A Messenger of Hope

John 1:19-34

Main Idea: John the Baptist points us to the one who can fulfill our greatest hopes and satisfy our deepest longings.

1. John’s Identity (1:19-28)
2. John’s Message (1:29-34)
   1. The Lamb provides a sacrifice.
   2. The Lamb provides a substitute.
   3. The Lamb provides satisfaction.

In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, we’re first introduced to the world of Narnia, a once beautiful world that has grown cold and dark. The four Pevensie children come through a magical wardrobe to a snow-covered forest in Narnia where they learn that it’s been winter for over a hundred years. Evil reigns. Hope is dead. But with the arrival of these children, things begin to change. The inhabitants of Narnia slowly begin to hope again. An ancient Narnian prophecy said before deliverance would come, two Sons of Adam and two Daughters of Eve would appear. These children were messengers of hope. But the hopes of the citizens of Narnia are not in the children; their hopes are in someone else, a lion named Aslan. The children hear an old Narnian rhyme:

Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,

At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,

When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death,

And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again. (Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, 74–75)

The Pevensie children brought hope not in themselves but in the one who would follow their coming and bring deliverance. In John 1 we meet a man who brought a message of hope—hope not found in himself but in someone else. John the Baptist points us to the one who can fulfill our greatest hopes and satisfy our deepest longings.

John’s Identity

John 1:19-28

The religious leaders of Israel sent a group of priests out to interrogate John the Baptist. They ask five questions, and the first four questions have the goal of determining John the Baptist’s identity. Their first question is pretty general. They’re fishing for information. They ask him who he is, and he lets them know he’s not the promised Messiah.

Next they ask John if he’s Elijah. That seems like an odd question since Elijah was an Old Testament prophet, dead for hundreds of years. But John shared some striking similarities with Elijah. Matthew describes John’s appearance like this: “Now John had a camel-hair garment with a leather belt around his waist” (Matt 3:4). This is similar to what Elijah looked like: “A hairy man with a leather belt around his waist” (2 Kgs 1:8). Their similarities were more than skin deep. They were both prophets of God who preached openly against sin, particularly in the lives of those who were supposed to be leading God’s people, and they both called people to repent of their sin.

Next they ask John, “Are you the Prophet?” Notice they don’t ask him if he’s a prophet. They ask him if he’s the Prophet. They had in mind the prophecy of Moses: “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him” (Deut 18:15). These Jewish leaders had missed the point of this prophecy. Asking John if he was the Messiah and then asking him if he was the Prophet was redundant. They should have understood the Prophet was the Messiah. Peter (Acts 3) and then Stephen (Acts 7) both condemned the religious leaders because they not only missed the Prophet, but they killed him when they crucified Jesus Christ.

They’ve learned their lesson. This time they simply ask John who he is. His answer is to allude to Isaiah 40:3: “I am a voice of one crying out in the wilderness.” The context of Isaiah 40 is the return of Jewish exiles. Because of the sin of his people, God sent Babylon to destroy Judah and to take the people captive. But in Isaiah 40 he is promising to deliver them from their slavery. This voice is crying that a road needs to be made for the exiles to return home. Steep grades needed to be leveled. Potholes needed to be filled. Everything is to be made smooth because God is going to deliver his people. This voice is in essence crying, “Prepare yourself for God’s salvation.” John’s role, as the voice, was to prepare God’s people for the salvation that would come through Jesus Christ. John called people to repent, turn from their sin, and believe on Jesus as their Savior.

They respond with another question: “Why then do you baptize if you aren’t the Messiah, or Elijah, or the Prophet?” He’s already answered, but they weren’t listening. His role was to prepare the people of Israel for the salvation coming in Jesus Christ. His baptism was a visible sign of repentance. It was an opportunity to testify publicly they were turning from their sin and waiting in faith for the promised Messiah. His authority to baptize was simply an extension of his role as the voice crying to the people to prepare for Jesus’s coming.

Throughout this conversation John’s humility stands out, particularly in contrast to the religious leaders. The tone of their questions is condescending and arrogant, but John’s response is humble. They ask him by what right he baptizes, and he simply points them to Christ. If I had been John, I would have probably said something like, “I’ll tell you who I am: I’m the last of the Old Testament prophets. My birth was declared to my father by an angel. The Holy Spirit empowered me for this mission when I was still in the womb. The Son of God called me the greatest man ever to walk the face of the earth [Matt 11:11]. That’s who I am! Who are you?”

Instead John points the conversation to Jesus. When they ask who he is, he tells them who he’s not. “I am not the Messiah.” John wants to make sure no one confuses him with Jesus. He doesn’t draw attention to himself but directs it to Jesus. When they ask him what right he has to baptize, he doesn’t defend himself. He points to Jesus, and when he points to Jesus, he says in essence, “I’m not the one you need to know about. I’m a lowly servant—unworthy even to buckle Christ’s sandal. He’s the one you need to know.”

In high school I was in the school play. Along with a female classmate, I had the responsibility of opening the play. We would come out on stage and begin the play with a dialogue. After a minute or two, the curtain was supposed to open and a scene would start. One of the nights I stood on stage in front of the curtain, saying my lines, waiting for the curtain to open, and nothing happened. There we stood, nothing to say or do, just hoping and praying the curtain operator would pull back the curtain. I don’t know how long it took. It seemed like hours, but eventually the curtain was pulled back, and people could see what they came to see. Christians are a bit like curtain operators. We’re not the main event. Our job is to pull back the curtain and direct everyone’s attention to Jesus Christ.

The great goal of the church is to point the world to Jesus Christ. We gather on Sundays to worship him and learn about him, but then we go out to share him with others. Just over one hundred years after the apostle John died, Tertullian wrote about the spreading influence of believers:

We are but of yesterday, and we have filled every place among you—cities, islands, fortresses, towns, marketplaces . . . tribes, companies, palace, senate, forum—we have left nothing to you but the temple of your gods. (Cited in Boice, John, 1:101)

Let that be true about Christianity today, that we go out from our places of worship and spread out through our cities and the surrounding communities, pointing everyone to Jesus Christ. I would love to write in twenty years, “We have filled every place among you—cities, counties, schools, rec leagues, restaurants, software companies, engineering firms, grocery stores, post offices, gyms—we have left nothing to you but a few empty buildings that used to house pagan religions.”

John the Baptist is described over and over as a witness. Is that a fitting description for you? I wonder if we could better identify with one comedian who claimed to be a “Jehovah’s Bystander.” “They asked me to be a witness,” he said, “but I didn’t want to get involved” (Davey, When Heaven Came Down, 17). Are you a bystander sitting on the sidelines watching the show, or are you participating?

John’s Message

John 1:29-34

John gives his eyewitness account of the Spirit descending on Jesus. From the other Gospels we understand it took place at Jesus’s baptism. First, God himself had given John a message: “The one you see the Spirit descending and resting on—he is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit” (v. 33). Second, John witnesses this event (v. 32). He had known Jesus but had not realized Jesus was the one sent from God (v. 31). However, when he saw the Holy Spirit descend on Jesus, it became clear. Third, the Spirit rested on Jesus. The word rest is used in both verses 32 and 33. In the Old Testament, when the Holy Spirit came on a person to empower him for a specific task, it was temporary. Yet the Spirit remained permanently on Jesus. When John saw the Spirit descend and remain on Jesus, he recognized the fulfillment of the promise of God to send the Messiah. John testifies to the deity of Jesus Christ in verse 34: “I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God.” He does not hesitate, waver, or doubt. John is clear: Jesus Christ is God.

John begins his message with a remarkable statement, “Here is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (v. 29; emphasis added). What does it mean that Jesus is the Lamb?

The Lamb Provides a Sacrifice

This account took place just days before the annual Passover celebration (2:13). The focus of the Passover celebration was the sacrifice of a lamb, which served as a reminder of God’s deliverance of Israel from captivity in Egypt. Exodus 12 records the first Passover, when God commanded each family to choose a lamb, kill it, and wipe its blood on the doorposts of their home. God was going to send death to every home except for those with blood on the doorposts. Those homes would be passed over. As the Jews congregated in Jerusalem each year to remember this work of God, each family would bring a lamb to the temple to be sacrificed on the altar.

However, lambs were not just sacrificed at Passover. Every day two lambs were killed at the temple, one in the morning and one in the evening. John the Baptist’s father was a priest who served at the temple. John would have been familiar with the sacrifices offered there. His father would have returned each day with blood-stained clothes from the slain lambs. Why must lambs be slaughtered every day? Their death was necessary because of sin: blood must be shed for sin to be forgiven (Heb 9:22). These lambs pointed to the one who would be sent from God to shed his blood one time so sin could be forgiven forever (Heb 7:27). Jesus was the Lamb sent by God to offer his life as a sacrifice. He was the one of whom Isaiah wrote, “He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth. Like a lamb led to the slaughter and like a sheep silent before her shearers, he did not open his mouth” (Isa 53:7; emphasis added).

The Lamb Provides a Substitute

Who was responsible for bringing a lamb as a sacrifice for sin? The sinner. But who brought this Lamb to be sacrificed? God did. Was there sin in God that needed to be covered? No, God was offering his Lamb as a substitute. We should pay the price for our own sin, but God provided a way of escape. He sent a Lamb who could perfectly and completely pay the penalty for our sin. Jesus, the Lamb of God, died in our place for our sin. He’s the only one whose death was sufficient to pay the penalty for our sin. He is not simply a lamb of God. He’s the Lamb of God. Only through Jesus can we find forgiveness for our sin.

Did you notice that the religious leaders didn’t ask John if he was the Lamb of God? They asked him if he was the Messiah or a famous prophet, but not the Lamb. I wonder if it’s because they were looking for something other than a lamb. They were hoping for a prophet or a king but not a lamb. They hoped the promised one would come and liberate them from the tyranny of the Romans, but they didn’t realize they needed liberation from the tyranny of sin. I wonder if they didn’t ask about the Lamb because they had no sense of their own sin. They were right to expect a king—Jesus will reign over all the earth—but they didn’t pay close attention to the prophets. Before the King would ascend the throne, he must first lie down on the altar. Before he would come as a conquering leader, he must first come as a crucified Lamb. All the religious leaders were interested in was seeing the Lion of Judah, and he did come, but he came first as the Lamb of God.

John Piper writes,

The Lion of Judah conquered because he was willing to act the part of a lamb. He came into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday like a king on the way to a throne, and he went out of Jerusalem on Good Friday like a lamb on the way to the slaughter. He drove out the robbers from the Temple like a lion devouring its prey. And then at the end of the week he gave his majestic neck to the knife, and they slaughtered the Lion of Judah like a sacrificial lamb. (Seeing and Savoring, 30)

In Revelation 5 we briefly glimpse the worship of Jesus in heaven, and we hear that the “Lion from the tribe of Judah . . . has conquered” (v. 5). But then our eyes look up and we see not a Lion but a Lamb, standing yet looking as if he had been slaughtered. Bowing all around him are people singing, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slaughtered” (v. 12). Jesus conquered sin, death, and hell by sacrificing himself as our substitute. He was a Lamb offered by God for our sin.

The Lamb Provides Satisfaction

The sacrifice of Jesus fully satisfies the demands of justice. Our sin demands a punishment, but the death of Jesus fulfills the punishment that justice demands. God is a gracious and kind God, but he is also just and holy. Because of his justice, we (as vile, filthy, unholy sinners) cannot come into his presence. Beyond that, his holiness demands his just wrath be poured out on sin. As sinners, we are objects of God’s wrath, awaiting a day when God’s full fury will be poured out on us—a day when we will experience the punishment our sin demands (Rom 2:5).

However, Jesus, the Lamb of God, offered his life on our behalf, and in so doing he took God’s wrath upon himself. “How much more then, since we have now been declared righteous by his blood, will we be saved through him from wrath” (Rom 5:9). The great joy of the gospel is that I don’t have to pay for my sin; Jesus paid for it. I don’t have to endure the wrath of God; God’s wrath was poured out on Jesus. Jesus came to take away the sin of the world, to completely satisfy the justice of God. Our sin can no longer be held against us.

Conclusion

John’s message was a message of hope. We have no other hope than to flee to Christ, and we need no other hope. Through the sacrifice of Jesus our sin has been forever removed. Our guilt no longer remains. We are free from the power and the penalty of sin.

In the climax of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Aslan, the great Lion, marches to the Stone Table and is murdered by the White Witch. The two Pevensie girls, Lucy and Susan, cry themselves to sleep at the dead lion’s feet, feeling hopeless as the evil witch’s army marches to make war on Narnia. At that moment something happens:

I think within a nanosecond of deciding to adopt we knew what our daughter’s name would be. In fact, I don’t really ever recall discussing it that much. Perhaps it’s because of why we chose to adopt. Our driving motivation was to rescue a little girl and give her a family with hope for the future.

“Oh, oh, oh!” cried the two girls, rushing back to the Table.

“Oh, it’s too bad,” sobbed Lucy; “they might have left the body alone.”

“Who’s done it?” cried Susan. “What does it mean? Is it more magic?”

“Yes!” said a great voice behind their backs. “It is more magic.” They looked round. There, shining in the sunrise, larger than they had seen him before, shaking his mane . . . stood Aslan himself. (Lewis, The Lion, 158–59)

After their initial shock had worn off, Susan asked Aslan what it meant.

“It means,” said Aslan, “that though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backward.” (Ibid., 159–60)

Jesus, the Lion from the tribe of Judah, offered himself as the sacrificial Lamb so traitors would be forgiven, justice would be satisfied, and death would be broken. Worthy is the Lamb who was slain!

Reflect and Discuss

1. What is John’s message of hope?
2. How and why does John reference Isaiah 40?
3. Are you pointing other people’s attention to Jesus as you go about your daily life? What opportunities exist for you to tell people about Jesus?
4. What would it look like if the gospel radically took root in your neighborhood and city?
5. Would “witness” be a fitting description for you?
6. Why does the Holy Spirit remain permanently on Jesus?
7. What does it mean that Jesus is the Lamb of God?
8. What role do lambs hold in Old Testament sacrifice? What difference is there between those lambs and the Lamb of God?
9. Are there circumstances in your life that cause you to want Jesus to be something other than what he is? What are they?
10. How can the message that Jesus came to die as the Lamb of God be a message of hope?