(Luke) 10 - Intro to Chap3 — Ed Miller

Let me just give a little bit, by way of review, we've come pretty far, we're in Lesson 10 in our study. If you've missed any of those lessons and desire them, just ask Lillian and she keeps the tapes and she'll be glad to get you those.

The Son of Man Seeks and Saves the Lost

Luke 19 .10 is our key verse for the book, and Luke 19 .10 says, For the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which is lost. All monosyllables, every syllable, every word in that verse is a monosyllable, how simple it is.

The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which is lost. The Gospel of Luke presents the Lord Jesus as the Son of all mankind. Not just Jews, everybody, all flesh, shall see the salvation of the Lord.

In our discussion, we've come to Chapter 2, sort of the end of Chapter 2, the coming of the Son of all mankind in order to be the Son of all mankind. In Chapter 2, we were looking at the greatness of His coming, and we divided it up into three sections.

In other words, we looked at Chapter 2 three times. First, we saw the greatness of His coming in the way He came, and that is He came down, down, down, down, down in order to be the Son of all mankind.

And then we saw the greatness of His coming illustrated by those to whom He came. You say, He came to everybody, Gentiles and Jews. Yes, but more especially, He came to the humble, illustrated by the shepherds, and He came to the seekers, illustrated by Simeon and Anna.

Who does He come to? Always the humble, always the seekers. And then last time, we looked at His greatness in Chapter 2, illustrated by the results of His coming. The results of His coming, illustrated by the angels and the shepherds, is supernatural joy.

Illustrated by Simeon is contentment in life and peace. Illustrated by Mary is identification with Christ. Illustrated by Anna is mission, overflow, outworking. We want to begin Chapter 3 this morning, but I want to finish up Chapter 2 first.

There's a couple of dangling things that I'd like to mention. When we left off, we were calling attention to Chapter 2, 41 to 52. This story about our Lord Jesus when He was 12 years old. Remember, He was lost in Jerusalem.

Let me just read that record again, and then make a couple of final comments, and then we'll move on. Begin at 41. His parents used to go to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of Passover. And when He became 12, they went up there according to the custom of the feast.

And as they were returning, after spending the full number of days, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. And His parents were unaware of it, but supposed Him to be in the caravan. And they went a day's journey.

They began looking for Him among their relatives and acquaintances. When they did not find Him, they returned to Jerusalem looking for Him. And it came about that after three days, they found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions.

And all who heard Him were amazed at His understanding and His answers. And when they saw Him, they were astonished. And His mother said to Him, Son, why have you treated us this way? Behold, Your Father and I have been anxiously looking for You.

And He said to them, Why is it that you were looking for Me? Did you not know that I had to be about My Father's house? And they did not understand this statement which He had made. And He went down with them and came to Nazareth.

He continued in subjection to them. And His mother treasured all these things in her heart. Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man. This is a wonderful conclusion to chapter 2 because it's a great warning.

We called attention to that last time. You see, chapter 2 tells us how wonderful it is to have Jesus come. That's how it begins. He's great in His coming. Great for those to whom He came. Great in the results of His coming.

And then the chapter ends with this. Don't lose Him. Don't leave Him behind. And remember now, they lost Him at Passover. They lost Him in the religious ceremony. They lost Him in the time of worship.

They lost Him in the time of wonderful fellowship. I think the saddest verse in chapter 2 is Luke 2, 44. They supposed Him to be in the caravan. What a terrible thing to suppose Him to be with you when in reality He's not.

See, they got so wrapped up in the fellowship and all of the ancillary things, they just left the Lord Jesus behind. Now, we spent quite a bit of time last time discussing that. And if you'd like that discussion, Lillian will get you that tape.

Jesus at Twelve: Perfectly Related to God and Humanity

Before we leave chapter 2, I want to make some final observations. Last week, I suggested this question. Why would the Holy Spirit give us this one event when Jesus was 12 years old? There's a period of time in His life, 30 years, which are called the obscure years.

God doesn't tell us anything about the first 30 years except He tells us this one incident. Last time, I suggested the spiritual reason. And I think the spiritual reason is this. In chapter 2, this story of Jesus when He was 12 reveals two things about the Lord Jesus.

Number one, that He was rightly related to God. I must be about my father's business. And He was rightly related to men, illustrated by His subjection to His parents when He went back for all of those years.

That's what we need to know about those 30 years. He was rightly related to God. He was rightly related to men. He was perfect. And then the second thing we needed to know was His heart was still set on His father's business.

Now, when He was a little baby, I pointed out from Hebrews 10 that He actually taught. And when He came into the world, He said, A body thou hast prepared for me, I come to do thy will, O God. And now at 12 years old, He's still focused on that goal and He's about His father's business.

And so that's the spiritual reason. Because all we need to know about those 30 years is that He's perfect and He's come to do His father's work. Now, in addition to that, as we close, our sister Ginny suggested from the standpoint of her, 12 years old was an important age in the life of a Jewish boy.

And that's true. At 12 years old, the Jewish boy became what was known as the son of the covenant or the son of the law that continues to the present day in the famous Jewish bar mitzvah. And this entering, leaving puberty and entering into adulthood and so on.

At this age, 12 years old, he began to take on responsibility. Not full responsibility, but he began. At this point, from this point on, every vow the 12 year old gave was binding. He had to keep his word from this point on.

Now he was expected to fast. Pretty much, let me give you how they broke it up. When the Jewish child was 3 years old, for the first time he could wear tasseled garments. That was the introduction into all of the ceremony.

And then when he was 5 years old, he was allowed to start memorizing scripture. When he was 10 years old, he was introduced to the Talmud and especially, you know how we have commentaries on the Bible.

Well, they also had a commentary called the Mishnah. And that was the interpretation of the law and then some comments on it. And for the first time at age 10, he could begin to study the Mishnah. And then at age 12, they got to wear the phylactery.

A phylactery is just a little box. And they would wear it on their forehead with Bible verses in it. And they'd wear it on their arm with Bible verses in it. And that was a big day for the 12 year old.

At age 14, they really got responsibility. Now they could marry. Now they could own property. Now they could go to war, enter into military service and so on. And then at age 18, they could study the Gomorrah.

Say, what's the Gomorrah? Well, the Talmud is the Bible. The Mishnah is the interpretation of the Bible. The Gomorrah is the interpretation of the interpretation. So now they could study commentaries on the commentary.

And so that was pretty much a young child growing up in the Jewish culture. And so it's accurate to point out that from the standpoint of Jesus, 12 years old was an important age. My mother, I came to know the Lord before my mother did.

But she had a straightforward approach to all the scriptures. Like she'd struggle with Paul. Oh, he's a woman hater, you know. She had a hard time with Paul. And she came to this chapter and I asked her one time, what did you get out of this 12-year-old thing?

And she said what she got out of it is a 12-year-old should listen, ask questions, and submit to his parents. So that's what my mother got out of it. Before we leave Luke chapter 2, let me point out a couple other things.

I was puzzled about verse 44 and 46. It says, they supposed him to be in the caravan, went a day's journey, and began looking for him among their relatives and acquaintances. And then when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem, and it came about after three days they found him in the temple.

I used to think that they traveled a day and they missed him. Then they traveled another day back, and then they spent three days looking for him. I'm pretty sure that's not how it was. I think the three days is the total.

In other words, I think they were gone a day, came back a day, and then they found him on the third day. You say, well, that's not important. Well, it's really not important unless you're the parent looking for the lost child.

If you're the parent looking for the lost child, that extra three days could be an eternity, as you know. One thing my wife and I always do is we study together, and she often gives tremendous insight in life.

I just praise the Lord for Lillian and that we study together. And she made an interesting comment about verse 50 and 51. It says, they did not understand the statement which he had made, and he came down with them, came to Nazareth, he continued in subjection to them, and his mother treasured all these things in her heart.

Lillian called together those two ideas. They did not understand, and she treasured it in her heart. And her comment was that we don't need to understand in order to treasure it in our heart. And what didn't they understand?

And the answer is they didn't understand the mystery. When he said, I must be about my father's business, they didn't understand the mystery. And the thing that makes that so important is that in verse 48, Mary felt like she had been mistreated by her son.

She felt like one of two things, I think. He either should have informed me, number one, or he should have got my permission, number two. And I think a parent would think that would be true of a 12-year-old.

You better inform me or get my permission. But of course, God was illustrating that Jesus had a relationship to Mary. Jesus had a relationship to his Father God. And his relationship to God was higher than his relationship to Mary.

And because of his relationship to God, he set his heart to bypass his mother's wishes to do his father's will. And she felt like because of her relationship to him that she had some rights. You should tell me what's going on.

You should explain this to me. You should get my permission. The reality is sometime when we feel like he needs our permission to do something or he better inform us as to what's going on, he's about his father's business and we feel like he's mistreated us.

Don't you love me anymore, Lord? What's going on? Why did you treat me this way? Even when you don't understand how God has treated you, you can treasure it in your heart as a mystery and know that he's doing his father's business.

And so his father's will is far above our wishes. And it's wonderfully illustrated here at the end of Luke 2. One more thing before we leave Luke 2, and that is the terminal points in Luke 2. When you study any portion of scripture, you'll want to see the terminal points.

And by that I mean how does it begin, how does it end. And usually God has tied his word together in such a way that by seeing how it begins and how it ends, it carries some great truth. Notice how the chapter begins in verse 1 and in verse 4 and 5.

It came about in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that a census be taken of the inhabited earth. And in verse 4, Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth to Judea to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, in order to register along with Mary, who was engaged to him and was with child.

On the low level of earth, why did Mary and Joseph go to Bethlehem? And the answer is because the government told them to. They submitted to the government. There was a taxation, and they went in order to fulfill the requirement of the law.

But as you know, there was another reason. 600 years before a prophecy was given in the book of Micah, chapter 5 and verse 2,. But you, Bethlehem, Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah from you.

One shall go forth from me, who is to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from the ages of eternity. And so 600 years before, the prophet said, he'll be born in Bethlehem. I don't know if Mary and Joseph knew that prophecy.

I don't know if Joseph said, we got to get to Bethlehem. You know, Micah said that Christ is going to be born in Bethlehem. I have an idea. They didn't have a clue about that. They just submitted to the government, and God watched over his word in order to perform.

And so it begins with Mary and Joseph submitting to the government. How does it end? See, the chapter ends with Jesus submitting to his parents for all of those years, from 12 years old all the way to 30.

Verse 51, He went down with them and came to Nazareth, continued in subjection to them, and his mother treasured all these things in her heart. Now, the great issue of the life of Christ, as you know, is in verse 49.

Do you not know that I must be about my Father's business, my Father's will? Jesus had to do his Father's will. Later, he's going to call it his meat, his food. That's his life. I've got to do my Father's will.

You see, at the beginning of the chapter, there's a prophetic word. At the end of the chapter, there's the will of God, my Father's business. How am I going to be sure in my life that the word of God is fulfilled?

How am I going to be sure in my life that the Father's business is going to be fulfilled? I call attention to this because there was absolutely no danger that God's word would fail. Absolutely no danger that God's will would be done.

As I said, I'm not even sure they knew there was a prophecy. I call attention to this because for years in my Christian life, I got paranoid about the will of God. Oh, I've got to find God's will. I've got to know what God wants me to do.

I don't want to marry the wrong person. I don't want to take the wrong job. I don't want to live in the wrong house. I don't want to live in the wrong city. I don't want to get involved in the wrong ministry.

How will I find God's will? Mary, don't forget, now Mary's the picture of the church. And every time, she's the first picture of the church in the New Testament. Every time you see Mary, you better put yourself in there because you see yourself.

Mary had Christ in her when she went to Bethlehem. And when you have Christ in you, you don't have to worry about missing the word of God. When I have Christ in me, I don't have to worry about missing the word of God.

Just live up to the light you have. Submit whatever comes and you know to be right. Just do that. And you're going to end up in the will of God. The Father's will was going to be done. You say, well, Jesus delayed the Father's will all those years.

No, he didn't. He just submitted to his parents. That's the right thing to do. And God's will was done. If I live up to my present life and you live up to your present life, you are not going to miss the will of God.

Don't, now this might sound like a heretic talking, but don't run after the will of God. Run after the God whose will it is. If you go after the Lord, you can't miss his will. Remember that wonderful promise in Proverbs?

In all your ways acknowledge him. Can you finish it? And he shall direct your path. Ah, exactly right. He shall direct your path. You can't miss God's will. Sometimes people call up and say, you know, can you help me?

How can I find God's will? I'll tell you how to find God's will. You run after Jesus for 80 years. And then you look over your shoulder and you'll see all the guidance you ever want to see. All the guidance you ever want to see.

And if it doesn't work, then try something else. But at least give it 80 years. And just go after the Lord himself and you're going to find his will. That's what you see in chapter. They weren't trying to get to Bethlehem.

They were just obeying the government and God took care of his word. Jesus wasn't worried about fulfilling the Father's will. He just submitted to his parents and the Father's will was done. And so we can rest in the Lord.

Luke 3: The Son of Man Identifies With Humanity

Now, so much for chapter 2. I'm going to ask you to turn, please, to chapter 3 of Luke. I know why I'm puzzled. I'm in jail. Luke chapter 3. Luke chapter 1, we titled, Certainty Through Faith. Luke chapter 2, The Greatness of His Coming.

And just so, Luke chapter 3 tells us how the perfect son of man now begins to identify with the imperfect sons of men. And in this chapter we begin to see what Luke will develop throughout the whole chapter, I mean the whole book.

And that is he's now becoming one of us. He's become a man and now he's going to identify with us. There are three stories in chapter 3. The first one covers the first 20 verses and that is the forerunner of our Lord Jesus.

He prepares the son of man to identify with the sons of men. And then in chapter 3, 21 and 22, we have this wonderful story of the baptism of our Lord Jesus. I think you're going to get a blessing when we look at that together.

And then at the end, chapter 23 to 38, we have the genealogy of the son of man. This traces the genealogy all the way from Messiah back to Adam, not Abraham. Back to Adam because he's the son of all mankind.

And this genealogy, by the way, traces it through Mary. Matthew traces it through Joseph. When we get to that, I'll show you why God has given us those two. This morning, I'd like to introduce those first 20 verses, the forerunner.

John the baptizer prepares for the coming of the son of all mankind. Follow along, please, as we read the first two verses. In the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip was tetrarch of the region of Aeternia, and Trichonitis, and Licinius was tetrarch of Abilene.

In the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness. When you read that, you say, now all this is is history. All this is is historical fact.

Now remember in Luke 1, 3, he promised he was going to do that. He said he investigated everything thoroughly and was going to ground us in all of the facts. But God is not just giving us dry historical facts so that we can answer the question, who was Caesar, who was governor, who were the three tetrarchs, who were the two high priests.

God is not giving us dry facts. Those first two verses prepare us for the spiritual message of this wonderful chapter. We sometimes read these things, la, la, la. But even in a cursory study, if you know anything about history, you know the names of those men register some pretty wicked people.

They were not nice people at all. And Luke was writing to show us how terrible things had become at that time when our Lord Jesus began his ministry. The situation in Luke 3 is a far cry from God's original plan.

Political Oppression and Religious Corruption in Luke 3

God's original plan was that Israel would be like it was in the days of David and the days of Solomon, that there would be kings and priests that were holy and godly. But now Jerusalem, the city of peace, it was not a city of peace.

They were under the heel of the Roman government. They were subservient to Rome and paying taxes to Rome. And in fact they were slaves, not like the Egyptian slavery where they were whipped every day, but they were still in bondage to this oppressive power.

Tiberius Caesar, he was the stepson of Augustus Caesar. Here's one historian's view. He was ambitious, cruel, licentious, infamous, inhuman, and lived a life of lustful excesses. Welcome to this nice emperor of Rome.

This man was proud and he wanted his name to live in history. And so he visited a city and he said, from now on this city will no longer be called by its name. And that's why you read in your map and you'll find the city of Tiberius.

They've got a new name. And he went down to the Sea of Galilee and he said, this is no longer the Sea of Galilee. And that's why in your Bible it's called the Sea of Tiberius. Because he just changed the name.

He was just a proud, arrogant, wicked ruler. You don't have to say much about 3 -1 because you know who Pontius Pilate was. And he, of course, is the one who sentenced our Lord Jesus to the death on the cross.

The Tetrarchs that are mentioned here, there's only three mentioned. In order to have a Tetrarchy you need four because that's just a ruler of one-fourth of a piece of land. We know about Herod. This is the grandson of Herod the Great.

If you want to know who Herod the Great is, just put in the word monster at the end. Herod the Great Monster. He's the one that had those babies killed. He's the one that took a sword and opened his mother's womb so he could see the womb that brought him into the world.

Killed all his brothers. Just a wicked, wicked man. And his grandson is almost like him. This descendant of Esau. We know about him from Chapter 3. That he took his brother Philip's wife, 3, 19, and 20.

He was an adulterer. He was a wicked, wicked man. We know from Matthew 14 it was this Herod that finally took the head of John the Baptizer. Had him decapitated. What had the Jews, God's promised people, what had become of all of the promises?

Now you've got this wicked, Tiberius Caesar. You've got the governor Herod and Pilate. Rather, Pilate is the governor and Herod is Petrarch over central Palestine. And then look at verse 2. It says, It wasn't even religious.

It was just a political thing. And you know these were the greatest promoters in the death of our Lord Jesus. And God is just illustrating how terrible things had become. With a ruler like this Caesar.

With a man like Herod in there. With a man like Pilate. And these wicked political priests. These high priests. And the people, as far as the religious, look at verse 8 and 9. Here's what John said. He said, Therefore bring forth fruits in keeping with repentance.

Do not begin to say, We have Abraham for our father. I say to you, God's able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Everything was external. These Jews were so proud and these Pharisees. They just gloated in the fact that they had a lineage.

We're saved. Abraham's our father. And John said, Don't you say that. God could go out and take a stone and make that into a child of Abraham. Just because you can trace yourself to Abraham. He said, You better not glory in that.

You know how through the years we have all these jokes about Peter at the gate of heaven. And we have all kinds of jokes. I guess it's because Jesus at one time gave him the keys to the kingdom. So somehow he got the porter of the door to heaven.

Well, the Pharisees had something like that on the other side. They said Abraham, Father Abraham, was in charge of the doors of hell. And what was he doing there? And the Pharisees said, He was there to make sure no circumcised person ever got into hell.

And that was their area. As long as you were circumcised. As long as you were a Jew. As long as you could trace your genealogy. And that's when John comes along and he said, God has laid the axe right to the root of the tree.

And it's time to repent and turn from all this kind of thing. All of this to say that in days like this, when you have a Caesar like that and a governor like that, and Tetrarch like this, and in the temple these wicked, wicked priests, and in the religious life of the people, the ceremony and externals and all of this.

In those days, again, don't read verse 2, la, la, la. The word of the Lord came to John in the wilderness. That's the only place God could find somebody. Everything was dead and everything was cold and everything was wicked.

And God found a listening ear out there in the desert. How often he bypasses the ecclesiastical world and the political world and goes out into the desert where he can find a listening ear. Now we don't know how long John lived in the desert.

You know his parents, Elizabeth and Zacharias, were very old when they had him. And some say, well, they died young and he just went out into the wilderness. Some believe he'd been out there for 10 years.

You say, well, where'd they get that, 10 years? Well, you know, Zacharias was a priest. And in the Old Testament it said when the son of a priest was 20 years old, he would begin then to become the apprentice.

And so at 20 they say John went out into the wilderness and had been out there for these 10 years. I don't think anybody knows for sure. But Luke stresses the heart of God once again. Now he's going to identify with the sons of men.

And when everything is as black as black can be, God reaches down and he goes into the wilderness and he finds this listening ear in John the baptizer. Now what I'd like to do for the next couple of weeks, minus our Thanksgiving break, is focus in on this wonderful instrument of God, this John the baptizer.

Recall, please, in chapter 1, when we were in chapter 1, I said we're going to, there's one thing about John I wanted to mention, and we pick it up when we came to chapter 3. Well, here we are, and so I want to pick that up.

John and Elijah: The Law of Multiple Fulfillment

I want to use this illustration of John and Elijah. God puts that together and calls John Elijah. I want to illustrate from that a great Bible principle. And the principle can be expressed in these words, the law of multiple fulfillment.

And what I mean by the law of multiple fulfillment is this, that the same word that God gives can be fulfilled over and over and over and over again. And that's how he does it. So that when he came at Pentecost, he said, this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel in those days, in the last days, old men shall dream dreams and have visions and so on.

He said, this is that, it's fulfilled. And you read a little while later, it's still coming. Was it fulfilled or not? You read Matthew 24, and Jesus says, it's going to come to pass that not one stone will be left on another.

You say, well, that's 70 A .D. when Titus the Roman emperor went in and destroyed Jerusalem. Was that 70 A .D.? Yes, it was. Is it still coming? Yes, it is. It was fulfilled. It's still being fulfilled.

Someday there will be a person on the earth called Antichrist. John says, there's already the spirit of Antichrist. And he's already here. And it keeps coming and coming. Someone says, Mussolini was Antichrist, and Hitler was Antichrist, and Stalin was Antichrist.

Well, that's the truth. They were. They were just keeping the seat warm. There's going to be another one someday. And so there's this law of multiple fulfillment. In the last days, there's going to be earthquakes and wars and rumors of war.

That's always been true. But it's becoming more true. And as you get to the end, this thing begins to grow and grow and grow until the final manifestation. Now, having said that, I'm going to ask you to look at chapter 1 again.

And let me show you this from the standpoint of Elijah and John. Gabriel the angel is speaking in verse 15 about John. He'll be great in the sight of the Lord. He'll drink no wine or liquor. He'll be filled with the Holy Spirit while yet in his mother's womb.

He'll turn back many of the sons of Israel to the Lord their God. It is he who will go as a forerunner before him in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children, to disobey him to the attitude of the righteous, so to make a people ready and prepared for the Lord.

Gabriel said John would come in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the children back to the fathers. Do you know how the Old Testament ends? Malachi chapter 4, verses 5 and 6. It's the end of the Old Testament.

And a promise was given. And it said, behold, I'm going to send you Elijah the prophet. Before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord, he will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children.

In other words, the Old Testament ends with a promise that first Elijah would come and then Messiah would come. You see, the Jews not only had a Messianic expectancy, they not only expected Messiah, they expected Elijah.

They were looking for Elijah to come because God said Elijah was going to come. Now, we're told outright that John, in his ministry, in John chapter 10, verse 41, that John the baptizer worked no miracles.

He never worked a miracle. But because of the way he dressed and the wonderful diet that he had and the things that he ate and the way people flocked to him, the question had to be asked. And so they came to him in John 1, 21.

And they had a delegation come from the church, and they went to him, John 1, 21, are you Elijah? They asked him point blank, are you Elijah? You know his answer? He said, I am not. I am not Elijah. Now that becomes interesting because in Matthew 11, after John had been arrested and thrown into prison, Jesus started talking about John.

Listen to Matthew 11, 9. He said, who did you go out to see, a prophet? I say more than a prophet. Truly I say, among those born of women, there has not arisen anyone greater than John the baptist. Yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

Now listen to Matthew 11, 14. If you care to accept it, he himself is Elijah. They asked John, are you Elijah? He said, no, I am John, I am not Elijah. Jesus said, yes he is. That was the prophecy that was given.

And so Jesus said, John was Elijah. Now the Gabriel said, he is going to come in the spirit and in the power of Elijah. Now he is thrown in this dungeon known as the black tower, that fortress down by the Dead Sea, Machaerus it is called.

John was alive when Jesus said, this is Elijah. Well, he certainly dressed like him. The Bible says that Elijah was a hairy man, and he wore these camel hair coats, and they both came from the wilderness of Gilead, and both lived self-denial life.

There was a sect back then, it would be the modern recluses. They are called the Essenes. Have you heard of the Essenes? This little group of separatists, and they believe in this separation, in this moral purity and ceremony and so on.

Many believe John was an Essene. I personally don't believe he was for this reason. The Essenes wore white robes in order to illustrate purity, because John lived an austere life and was separated, and ate locusts and wild honey.

He looked a lot like the Essenes, but I don't think he was actually an Essene. I think he was influenced by them. He was a Nazarite after the order of Samson. But the point is this, that he said he's not Elijah.