Why did John come to prepare the way?
Malachi the prophet predicted that the Lord would send Elijah the prophet “before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord.” (Malachi 4:5) He would be a messenger, “who will prepare Your way before you.” (Malachi 3:1). In Matthew 11:14, Jesus said, “And if you are willing to accept it, John himself is Elijah who was to come.”
John the Baptist denied that he was Elijah (John 1:20), but in Luke 1:17 an angel explained that John would come “in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of fathers back to their children, and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”
Elijah was generally considered to be Israel’s greatest prophet. Significantly, it was not Isaiah, Jeremiah, or Ezekiel who appeared with Moses at Jesus’ transfiguration—it was Elijah. With God’s help, Elijah performed many miracles, and he was one of only two people in the Old Testament who didn’t die. (See 2 Kings 2:11.) So having the spirit and power of Elijah was special.
But have you ever wondered why Jesus needed anyone to come before him and prepare the way? I wasn’t there, so I don’t know for sure, but I think we might have a little bad-cop-good-cop here. Listen to John’s message in Luke 3:7-9:
So he was saying to the crowds who were going out to be baptized by him, “You offspring of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore produce fruits that are consistent with repentance, and do not start saying to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children for Abraham. But indeed the axe is already being laid at the root of the trees; so every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
Many of the Jews had become complacent. They believed that their status as God’s “chosen people” meant that God was on their side, that they would always have God’s favor. They were “special.”
John came to shake them out of their complacency with some harsh words and warnings. He called them “offspring of vipers.” The snake was of course symbolic of Satan and of evil. So John insulted them to get their attention.
Then he warned them that being descendants of Abraham wouldn’t be enough to save them—instead they needed to be faithful and devoted to God like Abraham was. John also told them that it wasn’t enough to just tell God they were sorry—they needed to show God their repentance through their deeds. God wants more than lip service!
John’s message is similar to that of Romans 6:1-2: “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? Far from it! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?”
John tried to prepare the people by making them see their sinfulness. He wanted to break through their pride and conceit, and make them see their need for God’s mercy and grace.
There’s a message in there for us. Repentance is more than merely apologizing for our wrongdoing. God wants more from us than to just say we’re sorry. He wants that, too, but He wants us to live like we really mean it. He wants us to do our best to obey those two greatest commandments: love God and love people.
Calling ourselves Christians is not enough. Apologizing to God is not enough. He wants a people who are devoted to Him. Otherwise, we might be no better than the “offspring of vipers.”
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