The Gospel of John is a narrative of the life of Jesus which is high in Christology. It means that John focuses on the fact that Jesus is God more than anything else. In doing so John establishes a few accepted notions, one of them being that Jesus is the lamb of God. He begins the earthly introduction of Jesus through the witness of John the Baptist who proclaims Jesus as the lamb of God.
John the Baptist
The Gospel writer Luke gives us a detailed description of the birth of John the Baptist. It is from the syntactic gospels that we garner that the chief message of John the Baptist was to repent from sin as the kingdom of God is at hand. The Gospel writer John, who is probably the son of Zebedee, introduces John the Baptist in a different light, his main purpose being witnessing for Jesus. John had a purpose and he had preparation
And this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, "Who are you?" He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, "I am not the Christ." And they asked him, "What then? Are you Elijah?" He said, "I am not." "Are you R19the Prophet?" And he answered, "No." So they said to him, "Who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?" He said, "I am 0the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, 'Make straight the way of the Lord,' as the prophet Isaiah said." (Now they had been sent from the Pharisees.)
John 1:19-24
John had a well defined PURPOSE.
John the Baptist comes with a very clear view of exactly who he is and what is his task on earth. He doesn't proclaim himself as the first true prophet of God to grace Jerusalem in almost four centuries, something we know from tradition to be true. John's mission on earth is witnessing on behalf of Jesus and creating the space for people to know and follow him.
John was PREPARED to face the interrogation of the people.
John the Baptist was capable of answering questions pertaining to him that quoted the scripture. He was asked whether he was the Messiah, whether he was Elijah and whether he was the prophet? These were people who made it their task to know the scripture, knowing it as absolute truth. So it isn't surprising that John the Baptist is replying with a scripture as well when he refers to himself from the prophet Isaiah.
When we go out into the world to fulfill a similar purpose it is essential that we know exactly who we are in Jesus and be prepared to answer the questions that are directed towards us. Without the sense of purpose and a comprehensive preparation in the Word and Spirit it is not possible to fulfill our God given task.
Baptism of Water
Before understanding the baptism of John we need to comprehend the idea of baptism to begin with. Baptism did not exist in the Old Testament. We find the act of ceremonial cleaning as a form of ritualistic cleansing of the body before entering God's presence. However what John proposes is something more permanent and of a different nature.
Baptize- verb (used with object), bap·tized, bap·tiz·ing.
a. to immerse in water or sprinkle or pour water on in the Christian rite of baptism to cleanse spiritually;
b. initiate or dedicate by purifying.
c. to give a name to at baptism; christen.
I would like to focus on the second definition as given here. Baptism is initiation into the Kingdom of God by an act of purification.
What kind of purification did John offer? He offered a purification of the heart through repentance. The purification of the soul was yet to be offered as was done by Jesus on the cross, thus rendering void the need for two baptisms. We read in the Bible of the apostle Paul coming across congregation in Ephesus who were baptized in the baptism of John and later on in the name of Jesus. This creates a lot of confusion in our mind. However please note that the baptism in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. Thus it is the same Paul emphasizing to the same congregation at Ephesus that there is only one baptism.
