Dennis Tuuri

Gospel of John about this beauty and fairness of the Lord Jesus Christ excelling all others. Today’s sermon text is found in John chapter 3. Begin reading at verse 22 and read into chapter 4 to verse 3 for reasons that’ll be apparent in a few minutes. Please stand for the reading of God’s word, which is always a command word to us. John 3, beginning at verse 22.

After these things, Jesus and his disciples came into the land of Judea. There he remained with them and baptized. Now John also was baptizing in Enon near Salem because there was much water there. And they came and were baptized for John had not yet been thrown into prison. Then there arose a dispute between some of John’s disciples and the Jews about purification. And they came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, he who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you have testified, behold, he is baptizing and all are coming to him.

John answered and said, “A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven. You yourselves bear me witness that I said, I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.” He who has the bride is the bridegroom, but the friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore, this joy of mine is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease.

He who comes from above is above all. He who is of the earth is earthly and speaks of the earth. He who comes from heaven is above all. And what he has seen and heard that he testifies, and no one receives his testimony. He who has received his testimony has certified that God is true. For he whom God has sent speaks the words of God. For God does not give the spirit by measure. The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand.

He who believes in the Son has everlasting life, and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. Therefore, when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, though Jesus himself did not baptize, but his disciples, he left Judea and departed again to Galilee. Let’s pray.

Lord God, we thank you for your word, for your most holy, well-ordered, beautiful word. We thank you for the gift of the Holy Spirit given to us on the basis of the Savior’s wondrous work. We thank you for this day of convocation when we come into your very presence to hear your word to us. May the spirit that indwells us open our ears to hear marvelous things from your law and open our eyes to behold wondrous truths from your word and transform us and cause us to go from glory to glory and be grown and matured in the work of the Savior. We ask this through his authoritative name and for the sake of his kingdom, not ours. Amen.

Please be seated.

Well, we had this joyful day yesterday. Most of us that were here today were at the wedding, a wondrous event, beautiful, joyous, and a fit day of preparation for the wondrous service that we enter into in the Lord’s day, coming into his presence. And the text that God in his providence has brought us to this day has in the middle of it, this description of bridegroom, the friend of the bridegroom, and the bride, which we can all think in terms of yesterday, and we’ll talk about that in a few minutes, but I want to go back to the middle of last week.

By way of short review, we were meeting at the Selmers’ house and giving the men of the church advice and counsel to Michael and really to Michael as well as to the rest of the men gathered. We all need to hear these things regularly, what the scriptures say about us as fathers and as husbands primarily. And one man said that really, you know, you can sum up how you’re to treat your wife by saying that you should be gentle to your wife. And that really sort of says it all.

That reminded me of James 3:17 that we spoke of two weeks ago. I’ve got a little outline at the top of your outlines. There’s the brief outline from James 3:17. The sevenfold description of the wisdom that comes from above. That new creation wisdom is described in James 3:17 as first pure and then peaceable. It is pure in its motivation and its essence. It involves holiness. It desires orderliness. God’s blessing in relationships between us and him and between man and man. And then in terms of what it is characterized as, that first real word that characterizes its actual actions, this wisdom from above is gentleness. Gentleness.

And we’ve said that one way to look at that is that really the rest of the other four items really flow out of that gentleness. If you’re gentle, you’re going to be easily entreated. If you’re gentle, you’re going to be full of good works instead of responding negatively to interruptions to your day. Praise God for the various families, the Evans, the Prentices, others here who assisted a man from Salem journeying through our area Friday night, an opportunity to do good deeds. And we didn’t see that the people involved as an interruption. We saw it as an opportunity to do the good deeds of gentleness.

So really, the Christian life, the new creation that God has brought us to involves a gentleness. This gentleness is linked to meekness in another text of the New Testament. And it’s in opposition to contentiousness. So your lives, children, are to be characterized by this gentleness. What in James 3:17, what is one of the basic character qualities of new creation wisdom? It is gentleness. Gentleness.

And I might even say, as I’ve done, that gentleness encompasses all those other virtues that flow out of it.

And so, husbands, as you watched the exchange of vows yesterday, those you did, remember this week to treat your wives with this basic character quality of the wisdom from above, gentleness. Gentleness.

Now, we talked last week about the flow of the last half of the Nicodemus account. I’ve included that on your outline as well. We won’t really be discussing that, but it’s a way to show you that as we work through texts of scripture and we look at the development of how God writes them, it can cause us to meditate on the whole of God’s word. And we can bring a meditation of the creation week into the gospel account as given in that last half of the Nicodemus account. And it kind of heightens our appreciation both for the creative work of the Holy Spirit at the beginning and then what God is doing in the midst of the world now bringing about the new creation through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And we saw at the center of that new creation meditation on the Sabbath flow of the seven days of creation as mirrored in the text relating to Nicodemus’s dialogue with Jesus at the center. That last week we saw the amazing, incredible, mysterious and yet marvelous love of God. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. The key to sacrificing as men in the context of our homes as husbands and as fathers is this sacrificial love for those that God has brought us. To mirror the wondrous brilliance of God’s light and authority through the authority he gives us in the home.

Love is at the center of Christian marriage and is at the center of the character of God and is reflected in the character of his people. Yes, there’s condemnation. Our text today at the end of chapter 3 ends with wrath, but remember that the doctrine of reprobation, God’s wrath against the condemned, serves the greater truth of God’s doctrine of love. And over all history, we believe that the love of God extends to many more people than the doctrine of reprobation.

Reprobation serves the doctrine of election.

Now, today we come to a story that seems like just a passing sort of thing. It’s easy to kind of go over quickly. Seems like he’s saying a lot of what he already said in the Nicodemus account and we don’t quite see this thing with John’s disciples what the importance of that is. In fact, I think most people who write on this text get it wrong. I could be wrong. I’ll talk about that in a couple of minutes.

We read a text like this and we tend to think of John and his disciples at least his disciples in this text is being not very astute, being bugged now by Jesus getting more preeminence than them. And I don’t think it’s quite that simple in the text.

And as we look at this text, what I want to do is I want to look at this text in a particular form. And I want to look at the entire text, the section of scripture that we read through verse three of chapter 4 and notice some details first.

And the first detail I want us to notice is that we have a place reference in verse 22. After these things, Jesus and his disciples came into the land of Judea. We have a place reference right at the beginning of the text. And at the end of verse three, at the end of this whole sequence of events, we read, “He left Judea and departed into Galilee.” So, at the beginning of this text is a reference to Judea. Remember, he was in Jerusalem speaking of Nicodemus. Now, he went to Judea. And at the end is He goes to Galilee.

Place references. Notice as well that the next thing that we’re told about Jesus is that he remains there with them in Judea in verse 22 and he baptized. We read of Jesus baptizing in the context of his disciples. And in verse two of chapter 4, the next to last thing that’s said at the end of this account is that though Jesus himself did not baptize, but his disciples.

See, Jesus didn’t actually perform the action of baptizing, but his disciples did. But it’s significant to put those two things together and see that as his disciples baptize, the text has no problem saying that it is Jesus who is baptizing. Jesus preaches when his word is properly proclaimed. You hear the voice of Jesus. When ministers baptize, according to the biblical injunctions of scripture, Jesus is baptizing. His disciples actually did the work but Jesus is baptizing.

So notice the symmetry of this passage place references and then what’s Jesus doing at the first part of the text? He’s baptizing. What does he do in the next to last portion of verse two? He’s baptizing. We have these correlating elements of the text.

And the next thing we read about in the next verses is we have these people coming. We have these people coming to Jesus. Verse 23, John also was baptizing in Enon near Salem because there was much water there and they came and were baptized for John had not yet been thrown into prison. So right after we have Judea, Jesus is baptizing and John, not the gospel writer children, John the Baptizer, John is also baptizing in an area that’s not too far away.

And again, at the end of the this text when we read in verse one of chapter 4, we read this. Therefore, when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, then he begins to leave. So, we’ve got places Judea and Galilee. We’ve got Jesus baptizing, his disciples baptizing. We’ve got John baptizing. And at the end, Jesus is baptizing more than John.

And what happens in the beginning passage of the opening account in verse 24. John is not yet thrown into prison. Then there arose a dispute between some of John’s disciples and the Jews about purification. So now we’ve got this dispute with Jews is the next element as we move into this account. And what we read in verse one that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was baptizing more disciples than John. You see the symmetry of this passage of scripture.

You know, place references, baptism references, two baptizer references, and then the very next thing is we’ve got Jews up here and Pharisees being referenced down here. And we are taught all these things in kind of a beautiful symmetry of form in the context of this portion of John’s gospel.

I would imagine that you probably never noticed these details before. And one thing they do for us is to give praise to the God of order. As talking to Mr. Bahnsen who we’re so pleased to have assisting in maturing our worship today with the flugelhorn last night about these chiastic structures and his immediate response he’d never heard of that before. His immediate response was our God is a God of order. Isn’t that a great response? I don’t mean to cause Dave H. to become prideful but isn’t that the right response? Isn’t it so?

When we see the beauty of the way God builds these texts together and the spirit inspires men to write in this way as beauty to it and a symmetry to the word of God that reflects his orderliness and we praise him for that today. And it also helps us to recognize some elements in the account and to put them together we wouldn’t normally do.

It talks about the Jews coming and the text goes on to say that these Jews had this dispute with John’s disciples about purification. And we’re told then that they verse 26 they came to John and said to him who is the—Well, nearly every commentator says it’s John’s disciples. I don’t see any reason why we have to think that. Now it could be, and I don’t think it’s anything I say in this sermon is contingent really upon these people, whether they were the Jews or John’s disciples.

But it’s interesting to me to see how John rather responds to them. Indeed, even their question to him, Rabbi, he who was with you beyond the Jordan to whom you have testified. Behold, he is baptizing and all are coming to him. And he says, “A man can receive nothing unless it be given to him from heaven. You yourselves heard me when I said, I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.”

Now, if you’ve been with me as we’ve been preaching through this Gospel of John, I would imagine that this text, even without what I just read, should cause you to remember chapter 1. You know, chapter 1, right after that great prologue, we had this account of the forerunner, the John the Baptizer, and he is questioned by some Levites and some priests. And then we’re told these guys were actually sent by the Pharisees. And they ask him, “Are you the Christ?” And he says, “I am not the Christ.”

They’re the ones that he told. Where was John when that encounter occurred? Do you remember children? Where was he? He was beyond the Jordan. He was symbolically in that wilderness. The people of God had to go into the wilderness and re-enter through the river once more to come into the promised land. And John pictures that by baptizing beyond the Jordan.

Nicodemus, Jesus tells him as the serpent was raised up in the wilderness, “Apart from Christ, whether you’re in Jerusalem, or Cairo, you are in the wilderness. And this nation was in the wilderness.”

Well, here the reference is to the one who was with you beyond the Jordan. And John says, “Well, I told you I’m not the Christ, but I’ve been sent before him.”

Look at chapter 1 again. Turn in your scriptures to John chapter 1. verse 19. This is the account of John. And so these are the two big sections of scripture. This section here and the one we’re dealing with in chapter 3. And then John’s gone from the picture rest of the gospel.

Verse 19. This is the record of John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who art thou?” And he confessed and denied not, but confessed, “I am not the Christ.” That’s what he’s telling him here too. They asked him, “What then? Art thou Elijah?” And he said, “No, I’m not.” “Art thou the prophet?” And he said, “No.”

Then said they unto him, “Who art thou, that we may give an answer to them that sent us? What sayest thou of thyself?” He said, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Isaiah, and they which were sent were of the Pharisees.”

See, same thing is in our text. The Jews story of the account And then they’re identified as Pharisees. The Pharisees are the ones who sent these Jews. Here in this text, chapter 3, what happens? John the Baptizer, Jews come and trouble his disciples. And at the end of the text, if we look at this orderliness that God has placed for us, the Pharisees discover, they know that Jesus is baptizing more disciples than John. You see the same correlation. Jews and Pharisees. They’re one element in the Gospel of John.

The Jews are always referred to in a negative sense. The term isn’t bad. It was the term for the people of God after the restoration. But that term is being replaced. People that cling to the restoration covenant and don’t move into the work of the Lord Jesus Christ are now opponents to the Lord Jesus Christ. They’re the enemies. They’re the Pharisees who are beyond the pale and who are going to suffer this wrath that John talks to them about.

So there’s a beautiful symmetry here that reminds us in the literary devices that God uses of these phrases and the structure of chapter 1. And so we see these parallel accounts and I think that’s pretty critical for properly interpreting what’s at the center of this text in terms of the temptation being given to John the Baptist and to his disciples.

So your outline shows this chiastic structure. Children, let’s work on your outline a little bit then.

In 3:22, where did Jesus and his disciples go at the beginning of today’s sermon text? Judea. J U D E A. Judea.

Number three. In 4:3, where did Jesus go at the end of today’s sermon text? Galilee. Judea. Galilee. G A L I L E E. Parents, help them out.

In 3:22, what was Jesus doing? He baptized. Baptized.

In 4:2, what did Jesus’s disciples do? They baptize.

You see the symmetry that the text tells us here. In 3:23, who else was baptizing besides Jesus? John.

And in 4:1, who else was making disciples and baptizing? John.

By the way, notice that as well. We have baptism in the first part of this chiastic form. We’ve got baptizing and making disciples in the second part. And Jesus in the writer of this gospel can put together in one word what he then expands to two words in chapter 4. Baptizing and makes disciples is simply put as baptizing at the beginning of the text.

What does it tell us? It tells us that discipleship and baptism are one item in the mind of God. This external application of the waters of baptism are the very essence of the discipling process where God moves from the outside of man to change who he is and to bring him into new creation life.

So children, what is discipleship and baptism in the mind of God? One item.

So children, it is—who is making disciples and baptizing in 4:1 chapter or question 7 is John. John.

Question number eight on your outline. Who made a fuss with John’s disciples in 3:25? Who came and made a fuss with John’s disciples? Jews. The Jews came and made a fuss.

And who wanted to make a fuss with Jesus in 4:1? Why does Jesus leave? He’s not afraid. Time hasn’t come yet for all this confrontation to happen. He’s in control. That’s also in the center of this text. God has given all things into the hand of the Son. He controls the situation. He leaves.

Why does he leave? Because the Pharisees, P H A R I S E E S. The Pharisees want to make a fuss with Jesus.

So, do you see how it combines Jews and Pharisees?

In chapter 3:27, haven’t gotten to this yet. So, adults, look at verse 27 in terms of this structure and what do we read? John answers after this fuss is made and said a man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from above.

We’ll make a comment on that in a little bit. So John tells these questioners of his whoever they were that all gifts come down from God. And what does the text tell us in verse 35?

In verse 35 we read the father loves the son and has given all things into his hand. You see, they match up again. Man can receive nothing unless it’s been given him by from God from heaven. And God has so worked to give all things into the hand, the authority, the power of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so, children, 11 and 3:35 John says, “God has given all things into whose hands?” Jesus’s hands. Jesus’s hands. And in the scriptures is authority, power, sovereignty, and the ability to exercise that power and authority. And that is the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, children, on your children’s outline, number 12, I ask you to draw a line from Judea to Galilee on your outline. So, put your pencil on Judea. Make a straight line over to Galilee. Okay. Now, take your pencil on baptize upper right hand corner. Make a straight line over to baptize. Okay, this is what it says. Judea, he was baptizing. He was baptizing. Then he went to Galilee.

Okay. What letter did you just make on your outlines, children? X. That’s right. I heard somebody say it. That’s good. I asked you a question. You should answer. X. You made an X on your outline.

Now, this is a little tricky. What Greek letter did you just draw? Well, you don’t know. The letter is kai or chi. Pronounced differently by different people. It’s spelled in the English letter C H I. Kai or chi. You see that’s the letter X in Greek.

And you’ve heard me use this 25 cent word chiastic or kiastic. It’s C H I A S T I C. So it looks like a Chi, a chiastic outline looks like a chi. If you draw it out the way we drew this out just now with these verses, it forms an X. Now, our outlines for chiasms never look like that cuz it would get very complicated. Look too tough on your page. They look like a caret sign on your keyboard. Not a carrot you eat, C A R E T sign. But that’s the half of that X. It’s half of a Greek letter chi or chi.

You see children? So these outlines are called chiastic or chiastic because if you line them up the way we have with Judea baptized in Galilee, they form the Greek letter chi or chi. Okay.

So let’s talk a little bit more then. Let’s go back over this chiastic outline now that we’ve drawn these obvious parallels from the top and the bottom.

In Judea, Jesus baptizes. Then in verses 23–26, there are two baptizers. John is described as baptizing also and Jews come in the context of two baptizers. Okay? And I put on your outline that they are talking about who was with John beyond the Jordan. And he says, I told you I’m not the Christ.

I think that the they that come to John in this dispute are the actual Jews who are troubling his disciples. Now, a lot of most commentators think it’s the disciples themselves. And either way, either they’re falling into temptation or not by asking this question of John. I mean, see, to me, it just seems a little incredible.

You remember that the rest of chapter 1, John’s disciples were astute men. They knew what the Old Testament taught about Jesus. They weren’t just, you know, kind of dummies. They knew their Bible well. John was teaching his disciples well. These men were not stupid. And John had from the very opening of this gospel account here in this first year of Jesus’s ministry, he had certainly identified Jesus to them as Messiah. They’re not walking around all of a sudden being told by the Jews, he’s Messiah.

John had revealed this to them. He had pointed it out to them in John chapter 1. Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Right? Made a big point of it. It certainly schooled these disciples. I just find it hard to believe that they’re confused at this point or that they’re taking garbage for John over Messiah. I just find it hard to believe that it’s possible.

Men do stupid things when they sin. Sin never makes logical sense. But to me, if you can read a text of scripture attributing a godly motivation to the people that are being presented as God’s people, that’s what you should do.

Now, we’ve had to go through the tough transition of rethinking Jacob’s life in the Old Testament and saying that, hey, the word of God says he was righteous. Word of God says he was perfect. Now, not, you know, perfect without sin. But he was a great mature Christian man. We got to rethink and we have rethought much of what Jacob did.

I think we should rethink some of these gospel ideas we have about Peter being sort of stupid and John sending from prison saying are you the one or somebody to come? Thinking that he doesn’t know he’s the one. Calvin says that’s foolishness to interpret Jesus’s or John’s message to Jesus saying are you the one or should we look for someone else as doubt on John’s part. Calvin says it’s just foolish. And it is. You got to find another explanation for that remark and probably it has to do with strengthening John’s disciples again.

So I don’t know who it was here but in any event some people then they show us no matter who it was what the controversy was and it was not purification the controversy was Jesus is baptizing more than John and that’s made clear in the text here and it’s also made clear down in chapter one of or chapter 4 verse one the Pharisees heard that Jesus was baptizing more disciples than John. Okay.

So that’s the controversy here. Okay.

So see the father given authority of the son is given in verse 27 when in response to this question John says well a man can receive nothing unless it comes to him from heaven from God in heaven. So we have the father given authority of the son. Obviously referring to Jesus’s ascendancy. He’s saying that God has given that authority to the son that ascendancy.

Then we have the preeminence of the Lord Jesus Christ described in verses 28 through 30 of the text and we have not read that portion of the text yet. So we will verse 28. You yourselves bear me witness that I said I am not the Christ but I have been sent before him. For he who has the bride is the bridegroom but the friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him rejoices greatly because of the bride bridegroom’s voice.

Therefore this joy of mine is fulfilled. God gives the blessing to Jesus’s ministry, John says. And Jesus’s ministry, not only is it not a cause of envy and discussion and dissension with me, not only can I put up with it, but whoever doesn’t know, whether it’s disciples or Jews, you need to know that not only do I put up with that, taking second playing second fiddle, I rejoice in it.

This is Messiah. This is the one we’ve all been waiting for. He’s the one and his voice of him approaching causes my joy to be fulfilled. He is joyous over the preeminence of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The spirit of God is the matchmaker of God who brings together God’s people and his Son. The spirit is the matchmaker in scripture. And the spirit of God brings us to the fullness of joy in union with the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we see a reference here, I think by way of implication to the Holy Spirit who brings joy in the context of an acknowledgment of Jesus Christ as our savior and our great bridegroom.

This is pitted against the envy, self-seeking, prideful nature of the Jews. See, they’re saying, you know, hey, he’s baptizing more than you. They’re envious of Jesus. They want John and his disciples to be envious of Jesus. They want to promote envy because that’s what they’re driven by. They want to promote a self-seeking attitude on John’s part as opposed to a Jesus-centered attitude on John’s part.

They want John’s disciples to think of themselves and their guy on their team instead of thinking of Jesus, the captain of the team, the incomparable compared to any man, beautiful bridegroom who brings joy to his people.

We’ve got these qualities, don’t we remember James 3:17? What’s in opposition to the wisdom from above? It’s envy. It’s self-seeking. Remember, it told us that twice in James chapter 3. People who were here earlier in the text before we get to the wisdom from above. It’s envy and self-seeking that’s in opposition to the new creation.

And these old creation Jews, Pharisees are trying to get the new creation people of John to stumble back into Adamic ways of envy and self-seeking and pridefulness as opposed to the joy of the Holy Spirit. John says, “No, no, my joy is fulfilled.” He says, “I’m happy.” He must increase, I must decrease.

Those words used are we could say he is waxing and I am waning because they’re astronomical terms. It means his star is in ascendancy and my moon is coming down as it were. I’m coming down in the skies. He is ascending. And what’s represented here is the whole Old Testament witness is coming down and fulfilled in John so that Christ might rise as the bright morning sun and he might shine light into all the world.

And even that recreating light that’s spoken of in chapter one of John’s gospel. In the beginning was the Word and now in the new beginning is the light of the Lord Jesus Christ bringing about this new creation.

He must increase. He must ascend. Why would we not want that? We want new life. We want the new order. We want to be content. We want to be Jesus centered.

I must decrease. He says.

Then we read what he has seen and heard. He who comes from heaven.

Excuse me. Verse 31. He who comes from above is above all. He who is of the earth is earthly and speaks of the earth. He who comes from heaven is above all. Obviously another one of those chiasms. He from heaven is above all and he speaks about heavenly things. He that’s from earthly is below. He that from heaven is above. Heaven, earth, heaven. You see heaven, earth, heaven at the center of this literary flow of this text.

And we see then that what’s happening here as these firmament waters from above pictured in the waters of baptism are now released and heaven comes to earth through the only mediator. Jesus told Nicodemus the only one who has heavenly knowledge and serves as the mediator between heaven and earth. He is bringing heaven to earth. He is transforming the earth to reflect heavenly truths and images as he brings his teaching. He brings his work. He brings his example and the Father’s great love that will remake the world with its necessary consequence of condemning those who reject the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The spirit of joy is followed on your outline. Number E, the old and new creations are pictured. And then we have the spirit of the fullness of truth in the Lord Jesus Christ in the following verses. Verses 32 through 34.

What he has seen and heard that he testifies and no one receives his testimony. He who has received his testimony has certified that God is true. True meaning faithful. God has fulfilled all the promises that he made. He who hears Christ’s word and does receive it understands the faithfulness, the truthfulness, the veracity of the Lord God.

Why? Because he whom God has sent speaks the words of God. For God does not give his spirit by measure. This spirit of joy who brings marital joy and bliss is the spirit of truthfulness, faithfulness, and veracity. And Jesus has that spirit upon him without measure. And we’re reminded again of the incident with John in chapter 1. And he beholds the spirit of God descending like a dove upon Jesus at his baptism. And he doesn’t leave Jesus. Jesus is spirit empowered. God gives his spirit not with measure to his son but with fullness.

So that Jesus’s words are truth, faithfulness, and veracity. The spirit of joy is also the spirit of the fullness of truth and the Lord Jesus Christ.

And then we have again a reference as we did in Nicodemus’s account to the Father’s great love in verse 35. The father loves the son and has given all things into his hand. You can receive nothing but what comes from heaven. God loves the son. And on the basis of his love, he has given total sovereign authority to the Lord Jesus Christ.

There’s not one inch of this earth. There’s not one inch of your life, your mind, your thoughts over which God has not said that Jesus Christ is Lord. It is all in his hands and he exercises that authority because the verse goes on to say, “He who believes in the son has everlasting life, present possession. He who does not believe the son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides upon him.”

This text is filled with the antithesis between two people. Those that believe Christ and those that reject Christ. Those who have the fullness of joy in the Holy Spirit and whose words themselves are truthfulness, veracity, and faithfulness reflecting the faithfulness of God and those who are self-seeking, envious, contentious people over here who their whole desire is to stir up these disciples of John and create problems for the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And John says, the word of God tells us that these people have eternal life because God is sovereign. You’re born not of the will of the flesh, but of the will of the Father in heaven. And he has sovereignly given you the belief in the Lord Jesus Christ and he sovereignly has given you and you reflect in that glory today everlasting life. But if you reject the Lord Jesus Christ, the wrath of God abides upon you.

The old creation is going away. It is doomed. It is fading. Hebrews says that the great shaking has come and all things that can be shaken will be shaken and they will be destroyed and removed. We stand in that new creation. Why would we want to go back to those dregs of contentiousness, bitterness, self-centeredness, looking at other people and comparing what we’re doing for Christ to them and they’re doing more than us. Oh, we feel bad about that. We want to tear them down.

Why would we want to go back to all that horrible Adamic fallen old creation world? Jesus Christ has been given all authority from God the Father and his wrath abides upon those who go back.

And then we have, as the outline concludes, the Pharisees and the two baptizers and Jesus’s disciples baptizing and moving then into Galilee.

All right. Now, let’s make a few short brief observations then with a proper understanding laid for us. I hope I know it was quick but I hope you understand now the flow of this text and we can then understand a few basic truths out of it in short order.

First, the significance and importance of Christian baptism is stressed in these texts. We have not just the words of the Lord Jesus Christ and Matthew 28 telling us to make disciples and baptize. We have actually not just the precepts but the example of the Lord Jesus Christ with his disciples baptizing here as well. Baptism is a central rite of the Christian faith. Its importance is stressed here. The Lord Jesus Christ himself does not want us to doubt the importance of baptism.

And so in this text he declares to us and reveals to us in it truthfulness that he himself oversaw and as it were baptized disciples. And as they said, “We take away from this that when we baptize people, whether it’s the children born to covenant parents or new professors of faith, adults who have never been baptized, and we baptize them, we are discipling them. We’re applying the new creation waters from above, as it were, to them from outside, and we are transforming them.

And God wants us to see in baptismal writing to mind as we see water coming from above, sprinkled or poured, from the officiant. He wants us to see and remember this cleansing portion of John’s gospel where the firmament waters come from above and produce a new creation in the context of the world. And he wants us to identify people’s movement from an Adamic old creation condemnation into new creation life. He wants us to identify that.

But the baptismal rite itself—I’m not saying baptism regenerates, but maybe it does. I would expect it does frequently. It’s not magic. You can’t regenerate someone. But the Lord God may, and I would think it’s probable. When the rite of baptism is applied, may choose that moment to actually bring about the regeneration of the person being baptized. Why would that bother us? The sovereign work of God, is it not? God has given us a sign here of that regeneration, cleansing from defilement of the new creation.

Why would it bother us if God saw fit in certain occasions to bring that to pass? Not bound to it, but certainly that’s what we want to think of. We want to reflect on our baptisms is that movement from old creation to new creation. Jesus both by precept and example stresses the rite of baptism.

Secondly, the meaning of this baptism of Christian baptism is purification and a new creation. You miss this in the text if you miss if you don’t read carefully what the argument is. Read all kinds of commentators. Well, these Jews were hung up on purification and that’s Old Testament stuff and it’s eclipsed. And so that’s not, you know, the problem was that the John and his disciples and Jesus weren’t really doing purification. That’s ridiculous.

I mean, the text clearly tells us that the contention was not purification. The contention was who was doing the purifying. The contention that developed was Jesus is purifying more guys than you are. Jesus is applying more purification ritual. They understood that’s what it was. John knew that’s what it was. He was a priest. Jesus is applying more purification rituals than you are. That’s the contention.

Not purification. And that’s true and I don’t see how you can deny it. Then what it means is that purification is being used as a synonym for baptism. Purification is a synonym for baptism. Why would that bother us? The Old Testament, all the Old Testament washings, Hebrews tells us, culminate in the work of baptism. Why would it bother us to call baptism purification? It shouldn’t.

Purification rituals, their whole point was to picture for the removal of the effects of the curse. I’ve got an outline for you on the back of your other outline. Please don’t get worried. We’re not going to spend a lot of time there, but I’d love it. I’d love it if you go home today and throughout this week, next week, when you have some time, sit down with your children and read these texts from Genesis and Leviticus and think about what those purifications were all about. And what they were about was rolling back the manifestations of the effects of the curse.

Wasn’t purifications of sin, individual sin. It’s not sin to have relations with your wife. But what it says is you’ve got to be purified. You’ve got to be washed. Why? Because after the fall of Adam, everything we do manifests uncleanness. You see, so when the purification ritual comes along to make you clean, usually applied to yourself. You went home and washed after certain things, touched dead body, whatever it is. Usually a priest wasn’t involved unless it was leprosy or something like that.

But when you did that, it was a picture that the one who was coming, the great purifier, the great water pourer would roll away the defilements from every area of your life. Every area of your life got affected by the fall. Your food and drink, what you eat and drink got affected. You can’t eat and drink to the glory of God without the restoration, without the new creation coming through the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The serpent was judged first and then the first laws of uncleanness and how to get clean in Leviticus dealt with food and drink. Dealt with that serpent stuff, things crawling around on your dishes, unclean animals. You see, serpent. Then God pronounced the judgment upon the woman. You’re going to have pain in childbearing. Our childbearing, the great joy of us, great joy of the Christian family to bring forth children. God says that joy has been removed through the effects of Adam’s fall. You’re going to bring forth serpents. They’re going to have unclean childbearing. They’ve got to be cleansed because they’re dead. They’re old Adam without the cleansing ritual.

So what happens next in Leviticus? The very next cleansing ritual has to do with this cleansing from childbirth. In chapter 12, unclean childbirth. Adam, your vocation is affected by the fall. If you work in old Adamic nature, you’re working with the curse of God upon your forehead. You sweat like I’m doing now. So that’s a picture of the effects of the curse on man’s vocation. And man’s leprosy on his skin, like sweat on the skin is cleansed in Leviticus.

I won’t go through the rest of it, but you’ll see definite correlations to what John is talking about in this first portion of the gospel. Remember, we said that John the Baptist was cleansing from externally washing you. And one of the things that was done for the Old Testament was leprosy. Leprosy is related to our vocation. John was restoring people that were baptized to vocational calling. John was restoring—