John 1:19-23

Dr. Ronnie Wolfe

At this point we are considering who John the Baptist is. The Levites sent word to ask John who he was, and John answered in a very specific way, a way which would relate his identity to that of Jesus Christ.

It was necessary that he would confess that he is not the promised Messiah, since they supposedly thought that he may claim to be; but John confessed immediately that he was not the Messiah. John knew there was no Messiah but Jesus, and he was not about to try to deceive people to think he was.

John was through his baptisms, they thought, acting as a prophet, so they asked him if he were a prophet, such as Elijah. He confessed that he was not any of the prophets mentioned in the Scriptures.

When asked who he is, John made a statement that made the Levites shake in their boots. He said in  John 1:23  I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Esaias (Isaiah 40).  In other words, John was saying that he was a fulfillment of this Scripture. The Levites did not like this, because they looked for others to fulfill this Scripture.

There is only one John the Baptist, for it is "the voice of ONE crying in the wilderness. The Jews interpreted it to be plural, referring to a number of angels or prophets; but John was to preach the baptism of repentance and to proclaim the Lord, which he knew to be Jesus. He was the only one who was to do this in the way that he did.

May you today hear the words of John the Baptist as he stated later, "Behold, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world."