Dennis Tuuri

John 1:19-28

Our subject is John’s good confession. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

John 1:19-28. Now this is the testimony of John. When the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” He confessed and did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Christ.” And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” And he answered, “No.” Then they said to him, “Who are you that we may give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself? He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord, as the prophet Isaiah said. Now those who were sent were from the Pharisees. And they asked him, saying, Why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the prophet? John answered them, saying, I baptize with water. But there stands one among you whom you do not know. It is he who coming after me is preferred before me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to lose. These things were done in Bethany beyond the Jordan where John was baptizing.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your most delightful and efficacious word. We thank you for the wondrous gift of your Holy Spirit that takes these things of Jesus and writes them upon our hearts. We do pray that as we have convocated together to be fed by your word that you would do this. Lord God, open this text for understanding that we might be transformed and glorify our father in heaven. In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

1 Timothy 6:12, fight the good fight of faith. Lay hold on eternal life to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. Our topic today is the good confession and specifically we’ll look at John’s good confession.

We’re working our way through the Gospel of John and it has been a delight. I wanted to thank you all so much for allowing me the great and high privilege and the joy to study God’s word week by week and to share this word with you. It has been a delight again this week to study this portion of scripture and to come to a fuller understanding of it. And we pray today that God might use me in some way to encourage your understanding of this text, joy in it as well as the commitment it definitely calls forth from us.

If you’re visiting with us today, please feel encouraged to fill out the visitor cards that were given to you in the brochure introducing you to Reformation Covenant Church and to leave those in the pew so that we can follow up with you and that would be helpful to us and hopefully to you as well.

Children, you know that at the top of every children’s outline, we have this mission statement. And today we’re going to talk about John’s good confession to the end. And here’s the mission for today’s text. Children, our mission is to deny ourselves and follow Jesus. To deny ourselves and follow Jesus. And probably little children, you don’t know what that means yet, but hopefully by the end of the sermon, you’ll understand this mission a little bit better and you’ll know that’s what you’re called to do as children and rejoice in. And that’s what your parents are called to as well.

I don’t want to move away from what we talked about last week without asking you if you’ve applied yourself to the truths of God’s word. It does no good to come here week after week and increase our intellectual knowledge if we’re not moving in the context of the power of the word of God ministered to us by the Holy Spirit on the basis of Christ’s work to see ourselves transformed and to go from glory to glory.

The Lord God worked in my life. I know this last week in terms of this basic understanding of the relationship of father and son that permeates the book of John. The importance of fatherhood, the importance of seeing ourselves as children of God being so critical to who we are as Christians, the importance of mirroring the relationship between father and son. The son in John 1 verse one, the word is with God. The word always is moving toward God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ is the son who is in the bosom of the father. There in verse 18 at the capstone, the other book end as it were of the prologue, we saw Jesus also actively being in the context of close relationship to the father.

And I was struck by the Holy Spirit, my conviction that if this is the relationship we want to see in our homes, if this is the relationship that I want to see be seen myself and my children, that I have to image the Holy Father, the heavenly father in his approachability. And within a 24-hour span, God’s spirit brought to mind three specific illustrations, my inapproachability to my own children all too often. Too busy, too upset about this, that or the other thing. And they sense these things and they don’t draw near and they end up doing things, trying to do them on their own, which is good and proper for them to do as they mature, but you want this relationship.

So, dads, if your children are not in your bosom, as it were, if they’re not moving toward you in terms of relationship, if they’re not seeking your counsel and guidance, then make sure that you don’t judge them before you judge yourself and take the beam out of your own eye and mirror the heavenly father and his deep and abiding love for his son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Children, you’re not off the hook. If you have fathers that are unapproachable, your job is to image the Lord Jesus in terms of his sonship. Your job is to seek relationship with your father and mother, to be close to them throughout the rest of your life and certainly while you’re under their care.

And I would ask you this last week, how did you do? Benjamin Franklin had a list of 13 virtues by which he was going to transform his life. He had 12. And a friend said, well, seems kind of prideful. So he added a 13th virtue of humility to make sure he wouldn’t become prideful. And in his mid-20s, he began this project that went on the entire life. He apparently always kept this list of 13 virtues in his pocket. And for the first decade or two of his life, every day, he would record how well he did in terms of developing these virtues in his life. And some he was quite good at developing and others he didn’t do as well at.

Well, I would ask you to evaluate how well you are doing as parents in terms of your love, guidance, direction, approachability, firm but good counsel to your children and children, how well did you do this last week in seeking out your parents? We should be approachable fathers and we should be courageous children who even sometimes when our fathers don’t seem approachable yet our very approaching of our fathers can be the thing that moves them to repentance for their difficulties.

Courageous sons and approachable fathers. And we use the male sense here in the covenantal sense. Approachable fathers and mothers and courageous sons and daughters. And these things are possible for us to see and to work toward, not because we have some great internal discipline or strength, but because the Lord Jesus Christ has come to bring salvation to us. In the fallen state, we’re estranged from fathers and sons. John the Baptist’s mission was to bring this reconciliation, the turning of the father’s hearts to the children, the children to the fathers. The father forgives us because of the work of the son. And so we seek these kinds of relationships and development through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Today we move on out of the prologue finally and we get into the actual narrative structure of this gospel. And one thing I want to point out here is that as we go from glory to glory, there’s a sense in which these gospels build one upon the other as well. And when we get to the story of John the Baptist in John chapter 1, we’re not given a lot of the details that were given in the synoptic gospels—that’s Matthew, Mark, Luke—which have kind of one view of things. Synoptic means one view. We’re not given a lot of the details that were given in the other three gospels because we’re supposed to have already read those. You know, the gospels are written in a sequence and I believe the sequence they are in our scriptures is the sequence they were written and the sequence by which they’re to be studied and understood.

So maybe I should have started with Matthew. We started with John, but we have to understand that there’s this building relationship. At the end of the Gospel of Luke, as an example of this, and we won’t go through all four gospels, but at the end of the Gospel of Luke, there are two instances. We all know, or at least those of us who’ve been Christians very long, we love that story about the road to Emmaus after the resurrection of our savior. And he walks along with a couple, and you know, I’ve always thought of that as two men, but I’ve told maybe it might be a man and a woman, I don’t know, a family. But he walks along with a couple and they don’t know who he is. And he tells them all about how the Old Testament was fulfilled in Jesus and how Jesus had to die and be raised back up because they’re distressed and they don’t know who he is.

And then they get to where they’re going and he has dinner with them and as he eats with them, he reveals to them who he is. And then they say, “Well, weren’t our hearts burning on the road as he explained the scriptures to us?” Of course, this was the Savior.

And then Luke goes on. The next section as the gospel comes to a close, Jesus then appears to the disciples and says peace. His constant word of greeting as he comes in his resurrection. It’s the word he gives to us today. Peace be unto you. Do not be fearful. I’m on your side as it were. I brought you into relationship with the father through my work. And then he tells them again the same basic truth that the Old Testament is filled with references to him. I’m going to read verse 44. He says to them, these are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law and the prophets and the psalms concerning me. And he opened their understanding that they might comprehend the scriptures.

Now that’s a double repetition of a theme at the end of the gospel of Luke that gets us ready for the gospel of John. How many times have you said, if you’ve heard the road to Emmaus preached, “Oh to be a fly on the wall” where that conversation is going on. “Oh, I wish I could have overheard that.” He wets our appetite. Luke does. And we get to the Gospel of John and he does just that. He explains to us how the Savior fulfills all these messages of the Old Testament. That’s why we spent so much time so far looking at the creation week and the tabernacle week and touching on the festivals and talking about Moses as a mediator and the grace and truth that Moses got preached and then Jesus comes in the fuller fashion.

So what we expect to see in John are a whole plethora of quotations from the Old Testament or citations of it, allusions to it that we might come to a fuller grasp of this Jesus that we’ve already kind of read about in the synoptic gospels.

I guess what I’m saying is the gospel of John is not primarily a tract written to evangelize. It is written that you might believe and that believing you might have life, but that tense I believe is ongoing belief that your belief in the Lord Jesus Christ might deepen as a result of this gospel. And that your life might fruit out as it were fruits of the spirit and might come to greater joy as we understand the unity of God’s word focused on the person and work of Jesus.

All right, so let’s look at this narrative structure and what I’ve got in your outline here. Number one is the context for John’s good confession. The context and what you’ve got here are my next five sermons. Now in April 1st, Elder Chris W. will be speaking on the covenant of God. He’ll be speaking on oath that portion of the covenant. But my next five sermons are really going over this single unit, the next unit of these scriptures.

In verse 19, we begin to see now the story and we read that this is the next day. And there are these day references that will go on throughout these next few verses. So I believe that chapter 1 verse 19 through 2:11 is a unit together and chapter 2 is the wedding at Cana and it begins by saying on the third day. So we have all these day references that link this text of scripture verse 19 to 2:11 together as a unit. Okay.

And at the end of that unit, what does Jesus do at Cana? Well, he turns the water into wine. But something more important than that. It says that he began to manifest his glory. He begins to manifest his glory. When John cites Isaiah 40, which he does in this text we’ll get to at the end of the sermon, he says he’s the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Well, if you go back to Isaiah 40, verse 5 says that voice crying in the wilderness is preparing the people for the coming of the glory, the revelation of the glory of God.

So this whole thing is a unit where John begins to cry out in the wilderness preparing us for the revelation of Christ’s glory, the beginning manifestations of it at Cana of Galilee. So this is a unit and it’s a unit I believe about discipleship. Today we’re going to see John’s good confession, a denial of certain things. Next week, and it’s marked off in the text by these literary markers, so we’re not just—I’m not making this up.

Verse, you know, the next section begins with a time reference, the next day. And the next passage of scripture for next Lord’s Day, John makes his proclamation that this is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And he saw the spirit descending on him as a dove and he is the Son of God. So the disciple begins by denying himself. I’m not Messiah. And the disciple moves on, as John is a picture of it to us, and then declaring who Jesus is. He’s the Lamb of God. He takes away the sins of the world. He’s the Son of God. He’s the new creation as the dove indicates a picture of the greater movement through the flood and destruction of the world in sin and then the new world coming about through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So you’ve got to know who you aren’t and who you are. And secondly, you’ve got to know who Jesus is. This is what being a disciple is.

And then the next section of this narrative structure in 3:34-42, again marked by a specific time reference, another day, you have to know what to seek. Jesus is going to ask some of John’s disciples, what do you seek? Red letter Bible comes in handy here. We don’t normally like it. The whole Bible is Jesus’s words. But it’s significant, I think, that Jesus’s first words in the Gospel of John don’t come till way into the first chapter. And his first words are, “What do you seek?” What do you seek today? Well, we’ll talk about that in a couple of weeks. A disciple has to know what to seek.

And then fourth, a disciple has to know who to follow. Jesus tells the next set of disciples in the next section here, verses 43 to 51, Follow me. Follow me. A disciple has to know who to follow.

And then finally the disciple and again this literary unit is broken up in the third day but it’s still in a sequence of days. The culmination of this whole pattern here beginning at verse 19 is entering into the joy that comes at the wedding feast at Cana. Wine. Wine that makes your heart happy and glad. Not grape juice. Not grape juice. Wine. Joy. The wedding. Joy exacerbated by the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So Jesus is announced here in these in our text today. He’s pointed out by John next week the Lamb of God. He is followed by four specific disciples. Two in the context of Judea, two in the context of Galilee. I’ve noted that in your outline here. He’s followed and then he’s rejoiced in. If we see Jesus and understand who he is and follow after him, we enter into this wonderful joy of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that really kind of caps off this first beginning section.

And I’ve got a note there for those of you now, you know, if you don’t have to listen to this, but for those of you who want to do study on their own as to where we’re going in this sequence. There’s also a relationship between the unit of chapter 2:1 and the end of chapter 4. At the end of chapter 4 Jesus heals a nobleman’s son and it tells us twice and concludes the account by saying that he did this second miracle in Cana where he made the water into wine. So there’s a unit there as well and you can almost look at this gospel of John as being two parts. He came to those who were his own and they didn’t receive him. But as many as received him, that’s these disciples here. Then he gave the right to become children of God.

The power, the manifestation of power. Well, in a way, you can make it a three-part book and say that the first four chapters is this revelation of Jesus because there’s really not a lot of opposition. It’s hinted at here in our text today, but the first four chapters is the revelation of Jesus. And then in chapters 5-12 is the real rejection of him by the Jews—so-called in this book. And then finally in chapters 13-21 is the reception of him.

For those of you who want to do study in preparation for this series, that’s one of the outlines we’ll be using.

So what does John 1:19 through 2:11 teach us? This whole unit we’ve just spoken of. What does it teach us? It teaches us how to be a good disciple. And this series has started today, then—this series on how to be a good disciple.

I also, for those of you who want to continue to think through the 7-day model we’ve pointed out for you, you know, Jesus is light in the prologue. And now this next section, John comes to baptize people and then there’s a lot of water references for a great many chapters here. Purification is going on. The creation. What happens on day one of creation, children? What’s made on day one? And God said, “Let there be light.” And then on day two, God puts the first firmament and he separates the waters above from the waters below. The firmament is like almost like a hard shell around the earth. There’s waters above, waters below. And those heavenly waters are what’s going to be required after the fall to come down and cleanse men of their sins.

And so this whole section we’re embarking on now in verse 19, John comes to cleanse people of their sins and to prepare them for Christ. And so Jesus turns purification water into wine. Jesus cleanses the temple. And even the healing of the nobleman’s son is in Cana where the water was turned into wine. All these water references predominate in this section. Water and cleansing. We’re into the second day of creation as it were.

Now the second day of creation, this firmament makes a separation or division as well. Okay. And if we look at the feasts of feasts in Leviticus 23, it begins with the Sabbath, the day of light. And the second feast in Leviticus 23 is Passover. God comes to pass over some people and to destroy others. The firmament separation of waters above and waters below after the fall is seen in terms of two kinds of people. So right here in this account that we just read from John 1:19 and following, we’ve got two kinds of people. We’ve got the disciples and then we got the rejecters of Jesus.

So right away this theme of those who are his own don’t receive him, but there are those that do receive him. So this separation, this division is announced as well.

All right. So let’s begin to talk then, now having looked at the context of this John’s good confession, let’s look now at the occasion of John’s good confession. And again here the gospel of John assumes you know something about John the Baptist or John the Baptizer because you’ve read the synoptics and you know your scriptures. You know John’s a priest. You do know that, right? He’s in the Aaronic priesthood and you know that his washing then should be understood unless the text tells us something else. It ought to be thought of in terms of some sort of priestly washing.

Now you might have heard about proselyte baptism of Gentiles. Forget that notion when it comes to the gospel of John. They don’t even know and the likelihood is it wasn’t even going on yet at this point in time historically—it happened a couple generations, a couple centuries later—so just forget that. What the text tells us is this is John the priest, this is John the Aaronic priest here, one of the priestly family and he’s doing a washing. Hebrews 9:10 tells us there’s only two kinds of sacraments in the Old Testament. There are food and drink. Hebrews 9:10 says and washings and it says both of these are fleshly ordinances imposed until the time of reformation.

This is the old end of that. This is the last John’s baptism as it were of that washing that was a fleshly ordinance imposed until the time of the reformation when Jesus comes, who is what all these things point to. John’s going to go to the labor—remember we talked about the baptismal font. He’s going to go to the labor and he’s been baptizing people. Well, what’s he doing? Well, we’ve got a clamshell. Is there a clamshell up there? Yeah. Okay, that’s what John did. I don’t know about a clam shell, but he’s in that Jordan River wherever he found water. He’s pouring water from above on people’s heads. He’s not immersing them. There’s no reason in the New Testament to think he’s immersing them.

The only reason why people thought early on because they didn’t in the times of pre-Reformation, they didn’t know the Greek that well. And they thought that the word baptizo always meant to immerse. Well, it didn’t by the time of the writing of the New Testament. Several centuries before that it began with that. But by the time of the New Testament, the word just meant to put something in contact with something. You could tie dye a shirt and in the Greek say you baptized it. Okay? You could take a shirt and pour dye over the top of it, changing the quality of it, and you’ve baptized it.

And in fact, we read in the gospels that the Pharisees like to baptize couches, chairs, tables, all kinds of things. Now, they didn’t immerse that stuff. Okay? So the word itself doesn’t necessarily mean immerse and John is a priest and if he was immersing people his questions I think would have been a little different. They don’t say what are you doing dunking people. They say why are you washing people. We know you’re a priest. We know you’re supposed to wash. But why are you doing it now? What washing are you applying to these people?

So the context here is as we understand that John is an Old Testament priest and he’s going to do one of these two ordinances—food and drink, and cleansing ordinances of Hebrews 9 chapter 10. And they’re wondering what’s going on.

Now he is applying this water to all kinds of people, including Jews. Now we know from Ezekiel 36:25, Ezekiel said, “I’ll sprinkle clear water, clean water upon you, and you shall be clean.” Isaiah 52:15 says that he shall sprinkle many nations. Zechariah 13:1 says that on that day there should be a fountain open for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness.

Now, this is what John is doing. And if we would have read the synoptics and the depiction of what John was doing, we’d bring all this stuff into this passage. But because this is the capstone gospel, you’re assumed to know all these things already—that John is coming and he’s not just sprinkling the nations. That would have been one thing, but what they’re concerned about is he’s sprinkling Jews. He’s sprinkling and cleansing the nation, the holy nation. And he’s doing the only kind of washing, you know, he’s not telling people, “Go get washed.” He’s doing it for them.

And the only Old Testament priestly washing I know of that the priest did for someone else was the washing from leprosy. So it seems like what John is doing here, and we’ll get this—we’ll talk about this again at the end of the text—is he’s saying this nation is leprous. We’ve got to be born again of water and the spirit. Jesus is going to come baptizing of the spirit. I’m baptizing. We’ve got to be born again. We’re dead in our sins and trespasses. We’ll talk about it now. It’s going to talk about it later, but it’s okay.

Where is he? Geography is an important part of the gospels. Where is John? Well, he’s in Bethany, but he’s not in Bethany this side of the Jordan. He’s at some place beyond the Jordan. He’s on the other side of the Jordan. Now it tells us that at the end of this section, the last verse we read in the text. Why does it tell us that? Because that’s where he is. He’s outside of the promised land. He’s taking people back through the Jordan through a washing to remove their deadness, their leprous condition. That’s what John is doing.

So that’s the context. That’s what you’ve got to know coming into this. And now the occasion. Now is a trial. Well, there’s no trial going on, Dennis. Well, it sort of is. The entire gospel of John—this is the beginning of what will be a number of references. We get this back and forth going on between the Jews and Jesus or his people. The whole gospel of John is permeated with trial language. So when we get down to the actual trial of Jesus during Passion Week, and by the way, we’ll talk about Passion week as we get there in relationship to the creation week as well. But when we get down to the passion week, the actual trial narrative in this gospel is somewhat short. It’s still there, but it’s somewhat short. Why? Because the whole gospel has been a trial narrative.

We right away are given the two parties that we were talked about in the prologue: his own, the Jews. You know, the term Jew is used 71 times in this gospel, five or six in each of the other gospels. I mean, it just stands out. Why? Because they’re his own. The term Jew came from Judah, the tribe of Judah. Then it meant Judea, the tribe where the place, the geography where Judah lived. And so the Jews were the promised people. Judah means to praise God. We’re supposed to praise him. The Jews are his own people. They should be singing Alleluia. He returns. But they don’t.

They send out a trial group to investigate his herald John the Baptist. So the two part properties here are given to us right away. See, a trial is going on. They’re asking questions. They don’t like him. They’re trying to figure out how can they hang this guy and what is he up to? You’ve got trial language. You’ve got the antithesis, the enmity between the two seeds, the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent is placed into this. St. Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland. Were they real snakes or were they just bad guys? Both, probably. Certainly bad guys is the greater picture. When you evangelize a nation, you drive out the bad people.

And so here we’ve got the two seeds being manifested to us in this trial, this interrogation as they come to him, begin to question him. These men that talk to him are sent to him. Says that now this is the testimony of John when the Jews sent priests and Levites. Well, you remember in chapter 1 verse 6 rather that John is sent as a witness to Jesus. So you’ve got these two parties. Both are sent from somebody. John’s sent to be a witness. He’s sent from the Father, sent from God. And these are sent from the Jews, the representatives of the unbelieving nation.

And these sent ones represent the societal, educational and ruling elites. Big words. Just means the robed authorities in culture. Societal, the priestly guys. You know, we don’t wear robes, but you know, many clergy do. And certainly in the Old Testament, the priests were robed differently. Everybody was robed differently. Your garments tended to say something about you. And guys that wore robes were priests, teachers in the synagogues, and judges. Okay?

So you’ve got the priestly class, the educational class, and the ruling class represented here. And we’re actually told here that’s who these guys are because we’re told in verse 19 that the Jews, that’s the summary group, sent priests and Levites. Now, priests are Levites, too. But when they’re put this way, priests and Levites, remember, Levites are all that special tribe dedicated as servants under the old covenant. And some of those Levites are Aaronic. They come from Aaron’s physical lineage and they’re the priestly Levites. The rest of the Levites were to teach God’s people the word of God. They were the teachers of the scriptures. They taught in synagogue. That’s what the Levites were. They were the instructors and they were instructors of everything in the context of a culture.

So when we say priests and Levites, we’re talking about the guys in church and the guys in school in the synagogue school. And then toward the end of the text, verse 24, look at verse 24. Now those who were sent were from the Pharisees. Who are the Pharisees? Well, they’re the conservative class and they’re the ones who are probably representing here the Sanhedrin, the ruling authority, which at this point in time had 71 members that we know from textual evidence. This Sanhedrin, the ruling authority in all of Israel was the Sanhedrin.

So the Pharisees represent the ruling body of the Sanhedrin and they’re the ones who commission these priests and Levites. So we have represented here the fullness of his own. His own are the clergy, the teachers, and the rulers. And they’re all out here hassling his herald. They’re all rejecting him in essence already. And we’ll see this rejection, this warfare goes on for the rest of the gospel.

Now, it’s interesting that the Sanhedrin did have 71 members because that’s exactly how many times the word Jew is used in the Gospel of John. The Jews, you know, people wonder why what is this term? What does it mean by the Jews in the gospel? Why is it used so often? And I don’t know all the answer to that. Some people think that it really is to indicate the southern part. Jerusalem is in Judea and Jesus is up from Galilee. So you’ve got kind of a north south thing going. And it is true that Jerusalem is now the place—it is the apostate church. And so, but in any event, we know that the Jews speaks of the fullness of the people of his own who would reject him.

Well, John, they come to John and they question him and they come as representatives of all the people. These are sent ones and they are those who represent the robed authorities in the context of the land. So that’s the occasion of John’s good confession. Who came to ask John the Baptizer questions? Priests and Levites, children, priests and Levites came to him. Who sent the priests and Levites to question him? The Jews and the Pharisees. The Jews and the Pharisees.

All right, that’s the occasion of the good confession. Now let’s look at the self-denials of a good confession. They say to him, “Who are you? Who are you?” It’s a good thing to ask yourself that today. Who are you today as you come forward to worship God. And John replies to three specific questions.

And the setup for this is verse 20. Well, actually verse 19 says, “This is the testimony of John.” Okay? So we’re going to read a Christian’s testimony. We’re not just going to read any Christian’s testimony and confession. We’re going to read the first disciple of Jesus given to us in the Gospel of John. And it’s not just the first disciple. Jesus tells us that John is the greatest of all the Old Testament saints. Do you think we can look to John the Baptist for a model of what we’re to be like in our confession and testimony? I think we can. He’s an example to us. This is his testimony.

Verse 20 really nails this home. He confessed. He did not deny, but confessed thrice. Three-fold repetition of the same idea. What is John’s good confession in the first place in this gospel? John’s confession is a denial of himself. I think that’s very significant. And we’ll see that this is the same thing that Jesus says to his disciples. What are you supposed to do as a disciple in Matthew? Deny yourself. Take up your cross. Follow me.

John the Baptist gives us deny yourself here. Move in terms of a knowledge who Jesus is and your relationship to him, follow after him. But it begins with denying yourself. And that’s what John does here. His good confession that he witnesses is a denial of his own abilities or powers.

They and he denies, confesses, “I am not the Christ.” They asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” And he answered, “No.” His denials get shorter and shorter. You see that? I’m not the Christ. Are you Elijah? I am not. Are you the prophet? No. He spends less and less time dialoguing with enemies of Christ.

I thought of, you know, R.J. Rushdoony. God bless his soul, rest his soul and may he be entering into the joy of the Savior. Maybe he’s with us today as we worship looking down from heaven. I thought of what he said years ago. One of the most things I’ve remembered for years. You don’t argue with sin. You declare it to be such. You don’t spend your life trying to wrestle people into the kingdom. That’s antinomianism. It’s thinking that we can somehow control things. You speak the word of God to the situation.

In this case, his denials are quite short. And he says, “I’m not the Christ.” Well, who was the Christ? The Christ was the anointed one. Christ means anointed one. Jesus Christ is the savior king. And John begins by answering their query that he is not the savior king.

And on your outline, what I say is you are not the savior king. If there’s anything the United States needs to hear from this gospel and this message today is that the people of this country are not the saviors of the world. There is another will. It gets so tiring. Two weeks ago I found out that a bill co-signed by 30 Oregon state representatives, a number of Republicans trying to lower the compulsory attendance age for public schools from seven down to five in Oregon.

Do I want to go down and testify? No, I really don’t. And I didn’t, but a lot of homeschoolers did. Article in the Oregonian about it and the Republicans, oh, okay, gee, we didn’t know you weren’t in favor of that. Maybe we’ll not get this passed. So I don’t think it’s a big problem, but you see how it shows the mind set. The only thing that these representatives who are not going to do this are responding to is you know political force being wielded against them.

Now maybe some of them heard the good arguments—the children don’t belong to the state, they belong to the parents, etc. But you see this country has for many years thought that education was salvation. They think the state can produce cradle to grave security, womb to the tomb for all its citizens. That’s not the state’s job. And the state needs to say, when people say, “Well, are you the savior of the world?” No, we’re not the saviors. No, no. In heaven, no, Jesus is savior. We’ve got a role in what he wants to do, but we’re not the savior. And you need to say the same thing.

Why do we get so upset about circumstances? Why do we get frustrated and anxious? Because we think that somehow through our efforts and our abilities, we can bring salvation to a situation. We need first and foremost as disciples to say that, you know, we’re as nuts as Nebuchadnezzar if we think we’re sovereign or we can bring salvation to ourselves, our family, our church. No, we’re as crazy as Nebuchadnezzar.

And God had the grace to show Nebuchadnezzar that he was crazy. We have him crawling on his hands and his fingernails grow long and he eats grass. You know, he’s an animal. And in the providence of God, he’s the savior king, not us. That’s the beginning of Christian discipleship because apart from Christ, apart from the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, we want to run the world. A nice rock song about that. Everybody wants to rule the world. And we have to say, come to think of it, we’re not the Christ. We’re not the savior for ourselves. Our good works can’t do it. Our abilities, we can’t save our children. Our children, they must be brought to the same denial of themselves as savior.

He was. So what did John say he wasn’t? He was not Messiah. He was not Messiah. He was not Elijah and he was not the prophet.

Now I’ve got a little thing here that I don’t know if this is right or not but by way of application it’s right. I put secondly you are not the priest. Now Elijah was a prophet but at Mount Carmel he acted the role of a priest, right? Remember, he’s with the prophets of Baal and two bulls and they can’t get their bull to be lit up by God. And Elijah douses his bull and all the tinder and everything with three times with water and God eats up the ascension offering of this bull that Elijah offered.

A bull is for the nation, by the way. So Elijah, I mean, is a picture as well of a priest who’s offering sacrifices to God and in doing so consecrating the people of God. And you know, maybe this isn’t the right point here, but maybe it’s just another application of the prophet with Elijah. But I think by way of application at least, we can say that another part of our denial, the denial of a good confession is saying that we’re not the mediators. We’re not the ones who can make atonement for sins. Only Jesus can atone for the sins of the world.

We’re not the ones who can consecrate everything to the purposes of Jesus. That’s what a priest does—he consecrates things. You know, we can either try to atone for our sins by ourselves. I’m so stupid. I’m so bad and beat ourselves continually or we can make other people atone for our sins. It’s your fault that this happened to me and kill the other person or beat them. We want a victim. And Jesus says, “He’s the victim.” All the sins of his people are placed on him. He atones for our sins. He’s the great high priest. He is the high priest and he’s the offering as well.

And so Jesus is the priest and we’re not the priests. Now we’re called to be good rulers in the context of our homes and churches and governmental structures. We’re called to consecrate what we have, but it’s always through the mediation of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And John is resisting the temptation here to see himself as Messiah or to see himself as the priest or to see himself as their prophet as well because that’s the third thing they ask him. Were you the prophet and he says no. They thought that Elijah was going to come back literally from the dead, having never died of course, being translated. They thought that Elijah would actually come back. So there’s no contradiction between John saying I’m not Elijah—that guy, I didn’t get raised up you know, bunch of years ago and now I’m back—no, and Jesus saying that he is Elijah in terms of coming in the spirit and power of Elijah. No contradiction. They’re talking about his personage. And they thought that Elijah was going to come back literally. And he’s saying, “No, I’m not.”

And they thought that in Deuteronomy when Moses talked about a prophet that this was another person that was to precede the coming of Messiah. Deuteronomy 18:15-20. The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear according to all you desired of the Lord your God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, “Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, nor let me see this great fire anymore, lest I die.” The Lord said to me, “What they have spoken is good. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brethren, and will put my words in his mouth. He shall speak to them all that I command him.”

Well, who’s the prophet? It’s Jesus. Jesus tells us over and over throughout this gospel. What the Father has told me, that’s what I speak. What I see the Father doing, that’s what I do. Jesus is the great prophet. Now there were Old Testament prophets that were raised up by God to bring God’s word to application in the life of the culture. But the ultimate, the great prophet is the Lord Jesus Christ. The great high priest is Jesus. The king of kings is Jesus.

And when we try to either rule or mediate or teach apart from Jesus and his word and the empowerment of the spirit, we’re not having a good confession. We’re denying the first thing that we’ve got to do, which is to deny ourselves and say, “We’re not any of those things. Jesus is king. Jesus is priest. And Jesus is the lawgiver and prophet.”

Calvin thinks that when we get to Isaiah, chapter 8 verses 19 and 20, that this has reference specifically to this Deuteronomy text that they were referring to in their questioning of John. In Isaiah 8, we read familiar words to most of us. I hope when they say to you, “Seek those who are mediums and wizards who whisper and mutter. Should not a people seek their God? Should they seek the dead on behalf of the living? To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it’s because there is no light in them.”

We must rule but we must rule as under kings, as it were lesser kings, princes under the Lord Jesus Christ. We must mediate the atoning work of our savior assuring each other of forgiveness and consecrating all we have but under the great high priest the Lord Jesus Christ. We must speak truthful words in our prophetic nature as prophets, priests and kings under Christ. But it must always be founded upon his word and not a word put in our own mouths by ourselves.

It’s the sin of Adam and Eve to determine for themselves, apart from God’s word, what’s right and what’s wrong. And John is being tempted, I think, to do just that.

Matthew 16:24, I think, sums this section of John’s good confession up for us. Matthew 16:24, Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

We expect John’s confession to be first and foremost about Jesus. But first, we have in John’s good confession the denial of himself. And as disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, following this track that God through John carefully lays out to show us what these disciples are like, we must begin today by learning to deny ourselves and follow Jesus. To deny ourselves and follow Jesus.

But God requires of us seems hard. Well, it is hard. Everything God requires of us is difficult.