Greetings Loved-ones of God,
Today let’s finish looking at the proclamations by John the Baptist, specifically his insightful and profound way of speaking about Jesus Christ:
And he was preaching, saying, “After me One is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to stoop down and untie the strap of His sandals.”
— Mark 1:7
We see that John the Baptist continues his preaching to the people as they were being baptized and confessing their sins. At this point, he makes mention of the coming of a person. Now we know that this person he speaks of is Jesus Christ, and we’ll see that in the next verse. It is important for us to slow down and take a look at how John the Baptist describes Jesus Christ.
Jesus Comes “After Me”
First, he mentions that Jesus Christ will come after him. In the early section, Mark mentions a quote from Isaiah about how John the Baptist was the voice in the wilderness who was to make ready the way. John the Baptist was a messenger that would come before the king. He was the person who would announce the king’s coming. And we know that the king is Jesus Christ.
In the Gospel of John, we see an interesting mention of this phrase that helps us grasp a better understanding of what John the Baptist meant by saying that Jesus Christ was to come after him:
John bore witness about Him and cried out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has been ahead of me, for He existed before me.’”
— John 1:15
It is an interesting footnote that we need to take a closer look at. The apostle John says that John the Baptist proclaimed that He who comes after me has been ahead of me. The phrasing that the apostle John uses for Christ being ahead of John the Baptist literally means He ranks higher than him. That is to say, Jesus Christ ranks higher than John the Baptist.
With this, we can see that when John says that Christ is to come after him, he’s not only referring to the perception of time, meaning that Jesus would come in time after John the Baptist’s ministry had begun, but rather that Jesus Christ was actually ranking higher than John the Baptist himself. By saying this, John the Baptist was proclaiming that Jesus Christ was indeed way more significant than John the Baptist.
Jesus is “Mightier than I”
Another interesting characteristic we see in this description of Jesus by John the Baptist is that Jesus is mightier than John the Baptist. John clearly recognized that Jesus was not only ranking higher in status and authority than himself but even more importantly, that Jesus was mightier than him.
Having witnessed John the Baptist’s ministry, we see that he had garnered quite a bit of influence with the Jews, as the texts prior to this mention how all of Judea and all of Israel were going to him. This is to say that the people considered John the Baptist to be a mighty man of God.
Despite this, John the Baptist understood that his role was only to make way for Jesus to come. This is important to understand in ministry. It is very important to understand that there is a grand plan that God has put in place and that we are only part of that plan and not the whole plan.
Just like John the Baptist, we should come to a place of realizing that we are members of the body of Christ and that we have been given a specific role to play in order to bring glory to Christ.
This is why after John the Baptist had served his purpose, he was more than willing to say that he should decrease and that Christ should increase:
He must increase, but I must decrease.
— John 3:30
Jesus Is Worthy
Another description we see that John the Baptist puts forth is that of worthiness. John says that he is not worthy to stoop down and untie the straps of Jesus’s sandals.
In typical traditions of the day, the servants would be the ones who would stoop down to untie the sandals of the master. So when John states that he is not worthy to untie Jesus’s sandals, he is saying that the level of authority and grandeur that Jesus possesses is so high that John cannot see himself even serving as a slave to this master.
Such is the case for every single one of us. Jesus is God incarnate, and He is holy, holy, holy. God is so great that as fallen human beings, we do not even deserve the right to be His slaves, let alone His children or His friends.
And this is where the beauty of Christianity comes in. In the Gospel of John, we see this right being bestowed upon those who believe in Jesus Christ:
But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name,
— John 1:12
As we place our faith in Christ, we are given a new status and a new name. In Christ, we are called children of God. In Christ, we are adopted as sons of God. In Christ, we are given an inheritance to be heirs of the throne. All of this happens because of the authority that has been given to Jesus in heaven and on earth.
However, it is important to bring ourselves to the place of John the Baptist. The way John describes Jesus in terms of His pre-existence, His might, and His worthiness and authority show us the level of reverence that John the Baptist had for Jesus Christ.
It is more common today to think of Jesus Christ as simply a human being, a great teacher, or simply a prophet. This was not the case for John. John understood that the messenger that would come forth from God would be a great mighty king. And we know through Scripture that it is God Himself in the flesh. Because of this, we are to have reverence for Christ. This is the same kind of reverence that the psalmist speaks of:
Kiss the Son, lest He become angry, and you perish in the way,
For His wrath may soon be kindled.
How blessed are all who take refuge in Him!
— Psalm 2:12
I pray and hope that this word gives us insight into how John the Baptist viewed Jesus Christ and how we, in turn, are to have reverence for Him.
Be abundantly blessed.
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