As the Light, Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of God’s promise and plan for all humanity...

This week, we have been looking at the opening section of an account of Jesus life that is recorded for us in the Bible called the gospel of John. Wednesday, we saw John give us a front row seat to a conversation that John the Baptizer had with a group of people that John referred to as the Jews. Throughout the gospel of John, John uses the phrase “the Jews” to refer to a group of Jewish people who were self-righteous religious people who were opposed to Jesus and who were far from God.

A delegation of these self righteous religious people had confronted John the baptizer over his practice of baptizing the Jewish people who were responding to his message. Today, we will see that one day after this confrontation, the One who would follow John the Baptizer, the One who was the Light, enters into the story in verse 29:

 The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! "This is He on behalf of whom I said, 'After me comes a Man who has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.' "I did not recognize Him, but so that He might be manifested to Israel, I came baptizing in water." John testified saying, "I have seen the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven, and He remained upon Him. "I did not recognize Him, but He who sent me to baptize in water said to me, 'He upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining upon Him, this is the One who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.' "I myself have seen, and have testified that this is the Son of God."

John tells us that as Jesus approached from the distance, John the Baptizer made a powerful proclamation: "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” In Jewish culture, a spotless lamb that was without blemish was required as a sacrificial offering to God. The spotless lamb was offered as a substitute to pay the penalty for acts of selfishness and rebellion that had been committed against God.

John the Baptizer is revealing for us the reality that Jesus, as the Light, was the sacrificial lamb that belonged to God and was provided by God to deal with the selfishness and rebellion of all humanity throughout all human history. Jesus, as the Light, was the sacrificial lamb without blemish that the prophet Isaiah predicted and proclaimed that the Messiah would be some 600 years earlier in Isaiah 53:7. John the Baptizer then continued his testimony to confirm and establish that Jesus was the Light by pointing to an earlier encounter with Jesus when he baptized Jesus.

John the Baptizer’s testimony, if communicated in the language we use in our culture today, would have sounded like this: “I did not know that Jesus was the Light as the Messiah, all I knew was that God had given me the mission to proclaim that the Kingdom of Heaven was near and to baptize those who responded so that the Messiah would be revealed and exposed publicly as the Light. Then one day, I baptized Jesus and saw the Holy Spirit descend upon Him and Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit. Then I remembered that God had told me that the one who the Holy Spirit descended upon and filled would be the one who was the Light and the Messiah. I was there. I saw it happen with my own eyes. I am a witness that confirms and establishes the truth that Jesus is God in a bod who is the Light and the Messiah and I am committed to that truth.”

Now you might be thinking to yourself “Well Dave that sounds great, but is there anyone else that can corroborate John the Baptizer’s testimony? Is there anywhere else where the event that John is testifying to is recorded and can serve as evidence to his claims? If that question is running through your mind, I want to let you know that it is a great question to be asking. In another account of Jesus life in the Bible, called the gospel of Matthew, we see another of Jesus closest followers record for us the testimony of John when it came to John’s encounter and baptism of Jesus in Matthew 3:13-16:

Then Jesus arrived from Galilee at the Jordan coming to John, to be baptized by him. But John tried to prevent Him, saying, "I have need to be baptized by You, and do You come to me?" But Jesus answering said to him, "Permit it at this time; for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness." Then he permitted Him. After being baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and lighting on Him, and behold, a voice out of the heavens said, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased."

This morning, can you imagine what John must have been thinking and feeling? Here is a man that has been proclaiming, God is coming, the kingdom of Heaven is coming, and there right before his eyes is the promised one of God, the Light, the Messiah Jesus. And then the Light, the Messiah, who you have just been saying will provide a greater baptism that people will publicly proclaim and identify with than yours, asks you to baptize Him? John responds to his situation by stating “I have need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me”?

John recognized his need for identification with Jesus as the Light and responded by wanting to have Jesus baptize him. Yet Jesus replies to John’s request by saying “permit it at this time for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness”. But what does that mean? And why would Jesus, God in a bod, without sin, without a need to change the trajectory of His life, want or need to be baptized?

You see, Jesus told John the Baptizer that He needed to be baptized not because Jesus had ever sinned; Jesus wanted to be baptized because He wanted to identify Himself with sinful humanity, even though He never sinned. When Jesus stated that He fulfilled all righteousness, what Jesus was saying was that He fulfilled all the requirements necessary to be our rescuer and deliverer from sin. And one of the ways that He did that was through this act of baptism. This act was Jesus way of identifying Himself with us so that He could allow Himself to be treated as though He lived our selfish and sinful life so that God the Father could treat us as though we lived Jesus perfect life.

And we see God the Father’s response to Jesus desire to identify with us in verse 16. We see all three members of the Trinity present as the Holy Spirit descends on Jesus to fill Him with the Holy Spirit as God the Father states “this is my Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased”. And it is here, in the mission and the testimony of John the Baptizer, that we see God reveal for us a timeless and powerful truth timeless truth when it comes to Jesus as the light. And that timeless truth is this:  As the Light, Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of God’s promise and plan for all humanity.

You see, it was John the Baptizer’s baptism of Jesus in fulfillment of the mission that he had been given by God that provides us the proof that confirms and establishes that something happened in history. It was John the Baptizer’s baptism of Jesus in fulfillment of the mission that he had been given by God that provides us the proof that confirms and establishes that Jesus was God’s ultimate disclosure of Himself. It was John the Baptizer’s baptism of Jesus in fulfillment of the mission that he had been given by God that provides us the proof that confirms and establishes that Jesus Christ, as the second member of the Trinity, is the eternal Divine Being who has always existed in a close, personal relationship with God the Father and the Holy Spirit.

It was John the Baptizer’s baptism of Jesus in fulfillment of the mission that he had been given by God that provides us the proof that confirms and establishes that Jesus Christ is the source of life and a light for all of humanity. And, it was John the Baptizer’s baptism of Jesus in fulfillment of the mission that he had been given by God that provides us the proof that confirms and establishes that what happened in history some 2,000 years ago was the fulfillment of a promise and a plan that God had made to all humanity.

So here is the question to consider: how are you responding to the testimony that confirms and established that something happened in history that fulfills God’s promise to provide all humanity an opportunity to experience forgiveness and the relationship with God that you were created for as a result of Jesus Christ, as the Light, prevailing over selfishness, sin, rebellion, and death?