John 1:19-28

Why were the priests and Levites sent to investigate John?

There were various people who from time to time claimed to be the messiah. So the religious authorities checked out these claims (presumably finding them all to be false! However, there was an expectation amongst the nation that the Messiah would come.

The Jews asked John if he fell into one of three categories:

• Messiah

Most of the oddballs claimed to be the Messiah, the One who would save Israel. John emphatically denies this claim.

• Elijah

Malachi speaks of Elijah coming as a prelude to the Day of the Lord (Mal 4:5). Moreover, it needs to be remembered that Elijah had not died (2 Kings 2:11). Jesus later did identify John with Elijah, so John's denial that he was Elijah seems strange. However, the expectation was that Elijah would announce the end of time, so John was correct in denying this. Jesus was affirming that John was indeed fulfilling Mal 4:5,6.

• The prophet

In Deut 18:15 it says that God will raise up a prophet like Moses.

What do you say about yourself? This was a key question they asked Jesus.

What did they understand by baptism? This was obviously what had aroused their concern.

Who did John say he was?

He quoted from Isaiah. John was preparing the way for the Lord, and he was doing this by preaching repentance. Even when we already know Christ, the way to know Him better, to experience more of Him, is through repentance. We often need to turn from our own ways so that we can turn to God's way.

Why did John say he was baptising?

Elsewhere it says it was a baptism of repentance, and John says the one who comes later will baptise with fire and Spirit. But here emphasis is on the fact that the one who comes later is infinitely greater than John.

John's message is that Jesus is the one they should be concentrating on. This applies to us as well, for we every human being has a tendency to focus on some other man or woman, rather than on Christ. We may focus too much on a particular preacher or evangelist or prophet or teacher. Nor the preacher may indeed be very good (as John the Baptist was an excellent servant of the Lord), but it is the one they are pointing too that we should focus on.

Now this is a message for hearers, more than the messenger. For John the Baptist did all he could to point people to Jesus, yet some still wanted to focus on him. And no matter how good a preacher, prophet etc someone is, we can always find fault with them and use this as an excuse not to focus on Jesus.

Christ is the centre of it all.