In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’
Matthew 3:1-2 NIVUK
Vanilla is one of the most popular flavours of ice cream in the world. Yet hardly any vanilla ice cream actually contains vanilla.
The reason why is very simple: the process of extracting vanilla flavouring from vanilla pods is expensive, labour-intensive and weather-dependent. So scientists have come up with an artificial flavouring that tastes exactly the same and easier to extract.
That artificial flavouring is a substance called guaiacol, a substance that comes from wood smoke and clove oil.
In other words, the blandest ice cream in the world might taste like vanilla, but it’s actually made of wood.
Even the expensive ones.
Why am I talking about ice cream?
Nowadays, there is a big push to remove the offence from as much of the written, spoken and visual media as possible. Children’s books are bring re-written – even classics.
But we should not be at all surprised.
They’ve been doing it to the Bible for generations.
Bur when you rip put of the Bible the parts that might offend, when you censor it and sanitise it, you end up with something even more bland than fake vanilla ice cream.
You end up with nothing.
I’m saying that because John the Baptist was one of the most abrasive, the most offensive and, quite frankly, the weirdest characters in all of the Bible. He was anything but bland. In fact, the Bible is clear: he was so ‘not bland’ that he was jailed and eventually executed for it.
Yet he was one of the most important characters in the New Testament and prepared the way for Jesus with his teaching.
He might have been controversial, but he was also essential.
Let’s look at four aspects of this man and see what we can learn about repentance and conversion.
The first is his location, which seems to be in the oddest of places – the wilderness:
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar – when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene – during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.
Luke 3:1-2 NIVUK
These days no-one who wants a public career will try to have it without social media. How much more so from the middle of the wilderness?
But the wilderness was John’s home – it was where he grew up (Luke 1:80). Could it be that, given the importance of their child (see Luke 1:5-25, 57-66) they moved him there for his own safety? We don’t know.
What we do know is that, due to his miraculous birth, the people were abuzz with gossip about who he could be (Luke 1:66), so it is perhaps not a surprise that they come to him in the wilderness to hear him preach – he has no need to go to them.
This already tells us two important facts about true repentance and conversion. Firstly, it is an act of the will: it is something each of us decides to do on our own. It cannot be forced, coerced or induced. It cannot take place on a community level. Like the wilderness where John lived, it is a lonely place – each of us must do it for ourselves.
Secondly, it is something we do. Yes, I know God warms our hearts to the Gospel and produces faith in us having chosen as His own. However, the emphasis here in this passage is on the actions of those who choose to believe: they go to the desert, they confess their sins, they are baptised. It is all about their actions.
So all this nonsense we often see about ‘conversion therapies’ and bullying and suchlike – I don’t doubt for a second that they take place, because even evil people can wear a religious garb. But these therapies cannot in and of themselves produce conversion to follow Jesus Christ. It is an act of the will followed up by deeds. It cannot ever be forced or coerced. If it isn’t voluntary, it isn’t real.
But that leads us on to the second seemingly unappealing facet of John’s character: his fashion.
Personally, I do not follow fashion. It’s all marketing froth. Why bother with it? It’s cyclical anyway. If you wear what you like and are comfortable in (provided it’s decent!), fashion will always catch up with you someday.
It’s good to be ahead of the fashion world, isn’t it?
But John’s clothes really stood out:
John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt round his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey.
Matthew 3:4 NIVUK
Let me tell you, for all of my middle aged reluctance, I have been to some of the most fashionable places on the planet: London, Paris, Milan, Seoul... and I have never once seen an outfit like that in a shop window.
But John wasn’t trying to set or follow a trend.
No, he was copying someone:
The prophet Elijah.
The king asked them, ‘What kind of man was it who came to meet you and told you this?’ They replied, ‘He had a garment of hair and had a leather belt round his waist.’ The king said, ‘That was Elijah the Tishbite.’
2 Kings 1:7-8 NIVUK
But why did John seem to take fashion advice from a long dead prophet?
This verse, from the very last prophecy of the Old Testament, spoken before four hundred years of Divine silence, tells us why:
‘See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.’
Malachi 4:5-6 NIVUK
This is something Jesus picked up too:
The disciples asked him, ‘Why then do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?’ Jesus replied, ‘To be sure, Elijah comes and will restore all things. But I tell you, Elijah has already come, and they did not recognise him, but have done to him everything they wished. In the same way the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.’ Then the disciples understood that he was talking to them about John the Baptist.
Matthew 17:10-13 NIVUK
John’s clothes said a lot about him as a man. Firstly, they communicated who he was not: that he was not the Messiah, which he cleared up himself anyway (John 1:19-20). But they also communicated who he was. He was not Elijah (John 1:21), but he was a prophet sent in the spirit of Elijah to prepare the way for Jesus (Matthew 3:3; Luke 3:4-6; John 1:23).
There is something else too.
Since John’s clothing marked him out as the prophet who would prepare the way for Jesus, once Jesus came his job would he done. Having prepared the way, he should get out of the way, as John himself said about Jesus:
He must become greater; I must become less.’
John 3:30 NIVUK
This is the mindset of a truly repentant and truly converted soul. Life is no longer about what we want: our hopes, our desires, our dreams. It is about God’s rule and His Kingdom. It is about following Him.
This was an intrinsic part of John’s mission.
What was that mission?
Very simple:
In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’
Matthew 3:1-2 NIVUK
His whole purpose was to lead people to repent – to do an about face and change their lives – to prepare for Jesus to come.
But why was this needed?
Simple. Have you ever seen those movies where someone is dangling off a cliff, and needs to let go of whatever it is they are holding onto so they can take a hold of the rescuer’s rope?
Repentance has that effect. We let go of the world to take a hold of Jesus. We cannot cling onto both. It just isn’t possible. This is very much a one or the other situation. John, and Jesus are both very clear on this. Repentance, and conversion, require you to recognise where your life has been going in the wrong direction and to go in the right direction.
John’s purpose was to loosen their grip on the world so they could later embrace Jesus Christ.
But I want you to see something here, and see it very, very clearly. Jesus at no point contradicted John’s ministry. He never said that John was wrong. John may have been a controversial firebrand preacher who split his people in two camps – those who followed him and those who did not – but Jesus never contradicts him. Not once.
In fact, as we will see later, Jesus Himself taught repentance. As did His followers.
That means Jesus taught that we need to recognise where we have gone wrong, express sorrow for our sins and turn away from them.
Look at the applications John outlined, which Luke picks up:
• Those who have should not hoard but share with those in need (Luke 3:11)
• Those with financial power should not exploit (Luke 3:12-13)
• Those with military power should not bully, extort or falsely accuse (Luke 3:14)
These are not ‘spiritual’. These are clear, moral and practical commands.
So the implication is that repentance must have a moral effect on our lives, otherwise it isn’t repentance.
And this is critical to see.
If we say we have repented but our life is just as it was before, then our actions make a lie of our words: it is plain that we have not repented at all. The whole purpose of repentance is not just to feel sorry, but to change.
And that is the very essence of what Christianity is about. We accept all who come, but, for their good, as well as our own, none of us stays the way we are. We all repent. We all change. We are all converted.
But what was the reaction of John’s own people to this bold and uncompromising teaching?
There are three reactions.
The first of these is acceptance.
But who was it who accepted his ministry?
(All the people, even the tax collectors, when they heard Jesus’ words, acknowledged that God’s way was right, because they had been baptised by John. But the Pharisees and the experts in the law rejected God’s purpose for themselves, because they had not been baptised by John.)
Luke 7:29-30 NIVUK
So most of the people had come out to the wilderness to be baptised in the Jordan. They came because they were sinful. They had something to confess. They had a reason to repent.
The second is indifference. The Pharisees and experts in the law were not baptised by John. And it’s plain from Matthew why this was:
But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptising, he said to them: ‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not think you can say to yourselves, “We have Abraham as our father.” I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The axe has been laid to the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
Matthew 3:7-10 NIVUK
John had little time for them. They believed they were superior to everyone else. But their confidence was false: it was based on their ancestry and their religiosity. John cuts through all of that. It is all useless. They need to repent.
But, of course, they don’t. Why would they? As far as they are concerned, they don’t need to!
And this is how people react if they feel that they come from the ‘right’ family, the ‘right’ church, the ‘right’ theology, the ‘right’ nation. Why would they need to repent? They’ve done nothing wrong! And their pedigree gives them a free box seat for eternity!
Right?
Wrong!
And that’s why they needed to repent, but didn’t.
The third is outright rejection – and violent rejection at that. It is exemplified by King Herod:
But when John rebuked Herod the tetrarch because of his marriage to Herodias, his brother’s wife, and all the other evil things he had done, Herod added this to them all: he locked John up in prison.
Luke 3:19-20 NIVUK
Herod had married his brother’s wife. Like many in a position of power, he believed that morality bent around him and he could live however he liked, without consequence. John disagreed. And that brought about his imprisonment.
Do you see any modern day parallels here?
Worse, and perhaps a little strangely, this curious prophet appears to have become a strange kind of entertainment for Herod (Mark 6:19-20). So while Herodias hated John for calling out her immoral and manipulative rise to power, Herod seems to have protected him from her.
Herodias, however, is not above using feminine wiles to get her way – in particular those of her own daughter. A combination of skilled dancing, a highly spirited Herod and a devious act from Herodias led to John being beheaded and the disembodied head being brought to Herodias’ daughter on a platter (Matthew 14:6-12; Mark 6:21-29).
John isn’t the first prophet to be treated with bemusement and befuddlement, a source of entertainment, by the higher classes to whom he speaks (see Ezekiel 33:31-32). If we come to church, hear the word preached and do nothing about it, this is how we are treating the preacher.
It is profoundly disrespectful.
And yet nowadays, when the sense of bemusement and befuddlement has gone, we are starting to see the violent reaction. We are seeing the censoring, the cancelling, the banning. And it’s for precisely the same reason as Herod had John killed: people cannot tolerate being told that they are wrong and they need to repent.
This is precisely why the doctrine of repentance and the idea of conversion is under attack nowadays. Yes, some have abused it. Yes, I don’t doubt for a second that there are some pretty wacky theories out there about how behaviour can be changed. But ultimately every Christian believes that repentance and conversion are a work of God in the heart of a person. For this to be genuine, it cannot be provoked or caused by force or coercion.
I recently read of a man who had seemingly drifted along with a number of harmful ideologies. However, in his thoroughly confused state, he was wandering through London and decided on a whim to enter a church. It was there he realised what was happening in his life and repented.
That is what repentance looks like. It is always a good thing. It is always the right thing. It is never wrong.
It should never be cancelled.
John the Baptist is one of the most important , yet also most abrasive, characters in Biblical history. He played a critical role in preparing people to receive Jesus. Luke makes this statement:
(All the people, even the tax collectors, when they heard Jesus’ words, acknowledged that God’s way was right, because they had been baptised by John. But the Pharisees and the experts in the law rejected God’s purpose for themselves, because they had not been baptised by John.)
Luke 7:29-30 NIVUK
Those who followed John, followed Jesus. Those who rejected John, rejected Jesus.
Nothing has changed. The repentance and conversion that John taught was taught consistently and unwaveringly, as we will see, by Jesus and all His followers.
The Gospel is not like a pizza. My wife sometimes orders pizza without cheese – one of the ingredients most people would think is essential for it to be pizza, particularly in Italy. But she can get it no problem in our country. However, if you remove repentance from the Gospel, it is no Gospel at all.
It is meaningless.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, I see how important the teachings of Your cousin John are to the Gospel I hold so dear. Help me to remember that there is no Gospel without repentance. Help me to repent of my sin – daily. Amen.
Questions
1. Why is it significant that people had to go to the wilderness to repent and be baptised by John? What does this tell us about repentance?
2. Why do some people reject repentance?
3. Is there anything about John's teaching that you find difficult or challenging? Why?
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