Part 6 (1/2)
To the crowds John may have seemed to fulfil all the essential conditions of the prophetic portraiture of the Messiah; but _he_ stood on the mountain, and knew how infinitely the Christ stood above him.
This is apparent in his reply to the final inquiry of the Sanhedrim, ”And they asked him, and said unto him, 'Why, then, baptizest thou, if thou art not the Christ, neither Elijah, neither the Prophet?'” And John said in effect, ”I baptize because I was sent to baptize, and I know very well that my work in this respect is temporary and transient; but what matters that? In the midst of you standeth One whom ye know not, even He that cometh after me, the latchet of whose shoe I am not worthy to unloose. The Christ is come. Have not I seen Him, standing amid your crowds, yea, descending these very banks?”
The people must have turned one to another, as he spoke. What! Had the Messiah come! It could hardly be. There had been no prodigies in earth or sky worthy of his advent. How could He be amongst them, and they unaware! But it was even so, and it is so still. The Christ is in us, and with us still. There may be no transcendent symptoms of his blessed presence, as He stands in the little groups of two and three gathered in his name; but the eye of faith detects Him. Where others see only the bare cliffs of Patmos, or the mines with their gangs of convicts, the anointed gaze beholds a face brighter than the sun, the purged ear catches the accents of a voice like the murmur of waters on the still night air. Remember how He said, ”He that loveth Me shall be loved of my Father; and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him.” As the Holy Spirit revealed Him to John, so He will reveal Him to us, if only, like John, we will be content with nothing less, and wait expectant with the heart on the outlook for the manifestation of the Son of G.o.d; for so He promised, saying, ”He shall take of mine, and shall declare it unto you.” And when the child of faith speaks thus, with the accent of conviction, of what he has seen, and tasted, and handled, of the Word of life, it is not strange that the children of this world, whose eyes are blinded, begin to question and deride. What is there to be seen that they cannot see? What heard that they cannot detect? Ah, ”the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of G.o.d, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” ”There standeth One among you,” said the Baptist, ”whom ye know not.”
II. THE BAPTIST'S WITNESS TO THE LORD.--Six weeks pa.s.sed by from that memorable vision of the opened heaven and the descending Spirit, and John had eagerly scanned every comer to the river-bank to see again that divinely beautiful face. But in vain: for Jesus was in the wilderness, being tempted of the devil, for forty days and nights, the companion of wild beasts, and exposed to a very hurricane of temptation.
At the end of the six weeks, the interview with the deputation from the Sanhedrim took place, which we have already described; and on the day after, when his confession of inferiority was still fresh in the minds of his hearers, when some were criticising and others pitying, when symptoms that the autumn of his influence had set in were in the air, his eye flashed, his face lit up, and he cried, saying: ”This is He of whom I said, 'After me cometh a man who is become before me, for He was before me.' Behold the Lamb of G.o.d, which taketh away the sin of the world.”
Did all eyes turn towards the Christ? Was there a ripple of interest and expectancy through the crowd? Did any realize the unearthly beauty and spiritual power of his presence? We know not. Scripture is silent, only telling us that on the following day, when, with two disciples, he looked on Jesus as He walked, and repeated his affirmation, ”Behold the Lamb of G.o.d,” those two disciples followed Him, never to return to their old master--who knew it must be so, and was content to decrease if only _He_ might increase.
Let us notice the successive revelations which were made to John, and through him to Israel, who, you remember, held him, as they had every warrant for doing, to be in the deepest sense a prophet of the Lord.
This conviction has been definitely endorsed by succeeding ages, which have cla.s.sed him as one of the six greatest men that ever left their mark on the world.
(1) _He rightly conceived of Christ's pre-existence_. ”He was before me” (John i. 30). The phrase resembles Christ's own words, when He said: ”Before Abraham was, I am.” In John's case it developed soon after into another and kindred expression: ”He that cometh from above, is above all” (John iii. 31). With such words the Baptist taught his disciples. He insisted that Jesus of Nazareth had an existence anterior to Nazareth, and previous to his birth of the village maiden.
He recognised that his goings had been of old, even from everlasting, that He was the mighty G.o.d, the Father of the Ages, and the Prince of Peace. As for himself, he was of the earth, and of the earth he spoke; as for this One, He came from above, and was above all. It is not surprising, therefore, that one of his disciples, catching his Master's spirit, wrote: ”In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with G.o.d, and the Word was G.o.d. The same was in the beginning with G.o.d.
All things were made by Him.”
(2) _He rightly apprehended the sacrificial aspect of Christ's work_.
”Behold the Lamb of G.o.d, which taketh away the sin of the world.” Was it that his priestly lineage gave Him a special right to coin and use this appellation? It was, without doubt, breathed into his heart by the Holy Spirit; but his whole previous training, as the son of a priest, fitted him to receive and transmit it. An attempt has been made to limit the meaning of these words to the personal character of Jesus, his purity, and gentleness; but, to the Jews who listened, the latter part of his exclamation could have but one significance. They would at once connect with his words, those of the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms. ”The goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a solitary land.” ”He bare the sin of many.” ”He is led as a lamb to the slaughter.”
From the slopes of Mount Moriah, a young voice has expressed the longing of the ages, ”Behold the fire and the wood; but where is the lamb?” This has been the cry of the human heart in all generations.
From the days of Abel men have brought the firstlings of their flocks, laying them on the altar, and consuming them with fire; but there was always a sense of failure and insufficiency. Through the ages, and in every clime, priest after priest offered the lamb upon the altar, but by the very fact of continual repet.i.tion, bore witness to the insufficiency of its propitiation. ”Every priest, indeed,” is the comment of inspiration, ”standeth day by day ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, the which can never take away sins.”
Must not the hearts of hundreds of saintly priests have been filled with the same inquiry, Where is the lamb? As the prophets understood more clearly the nature of G.o.d's dealing with man--as, for instance, Micah saw that even the offering of the first-born could never atone for the sin of the soul--may we not suppose that from their lips also the same inquiry was elicited, Where is the lamb? Nature cannot answer that cry. She is fascinating, especially when she dimples with the smile of spring, and unveils her face in summer to receive the caresses of the sun. But with all her beauty and fascination she cannot answer the entreaty of the conscience that the penalty of sin may be removed, its power broken, so that man may walk with G.o.d with a fearless heart.
Animals at the best are only symbols of the complete solution to the ever-recurring problem of human sin: thus from all the ages goes forth the cry, Where is the lamb? Then from his heaven G.o.d sends forth his Son to be the sufficient answer to the universal appeal: and the heaven-sent messenger, from his rocky pulpit, as he sees Jesus coming to him, cries, ”Behold the Lamb of G.o.d, which taketh away the sin of the world.”
Dear soul, thou mayest venture on Him. He is G.o.d's Lamb; on Him the sin of our race has been laid, and He stood before G.o.d with the acc.u.mulated load--”made sin”; the iniquity of us all was laid upon Him; wounded for our transgressions; bruised for our iniquities; chastised for our peace; stricken for our transgression; bearing the sin of many.
As the first Adam brought sin on the race, the second Adam has put it away by the sacrifice of Himself. Men are lost now, not because of Adam's sin, nor because they were born into a race of sinners, but for the sin which they presumptuously and wilfully commit, or because by unbelief they contract themselves out of the benefits of Christ's death. The servant who had been forgiven by his king, but took his brother by the throat, brought back upon himself the full penalty from which the royal warrant had freed him; and if any one of us cling to sin, rejecting and trampling under foot the Saviour's work on our behalf, we cancel so far all those benefits of our Saviour's pa.s.sion which otherwise would accrue, and bring back upon ourselves the penalties from which He would fain have delivered us.
(3) _He understood the baptism of the Holy Spirit_. ”The same is He that baptizeth with the Holy Spirit.” As Son of G.o.d, our Saviour from all eternity was one with the Holy Spirit in the mystery of the blessed Trinity; but as ”the one Man,” He received in his human nature the fulness of the Divine Spirit. It pleased the Father that in Him should all the fulness of the G.o.dhead dwell, that He might be able to communicate Him to all the sons of men who were united to Him by a living faith. Thus it fell that He was able to a.s.sure his disciples that if they waited in Jerusalem for the promise of the Father, as John baptized with water, they should be baptized with the Holy Spirit (Acts i. 4, 5).
The term _baptism_, as applied to the Holy Spirit, had better be confined to those marvellous manifestations of spiritual power which are recorded in Acts ii., viii., x., xix., whilst the word _filling_ should be used of those experiences of the indwelling and anointing of the Divine Spirit which are within the reach of us all. Still, we may all adopt the words of the Baptist, and tell our living Head that we have need to be baptized of Him--need to be plunged into the fiery baptism; need to be searched by the stinging flame; need to be cleansed from dross and impurity; need to be caught in the transfiguring, heaven-leaping energy of the Holy Spirit, borne upon his bosom into the rare atmosphere where the seven lamps burn always before the throne of G.o.d. The blood of the Lamb and the fire of the Holy Spirit are thus inextricably united.
(4) _He beheld the mystery of the Holy Trinity_. For the first time this was made manifest to man. On the one hand there was the Father speaking from heaven; on the other the Spirit descending as a dove--and between them was the Son of Man who was proclaimed to be the Son of G.o.d, the beloved Son. Surely John might say that flesh and blood had not revealed these things, but they had been made known to him by a divine revelation.
The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is a profound mystery, hidden from the intellect, but revealed to the humble and reverent heart; hidden from the wise and prudent, and revealed to babes. Welcome Jesus Christ as John did; and, as to John, so the whole wonder of the G.o.dhead will be made known to thy heart. Thou wilt hear the Father bearing witness to his Son; thou wilt see how clearly the Son reveals the Father, and achieves redemption; thou shalt know what it is to stand beneath the open heaven and behold and partic.i.p.ate in the Divine anointing. Of what good is it to reason about the Trinity if thou hast no spiritual appet.i.te for the gifts of the Trinity? But if this is thine, and thou openest thine heart, thou wilt receive the gift and understand the doctrine.
(5) _He appreciated the Divine Sons.h.i.+p of Christ_. ”I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of G.o.d.” This witness counts for much. John knew men, knew himself, knew Christ. He would not have said so much unless he had been profoundly convinced; and he would not have been profoundly convinced unless irrefragable evidence had been presented to him. What though, when on the following day he repeats his exclamation, his whole congregation leaves him to follow the Man of Nazareth to his home? The heart of the Forerunner is satisfied, for he has heard the Bridegroom's voice. The Son of G.o.d has come, and has given him an understanding that he might know Him that is true.
IX.
”We must increase, but I must decrease.”
(JOHN III. 30.)
”Where is the lore the Baptist taught, The soul unswerving and the fearless tongue?