Study inJohn’s Gospel

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God’sWitnessChap 1:19-34

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IntroductionWill they return a verdict of guilty or not-guilty? Time and again we are told that a court case hinges on the credibility of witness testimony. How reliable is that evidence? It will shape the verdict that is passed. In this gospel we discover that the role of John the Baptist was to be a ‘witness’ for Jesus. In the first instance people would evaluate Jesus and make decisions concerning him on the basis of John’s testimony. John had a privileged and a responsible role.

A role that continues to be shared by the church and its individual members today.

What we can learn from John’s witness?

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A Self-Effacing Role First, his was a self-effacing role. John’s preaching had caused considerable commotion in the religious community. Its representatives wanted to know who he was. John’s description of himself is very revealing. Cf v23 “I am a voice crying in the wilderness.”

He did not promote himself as a great prophet. He did not claim high office. He did not go out of his way to gain publicity or popularity. He certainly did not think he was the answer to men’s needs. He was a man with a message, - a voice, a signpost, who gladly pointed to another.

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A Self-Effacing Role Witnessing and projecting an image are not the same thing. To promote an image is to be totally self-aware in one’s pursuit of human praise. Imagine a plain white signpost insisting on being colourfully painted, covered with flashing lights and placed on a polished marble plinth. Oh, and if the destination written on it was obscured, what did that matter? As long as the signpost itself becomes the major focus!

In contrast, John the Baptist did not want to draw attention to himself. He was not a flashy communicator!

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A Self-Effacing Role Do you see the application? Whenever Christian people, from whatever walk of life or sphere of service go out of their way to draw attention to themselves they immediately stop being effective witnesses, who point others to Jesus. Our prayer should be, “Lord make me content to be a voice.”

If you ask people to describe the signposts that directed them to Jesus, they will remember some and forget others. But forgotten or remembered the signposts have done their job if they have ensured that the traveller has arrived at their final destination.

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A Preparatory Role Secondly, John’s witness role was preparatory. He was a road-builder. He was to ‘make straight the way of the Lord’. That involved a great deal of upheaval in his hearer’s lives. Road construction can cause great inconvenience. Single line traffic makes people late for work! However once the road is complete and the journey quickly made, former inconveniences are readily forgotten. John’s ministry operated like a fleet of bulldozers in his hearer’s hearts preparing them to meet the eternal Son of God. When God’s bulldozers begin to move across the landscapes of our lives, we can become very agitated and uncomfortable.

However, when the road is complete and Jesus is encountered the work of the bulldozers is a distant memory.

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John again points to the preparatory and limited nature of his ministry when he says, ‘I baptise with water… but one is coming who will baptise with the Holy Spirit’ v33.

John identified barriers to God’s blessing in his hearers lives and called them to repentance. And in order to express their sorrow for sin and a willingness to depart from it, they were baptised in the River Jordan. As they stepped out of the water did they think, “How can I live a different life that will bring pleasure to the heart of God, I know I can’t keep it up.” In reply John pointed to someone who would“baptise…with the Holy Spirit.”

God looks into our hearts for our desire to change but it is he who provides the empowering.

A Preparatory Role

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There is a sense in which every witness made by the Christian, within their family circle, their neighbourhood, or their workplace is, like John’s, preparatory and limited. God is ‘The Great Evangelist’. Only he can breathe new life into others. God alone empowers.

Our witness is unable to reason or argue men and women into the kingdom but it does prepare the way for God to graciously draw them to himself. And in that sense we are all called to be road-builders! And it is when others find Jesus along this road that he does his transforming work by his Spirit intheir lives.

A Preparatory Role

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A student from a Christian home went off to university. His parents were concerned about how he would cope living away from a sheltered Christian environment. When he returned for the Christmas holidays they asked him how he was surviving. He said, ‘I’m doing great, no one even knows I’m a Christian!’ Clearly, he thought the only way to survive in the world was to hide his light under a bowl. Matt.5v15

In contrast, John Bunyan, the author of “Pilgrim’s Progress”, tells us that he owed his conversion to the fact that he overheard a group of washer women talking quite freely about what God had done in their hearts.

A Preparatory Role

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Thirdly, John’s witness role was goal-oriented. His objective was stated previously in v7 ‘so that through him all men might believe’. Our passage singles out two great truths designed to encourage such belief. The first is found in v29… John did not point to Jesus and say, ‘Behold a fine teacher… a great miracle worker… a superb humanitarian’ but, ‘Look the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.’ This expression would have resonated in the hearts of John’s Jewish hearers.

The feast of the Passover was about to take place. A feast which reminded Israel that in the past they had been kept safe from death and delivered from Egyptian bondage through the sacrifice of a lamb and the application of its blood to the doorposts of their homes.

A Goal-Oriented Role

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The thoughts of others would have been directed to the Day of Atonement, when the Jewish High Priest sacrificed a goat and over the head of another would confess the sin of the people. This second goat was then driven from the camp, alienated that others might be reconciled. Lev.16. The symbolism was clear, the sin of the people would be taken away through a substitutionary sacrifice. And so in anticipation of Jesus’ sacrificial death, John said, ‘Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world’

To witness effectively for Jesus involves identifying Jesus as God’s solution to man’s sin. It involves making absolutely clear the nature of Jesus’ mission. Think of the dereliction/alienation of Jesus who as ‘scapegoat’ on the cross suffered estrangement from the Father ‘outside the camp’. Cf. Matt 27.45

A Goal-Oriented Role

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What made Jesus’ death infinitely more valuable than the deaths of these sacrificial animals? The answer is found in the second great truth to which John witnessed cf. v34. “I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God.” He is saying that God’s ‘lamb’ was none other than the sinless Son of God, the one ‘on whom the Spirit came down and remained’.

The solution to the problem of man’s sin was not to be the sacrifice of an animal, or even a good man but of the eternal Son of God. If Jesus were merely a good man unjustly executed then his death might inspire some to work for social justice or to found an organisation like ‘Amnesty International’ but no more than that!

A Goal-Oriented Role

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Our world needs much more social justice. It needs a Saviour. Now once we see Jesus’ death not as a great human tragedy but as a glorious triumph, and as God’s solution to man’s problem, then a significant shift in our perspective of the cross takes place. For ‘God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself’ 2 Cor. 5v19.

And so in answer to the question, ‘Does God care about his creation and about man’s deepest need?’ John points to the cross and says, not just, ‘Behold the lamb’ but ‘Behold your God’. This is where mankind’sgreat problem is dealt with.

Can we begin to grasp the wonder of what God has done upon the cross?

A Goal-Oriented Role

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And now the empowering, that we alluded to earlier, is seen in a completely new light as a result of the disclosure of Jesus’ identity as the Son of God. For the one who baptises with the Holy Spirit has a unique relationship to the Spirit. ‘the man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptise with the Holy Spirit.’ John 1v33. After his ascension into heaven can you imagine Jesus asking, “What do my people need more than anything else? What will make them effective in my service?’’

And in answer the coronation gift he gave to his church was that of God’s Spirit. No ordinary man had the right or authority to impart such a gift! But Jesus is no ordinary man!

A Goal-Oriented Role

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This returns us to the witnessing role of individual Christians. Prior to his ascension into heaven Jesus told his followers, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses” Acts 1v8. Not only a new power to live by, but a new power for witness. Pentecost uniquely changed the lives of Jesus’ disciples.

We don’t need to wait for another Pentecost. Today, the Spirit inhabits the lives of all who have placed their faith in Jesus. And, if that is so, then we need to use the great resource that we have been given. There are few things more satisfying than this, to witness to others about Jesus and to see them come to faith in him. May we know God’s help to that end.

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