John, Pt. 17 | John 3:22-36

John the Baptist’s Ministry in Relation to Christ

If you will turn in your copy of the scriptures to the gospel of John chapter 3, we will consider verses 31 through 36. Gospel of John chapter 3, verses 31 through 36. Let's pray. Father, our Father, creator of the universe, you who spoke all things into existence, you who formed Adam from the dust, who breathed life into his nostrils, you who blessed and Lord, we come to you in the name of Jesus Christ, your people filled with your spirit, petitioning you, Lord, this day to speak to us through your word, through me, Lord, this broken vessel.

Use me this day in Jesus' name, I pray, amen. So it is a joy of mine to stand before you this day, Lord's Day, to proclaim to you this word and the gospel of John. This is our 17th message in this wonderful, glorious gospel.

I've been enriched thus far and I pray that you have too, that you have been able to see Christ as glorious, Christ as beautiful. Like what other book in the Bible proclaims this as much as John, right?

That Christ is glorious, right? He's God incarnate. Like this is the book of Christmas, right? This is the gospel of John. It's Christmas, every Lord's Day here under this glorious gospel that we are partaking.

In.

And by that, I mean that you are coming here and you are paying attention, you are listening to what the Lord, the God of all things has spoken in his infallible, inerrant word. So let's read that word, that message that he has for us, beginning in verse 31.

So again, this is John speaking. He who comes from above is above all. He who is of the earth is from the earth and speaks of the earth. He who comes from heaven is above all. What he has seen and heard of that he bears witness and no one receives his witness.

He who has received his witness has set his seal to this, that God is true, for he whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for he gives the spirit without measure. The father loves the son and has given all things into his hand.

Whoever believes in the son has eternal life, but whoever does not obey the son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. Our theme for this Lord's Day is the superiority of Jesus over John.

And my proposition is this, is that next to Christ, John the Baptist failed in comparison. You line the two up, side by side, John the Baptist fails in comparisons to who Christ.

Is.

Now you might not be able to see this if it was lined up as individual men, right? Because Jesus had to be fully man, everything that's man, Jesus had to be man. And so just looking at John and Jesus, you probably wouldn't see too much of a difference.

But John fails in comparison to Jesus, who he is. What's obvious, what's being made obvious in the text is that the superiority of Jesus is over all, all creation, not just John. Yes, John, but not just John, and that this is the overarching idea of our theme and our proposition.

Jesus, speaking of John, says this in Matthew chapter 11, verse 11. Truly, I say to you, speaking to his disciples, among those born of women, there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist, yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

The greatest man born of natural birth understood his position where he stood next to Christ. Ladies and gentlemen, that was that message last week, so too should you and I. The greatest man born among women knew, he knew where he stood.

That's been his testimony, he knew where he stood and so should you and I. The least in the kingdom of heaven is not speaking about a natural birth, but it's speaking about spiritual birth. Spiritual birth is when God gives a person faith to believe, right?

We walked through that during the conversation that Jesus and Nicodemus had. Jesus tells Nicodemus, unless a man is born again, he cannot see with his eyes or enter in with his feet the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven.

And so right here, it talks about the kingdom of heaven. This is talking about spiritual birth. John was not what you would call regenerated in the same sense that we were. John knew he believed in Jesus in the womb, right?

John was born knowing he was a prophet. He was sent by God. He was sent by God with a message. He was a road worker. He was sent to prepare the way for Jesus. You and I, we are born God haters with our fists in the air saying, this is my life and.

I will do what I want.

To the moment we hear the message of the gospel and God transforms our heart, right? When he puts his spirit in us, sprinkles us with clean water, removes our heart of stone and gives us a heart of flesh that and then he puts his spirit in us that obeys him.

Until that happened, we're born God haters. We don't want anything to do with the spiritual life. Jesus says those who are in the kingdom, those that that has happened to are greater than.

John.

The least of them are greater than John. Because as John had a measure of the spirit, John was not indwelled with the spirit of.

God.

Like you and I are today because of the the the spirit of God has left that temple, right? The curtain was rent. The spirit, the kind of glory had left the temple. It has no longer tabernacling and intense and temples, but it tabernacles.

It makes its seal upon men. Those that believe those who are in Christ, that spirit that once tabernacled in a tent and tabernacled in the temple of the Holy of Holies now tabernacles in you. It's different than what was experienced in the old covenant.

It's something new. It's something better, something greater. And Jesus is saying, although John is the greatest born among men, born among women of natural birth. Those that have been born again is greater.

The Best Man and the Bridegroom

In our outline, we are going to see some different ways that Jesus is superior to John. John was the best man. Jesus is the bridegroom. John was from the earth. Jesus is from heaven. John was sent with a message.

Jesus is the message. So point number one, John was the best man. Jesus is the bridegroom. Point number two, John was from the earth and Jesus is from heaven. Point number three, John was sent with a message.

Jesus is the message. As we transition, last week, this was our conclusion, right? I made a statement that when it comes to preaching, the idea that you want a preacher to enter into a pulpit should have three things on his mind.

He is to tell the people what he's going to say. He is to say what he told the people he's going to say. And at the end, he is to remind them of what he said. And that's what I want to transition through to what we talked about last week, that through the commotion, John knew his position and he used an allegory of a wedding to show where he stood in ministry, right?

If it was to sum up last week's message, that's what it was about. So point number one, John was the best man. Jesus is the bridegroom. So this is taken from verses 29 through 30, and we kind of looked at it last week.

Before we read that, I want to first view the context to show the allegory and how the allegory came about. So the disciples of Jesus and the disciples of John were at Aenon near Salem because there was much water there.

So they were gathered together, both groups, John's disciples, Jesus' disciples are baptizing. They were baptizing in this particular place with a body of water because there was much.

Water.

In order to be properly baptized, there had to be a big body of water. So we don't have a big body of water. We have a small area where you can put a lot of water in, right? So you can put enough water in here, in this trough that we have, to baptize someone.

They were in a big body area to where both groups could gather together and both perform the act of baptism. The word baptism is a transliteration of the Greek word baptismo, which means to immerse or to dip, and it can also mean to wash, depending on the context.

So if you are washing dishes, the whole dish is getting wet, you can say that's another form of baptismo. We see that in the Jewish culture as they would wash their pots. The text says that the pots were being baptismoed.

And in order to baptize someone, you needed a large body, like we just watched. You need something large to dip the person into. So Jesus, so we have Jesus and his disciples. So Jesus' disciples, John's disciples were all baptizing in the same body of water for that one particular purpose because there was a lot of water.

And I was poking fun last week, I said, if there were some Presbyterians here, I'd wink at them, picking on my ex-Presbyterian friends. But this is one of those central texts that Baptists hold to, that we have to dip the person in because the baptism was a reminder of the death, burial, and resurrection of.

Jesus.

Though at this time, this is not what was being proclaimed, especially among John. John baptized with water for repentance. And I pointed out last week that repentance for the Jews, if they'd done something wrong, they had a sacrificial system that they could go and make sacrifices, make offerings, whether it be a fragrant offering or something, there was something that they could do in order to, in line with their repentance that was traditional.

John comes and he's baptizing Jews and he's saying that they are unclean, that they needed to be clean. And so it was a debate over purification. Verse 24 tells us that John had not yet been thrown into prison.

So this indicates that John's going to be thrown into prison, right? So later on in John's ministry, he was arrested and thrown into prison because he confronts the sexual sins of the king of Israel. King Herod at this time took his brother's Philip wife to be his wife.

John confronts him and tells him that it is not lawful for him to do so. And ultimately, John is thrown into prison and he is killed for calling out the king on his sexual sins. This geopolitical land of Israel where under the law of God, God's law was the standard.

And John was calling this man to repentance. But before this took place in our section of scripture, Jesus and John, their ministry is overlapping. And I mentioned last week that it might have been anywhere from six months to a year that the two ministries overlapped and both were baptizing.

And from reading the scriptures, so like as we've been going through here, and if you in your own quiet time, when you open up the Bible, when you read through the gospel, there seems to be, there seems to always be a gathering.

So if they're doing anything in public, right, whether they're teaching, baptizing, no matter what it was, whatever they were doing, they seem to have a multitude of people that were gathered together to hear them, to follow them, whether they were being sent by the Pharisees to spy out or whether people were curious or whether people were followers of.

Them.

But every time John or Jesus one would do something, they would have a multitude of people following. And this is where the debate is introduced in verse 25. Verse 25 says, therefore, there arose a debate between John's disciples and the Jews about purification.

So John particularly, for some reason, when he points out when he uses the word Jew or Jews, he's using it in a negative sense, right? He's not too happy with the Jews of his time. And so whenever he's speaking of it, he just uses, he just throws out the word Jew.

Some of the scripture writers will say Hebrews, but John uses the word Jew and he's using it in a negative sense. So when you're reading this and he throws out that word, just understand that this is.

Him.

Of course, so this book is written to Greeks that have been Hellenized, right? The Hellenistic Jews, these Jews that have grown up under the Greek culture. And he's explaining to them that the Jews who Jesus came to, who saw this message, who heard the message that they rejected Jesus, and it's because of this rejection, he's now writing and just speaking to them in a negative, speaking about the Jews in a negative sense, just calling them a Jew or just calling them Jews.

Just understand that as we're going through this, you'll hear that word over and over and over again. And it's John not necessarily speaking good about them. And the debate was over purification. It was their idea that they did not understand John's baptism, right?

Because they had the sacrificial system. So since they had the sacrificial system, they did not understand his baptism. And it was over purification. So both Jews held to the baptism, baptismal of purification.

So every time a Jew would enter into someone's house, there would be a bucket of water for their feet to be washed. This was to purify them before they eat. They would wash their hands. This was to purify them.

But to take a Jew who was under the law, who was not considered a sinner, and to dump him completely under the water, they did not understand and how this was an act of purification because they didn't see themselves as sinners because they had the sacrificial system.

And John is telling them that your sacrificial system is no good. God detests your system. Go back and you read Isaiah chapter 1. He is done with it. He's through with it. He can't even look upon the offering any longer.

They have turned it into something that it shouldn't have been. And John is baptizing in the sense that he is telling them that you're not pure. You're not clean. You need to repent. And his baptism of purification was a symbol of that.

Verse 26. And they came to John and said to him, Rabbi, he who was with you beyond the Jordan to whom you have borne witness, behold, he is baptizing and all are coming to him. Right here, they're trying to make John jealous.

Like John, before Jesus came, you had all these people coming and they were coming to you and they were being baptized. Now you have all these people coming and only some are coming to you. Most of them are going to Jesus, the one that you bore witness about.

So they're trying to make him jealous. And the commotion of them trying to make them jealous, Jesus knew. Remember, he knew his position. He knew where he stood in his ministry. He knew that he wasn't the Christ.

He knew that he was only a road worker. He knew that he was someone that was preparing the way. And Jesus is here and he's trying to fade into the background. But yet these Jews were trying to make Jesus jealous.

Verse 27 has Jesus's reply to them. John answered and said, a man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven. Again, by this statement, he's recognizing that all he's been given, whether it's plenty or whether it's little, is given to him by God.

And John is showing how thankful he is, whether it's plenty or whether it's little, that he is thankful for what God has given him, recognizing that everything that he has, it's by God's hands. So begins the allegory, verse 29 through 30.

Verse 29, 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. So this joy of mine has been made full. He must increase, but I must decrease.

So our theme last week was the humility of Jesus. And I made a statement that when it comes to ministry, every minister should be one that's humble. We should be one that's ready to back away. I gave an analogy of when someone is a barren witness to Jesus or when someone...

Sunday school today, we talked about witnessing, preaching the gospel, and how this can be looked at like if you're going downtown and you see someone just standing outside and they're looking up in the sky.

And they're not saying anything. They're just standing there looking and Paul Washer speaks about this. He says, and as the people walk by and they see this weird guy standing there looking up, that eventually they look up to see what he's looking at, right?

And that's how John's ministry was, his humility. He had all these great crowds of people coming to him. But his message was that someone else is coming. Stop looking at me. I baptize with water, but someone else is coming and his sandals I am not worthy to untie.

He was a man looking up. And as you look at him, his message was pointing you to something greater. That's what true humility is in ministry. So many ministries fail because you have some charismatic man who wants the attention of everyone who walks in.

And that's not what John was. John was not that kind of a man. John was a man in his ministry that was pointing to a greater man, a greater ministry. And ladies and gentlemen, as servants of God and as ministers of God, that's how our life should be.

We should not want the attention. We should want the attention long enough for us to point the attention to who is greater. That's Jesus Christ. And that's what John is doing. And he explains that in this allegory.

Again, we looked at this last week and we noticed that John was the best man. And Jesus was the groom. As concerning a wedding, a wedding is not focused on the best man or the bridesmaid. A wedding is focused on the bride and groom.

John, the friend of the bridegroom, could be seen today as a modern day best man, right? So that's kind of the conclusion that I stepped into last week, that it says that he is the best friend. Modern day, this could be seen as a best man.

Jesus is the bridegroom. And those who are coming to Jesus to be baptized in the text seems to be speaking about the bride. So Jesus is superior to John concerning the bride as a bridegroom is superior over the best man concerning his bride.

And that's what John is saying. Listen, I'm just the best man.

I'm the best man.

Jesus is the bridegroom. These people that you see gathering to go to him, that's his bride. They're supposed to go to him. His bride is not committing fornication and adultery by coming to me. They're going to their bridegroom.

Christ from Heaven, John from the Earth

Point number two, he is from the earth. Jesus is from heaven. We see this in verses 31 through 32. Let's just read 31 first. Verse 31, he who comes from above is above all. He who comes from the earth is from the earth and speaks of the earth.

He who comes from heaven is above all. The Greek word here for earth is ge, which means earth. More specifically, it's talking about dirt, dust, the ground. So I believe when it comes to the context, Jesus is pointing how different he is than Jesus.

So again, if you were to look at both of them in the physical form, like if we could go back and see both of them, you probably wouldn't be able to see too much of a difference, right? Jesus had to be as much man as John was a man.

John is pointing out that he is from the earth and that Jesus comes from above. John had an earthly mother and father. He was conceived by his mother and father. Therefore, he was born and he was born under the curse of Adam, meaning out of the ground, dust.

He's from the earth. Adam is the man of dust. We see that in Genesis chapter 3, 19, where it says God speaking to Adam. He says, for you are dust and to the dust you shall return. This is being after the curse.

John is merely pointing out how human he is. I am a human, but Christ is divine. I am not divine. I am not the Christ. Again, Matthew 11, 11, Jesus speaking of John says, truly I say to you among those born of women, speaking of his natural birth, there is a rise in anyone greater than John the Baptist.

So Jesus is superior to John because he is not from the earth, but he's from heaven.

Right?

I'm not superior to anyone in here. We're both from the earth. But you have someone that's on the earth who is not from the earth, who is from heaven. He is superior. That's John's point and purpose. Now, in case you think that I just like talking about the incarnation too much, I want you to see that this is just how scripture speaks.

This is what scripture says. This is scripture's declaration. John is speaking of Jesus and he says he comes from above in heaven, outside of time, eternity, paradise, like name something that he is not from here.

He has entered into time. He has exited heaven. He has, he has went from eternity into, to time. He's no longer in paradise. He's with us. That's what John is saying. That the creator of everything entered into time.

The finite took on, I mean, the infinite took on finite. That's the point John is making. He's saying that God entered into time. He who was from, he who is from above enters into time. That's been the message so far throughout this gospel.

That's what this gospel has been expressing over and over again. We first see it in verse 1 of chapter 1. Verse 1 of chapter 1. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.

The Greek here is ton logos in pros ton theos, ton theos in, ton, excuse me, say that again. Ton logos in pros ton theos, ton theos in ton logos. Which is, the word was with God, God was the word. Then we see in verse 10, speaking of the word, he was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world did not know him.

Verse 14, and the word, which is the logos, became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father. Full of grace and truth. And we, it's also seen in chapter 3, verse 13, Jesus speaking to Nicodemus.

He says, no one has ascended into heaven, but he who descended from heaven, the son of man. Speaking about him entering into time. That the logos was with theos, and theos was logos. And the logos took on flesh, he has entered into time.

And verse 16 says, for God so loved the world that he gave, he gave to us, his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. Verse 17, for God did not send, so Jesus was sent to us from heaven.

He did not send his son into the world to judge the world. Remember we looked at that last week when it talks about the light came into, that the judgment that was on the world was the light. The judgment is that light has come into the earth.

And we see that Jesus is the light. He didn't come to judge, he is the judgment. And if you do not believe in him, you are going to perish. You are going to be destroyed. First physically, and then spiritually.

And in the coming judgment, both body and soul will be thrown into hell. So he who was with God, who was God, who was sent by God, who took on flesh is superior over all flesh.

Why?

Because he is from above. Jesus is from above. Verse 31 again, and we'll read to verse 33. He who comes from above is above all. He who is on the earth is from the earth and speaks of the earth. He who comes from heaven is above all.

What he has seen and heard of, he bears witness, and no one receives his witness. He who receives his witness has set his seal to this, that God is true. Jesus is not from the earth, he is from above, and he comes with a message.

He comes to reveal to us the message. We also see this in chapter 1 again, verse 18, right? You had a group of Jews who were followers of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Verse 18 says that no one has ever seen God at any time.

The only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, speaking of Jesus, he has explained him. Jesus came with the message to explain to us God. Stay in chapter 1, look at verse 11 and 12. He came to his own, and those who were his own did not receive him.

But as many as received him to them, he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believed in his name. The Jewish people at this time were looking for their Messiah. Their Messiah came, and because he did not fit their bill of what the Messiah should look like, they rejected him.

He was just like every other man, right? Appearance-wise, he came to his own, and by the majority was rejected. Those who received him were given the right to become children of God. So if I could restate what John 3, 33 is saying, it's this.

To those who received Jesus, who received his witness, became children of God, and has set their seal to this, that God is true. My wife earlier in Sunday school spoke about a signet ring. And what a signet ring was, it can be a family crest, but at this time, when you had one made, it wasn't like made manufactured.

They were made by hands, and no two could be made alike. And so you had a certain seal that was just for your family, it was particularly for your family, or for your kingdom. And again, the servants, we mentioned this earlier, would be given this ring.

And when they would go with a message, they would stamp that seal in, that this message comes from this family, this message comes from this king. And this is telling us that those who are in Christ, who are children of God, we have set our seal to this, and that is, God is true.

That God has given us this signet ring when we speak, you could say. And when we go out and proclaim truth, we have this ring of truth, this signet. And our statement should be that God is true. So the question is, what does it mean that God is true?

And I think it's fine if we just grab some low-hanging fruit, right? To say that a person who receives the witness of Jesus goes from knowing there's a God to knowing God personally, right? Everyone knows there's a God, right?

Romans 1. Everyone knows there's a God, but not everyone knows Him personally. And so that would be the truth that we are proclaiming. You know there's a God, right? Creation declares the glory of God.

You know there's a God. And the person that receives this truth goes from knowing there is to knowing Him personally. So as we transition, it is one thing to know someone, to know of someone. It's quite different to know someone, right?

To know of someone is to hear stories about them. To know someone personally is to experience life with them. That when I die, that when you die, right? And we're going to. They shouldn't be able to tell our story without talking about God, without mentioning God, right?

God should be so much a part of your life that when people think of you, they think of God. That's how our relationship with Jesus is supposed to be. Like when people talk about me, they're not going to be able to talk about me without speaking of my family, my wife and kids, right?

The Rice family.

How much more?

God.

I can remember growing up, me and my brother, we were so tight. And you didn't call, you didn't say Jeff or you didn't say Pee-wee. You said Jeff and Pee-wee or Pee-wee and Jeff. Like you didn't say just one name.

There were two names mentioned. Or if you would say, yeah, you know that Jeff Rice and they'd be like, Jeff Pee-wee.

Right?

Growing up, you didn't mention me without mentioning him. And you didn't mention him without mentioning me.

Right?

We had relationship together.

We lived life together.

How much more, ladies and gentlemen, should it be with me and God? How much more? To know of someone versus to experience life with them. Ladies and gentlemen, I don't want my story to be told without you being in it.

Right?

We are experiencing life in the Christian relationship together. I am not a man under a tree with a Bible proclaiming truth to myself. We are in this relationship together. We are called to be the body of Christ.

What is a hand without an arm? What is an arm without a shoulder? What is a mind without a heart? We're to be this together. And together, we are to be worshiping God and growing in our holiness together, living out this experience together, which is why we gather here together on the Lord's day.

There is no growing in holiness in Scripture by yourself. It's together. You don't take the Lord's Supper by yourself. We do it together. I don't sit up. I remember earlier, I was talking about preaching the gospel in the shower to myself.

But I don't sit under the Word by myself to grow, to learn. Yes, but God uses the corporate gathering of ourselves to grow us in holiness, that we gather together for the teachings of the apostles to break bread, to fellowship, and to pray, to sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.

That's what God uses. This is how we are experiencing one another and also God. What does Revelation say? That Christ walks among the lampstand. Chapter 1 of Revelation, the last verse says the lampstand is the churches.

Ladies and gentlemen, as we're right here right now, having underneath the Word of God, Christ is walking among us because we are a lampstand. We are the church. And as we're experiencing life together with one another, we're experiencing this in his presence.

We have been indwelled with the Holy Spirit of God, the Shekinah of glory. And that no one should be able to tell my story without you being mentioned, without Christ being mentioned. We are the body of Christ.

The Son Speaks the Words of God and Gives the Spirit Without Measure

Point number three, John was sent with a message. Jesus is the message. This is taken from verses 34 to 36. John's message so far has been this. Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Lamb of God. Jesus is the bridegroom.

Jesus is from above. Look at verse 34. For he whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure. First, notice again that Jesus is sent. Jesus is sent to us from the Father.

This is speaking about the incarnation, but he also speaks for God. Speaking about Jesus being the prophet. That John was asked, was he the prophet? John said, no, I'm not the prophet. And we see this in Hebrews.

Hebrews chapter one, verses one and two. God having spoken long ago to our fathers and the prophets in many portions and in many ways in these last days spoke to us in his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things and through whom he made the worlds.

Telling us that Jesus is the prophet. Jesus is who he is speaking through. And then you see in Acts chapter three, Acts chapter three, verse 22. Again, remember they asked John the Baptist, were you the prophet?

The prophet coming from Deuteronomy 18. Moses, God speaking to Moses. Moses relating the message to the people that someone was going to come that was going to be from among them and he was going to be a prophet like unto Moses and they are to listen to him.