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In the New Testament, John
the Baptist is the last High Priest of the Old Testament. John had been
sent to prepare the way for Jesus Christ, as had been recorded in
Scripture [Malachi 3:1]. He was named to be the greatest of the prophets
born of women. Except for Adam and Eve, all human beings were born from
women. So, John the Baptist was the greatest prophet of all humanity. In
the days of the Israel of Old Testament, prophets were considered to be
greater than kings. John the Baptist was more than a king and more than
a prophet. He was more than all the prophets of the Old Testament. In
fact, John, the last High Priest and the representative of all humanity,
was more important than Aaron, the first High Priest. Jesus Himself
testified that John was as such.
John the Baptist as the representative of all humanity and as the High
Priest, he passed all the sins of the world onto Jesus; thus fulfilling
the role of the priest in the Old Testament in which blood offerings and
blood sacrifices were made of innocent blood to atone for sin.
John had to baptize Jesus in order to blot out the sins of the world.
God had to let John pass all sins onto Jesus so that people who believed
in Him could be saved. As a servant of God, his mission was to pass all
the sins of the world onto Jesus through the baptism. And he bore
witness to Jesus in order for all of humanity to repent and be washed of
their sins by believing in the Gospel of redemption. Therefore, John had
to live alone in the wilderness because the people of Israel had become
totally corrupt and rotten to the core.
In the eyes of God, none of the people of Israel worshipping the Lord
God were righteous before Him. Israelites and their priests did not
offer the lawful sacrifices according to the law of God. The priests had
abandoned the laying on of hands and the ritual of the offering of
blood, which God had given them for the atonement of their sins.
Therefore, John the Baptist could not stay with them. He went out to the
wilderness and cried out to the people for the baptism of repentance.
The baptism of repentance was to lead the people to salvation. The
people were called so that they would believe in Jesus. Christ would
take away all their sins and they would be saved. The cry of John the
Baptist was that Jesus would take away the sins of the world and be
judged on the Cross to save all people, so that they might come back to
God. John was to baptize with water, but Jesus Christ was to baptize
with the Holy Spirit.
The Greek work baptizo essentially means to submerge. But it also
implies to be washed, to be buried, to be immersed, or to pass on to.
The baptism of Jesus at the Jordan River tells us that the Son of God
was thus baptized and took away all our sins to save us. He is the Lamb
who took away the world's sins. Jesus Christ took away all our sins
without exception: original sin, present sins, and even future sins were
washed away through His baptism. This is the gospel of redemption to
which John the Baptist testified.
We should not misunderstand, thinking, that since God is love, we can
enter the Kingdom of Heaven by simply and only believing in Jesus, even
if we have sin in our hearts. In order to be redeemed of all our sins,
we have to believe in His baptism, through which John the Baptist passed
all the sins of the world onto Jesus and the Cross. It is by the water
that John the Baptist passed all the sins of mankind onto Jesus.
Our salvation depends on whether we believe in the righteous acts of
Jesus, the Son of God, and the fact that the messenger of God, John the
Baptist, had passed all the sins of the world onto Him. We need to know
the Gospel of the remission of sins. God the Father sent ahead His
messenger, John, the one who would baptize His Son, Jesus Christ. John
was chosen as the High Priest who would be the representative chosen as
High Priest of humanity to prepare the blood sacrifice for our atonement
for all sins--past, present, and future. Christ was to be the last blood
offering to the Lord God. In this, Jesus Christ was to become the
fulfillment of the Law. No more would those chosen to be God's people
need to go to a priest and make a sacrificial offering. Jesus Christ,
through the shedding of His life and blood, was the ultimate and final
offering.
To make sense of John the Baptist, one needs to understand his lineage
and the purpose of High Priests. The Old Testament states the task of
the High Priest Aaron. Aaron was the older brother of Moses. God
anointed him and his sons as priests. The other Levites worked under
them, bringing them assorted utensils, mixing the batter for the bread
and such, while the sons of Aaron offered the sacrifice inside the holy
tabernacle.
Aaron's sons were anointed to share an equal amount of work among them,
but on the Day of Atonement, the tenth day of the seventh month, the
High Priest alone offered the sacrifice of atonement for his people's
yearly sins.
A descendant of the High Priest had to offer the sacrifice of atonement
in order to fulfill the Covenant of God, made in the Old and New
Testament; the gospel of the redemption of Jesus had to be carried out
correctly so that all the people would be delivered.
Luke 1:5 records the lineage of John the Baptist. In order to understand
Jesus properly, we correctly have to understand this messenger of God.
We devote great thought to Jesus, but ignore much about John the
Baptist, who came before Him.
All the four Gospels of the New Testament talk about John the Baptist
before talking about the redemption of Jesus. Believing in Jesus is not
enough to be saved. We need to understand the role of John the Baptist.
So many people think that redemption lies in our faith in the Cross
because Jesus died on the Cross for us. But we also need to acknowledge
and believe that our sins were passed onto Jesus Christ. God sent John
the Baptist to let the world know how redemption was to be accomplished
and how Jesus would take away the sins of the world.
John the Baptist tells us about the truth of redemption. He tells us how
he came to testify that Jesus was God and the true Light. He clearly
asserted that he was not that Light, but the witness of the Light. We
need the testimony on redemption given by John the Baptist. He is the
witness who recognized and identified Jesus as the Messiah.
When studying the Gospels, we need to pay attention to the fact that all
four Gospels start with John the Baptist when recording the history of
the life of Jesus Christ. All four Gospels tell us about John the
Baptist, and Malachi, the last prophet of the Old Testament also
testifies that John the Baptist is the prepared servant of God. The New
Testament begins with the birth of John the Baptist and the passing on
of sins through him.
In the Old Testament, when a person sinned, they were able to atone by
laying their hands on the head of a sacrificial animal that was without
blemish. In this way, the sin was passed onto the sacrificial animal and
the sacrifice died with those sins. Then the animal's throat was cut and
the priests placed the blood on the horns of the altar of the burnt
offering. This was the way to atone for daily sins. In the case of
yearly sins, Aaron the High Priest offered the sacrifice for all the
people of Israel. In the Old Testament, Aaron and his sons were ordained
by God to serve in perpetuity. All sins had to be washed away through
Aaron and his sons. It was as God had ordered.
Because John the Baptist was born to the house of Aaron, it was proper
for him to be the high priest, and God predestined him to be the last
High Priest, according to His promise of redemption.
So, when John the Baptist laid his hands on Jesus, he passed onto Jesus
all the sins of the world. John the Baptist was the representative of
all humanity and the last high priest because the Old Testament ended
when Jesus Christ was born. John the Baptist passed all the sins of the
world onto Jesus when he baptized Him. This would be the last need for
the Old Testament method.
Reflect on the requirement that the sacrificial offering had to be
unblemished. This explains the need for God the Father to send a pure
and unblemished offering. And that was Jesus Christ. The requirement to
be unblemished also explains why Jesus was born to the Virgin Mary. She
was unblemished in that she was physically pure to bring forth and give
birth to the perfect sacrifice. |