Messiah was going to do.

The Jewish leaders didn't understand all of that when they went out to question John, though. The major question on their mind was whether John was the Messiah. He was certainly attracting a great deal of attention from people all over Israel. This in itself was dangerous because Messianic movements that caught the attention of the people might become dangerous if rebelling against Rome became one of their ideals. The Jewish leadership didn't want to risk anything like that, so they needed to know quickly, exactly who John thought he was and what he was doing.

John the evangelist, the author of this gospel, gives us something akin to a court scene, with the priests and Levites, as well as some Pharisees who went along with them (as verse 24 would make it seem), questioning John, who seems somewhat uncomfortable with the whole process. They get right to the point with their first question. Is John the Messiah? They probably didn't ask that question actually thinking that he was, but were more interested in knowing if he thought he was. John leaves no wiggle room for misunderstanding as he replied, "I am not the Messiah." He was not, after all, doing any sort of Messianic things.

This leads to the next question, then, which is somewhat of a natural progression. If he's not the Messiah, then who he is. He's still doing some rather unusual and remarkable things. He's doing things that seem more like a prophet, and we should not underestimate the power and impact of his ministry which Jesus said was not surpassed by any other prophet (Matt. 11:11). There was a common expectation that Elijah would come before the Messiah based on passages like Malachi 4:5. Because Elijah had never died (2 Ki. 2:11), many Jews expected for Elijah himself to return and introduce the Messiah. To add to those expectations, John seemed to have the demeanor of prophet like Elijah with his rugged and harsh lifestyle (cf. Matt. 3:4; 2 Ki. 1:8). The leaders want to know if John is Elijah. His answer leaves us with a bit of a mystery. John says clearly that he is not Elijah, but Jesus said that he was Elijah (Matt. 11:14; 17:12; Mark 9:13). How can we harmonize these two statements without seeing a contradiction? It's actually rather simple. In one sense he was Elijah and in another sense he was not. John denied literally being the incarnation of Elijah. He doesn't want anyone thinking anything like that. He is nothing special and he wants everyone to know it. Jesus' point though, was that John's ministry was the typological and prophetical fulfillment of Malachi's prophecy and so could rightly call him an Elijah. It seems, actually, that Jesus understood who John was and his situation even a little better than John did.

The questioning continues down the same path. If John is not Elijah, then is he the prophet? That there would be a prophet raised up by God that was like Moses but even greater than Moses, was predicted by Moses himself in Deuteronomy 18:15, 18. With each question, John's answers get shorter and more terse, and we can almost imagine him becoming quite tired with this entire line of questioning because it is focusing on him and that is not what his vocation is all about. He is to be a witness to another not be the focal point. Is he the prophet? A simple "no" is all they get this time.

Growing frustrated from his repeated denials, and no doubt, being driven by a realization that they needed to take some answers back to Jerusalem, the questioners ask John to tell them who he is then. John's answer is classic and in keeping with his vocation in that he takes all of the focus off of himself and puts it back on the coming Messiah. He is not the Word, but is simply a voice. In fact, he is, he believes, the fulfillment of Isaiah 40:3. He is the one telling everyone that they need to prepare for the coming of the Lord. In Isaiah 40:8, it goes on to declare that people, like grass, wither and fade but the word of God endures forever. John, the Apostle, wants his readers to make the connection between Isaiah 40 and what he has said about the Messiah in the prologue. The enduring Word of the Lord has come and John's role is to announce that and tell people to clear the paths of their heart to prepare themselves for what he is going to say and do.

The Pharisees seem to miss the thrust of John's answer and are more concerned with why he is out here baptizing Jews then if he is not the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet. John again throws the focus back to the Messiah. The real question is not who he is or what he's doing, but with who he is pointing to. That one, John says, is one of whom he is not even worthy to untie his sandals. Disciples of rabbis in the first century were expected to perform "all manner of service that a slave must render to his master . . . except that of taking off his shoe" (Rabbi Joshua b. Levi, c. 250 AD reflecting a long-standing tradition). John's point is that the coming Messiah is so beyond anything anyone has ever known, it's not that John wouldn't demean himself to take off his shoes. Quite the opposite. He's not worthy to perform the most menial of tasks. John isn't the light, he's simply giving testimony to the light (1:8). To put it in modern terms, these leaders of Israel came to see if John was the ambulance that they had all been waiting for, or at least though he was, but what John tells them is shocking. He's not the vehicle, he's simply the sound of the siren that one can hear long before they can see the ambulance himself. God's anointed one is coming and they had better be prepared.



Devotional Thought

John's humility is amazing. He was constantly willing and adamant about pushing himself to the back so that the proper spotlight could be focused on Jesus. This is a constant reminder for those of us who teach, preach, or lead in any capacity in the Christian community. Our role, like John's is to exalt Christ not ourselves, our own egos, or our own agendas. This can be quite a challenge sometimes, but it is our vocation. Do you constantly seek to exalt the cause of Christ and push your importance into the background like John did?