When the angel Gabriel foretold to Zacharias the birth of his son John, he said: "He shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb. And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God. And he shall go before him in the Spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." (Luke 1:15-17)
Thus his work was to be one of preparation for the coming of the Lord. In what way was this preparation to be made? We have the answer in the inspired words of Zacharias, after the birth of John: "And you, child, shall be called the prophet of the Highest; for you shall go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways; To give knowledge of salvation unto His people by the remission of their sins, Through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the dayspring from on high has visited us, To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace." (Luke 1:76-79)
In fulfillment of this, we find that John came "preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins." (Luke 3:3)
His message was, "Repent; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." (Matthew 3:2)
If the word of John the Baptist had ceased with his death, it would have but little interest for us. We should read of it as a bit of history, interesting as an attractive story, but not personally concerning us. This is the way it is too often read.
But that is a grave error; for the work of John the Baptist has not yet ended. We do not mean merely that the influence of his work has not ceased, but that the message which was committed to him is a live message still, and is still to be proclaimed by those who are the Lord's servants.
Christ's Second Coming
For it should not be forgotten that the mission and work of the Baptist reaches up until the coming of the Lord in glory, to give reward to His faithful people. John came in fulfillment of the "words of Isaiah the prophet, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare the way of the Lord, make His paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth; And all flesh shall see the salvation of God." (Luke 3:4-6; Isaiah 40:3-5)
After comparing the above two passages of Scripture, read farther in the 40th of Isaiah: "And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it." (Isaiah 40:5)
Note that the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and that all flesh is to see it together. Compare this with: "For the Son of man shall come in the glory of His Father, with His angels; and then shall He reward every man according to his works." (Matthew 16:27)
Also: "Behold, He comes with clouds; and every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him; and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him." (Revelation 1:7) "And then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory." (Matthew 24:30)
Note also that the voice is to say, "Behold your God! Behold, the Lord God will come with strong hand, and His arm shall rule for Him; behold, His reward is with Him, and His work before Him." (Isaiah 40:9-10)
This, compared with Revelation 22:12 "And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be." (Revelation 22:12), shows plainly that, although John the Baptist's personal work ended soon after the baptism of Christ, the message which he began to proclaim reaches until Christ's second coming in glory.
For in this study it should be remembered that John the Baptist himself stands for a movement. While he was a man of marked characteristics, he stands not as a single individual, but as a great force-a reformation. This is seen by the quotations in the preceding paragraph, and by the words of John to the messengers whom the Jews sent to ask him, "Who are you?" (John 1:22)
John said, "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as says the prophet Isaiah." (John 1:23)
If you turn to the book of Isaiah again (chapter 40) you will see that it is the "voice" that is given prominence. The Saviour said that John was "more than a prophet."
Repentance and Faith
Thus we find that John the Baptist stands as the type of those who shall proclaim the second coming of Christ, and his message is the message which is preached to prepare people for that great event.
Let us examine it briefly. He preached "repentance" and "remission of sins." "Sin is the transgression of the law." (1 John 3:4)
To preach remission of sins, is to preach turning away from sin; and this agrees with the words of the angel, that he should "turn the disobedient to the wisdom of the just." (Luke 1:17)
That means that he was to preach the commandments of God; and that he did so is shown in his reproof of sin, and in the instruction which he gave to enquirers. But remission of sins is only through faith in Christ, and this John also preached, as we learn from: "Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on Him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus." (Acts 19:4)
His preaching was therefore the same as Paul's: "Repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ." (Acts 20:21)
And this is the message which prepares for the Lord's return; for those who are waiting for Him, are "they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus." (Revelation 14:12)
It is "the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ," (Romans 3:22) that is to prepare men to meet the Lord Jesus Christ when He comes.
The Commandments of God
The commandments of God are ten, in which are summed up every other precept of the Bible. They comprise "the whole duty of man." (Ecclesiastes 12:13)
The one which is plainest of all, yet least understood, is the fourth, which reads thus: "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shall you labor, and do all your work; But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, nor your son, nor your daughter, your manservant, nor your maidservant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger that is within your gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it." (Exodus 20:8-11)
This enjoins the observance of the seventh day of the week, the day which the Jews professed to keep, and which John and Jesus actually kept. The entire law, including the fourth commandment, is the "way" of the Lord.
Therefore those who are the followers of John the Baptist, in preparing the way of the Lord, must, in their preaching of the coming of the Lord, preach the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, the seventh day of the week. Those who truly preach such a message, deserve the name of Seventh-day Adventists. Such was John the Baptist.
Infant Baptism
John preached "the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins." (Acts 19:4)
This dictates that he did not baptize infants. His message was, "Repent, and believe."
Repentance and faith were the indispensable conditions. Without these things none could be baptized by John. But infants cannot repent and believe. They have no knowledge of sin, and no ability to believe.
Therefore those who take up and carry on the work of John the Baptist,--the work of preparing a people for the coming of the Lord,--will have nothing to do with the so-called baptism of infants. They will not thus caricature one of the most solemn ordinances of the Gospel.
Baptism is Immersion
We said "so-called baptism," in speaking of the ceremony performed on children; for sprinkling, whether applied to infants or adults, is not baptism at all. It is nothing like baptism. The words "baptize" and "baptism" are the original Greek word spelled with Roman characters. They are not translated, but only transferred; so that when we use them we pronounce them very nearly as the ancient Greeks did.
Now by those words the Greeks always meant "to dip in or under water." A Baptistarion meant "a bathing place," or "a swimming-bath," and we have the same word in the form of "baptistery." There is no instance of the use of the word "baptize" by the Greeks, in the sense of sprinkle.
We have before us the standard Greek-English Lexicon, by two Churchmen, Henry George Liddell, D.D., Dean of Christ Church, and Robert Scott, D.D., late Dean of Rochester, and Master of Balliol College, Oxford, and they give no hint that the idea of sprinkling ever attached to those words.
Those clergymen had doubtless sprinkled many babies, calling the act "baptism;" yet as scholars they well knew that there was no more authority for calling it baptism than for calling it flying. The word Baptistes, which is the word used in the New Testament for Baptist, as in "John the Baptist," is defined in Liddell and Scott's Lexicon, "one that dips: a baptizer."
John went down into the water with Jesus, and baptized Him, just as Philip did with the eunuch. They both "came up out of the water." (Acts 8:39)
This is all in keeping with the meaning of baptism, which is a memorial of the death and burial of Christ. "Know you not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection." (Romans 6:3-5) "Buried with Him in baptism, and wherein also you are risen with Him through the faith of the operation of God, who has raised Him from the dead." (Colossians 2:12)
Temperance
The forerunner of Christ was strictly temperate, and thus we learn that temperance will be a prominent characteristic of those who are preparing the way of the Lord. His life emphasized his teaching. He was a living protest against extravagant living.
Ministers and religious workers who conform to popular customs of eating and drinking, especially drinking, will be accounted "good fellows" by the world, but they will not influence it for good. The world loves preachers whose lives give a silent sanction to worldly habits.
John the Baptist did not compromise with the world, thinking thus to win it to Christ. He preached the plain truth, no matter how unpopular it was, and took the consequences. So those who truly engage in the work which he began, will proclaim the truth, and the whole truth, even though it be unpopular, and though men in the highest positions are offended.
It was not the rulers, but the common people, that heard Jesus gladly.
Power of the Holy Ghost
Lastly, we find the secret of John's loyalty to the truth, in the fact that he was filled with the Holy Ghost. John went before the Lord, "in the spirit and power of Elijah." (Luke 1:17) "It is the Spirit that bears witness, because the Spirit is the truth." (1 John 5:6)
And so those who are preparing the way of the Lord, by proclaiming the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, can do so in reality only as they are led by and filled with the Holy Ghost. This is the promise of the Saviour, to fit men to be witnesses for Him. This it is that makes baptism more than a mere form, "For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we bond or free; and have all been made to drink into one Spirit." (1 Corinthians 12:13)--Present Truth, May 3, 1894--Timeline: II-1 (Ministry of John the Baptist)--Luke 3:3-6; Matthew 3:2.