John 1:23

John 1:23

I. I do not think we often question respecting the course and testimony of Christ's forerunner whereunto served it?We know that by it the Jewish people as a whole were notprepared to receive Jesus as their Saviour, for they rejected and crucified Him. And if it be alleged that they who rejected and crucified Him were the scribes and Pharisees who also rejected the baptism of John, the answer to this is, that the people themselves gave their voices for His crucifixion, that His course had disappointed and irritated them as well as their rulers, or they would not have listened to these latter rather than to Him. Still, even in this matter I cannot doubt that much was done by the testimony of John. At the very last, when the enmity of the scribes and Pharisees was at its highest, we find they dared not insinuate that the baptism of John was not from heaven but of men because all the people held John for a prophet. Now what a vast advantage must it have given the early preachers of the Gospel to have had to do with a people who held John for a prophet, for John's testimony to Jesus was a matter of notoriety.

II. We must not omit one purpose of God in raising up this remarkable forerunner to go before our Lord. He came "in the way of righteousness." He was to the scribes and Pharisees just one whom, if they had been in earnest at all, they would have hailed with eagerness and believed without hesitation He was full of the Old Testament spirit. His ascetic character, his stern morality, his utterance of his message in the well-known words of their prophets, all this was exactly of a kind to please Jewish feelings and conciliate Jewish prejudices. Thus was additional evidence given to the fact that the rejection of Jesus by His own was not merely for any hostility that His own character and course excited in them, still less on account of His falling short of the announcements of their prophets, but because they were hardened in heart against God and indisposed to turn to Him at all.

III. But I must also believe that the mission of John the Baptist had purposes reaching beyond anything which, as matters of history or surmise, His course may then have accomplished. All that concerns Christ's coming on earth has deep spiritual meaning. And so it was with the mission and career of John the Baptist. (1) First, as to the place of his ministry. He came, a voice in the wilderness; a solitary preacher in the vast and trackless desert. And so does God ever send His messengers to prepare His way before Him. When Christ would come to an individual, or to a family, or to a nation, He sends before Him these voices crying in the wilderness. (2) Again, the character of the Baptist's message has a voice and meaning for us. "Every valley shall be exalted," etc. Before this glorious revelation shall be made, this levelling process must take place, both amongst mankind and within ourselves. In our own hearts these mountains of pride must be laid low which we have raised for ourselves, those low places must be filled up where we love to cleave to the dust in grovelling and worldly thoughts; the crookedness of our ways, half with God and half with the world and self, must be made straight, and the rough unevenness of inconsistent conduct made plain, before Christ can really have His throne in our hearts, dwelling and reigning there by His blessed Spirit. (3) One more lesson from the Baptist's course seems to be set before us. "He must increase, but I must decrease." All that merely leads on to, all that stops short of Christ Himself shall wane and fade; while He shall shine on ever more and more glorious.

H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons,vol. ii., p. 263.

References: John 1:23. H. W. Burgoyne, Christian World Pulpit,vol. x., p. 193; A. C. Hall, Ibid.,vol. xviii., p. 401. Joh 1:26. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. ii., p. 408; Clergyman's Magazine,vol. v., p. 32; J. Keble, Sermons, from Advent to Christmas Eve,p. p. 373.