Hello dear friends,
Today, let’s take a look at John the Baptist’s proclamations for the baptism of repentance:
As it is written in Isaiah the prophet:
“Behold, I send My messenger ahead of You,
Who will prepare Your way;
— Mark 1:2
First, we see Mark quoting the prophet Malachi, the last prophet through whom God spoke to the children of Israel. After this, there was over 400 years of silence from God. In Malachi’s prophecy, we see the foretelling of a prophet who would come as a messenger before the great King would come to His people:
“Behold, I am going to send My messenger, and he will prepare the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple; and the messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight, behold, He is coming,” says Yahweh of hosts.
— Malachi 3:1
Malachi would later speak concerning John the Baptist, saying that he would come in the spirit of Elijah and bring about reconciliation:
“Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and awesome day of Yahweh. And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land, devoting it to destruction.”
— Malachi 4:5-6
John the Baptist was identified by the message of the angel Gabriel when he announced the miraculous birth of John to his father, the priest Zechariah, and Elizabeth, who were unable to bear children:
And he will go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children, and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”
And Zechariah said to the angel, “How will I know this? For I am an old man and my wife is advanced in years.”
— Luke 1:17-18
Mark then goes on to quote an older prophecy, this time by the prophet Isaiah, announcing the coming of this messenger who was to go before the King, Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God:
The voice of one crying in the wilderness,
‘Make ready the way of the Lord,
Make His paths straight.’”
— Mark 1:3
As was traditional in ancient times, the king would always have a messenger go ahead of him to prepare the way. These verses reflect the custom of some eastern monarchs to send heralds before them to clear away obstacles, make causeways, straighten crooked roads and valleys, and level hills (cf. Isa. 45:1–2). John had the task of getting people ready for Messiah’s arrival. — John MacArthur
John the Baptist would be clearing the road to people’s hearts, instead of the physical roads for a human king.
This gospel tells us that John appeared in the wilderness preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins:
John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
— Mark 1:4
Other gospel writers tell us more about what his preaching was like. The center of his preaching was the urgency of the coming of the kingdom of God and the need for repentance:
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
— Matthew 3:2
Providentially, this was the same message that Jesus was preaching when He started His ministry:
From that time Jesus began to preach and say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
— Matthew 4:17
This baptism of repentance was a shocking proclamation for the Jews because such baptism was mainly reserved for proselytes—non-Jews who wanted to convert to Judaism. Since the Jews were already a chosen nation, they thought they never needed to be baptized for the forgiveness of sin.
It is for this reason that the preaching of John the Baptist was so provocative for the Jews. He was proclaiming that the Jews, even though they were children of Abraham, could not rely on their own righteousness for salvation.
The repentance that was demanded, as Mark and other gospel authors wrote, means “a change of mind”—a turning away from sin and turning toward God. Only God can forgive sin, and only by turning away from sin can one be reconciled to God.
We see later that this repentance requires a new birth, a total change of the person—a removal of the old man and a putting on of the new man, all by the power of the Holy Spirit.
The baptism of John the Baptist is different from the baptism that Christians undergo today. In John the Baptist’s time, atonement had not yet been made through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Therefore, the baptism we have today as Christians is quite different from the baptism John the Baptist demanded from his listeners.
John the Baptist’s baptism was one for the forgiveness of sins and an outward proclamation of submission to the true and living God. The baptism instituted for Christians proclaims that a real change has happened in the person’s heart and that they have been born again. This water baptism is merely a symbol to publicly proclaim that the spiritual conversion has happened in their hearts.
I pray and hope that this word will remind us of the reason and significance of our baptism.
May the grace of God be with you all.
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