John 1:8

He was not that Light

The personality of the Baptist

I. John the Baptist was WELL BORN. The best Jewish blood flowed in his veins. Hereditary forces are the conservative forces of society. Voice, stature, longevity, mental and moral qualities descend from one generation to another. It is not true, however, that inherited tendencies necessarily make character. If this were so there could be no advance or retrogression. A child could be no better, no worse than his parent. Every mind is an original power for good or evil. Still, be thankful, Timothy, that Eunice was your mother; John, that Zacharias and Elizabeth were your parents.

II. He was WELL TRAINED. Jewish homes did not let go the training of children. Training tells more than birth in formation of character. Faith, reverence, obedience, courage, humility, are elements of a soldierly training. Let a child see love illustrated at home, and if he cannot be scolded into the Lord’s ranks he may be won.

III. He was A MAN OF COURAGE (Matthew 3:1). Witness his treatment of the dominant Jewish parties and Herod. This was a real quality, not an affectation. Ask for no trimmers in the pulpit. In the long run the brave man is popular.

IV. He was A MAN OF HUMILITY (verses 29-36). How hard for one preacher to be overshadowed by another, not in some remote town, but round the corner! Let every man do his level best, and, if beaten honourably, rejoice in another’s success.

V. He was A MAN OF DOUBT. But he took his doubts to Jesus, and had them resolved. Doubter, let Jesus speak for Himself. (B. J. Hoadley.)

The danger of mistaking John for Christ

To mistake the forerunner for the Messiah, the Baptist for the Christ, the man for the Lord, was not the first characteristic blunder of the Church against her Divine Head. It repeated Eve’s mistake of her firstborn for the firstborn of God. If we had not seen the subsequent errors of the Church, we should have been almost tempted to count John’s statement unnecessary, perhaps gratuitous, that the Baptist was “not that Light.” The only true relation of any ordinance is that of testimony to Christ. At the point where an ordinance ceases to testify of Christ, there it begins to betray Him. Then the betrayal of a Judas is followed by the denial of a Peter. The agency of priestcraft is at the bottom in either case. A false apostle sells, false priests buy, and Christ is crucified between them. The symbol of the thirty pieces of silver is, the nominal Christian barters to the nominal Jew the Divine reality. And so it has been in all ages and with every heresy. You cannot reconcile priestcraft and Christ-craft: they are the antagonism of God and mammon. The process is in every case essentially the same, confounding the testifier with the thing testified. Men began first to mingle representative rites with spiritual realities, then inseparably to unite them, and lastly to identify forms with the spiritual facts which they symbolized. Hence arose the transubstantiation of one sacrament, and the transpiritualism of the other. Transubstantiation, which identifies the Lord’s body with the bread and wine which He appointed as its symbolic testifiers, and transpiritualism, which identifies the baptism of the Spirit with that of water, are cognate heresies. The ordinance, in either case, displacing the Ordainer, the form neutralizing the fact, and compelling us to protest against sacramentalism on behalf of the sacraments, as well as on the part of the Saviour, that sacramental elements are “not that Light, but sent to bear witness of that Light.” (J. B. Owen, M. A.)

The secondary light

The brightest light which the hand of man can enkindle is instantly paled when the sun shineth in his strength. Beautiful indeed is that secondary light when shining alone, and not beautiful only, but precious, exceedingly to men who without it would be in darkness; yet, could it speak, it would say, “I am but a spark of another fire; your admiration of my splendour will cease when you see the sun.” Such is the speech of the most luminous men. Our light is lunar, not solar, or solar only because Christ is in us; and according to the measure of our capacity He sheds His glory through our life. (J. Parker, D. D.)

A witness to the Light

He is content to claim for his master as for himself the noblest human work, “to bear witness of that Light.” No one may add to it; all may, in word and life, bear witness to it. Every discovery in science and advance in truth is a removal of some cloud which hides it from men; every noble character is bearing it about; every conquest of sin is extending it. It has been stored in mines of deepest thought in all ages. The heedless puss over the surface unconscious of it. The world’s benefactors are they who bring it forth to men as the light and warmth of the rays of the Sun of Righteousness. (H. W. Watkins, D. D.)

The exact position of John in relation to Christ

Just as when we see some object lit up by the sun’s beams, we are aware that the sun has risen, though we may not be able actually to see him ourselves; and just as a man, however weak may be his power of sight, at any rate is able to look at a mountain or tree shone upon by the sun, though he may not yet be able to look at the glorious luminary itself; so in like manner did John give light to those who as yet were not able to look at Christ, and through him, while he acknowledged that his light was that cast upon him by the rays of another, the shining and enlightening One Himself was perceived and recognized. (Augustine.)

Other witnesses to Christ besides St. John

Was the saying less true of Jeremiah preaching beside the temple that was to be desolate, of Ezekiel preaching by the river of Chebar? Was it less true of St. Peter on the day of Pentecost, of St. Paul at Antioch? Was it less true of Bernard, of Francis of Assisi, of Luther, of any man who in later days has awakened men out of the slumber of death? What can be said of each except this, “The same came for a witness”? What would each have said of himself but this, “I am not that Light, but am come to bear witness of that Light”? (F. D. Maurice.)

The true glory of John

John is something truly great, of vast merit, of exceeding grace, placed on a high eminence. Admire him we must, but how? as a mountain height, which, unless irradiated by the sun, abides in darkness. Therefore raise your thoughts to Him, who illumines this mountain top, elevated for the very purpose of first receiving the light, and so of imparting it to your eyes otherwise pained with so great a glare. John was a light lighted; Christ was a light-giving Light. (Augustine.)