THE GOSPEL OF JOHN THE BAPTIST

The noted church historian Will Durant observed that Jesus’ “starting point was the Gospel of John the Baptist, which itself went back to Daniel and Enoch.”

Durant’s observation is important because the Gospel Jesus preached did not suddenly appear in a vacuum. The Kingdom message itself goes back to the Hebrew prophets. For example, Daniel uses the word “Kingdom” nearly 20 times, and his visions repeatedly concern the coming Kingdom-Nation of God which will finally replace the Kingdoms- nations of this present evil age (Daniel 2:37-45; 7:9-14; Revelation 11:15).

The same is true of the apocalyptic message known simply as the coming Day of YEHOVAH (Zephaniah 2:1-4; cp. Isaiah 13:9; Malachi 4:1). This Day is repeatedly described as “at hand” or drawing “near,” but not already here. The prophetic vision is primarily presented as a literal, future event that will be worldwide when his God and Father Yehovah sends His Son, the lord Messiah, down to earth to establish God’s Kingdom during his 1,000-year rule. This remains the great hope of all the disciples of the lord Messiah Jesus!.

The ministry of John the Baptist follows directly in the footsteps of those prophets. His appearance and lifestyle stood in stark contrast to many of the religious leaders centered in Jerusalem at the time. His clothing and manner of life not only identified him as a wilderness prophet but were a throwback to the prophets of old (Zechariah 13:4), especially Elijah (2 Kings 1:8), in whose “spirit and power” the angel said John would come (Luke 1:17). As Jesus later told the crowd: “If you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who was to come” (Matthew 11:14).

John’s mission, however, was to prepare the way for the Lord Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth. For the New Testament writers, Jesus is the Son of Man [a human being], a figure seen in Daniel’s visions as the supreme, unique human agent of the one God, Yehovah, the “Ancient of Days.” The lord Messiah Jesus is also identified as the prophet Moses spoke about in Deuteronomy 18, as well as the “messenger of the covenant” of Malachi 3:1. This makes the lord Messiah Jesus greater than all the prophets and kings who came before him, including King David and Moses. The same applies to his cousin John, whom the lord Messiah Jesus “outranks” because he is the one “more powerful.” In Matthew 3:10 John proclaims that “the axe is already laid at the root of the trees; therefore, every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” In verse 12, he adds:

“His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will thoroughly clear his threshing floor; and he will gather his wheat into the barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

This coming judgment belongs ultimately to that future Day, the Day of the LORD - YEHOVAH (Isaiah 13:9; Zephaniah 1:15; 2:1-3; Malachi 4:1). John draws upon familiar Old Testament prophetic imagery of the wicked being consumed like wood, chaff, or refuse thrown into a fiery furnace. Compare Psalm 21:9, where the enemies of God are made “as a fiery furnace” in the time of His anger. It’s no wonder that this verse is one of the most used by the New Testament writers.

But the bad news of judgment gives way to the wonderful Good News, the Gospel of God - Yehovah, the good news about the soon-coming Kingdom of God, drawing heavily on the great prophetic announcement of Isaiah 40:1-11.

Although Paul says in Galatians 3:23-29 that there was a time “before the faith came,” meaning before the lord Messiah Jesus and his New Covenant message about the Kingdom of God. The transition had already begun with John the Baptist. John’s mission was to prepare the people for the coming of the lord Messiah Jesus by announcing the approaching Kingdom of God. John therefore marks the paradigm shift between the Old Covenant Law and Prophets and the proclamation of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God, the message of salvation, under the New Covenant, which disciples of the lord Messiah Jesus are now called upon to live.

Jesus himself bears witness to this in Luke 16:16 when he says that “the Law and the Prophets were until John; since that time the Gospel about the Kingdom of God [the message of salvation]; is being preached.” Some translations render this as the Law and Prophets being “in force until John.” The same transition appears in Matthew 11:7-15, where the lord Messiah Jesus places John at the crossroads between the Old Covenant era and the Kingdom of God proclamation era.

John’s baptism ministry therefore marked the decisive beginning of the transition away from the Law of Moses toward the New Covenant Law of the lord Messiah Jesus (Galatians 6:2; 1 Corinthians 9:21). John the Baptist “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” strikingly announced divine forgiveness outside the normal sacrificial activity of the Jerusalem Temple. Although John’s appearance did not formally abolish the Law, the Prophets, or the Temple system, his ministry unmistakably pointed toward the New Covenant order in which those Old Covenant institutions would no longer stand at the center of God’s ultimate Kingdom plan.

The lord Messiah Jesus then brings the promised power of the Holy Spirit and commissions his followers to continue making disciples and baptizing them in his name. Thus, the movement from the prophets, to John, to the lord Messiah Jesus, and finally to the members of the called-out Assembly forms one continuous Kingdom-Gospel story, culminating in the commission he gave the disciples in Luke 24:44-49.

The Gospel of John the Baptist was never a message about “going to heaven when you die.” A teaching that cannot be found in the scriptures. Rather, just as the prophets had announced before him and the lord Messiah Jesus proclaimed after him, John’s Gospel concerned the coming Kingdom of God on a restored earth. Jesus later commissions the members of his called-out Assembly to continue preaching about the soon-coming Kingdom of God, “to the end of the age,” that is, until his Parousia.

Note: “to the end of the age” - That is, until the return of the lord Messiah Jesus at his future Second Coming, the Parousia, which will follow the cosmic signs which immediately follow (Matthew 24:29) the future Great Tribulation (Daniel 12:1; Matthew 24:21). The commission, the essence of the disciples of the lord Messiah Jesus, involves “the obedience of faith” (Romans 1:5; 16:26; Hebrews 5:9), that is, obedience to all the words God gave Jesus, to proclaim to the world (John 12:44-50; and the subsequent words were revealed to Paul and the other Apostles). Included in obedience to the lord Messiah Jesus is, of course, his command that we “Listen…the Lord [Yehovah] our God is one Lord [Yehovah]” (Mark 12:29), and that we respond intelligently and with repentance to his opening command that we “believe the Gospel – “good news” of the Kingdom of God” (Mark 1:14-15). When the lord Messiah Jesus comes, the saints of all the ages will be resurrected to meet the lord Messiah Jesus in the clouds and from there escort him to the earth, where he will take his place on the throne of David at Zion [Jerusalem]. There is only one Second Coming of the Messiah, which will occur at the “end of this age”. By one single process, all true believers will be enabled to be “with the lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:17.

Until the Second Coming of the lord Messiah Jesus at the end of this age, the called-out Assembly is to be urgently occupied with the commission that the lord Messiah Jesus gave them to do: preach the message of salvation, the message about the soon-coming Kingdom of God. The “end of the age” in Matthew occurs five times (13:39, 40, 49; 24:3 and here). It marks the return of the lord Messiah Jesus to rule on earth for 1,000 years over the Kingdom of God, acting as the agent of his God and Father, Yehovah.