Episode 17 - What do you know?

In episode 17 we are continuing a close examination of John the Baptist’s testimony as the author of this book records it for us. Each Gospel writer gives us a view of Jesus’ life and ministry and there are different angles from which we can view it through the witness of these early Christians. We saw in Episode 15 how the theme of “seeing” is repeated and I argued that it’s a theme that will run through this book.

What else did you notice that appeared to be a repetition? Did you notice that twice the Baptizer says, “I myself did not know him?” He first says it in verse 31 and then again in verse 33. In both instances he follows it up with an explanation that his purpose for baptizing with water was to reveal the one “who baptizes with the Holy Spirit” (verse 33) “to Israel.” (verse 31) More on that in the next episode. 

In episode 15, I argued that it’s important to interpret words and phrases in their context to have a more clear and likely understanding of what the author intended to communicate. I would suggest that our understanding of what the Baptizer intends by “I myself did not know him” is best understood by its context. In this case, the context is a little more broad than what we looked at for two occurrences of the word “see”. 

If you go back a few verses to the beginning of John the Baptist’s testimony you’ll see that in speaking with the contingency of religious leaders who’ve come to find out if John is Elijah, or the Prophet, or even the Christ, John’s response to them could come across to them as an affront. I like to paraphrase John’s response as follows, “You people think I’m important? There’s someone else among you that you don’t even notice and he is far greater than I am.” (See John 1:24-28)

It might be tempting to think that John is a little bit arrogant in that response. However, his repeating the fact that even he himself did not know him is negating any argument the Baptizer is conceited. In fact, you’ll see that the author paints John the Baptist as a model of humility. 

So what is this telling us?

First, think about what the author said back in the Prologue “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known. (verse 18) The point is that no human in their own ability can claim to have seen God and know everything about him except that God makes Himself known. This is true for even this special messenger or agent of God called John the Baptist. He’s saying there was nothing in me that allowed me to recognize who this person was if it weren’t for God revealing it to me. That is true for us and for everyone else. The Apostle Paul tells us in Romans 1:19-20 that God has revealed Himself (to an extent) through the Creation of the universe so that people should at least recognize that there is a God. But, the author of Hebrews tells us in Hebrews 1:1-2 that God had made Himself known through dreams and prophets and various ways in times past. But, in these last days He has spoken to us through a Son. Jesus came into the world so that God could give us a more clear picture of Who He is.

A second thing I believe we can learn from this is that we do not need to understand everything before we follow God’s will. If we believe God is leading us to serve His purposes, we can trust Him to accomplish what He wants to. It’s not our responsibility to bring the outcome. It’s only our responsibility and privilege to be obedient to His will.