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1.2.1 - A History of Christianity in the Apostolic Age
The Origin of Christianity
John the Baptist - Called Elijah
Just at this juncture, John the Baptist began his preaching. Of the early life of John we know practically nothing. Luke, after speaking of John's birth, says only 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).
He appeared suddenly from the wilderness, in the garb of an ascetic, announcing the immediate coming of the kingdom of God, and summoning his countrymen to repentance. The burden of his preaching was judgment. If the kingdom of God is at hand, the expected judgment must be impending, and hence the necessity of repentance unto the remission of sins. It is fully in accord with his character, as revealed in his ascetic mode of life, that his thought dwells rather upon the obligation entailed by the approach of the kingdom than upon the blessings involved in it, that he fells himself called to warn rather than to cheer and comfort.
But John did not content himself with the announcement of the coming of the kingdom and with the preaching of repentance. According to the testimony of all our Gospels, he also foretold the advent of the Messiah; for none other than the Messiah can be referred to in the words: "There cometh one that is mightier than I, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose. He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire; whose fan is in his hand, thoroughly to cleanse his threshing-floor, and to gather the wheat into his garner; but the chaff he will burn up with unquenchable fire." (Luke 3 16-17; cf. Mark 1:7-8; Matt 3: 11-12; John 1:26-27)
The imagery is suggested by Isaiah and Malachi, the only advance upon them lying in the fact the John represents the judgement as conducted by the Messiah instead of by God himself; but in this he only reproduced an opinion that was doubtless common in his day. (Cf. The Book of Enoch, 45, 55, 61, 69).
In fact, his thought respecting the Messiah and his work move wholly along traditional lines. His conceptions were based apparently not upon a special revelation of his own, received directly from God, nor upon any personal knowledge that he had of Jesus. How differently indeed his idea of the Messiah's work was from Christ's idea, is shown by the message that Jesus sent him in reply to his question whether Jesus was the Messiah: "Go you way and tell John what things ye have seen and heard; the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good tidings preached to them. And blessed is he whosoever shall find none occasion of stumbling in me." (Luke 7: 22-23; Matt. 11: 5-6)
This inquiry addressed to Jesus by John, according to Matthew, after John had been cast into prison, seems to show that up to this time Jesus was not known by John to be the Messiah; and that even now when the fame of his teaching had reached him he was in doubt whether Jesus was really the expected one or only a preacher of righteousness like himself. This episode makes it difficult to regard John's earlier recognition of Jesus' Messiahship, to which reference is made in John 1, and perhaps in Matthew 3 14-15, as historical. There is no hint in our original sources that John knew, while he was still preaching, that the Messiah was already come, or that he had any idea where and when he would appear.
It is very significant though, perhaps, some of John's disciples later became followers of Jesus (cf. John 1: 37), not all of them did. Indeed, they continued to maintain their separate and independent existence as a sort of Johannine sect, for many years (Matthew 9:14, Acts 18: 25, and 19:1 sq.); and almost a generation after their leader's death, some of them at least were still expecting the Messiah of whom he had spoken. It can hardly be supposed in the face of these facts, that John had told them that Jesus was the one to whose coming both he and they had been looking forward.
It is a significant fact that John represented himself neither as the Messiah nor as his expected forerunner. When the rulers of the Jews sent a delegation to inquire about his person and his purposes, he distinctly denied not only that he was the Christ, but also that he was either Elijah or "The Prophet." (John 1:21). The words must be authentic, for no Christian would have thought of inventing them and putting them into John's mouth when Christ had so distinctly declared John to be the expected Elijah (Matthew 11:14, 17:12; Mark 9:13).
Evidently, he conceived his connection with the coming kingdom not in any sense as official or peculiar, and his work as a work belonging to him alone. He was convinced of the nearness of the great crisis, and he simply felt himself called to summon the people to prepare for it. He was in his own esteem a preacher merely, not a prophet, and he did not claim, as did the Old Testament prophets, to be giving utterance to a divine revelation. He was doing what anyone else might have done; he was, in fact, doing, for what he knew, what many more might do, and do as well, or even better, than himself. The rite of baptism which John performed in not to be regarded as an official thing. He apparently employed it quite informally and simply as a symbol, with the purpose of impressing vividly upon his hearers the need of that purification of life that he was preaching.
Used by permission of the publisher.
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