Today in God's Word—July 2023
East Tallassee Church of Christ
July 27, Luke 3
Was John the Baptist the last of the prophets? No, there were men and women in the early church called prophets after the time of John. But in the tradition of the Old Testament mighty prophets who warned God’s rebellious people, yes. John was one of those faithful messengers who delivered God’s word to people who should have known better, but chose to reject and ignore the Lord.
Like the old prophets, John’s message was “Repent!” That single word sums up the prophets’ warning and pleading. To repent is to turn, to change one’s mind. The Israelites were doing wrong because their thinking was wrong. The law convicted them as sinners. But it was the prophets who showed the great, generous, forgiving heart of God in calling them back, even while warning of the tragic consequences that would come if they persisted in disobedience.
Like Israel’s prophets, John called for changed lives as evidence of changed hearts. Repentance is proved in practical, everyday conduct, not in minute points of doctrinal orthodoxy. When the people asked what the message of repentance meant to them, John told them to share with people in need. He told them not to cheat, and not to misuse authority. That’s what Isaiah, Malachi and the other prophets had called Israel to do, exposing their ritual worship as hypocrisy because their lives did not match their worship and professions. Like the old prophets, John insisted on a practical, observable difference in someone who believes and turns to God.
John’s plain speech was also like the prophets. Not all preachers will stand before powerful people and say exactly what God tells them to say. Imagine calling the religious elite a “brood of vipers.” People who trusted their physical kinship to Abraham did not like to hear that God could raise up children for Abraham from the stones. John said God’s axe was on the root of Israel’s tree, and the fruitless nation was
headed for the fire. He rebuked the king’s sin. Like his predecessors, John went to prison and died for speaking God’s truth to powerful people who did not want to hear it.
John also reminds us of the old prophets by pointing to Jesus. The ancient prophets spoke about one who would come centuries later, specifying details about his birth, life, work, death and resurrection. John stood at the end of that line and had the privilege of identifying Messiah to his contemporaries. He vividly described God’s judgment of those who rejected heaven’s message delivered by heaven’s messenger.
When John baptized Jesus, the Father’s voice and the visible presence of the Holy Spirit validated Jesus’ identity and John’s identification of him. Messiah had come, just as the prophets said. The kingdom was at hand. And John, at the end of a centuries-long line of witnesses, pointed to his carpenter cousin and told the nation, “Behold the Lamb of God.”
From The Abiding Companion: A Friendly Guide for Your Journey Through the New Testament, Copyright © 2010 by Michael B. McElroy. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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