Statement of the Work of John

8. Statement of the Work of John

These passages are important because they help convey the tenor of the times and the strong belief among many Jews in the coming of an apocalyptic messiah.

First off, John is best understood as a member of the apocalyptic camp. He is preaching repentance of sins so that when judgment day comes, those that have repented are ready to rise up to heaven, while those that are unworthy “will burn up in unquenchable fire.”  This is the apocalyptic vision par excellence. (For more on the Apocalyptic vision, see Jesus’ Context.)

It also appears from this passage that John’s message is finding many receptive ears. Jews from all walks of life – soldiers, tax collectors, and “the multitudes” -- are coming to be baptized by John and asking him what they must do to be worthy of God’s grace when the judgment day comes. Even the Pharisees and Sadducees are coming to check John out, although John clearly does not see them as having much of a shot at redemption – calling them “offspring of vipers” and saying that it is not enough just to be a Jew (“We have Abraham to our father”), but that you must be a good Jew. Clearly John felt that this was criteria the Pharisees and Sadducees did not meet. 

Importantly, this passage also reveals how powerful the messianic expectation was at this time: “and all men reasoned in their hearts concerning John, whether haply he were the Christ.” John denies that role for himself, but predicts the coming of another “whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose.” In Christian theology this has been taken to be a foreshadowing of the coming of Jesus, but as we will see, Jesus fully rejects both the political and the apocalyptic visions as dangerously delusional and a threat to his peoples’ survival. 

In the last paragraph, we learn of John’s criticism of Herod for marrying his dead brother’s wife (and other trespasses, apparently), which gets him thrown into jail and eventually beheaded. 

But before that happens, Jesus has his own experience at the hands of John, in a baptism probably unlike any John had given before, or after.