Welcome to Moore in the Word, a podcast of Moore Theological College in Sydney, Australia that seeks
to glorify God through biblically sound, thought- provoking and challenging talks and interviews.
In this episode from a chapel service held on Friday the 28th of March 2025, Mark Thompson, principal
of Moore Theological College, speaks on John 1:19-34, and the message and mission of John the Baptist.
He reminds us that just like the Israelites of John the Baptist's day, we need to hear, heed and
even highlight John's testimony, for only this Lamb of God can take away the sin of the world.
We hope you find the episode helpful.
Good morning.
It's good to see you.
I'm going to pray that the Lord would give me the strength to finish this.
I woke up this morning coughing like some of you, uh, which is not good because
I'm going on a plane straight after this to preach tonight in Melbourne.
So, um, uh, we might pray if you don't mind, that the Lord would strengthen me to do that, but also enable each one of us to listen.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for your great kindness to us in giving us your word so
that we might know what you have done, what your purposes are, and how we fit in them.
And this morning we pray that you would help us to hear your voice.
Please strengthen me to speak your word in the way you want me to, and help us to listen in the way you want us to.
And this I ask in Jesus name.
Amen.
Well, it's only just, uh, five months ago that Australia welcomed King Charles III and Queen Camilla, uh, on an official visit.
To be honest, as I'm sure those of you who were here at the time will testify.
Um, it didn't really interrupt life in Sydney too much, as most of know.
The king and queen attended church on Sunday the 20th of October, and then were whisked away to a variety of, uh, places in Sydney.
I. Before, later that week, moving on to the next stop on the tour, there were the inevitable protestors.
Uh, not as many as there would've been if they had attended the cathedral as first
planned, but they were kept under control and everything went quite smoothly in the end.
But for those closer to it, there was much more involved.
Security officers swept the church before the service.
Hefty men in suits with earpieces in their ears, mingling in the crowd, and not too inconspicuously, taking up their stations at various points in
the building, helicopters flying overhead protocol officers, making clear to all and sundry what could be done and what must definitely not be done.
From the outside, the events of the tour, including attending church that day looked very smooth,
uneventful, even easy, but the preparation that had gone on to ensure it all went that way was intense.
This was the head of state after all the King of Australia here among us, and it was a very big deal.
And some of you'll know that far better than I do.
For the king didn't just slip in through the back door.
He was not incognito.
The way was smoothed for him.
Everything was calculated to focus attention on him.
A great deal of effort was expended and that visit had only been put in the king and queen's diary almost a year before.
Whether you are a monarchist or a Republican, you were forced to conclude that day that someone at least thought they were special.
As we return to John's Gospel this morning, we're caught up in preparation for a very different royal
visit, but as we saw last time, the scale is so huge, the significance of this arrival so immense.
That we can't escape the conclusion that we must pay careful attention to the one who's come long
planned, long promised, and the preparation at least centered not so much on a man as on a voice.
Take a look with me at John chapter one from verse 19.
Actually, let's start by including the references to John in the first part of the chapter that we looked at last time.
Verse six.
There was a man sent from God whose name was John.
He came as a witness in order to testify concerning the light in order that all might believe through him.
He was not the light, but he came so that he might bear witness concerning the
light, the true light, which enlightens all humankind was coming into the world.
And verse 15, John testified concerning him and cried out saying, he was the one
of whom I said, the one coming after me was before me because he is superior to me.
So at last verse 19, and this is the testimony of John, when the Jews of
Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to him to ask him, who are you, he confessed.
He did not deny, but confessed.
I am not the Christ.
They asked him, who then are you, Elijah?
He said, I am not.
Are you the prophet?
And he answered, no.
They said to him, who are you?
So that we might give an answer to those who sent us.
What do you say concerning yourself?
He said, I am a voice crying in the wilderness.
Make straight the way of the Lord.
Just as the prophet Isaiah said.
And those sent were from the Pharisees.
They questioned him and said to him, why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ nor Elijah, nor the prophet?
John answered them.
I baptize in water.
In your mid stands one you do not know the one who comes after me.
I'm not worthy of untying the sandal on his feet.
This happened in Bethany across the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
The next day, he saw Jesus coming towards him and he said, behold the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.
This is the one about whom.
I said, the man who comes after me was before me because he's superior to me and I did not know him, but in order that he might be manifest to Israel.
I came baptizing in water.
And John Bo witness saying, I saw the spirit descending as a dove from heaven, and it remained on him.
I did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize in water said to me, he upon whom you
see the spirit descending and remaining, he is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.
And I have seen, and I've testified that this is the son of God.
This morning, I want to draw your attention to just three things in this passage.
There's so much else, but just three things.
And as these things build up a picture of what was happening just then around, um, AD 29, you'll hear something that in just
one sentence seems to sum up the whole Bible and is quite simply the most wonderful thing you or anyone else will ever hear.
So let's start with shocking behavior in the desert.
We had to get quite a bit of a way through this section before we discover what this man John was doing out across the Jordan near Bethany.
We know from the very first reference to him in verses six and seven, that he came as a witness to
testify to the light, but the precise way that he was doing that is not known until we get to verse 25.
The Pharisees who had been questioning him in their exasperation, take their grilling one step
further, then why are you baptizing if you are not the Christ nor Elijah, nor the prophet?
As an aside, it's interesting to note, isn't it, that at least in educated
religious circles, there was clearly an expectation of someone great to come.
They were looking for someone for the Christ.
Elijah or the prophet, their scriptures, our Old Testament led them to expect
a deliverer to come, who in the last days would accomplish God's purposes.
And that expectations seems to have put at least some people on edge at that time.
But from their point of view to this point, John had just been fobbing them off.
He wouldn't tell them who he was.
He just kept telling them who he wasn't.
It was almost as if he was trying to keep forcing their attention away from him to someone else, but it didn't make sense to them because of what
he was doing out there alongside the river in the desert for John was baptizing calling people to come and be washed, cleansed, to make a new start.
In a sense to die and rise again.
And he appears to have been making that call indiscriminately calling people no matter who they are, to repent and to start again.
The fact is we don't know a lot, uh, about the practice of baptism before this
in Judea there were plenty of examples of ritual washings in the Old Testament.
Perhaps the example of name in the Syrian stands out in two Kings.
Five.
He was a soldier in the king of Syria's army who had leprosy, and Elisha instructed him to wash in the Jordan seven times and he was cleansed.
There are examples too, of being immersed in the water as a form of judgment and coming outta the water.
In a new beginning, the prophet Jonah comes to mind.
When the sailors realized that Jonah's rebellion is what had put their ship in danger, they eventually hurled him into the waves, and
it's only after he was submerged, swallowed by the huge sea creature and spat out back on land that Jonah's new life of obedience began.
Jonah arose and went to Nineva.
The point is that John appeared to be saying that everyone needs to be cleansed.
That everyone faces judgment and needs to begin a new life.
And that was scandalous.
The Gentile sinners?
Yeah, maybe, but not the Jews, not the children of Abraham.
John was calling all to be baptized in preparation for something astonishing about to be revealed.
Get ready now.
He was saying repent.
You all need a new start.
You all stand under judgment and you need to be rescued.
But by what authority was he doing this?
Who did he think he was?
Could it be that he was one of those?
They had been expecting doing something unexpected in the wilderness.
Friends, the message of universal sin, we've all been caught up in it, not just them.
And universal accountability.
There is a judgment coming.
We must all face and you need to seek out the rescuer.
Now, that has never been a popular message.
It involves facing up to something about ourselves that we do not really want to face up to.
It means acknowledging we are lost and cannot remedy the situation ourselves.
We need to be rescued.
And some people, I dare say most people find that message offensive, and even some who call themselves Christian, find that message offensive.
John, as I said, did not answer the question of the Pharisees.
He refuses to focus attention on himself, not the Christ, not Elijah, not the prophet.
Not one of those extraordinary, highly significant figures you've been expecting.
Only a voice long promise.
Yes, back in Isaiah 40, no less, but still just a voice.
The voice of one crying in the wilderness makes straight the way of the Lord.
There was a painting, which through my lack of technological skill, um, did not end up being flushed up as you were coming in this morning.
But there it is.
It's the famous crucifixion by Mathias Grenald, who put tries to put this truth visually, John
the Baptist, standing over at the side pointing away from himself, uh, to the one who's crucified.
And just as a bit of a spoiler, the lamb standing at his feet.
The shocking thing being done in the desert was not about John in the end, but about the one he came to testify about.
I'm pretty sure John could have Grandstanded, um, he could have spoken about himself in grandiose terms.
Jesus appears to suggest that that might even be justified when he spoke about John the Baptist in Matthew 11.
No one greater than John.
Amongst those born of women, a prophet and more than a prophet.
But John knew that his role was to point beyond himself to the one who came after him.
Now, his was a unique testimony given to him, but in another sense, a testimony to Jesus.
Points beyond ourselves to him is the joyful responsibility of every Christian said the 20th century Swiss theologian.
Carl Bart had a print of that painting above his desk as he worked on his monumental church dogmatics.
He was meant to remind him that in everything he wrote, he needed to be pointing not to himself or anyone else.
Only to the crucified and risen savior.
So John's baptizing ministry was the vehicle of his testimony.
But did you notice it's content?
The second thing I want to say, testimony in the desert,
these verses are a masterpiece of compressed communication.
Did you notice how many different things are said about Jesus in the space of so few verses?
Even though at first glance this is really all about John the Baptist.
In verse seven, we're told that he came as a testimony concerning the light.
His ministry was a preparation, and we are told it was a preparation for the
true light that shines on the whole human race and was coming into the world.
Jesus, the light of the world, Jesus, the one who reveals the hidden secrets of the human heart.
But who shines light into the darkness and extinguishes it not the other way around.
In verse 15, John testifies that the one to come very literally came after him, but he was before him.
Prior to him, superior to him.
The new beginning about to dawn was not the absolute beginning.
There is no absolute beginning.
So the one who from eternity was with God and was God.
John May only just now have appeared doing what he was doing in the wilderness, but the one who came after him is prior to him in every way.
And then in verses 26 and 27, John testifies to the one they did not know, though he stands in the midst of them.
The one whose sandals he, John, is unworthy to untie.
I'm sure you realize how degrading a thing it is, uh, to untie the dirty putrid sandals or someone who's been
walking all day in the fields or in the village streets with all their mud and filth and goodness knows what else.
But even more so in John's context.
According to Jewish law, a Jew could not force another Jew to ue his sandals.
Even a Jewish slave to do that would be to say something ugly and demeaning about your fellow Israelites.
A gentile slave might be forced to do it, perhaps just perhaps, but not a Jew.
And here John says, I am not worthy to untie this one sandals.
Untying, his sandals would be to give me too much honor.
He is so immeasurably greater than I could ever be.
It would be an honor beyond my station to untie his sandals, no matter how much mud and dirt and filthy caked on them.
And a day later in verse 29.
It's the lamb, the one true sacrifice, the the fulfillment of the Passover story.
Verse 32, the one on whom the spirit descended and remained the anointed one.
The Christ who, because of this is identified as the one who baptizes with the Holy
Spirit and the testimony that brings it all to an almost deafening crescendo in verse 34.
And I have seen, and I have testified that this is the son of God.
In the context of this whole chapter, the word is the only begotten son of God so much packed into
these few verses, his surpassing majesty and glory, his transforming power, his saving sacrifice.
John's testimony was the final preparation for a visit incomparably greater than that of any earthly king.
What he wanted to make known was not who he was, but who was coming after him, and how much more significant, how much more glorious he was and is.
It's a testimony that we need to hear and heed and in our own time to Harold.
But one of those things John said is in a real and very exciting way, a summary of the entire Bible.
And that is what takes us to our third and final observation, shocking behavior in the desert, testimony in the desert, and a savior in the desert.
You see, back in the beginning, following the sin of our first parents in the Garden of Eden, turning aside
from God's word, trusting the word of another, grasping at the right to determine everything for themselves.
God had made a promise.
A descendant of the woman Eve, our mother, the de, the descendant of the woman would crush the descendant of the serpent who had deceived her.
One would come, who would undo that catastrophe, set things right, defeat the enemy, and restore not only the human creation, but the whole universe.
He would come who would triumph in ways beyond all imagining.
And the grief and shame and guilt and corruption and death would be dealt with forever.
And so as we read our Bibles, we turn the page and eagerly await the son to be born of the woman.
And we read of a son being born.
Is it him?
Will he undo what was done in the garden?
Will he free us from everything that opposes us?
But within a few verses, we discover he's a murderer.
The only other option is the one who he has murdered.
So we turn the next page and we read of Seth.
Perhaps he's the one, but all we hear of him is that he has children and then he dies and we turn the
page again and we, we come across someone much more likely Enoch walks with God, but then God took him.
He was not.
So we keep turning.
Is it Noah, the righteous man who with his family has kept safe in the flood,
but he ends his life drunk and disgraced, then Abram, but promising as he seems.
He ends his life with a divided family in land.
He does not own.
We keep turning Joseph?
No, he dies in Egypt.
Moses?
No, he dies outside the promised land.
Is it Joshua?
No.
Is it Saul?
Definitely not.
Is it David?
The loved one who's also a war monger and an adulterer?
Is it one of his descendants?
No.
In one way or another.
Every Jewish king as a disappointment, and we keep turning, keep looking.
The search does not stop.
Until John the Baptist stands knee deep in the Jordan sticks out his bony index
finger and says, behold the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.
You see, ever since the fall in the garden, we've been waiting for this moment.
The whole Bible has been waiting for this moment, and the only one who can do
anything about the root cause of every problem in the world has that last come.
What you need and what I need more than anything else.
The rescuer who does not disappoint and does what needs to be done so that you and I can be given the authority to
be called children of God, the only savior of the world, the only name given under heaven by which we must be saved.
He's here at last.
Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
They are truly wonderful words when you think about, it sounded for us by the voice, just a voice.
John the Baptist came to prepare the way, but the one for whom he was doing, this is the one we must be focusing on.
So have you run to him as we're going to find out next time.
John's disciples did the next day.
When John repeated his testimony and said, behold the lamb of God, have you run to him?
Are you constantly echoing John's testimony, pointing people to this only hope?
Are you like John, vague about yourself, but crystal clear about this one, the one that really matters
involved, um, painted that painting.
John the Baptist, standing there pointing to the Christ, the lamb dying on the cross for sin.
Um, but is said to have said, uh, that prodigious index finger pointing at the sun.
We have no business pointing anywhere else, but we don't really need the painting, do we?
We just need the voice.
Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,
shall we pray?
Father, we often sing that all creation weights with bated breath for the coming of its deliverer and he has come.
We thank you for that.
And we pray that you might give to us in our time, in our own special way, the courage, the grace,
the clarity, the passion to point to him as the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
Please do that in each one of us.
We pray For Jesus' sake.
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