Chapter # 3 Paragraph # 3 Study # 1
Lincolnton, NC
April 2, 2006
(239)
AV Translation:
15 And as the people were in expectation, and all men mused in their hearts of John, whether he were the Christ, or not;
16 John answered, saying unto
them all, I indeed baptize you with water; but one mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire:
1901 ASV Translation:
15 And as the people were in expectation, and all men mused in their hearts of John, whether he were the Christ, or not;
16 John answered, saying unto
them all, I indeed baptize you with water; but one mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire:
Luke's Record:
- I. The Elements of This Paragraph.
- A. The people were wondering if John was the promised Messiah.
- 1. This indicates a "general expectation". The word used by Luke (Luke/Acts contains 10 of the 15 uses of this word in the New Testament) refers to an "anticipatory expectation" that is an integral aspect of the outlook that has been taken. Enough had happened, and enough had been reported about, that people were in a "state" of expectation.
- 2. This also indicates a very general perception of "Messiah" as a preacher of regeneration...a way to produce the Promised Kingdom.
- 3. But this raises a serious question: How could people even begin to think that John might be the Christ when it was his testimony that he was not even qualified enough to release the thongs on His sandals?
- a. This suggests a wide-spread, heretical belief in the goodness of man.
- 1) The only way a mis-perception this huge could have been made was for a very great misunderstanding to exist within the way the people had been trained to think.
- 2) It is particularly clear from Isaiah's experience in Isaiah 6, Daniel's experience in Daniel 10, Peter's experience in Luke 5, the disciples' experience on the Mount of Transfiguration, and John's experience in Revelation 1 that man has almost no true perception of the purity of the glory of the Lord.
- 3) It is indisputable from the way the Jews reacted to the Gospel at the "official" level that Jewish theology was steeped in the arrogance of "faith in the majesty of man" and had no clue regarding the enormity of the contrast between the actual glory of God and the actual dishonor of man.
- 4) It is clear from Paul's emphasis upon the love of God in Romans 5 that man has a profound inability to trust God's "love" without doing one of two terrible things... a) he minimizes the truth of the holiness of God so that he is not so intimidated by it (but in the process, he also minimizes His love); or b) he minimizes the truth of the fallenness of man so that he is not so "unlovable".
- b. There was an abundance of information available about John as to his parentage so that no one "believed" he was not the son of Zacharias. How, then, could one who was born the son of a sinner (even in one's wildest imagination) ever be even slightly "in the running" for the identity of "Messiah"?
- c. The only way it was possible was for the general populace to be deeply deceived as to the reality of the "generation of man as the offspring of a viper". The Viper's major deception has always been that man is independently capable ("ye shall be as Elohim").
- B. John denied the notion that he was, but did announce His coming.
- 1. John focused upon his ministry of baptism with water as an "unworthy" man.
- a. By this he clearly establishes what he understood to be the impact of the Holy Spirit in his own life.
- 1) He was "filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother's womb", yet he did not believe at all that that "filling" had made him moral. There is a difference between being essentially moral and being a vessel of an Essentially Moral Spirit.
- 2) He was a preacher of regeneration and a recipient of regeneration, but he did not see "regeneration" as something that created an independently holy individual.
- 3) Clearly, John saw "regeneration" as the provision for the production of godly fruit, but not a provision for the cessation of the production of ungodly fruit. He was the mouthpiece of the Word of God, but he was, yet, "unworthy" to "loose the thongs of the sandals" of the Essentially Holy One.
- b. This strongly suggests that his view of the impact of the Holy Spirit is not about producing an empowered, but independent, holy person. It is, rather, about producing godly fruit through an empowered, dependent vessel who is intentionally opposed to seeing itself as "independently, essentially, capable." The vessel is both weak and corrupted and impossible to "fix" except through "death". The vessel, then, is only useful when it is intentionally dependent and unwilling to be given the kudos for a "job well done". Jesus declared that John both learned and knew this lesson to a degree far greater than any other purely human being (Matthew 11:11; Luke 7:28), but He also declared that even the "least" participant in the Kingdom of Heaven was greater (the "least" participant is "on the other side" of the curtain of Death that releases man from "this body of death"). The most important "lesson" for man in this life is the "lesson" of dependence -- actively trusting in God's provision for the accomplishment of God's objectives and actively rejecting every suggestion that the accomplishment was "of him"...even to the rejection of the suggestion that the "active dependence/rejection" is "of him". It is the reality of wickedness that creatures actively seek to get the credit for what men esteem to be credit-worthy. The insatiable lust for recognition as a credit-worthy vessel is a lust that actively destroys any possibility for being "credit-worthy".
- 2. He contrasted it with the coming ministry of baptism with the Holy Spirit and fire by the Stronger One.
- C. John focused upon the Christ's intention to separate the people into two distinct groups with two distinct futures.
- 1. He used a very ordinary agricultural metaphor to indicate Messiah's plan to divide humanity into two groups.
- 2. He emphasized the consequence of being "chaff".
- D. Luke summarized John's preaching as containing "many other things".
- 1. This solidifies the claim that Luke was highly selective of what he recorded of John's prophetic ministry.
- 2. This also strongly suggests that Luke's choice of what he recorded was very basic to his picture of Jesus: He is the Strong/Superior Divider of men Who empowers and destroys.
