John 1:6-34

TESTIMONY OF JOHN THE BAPTIST

John 1:6-51. “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, that he may testify concerning the Light, in order that all may believe through him. He was not that Light, but that he may testify concerning that Light. That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” John the Baptist clearly and powerfully preached the gracious possibility of universal salvation, involving the saving efficiency of Christ from the foundation of the world. Darkness here means sin, and light means grace. Hence, you see that the true, saving grace of God in Christ is actually given to every human being, of all ages and nations, Pagan, Mohammedan, Papist, and Protestant.

Christ died for all, and by His Spirit shines on all. Hence, none will have an excuse for their own damnation, as all they have to do is to walk in the light God gives, and in that case, “the blood cleanses from all sin.” (1 John 1:7) Hence, people are only lost for rejecting the light, as God only requires all to be true to the light and the grace given.

“He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not.” The Savior was unknown, misunderstood, falsely accused, unjustly condemned, and cruelly put to death. Two hundred millions of martyrs have added their blood to His for the same reason; i.e., because the World knew them not. Jesus and the martyrs suffered condemnation and death as malefactors, while they were the best people in the world. Such will always be the case till our Lord comes in His glory. The people of this wicked world will never understand God's true people. When they understand and appreciate you, an awful suspicion arises that you have gotten wrong. “He came unto His own, and His own received Him not;” i.e., He came to the Jews, His own consanguinity, and given to Him in an everlasting Covenant. Because they were carnal and worldly, they misunderstood, disowned, and killed Him. If He had been carnal, like themselves, they would have received Him all right, as they did several false Christs within forty years after His crucifixion. But in that case, He could not have saved them, but must have failed, like all of those false Christs.

“But so many as received Him, unto them gave He the privilege to become the children of God, to them that believe on His name, who were born, not of bloods, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” In this wonderful and beautiful passage, setting forth so clearly and gloriously the great fundamental doctrine of regeneration, the word translated “power” in E.V. is exousia, signifying, not only power, but more properly, privilege, right, authority. The word most prevalent in the New Testament and translated “power” is dunamiz i.e., dynamite, an infinitely stronger word than exousia. It means the very omnipotence of the Almighty; whereas, exousia here means the right or the privilege of every one that receives Christ to become the children of God through faith, salvation being optionary with the recipient; i.e., you can all believe and be saved, or disbelieve and be lost. The specification here given on the negative side is exceedingly valuable, as it is God's Warning against Satan's delusion. “Not from bloods.” Until the date of this Scripture, all Church services consisted in bloody sacrifices. Hence the conclusion, that no one can be regenerated by water baptism, the eucharist, good works, or ritual ceremonies of any kind; nor “from the will of the flesh” i.e., you can not receive the Divine birth by the carnal will. “The Ethiopian can not change his skin, nor the leopard his spots.” Wonderful force in this Scripture! The black man may exercise all the power of his will, and put forth the greatest possible resolution to become a white man, and yet his skin remains black as an Ethiopian sky ever tanned. This certifies the utter impossibility of regeneration superinduced by everything we can possibly do . “Nor from the will of man.” The pope of Rome, and all the interceding priests on the face of the whole earth, and you may add to them all the apostles, if they were risen from the dead, can not possibly impart life to the dead soul of the sinner. As inspired John here well says, none but Cod can possibly do this work. When God calls you from death to life, He always reveals to you the glorious fact. How few, comparatively, have the witness of the Spirit that they are born of God!

“The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten with the Father, full of grace and truth.”

As depravity, in all its forms and phases, is antithetical to grace, it is impossible for any one to be full of the latter and contain any of the former. A bucket is not full of water if it has a quantity of rock or dirt at the bottom. Hence, we see this statement annihilates a dogma somewhat now afloat; i.e., that Jesus had depravity, having inherited it from His mother.

“For we have not a High Priest who is not able to sympathize with our infirmities; He also having been tempted in all things, in like manner, without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15.)

This Scripture sweeps all controversy from the field. They argue that the fact of His temptation is a proof that He had depravity. You see this Scripture covers all the ground, though He was tempted in all things as we are, yet He was without sin. The Word of the Lord is the end of all appeal. Consequently this question is settled. Sin and error are Siamese twins, which always live and die together. Jesus was full of grace; therefore He had no sin, and no depravity, which is but another word for sin. Neither did He have any infirmity, which is the normal effect of sin. He was full of truth; therefore He had no error.

“John testifies concerning Him, and cried, saying, This is He of whom I spoke; He that cometh after me was preferred before me, because He was before me.” While John the Baptist stood before the people as the forerunner and introducer of Jesus, he is very emphatic in his testimony to His uncreated eternity. “Of His fullness, we all receive grace upon grace,” or grace in addition to grace; i.e., the grace of sanctification in addition to the grace of justification. “Because the law was given by Moses; grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” The law never had any power to save, but only to convict, and thus prepare people for the saving grace and truth which God gave in Christ.

“No one hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, being in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.” Did not Moses stand face to face with God on Mt. Sinai? Did not the Lord visit Abraham's tent at Mamre, and eat with him? These, like the “Form of the Fourth,” seen by Nebuchadnezzar in the fiery furnace, were all manifestations of Christ, the Jehovah of the Old Testament being identical with the Christ of the New, and the incarnate manifestations to Moses, Abraham, and Nebuchadnezzar being adumbrations of His first coming, like His appearing to Paul near Damascus and in the temple at Jerusalem, anticipatory of His second advent.

John 1:19-22. Here John relates the history of the Jews sending priests and Levites to John the Baptist, to interview him directly with reference to a problem much agitated among them; the learned clergy and theologians standing on the desert sand hours together, straining their eyes, looking over the long rolls of prophecies, diagnosing and investigating the phenomena of John's ministry, and trying to settle the question whether he is the Christ; but finally sending their delegation to interrogate him in presence of the multitude, “Art thou the Christ or do we look for another?” John the Baptist puts a final quietus to all their inquiry by a candid and unequivocal negation, responding,

“I am not the Christ, but the voice of one roaring in the desert, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, as Isaiah the prophet said.” (Isaiah 40:3.)

Here, as recorded by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, John the Baptist certifies constantly and repeatedly that his office is to roar out the warning to the people to repent and make straight ways to the Lord; i.e., get rid of all their crookedness, so the Lord can come into their hearts.

John 1:28. “These things took place in Bethany, beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing.” E.V. has here Bethabara, which is incorrect; Bethany, which means “house of dates,” being the correct reading. “The town of Bethany was ten miles up the Jordan in Perea, on the other side, the Baptist having moved thither since our Savior's baptism.”

John 1:29. “The following day, John sees Jesus coming to him, and says, Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world.” This occurred the day following the transactions of the preceding verses, and after Jesus had been baptized and gone away into the wilderness, spent the forty days and more, and has now returned to the scene of John's baptism, ten miles up the river, and on the other side, at the town Bethany. O that all the world would take this good, solid, Baptist doctrine! John the Baptist preaches no shoddy gospel, but entire sanctification all the time. He does not represent Jesus as suppressing sin or conquering it, and leaving it, like a rattlesnake, coiled up. and hidden in the deep subterranean regions of the fallen soul; but he describes Him as taking it away, world without end. The world is full of counterfeit salvation, multitudes standing in the pulpit and preaching a counterfeit Savior, who does not take away sin. Remember that sin here is in the singular number, not meaning simply sinful acts, but the sin principle; i.e., the body of sin, root, branch, germ, and seed, the entire entity, without any exception. It is the sin peculiar to the world i.e., the depravity which, though operating in different ways, is identical with all races, colors, sexes, and nationalities. If you could leap through the earth, and jump out in China, you would find sin there just what it is here. Jesus came, not to wash, dress, educate, and control it, but to take it away. This is simple, unmistakable gospel truth, preached by holy John the Baptist. Good Lord, help us all to receive it and preach it to others! O how few this day stand up and cry, “Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world!” Here, again, John asserts the priority of Jesus.

John 1:31. “And I did not know Him; but in order that He may be manifest to Israel, on this account I came baptizing with water. John testified, saying, That I saw the Spirit descending like a dove from heaven, and He remained on Him. I did not know Him, but the One sending me to baptize with water, He said to me, On whom you may see the Spirit descending and abiding on Him, the same is the One baptizing with the Holy Ghost. And I have seen, and I have testified that He is the Son of God.” We are not to conclude from these statements that John was utterly unacquainted with Jesus before the baptism, as they were related by consanguinity and the families acquainted. But God had revealed to John that he should have the indisputable confirmation of our Lord's identity by the descension of the Holy Ghost on Him and His abiding there, thus revealing to John, and all the people, that He is truly the Christ, the only One in all the universe who baptizes with the Holy Ghost; John, His precursor and introducer, faithfully preparing the people by not only preaching to them a genuine, evangelical repentance, which was to be perseveringly perpetuated “unto remission of sins,” but it was his office also to symbolize the baptism of Jesus with the Holy Ghost and fire by the baptism with water. You see here in verse 34 that John, like Mark, omits the fire in the record, Matthew and Luke giving it, illustrating and confirming the fact, as attested by Paul (Ephesians 5:4) i.e., the unity of baptism the fire being a concomitant of the Spirit, and the water the symbol.