The Way Of God (Iv)

by J. Miller, Ayr | Category: The Way Of God (Iv) | Oct 1966

The closing paragraph of Malachi 4, the last of the books of the Old Testament, contains a call to the Remnant that had returned from the Babylonian captivity, to "remember ye the law of Moses My servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, even statutes and judgements". This was followed by the prophecy that Elijah, who is the prophet of the restoration, as Moses is the prophet of the constitution of Israel, would be sent by God before the great and terrible day of the LORD come (Malachi 4.4-6).

After Malachi, the voice of God in prophecy is silent for about four hundred years, till the voice of a man was heard in the wilderness, a man who was to go before the face of the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah (Luke 1.17). He was not Elijah, though some have thought that the Lord's words in Matthew 11.14 mean that John the Baptist was actually Elijah. What the Lord said was, "If ye are willing to receive it, this is Elijah, which is come". The Jews were not willing to receive it, for if they had done so, then they would have been among those to whom the angel Gabriel referred when he said, "Many of the children of Israel shall he turn unto the Lord their God" (Luke 1.16). When the Jews sent priests and Levites unto John to ask who he was, they asked him four questions. "Who art thou? And he confessed, and denied not; and he confessed, I am not the Christ. And they asked him, What then? Art thou Elijah? And he saith, I am not. Art thou the prophet? And he answered, No" (John 1.19-21). His answer to their further question as to who he was, was that he was "the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said Isaiah the prophet" (verse 23). John spoke in such a way as eliminating his personality, showing that the thing that mattered was that they should hear the word that he spoke, which was the word of God. This not only mattered with him but matters with all who ever spoke for God. I do not refer to our blessed Lord but even, in His case, His birth, life and death show that He cared nothing for the ostentation of human life in this world, which, alas, finds so large a place among men. Pride and vanity make for them a life worth living, so the many think.

John came to make straight the way of the Lord, a way for a people, for he came "to make ready for the Lord a people prepared for Him" (Luke 1.17). Alas, many in Israel for many, many years had busied themselves making the way of God crooked! The Lord told them, "Ye have made void the word of God because of your tradition" (Matthew 15.6).

We are told of John, that "the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the deserts till the day' of his showing unto Israel" (Luke 1.80). Also, that "his food was locusts and wild honey" (Matthew 3.4).

We are also told that it was in the fifteenth year of Tiberius Cesar that the word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness. We have, in connexion with this announcement regarding John, the names of seven outstanding personalities in the world at that time: Tiberius; Pontius Pilate; three tetrarchs Herod (Antipas), his brother Philip, and Lysanius; and two high priests - Annas and Caiaphas. God had no word for those men, and they had no ear for Him. But though John was a nobody among men, yet he was born to be great. He it was of whom Malachi spoke:

"Behold I send My messenger before Thy face,

Who shall prepare Thy way before Thee" (Matthew 11.10).

The Lord asked, "But wherefore went ye out? to see a prophet? Yea, I say unto you, and much more than a prophet.

Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not arisen a greater than John the Baptist" (Matthew 11.9,11).

According to the prophecy of Isaiah, the spiritual work of John was to make ready the way of the Lord, and to make His paths straight, to fill valleys~ and to bring mountains low, to make the crooked straight, and the rough ways smooth, so that all flesh would have no difficulty in seeing the Salvation of God, the blessed Lord Himself. To John was given the great responsibility of revealing who Jesus of Nazareth was and is. He said, "I have beheld the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven; and it abode upon Him. And I knew Him not: but He that sent me to baptize with [in] water, He said unto me, Upon whomsoever thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and abiding upon Him, the same is He that baptizeth with [in] the Holy Spirit. And I have seen, and have borne witness that this is the Son of God" (John 1.32-34). "And I knew Him not" does not mean that he did not know about Jesus, for their mothers were kinswomen (Luke 1.36), and also it says that when the Lord came to Jordan to be baptized by him, "John would have hindered Him, saying, I have need to be baptized of Thee, and comest Thou to me?" But John, as a witness to Israel, must identify the Lord as the Son of God by the sign of seeing the Holy Spirit descending and abiding upon Him. His testimony did not rest upon what he had been told by others, but on the revelation which God had given to him. Similarly, all who preach Christ and Him crucified, as Paul did, must have personal revelation of Christ to them. Even as the Lord said to Peter when he declared that He was the Christ the Son of the living God, "Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father which is in heaven" (Matthew 16.17).

In connexion with the way of the Lord as taught by John the Baptist we have the case of Apollos described in Acts 18.24-26. "Now a certain Jew named Apollos, an Alexandrian by race, a learned man, came to Ephesus; and he was mighty in the Scriptures. This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in spirit, he spake and taught carefully the things concerning Jesus, knowing only the baptism of John: and he began to speak boldly in the synagogue. But when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him unto them, and expounded unto him the way of God more carefully." This man was walking in the way of God which applied to a past time. The way of God, as we have tried to trace it from the earliest day of human history, is something like a great highway which has been made through many states till it reaches from one en4 of the country to the other, such as the highways in the U.S.A., and the highway across Canada which is nearing completion, covering some thousands of miles. Here was Apollos living in and teaching the way of God as set forth by John the Baptist. He needed to be brought up to date, so this godly couple, who had learned much from Paul when he had lived with them, took him unto them and expounded to him the way of God more carefully. Apollos was humble enough to accept the teaching of this godly pair, and found his place in the Fellowship, a sharer indeed in what was present truth. Some, alas, in our day hold on to things taught by the early brethren, brethren who had not learned the truth regarding the churches of God and the house of God, and so they remain muddled as to church truth. Great indeed is the pity!

We have another case of men in Ephesus who followed John's teaching, and had been baptized with John's baptism. Paul found these disciples when he came to Ephesus. Paul asked them (following the rendering of the R.V.), "Did ye receive the Holy Spirit when ye believed?" Dr Young correctly renders the aorist participle here, pisteusantes, "having believed". The use of "since" here in the A.V. does not mean some time after they had believed, as some try to explain, but, since that had taken place, that they had believed, had they received the Holy Spirit? Their reply was, according to the R.V., "Nay, we did not so much as hear whether the Holy Spirit was given." "Given" is not in the Greek here, but is added by the revisers to give the sense. It could hardly be that they did not know that there was such a Person as the Holy Spirit, for John the Baptist was the first to teach baptism in the Holy Spirit (Matthew 3.11, etc.). Answering Paul's question about baptism, they said that they had been baptized into John's baptism. Then Paul makes a statement which is most illuminating as to the meaning of John's baptism. He said, "John baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on Him which should come after him, that is, on Jesus" (Acts 19.1-7). It is clear from Mark 1.4 that John "preached the baptism of repentance unto the remission of sins". But, we ask, did they receive the remission of their sins by baptism? In the parable that the Lord used in John 10.1-6 regarding the fold, and Himself being the Shepherd and John being the porter, the fold was entered by the sheep through the door of the baptism of John. The Lord, the Shepherd, also entered that fold by baptism. When the Lord entered that fold, He called His own sheep by name and led them out, for they knew His voice and a stranger would they not follow. It is evident that the Lord did not empty that fold of which John was the doorkeeper, for some of John's disciples remained with him to the last, for when John was beheaded by Herod Antipas, we are told that "his disciples came, and took up the corpse, and buried him; and they went and told Jesus" (Matthew 14.12). If, as Paul said, John told the people that he baptized that they should believe on Jesus, what if they did not believe on Jesus, would their baptism by John have meant that they were in possession of the forgiveness of sins? Surely the work of the doorkeeper is not equivalent to that of the Shepherd who is Himself the door of the sheep, and besides, He said, "I am the door: by Me if any man enter in, He shall be saved" (John 10.7,9). The preaching of John contained the words, "Repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matthew 3.2). The Lord in his preaching used exactly the same words (Matthew 4.1"'). In John the Baptist's testimony to the Lord. he said, "He that believeth on the Son hath eternal life; but he that obeyeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him" (John 3.36). The Lord spoke similarly as to those who believed on Him who would be lifted on the cross. "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth may in Him have eternal life" (John 3.14,15). These verses are followed by verse 16, the truth of which has been an eternal blessing to multitudes.

Paul's words in Acts 19 were accepted by the "above twelve men who had been baptized into John's baptism, and they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus, and when Paul laid his hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came upon them. They were brought up to date in the way of God, for the way of God had gone forward since John's time. This article is longer than I intended, so I do not stay to comment on the matter of re-baptism here and the laying on of the apostle's hands. Suffice to say, this is the only case of re-baptism in the New Testament, and also it is the second case of the Holy Spirit being given through the laying on of apostles' hands (see Acts 8.17). But see in contrast the case of Cornelius and those who were with him, where there was neither baptism nor the laying on of hands (Acts 10.44,48) in the gift of the Holy Spirit.

J. Miller, Ayr | Oct 1966
The Way Of God (Iv)