One In Jesus

During Jesus’ three-year ministry prior to his crucifixion, he often forgave sins without baptism. Then again, we know from John 4 that Jesus did, for a while, spend time in the Jordan River region baptizing.

(Joh 3:22-24 ESV) After this Jesus and his disciples went into the Judean countryside, and he remained there with them and was baptizing.  23 John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because water was plentiful there, and people were coming and being baptized  24 (for John had not yet been put in prison). 

The text doesn’t say why Jesus baptized early in his ministry and then appears to have stopped. After all, there’s no record of his baptizing later in any of the four Gospels. It seems likely that Jesus was symbolically approving the work of John — they were not rivals, and John’s baptism was in preparation for the ministry of Jesus. Continue reading →

Finally, Matthew records John’s prophecy regarding the Messiah —

(Mat 3:11-12 ESV) “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

John speaks of the Messiah, declaring that he is, in comparison to him, less than a slave. Indeed, while John baptizes with water, the power of forgiveness is found not in the water but in the covenant promises of God found in the Torah. But Torah has been around for 1,500 years by this time, and it’s proven inadequate. Something needs to change. Continue reading →

Matthew next records a bit of one of John’s sermons —

(Mat 3:7-10 ESV) But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?  8 Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.  9 And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.  10 Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

“Brood of vipers” obviously insults their parents and them as well. These were not kind words. The allusion may be to Jer 46:22, speaking of Egypt — Continue reading →

(Mat 3:3-6 ESV)  3 For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.'”  4 Now John wore a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey.  5 Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him,  6 and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 

Matthew explains that John fulfilled the prophecy of one sent by God to prepare the way for the Messiah. He also explains that John wore the same clothes as Elijah and prophesied at the Jordan River — also associated with Elijah.

To the Eastern mind, symbolic actions are often more important than spoken words. John spoke through his clothing and ministry. If he imitated Elijah, then Judea today must be much like the Israel of Elijah. Herod would be akin to Ahab. The Jews would be akin to the Israelites of Elijah’s day — nearly all of whom refused to follow God, preferring Baal. The priests must be like the priests of Baal — false prophets! Why else would a true prophet prefer the wilderness to Jerusalem? Why insist that the people go out to him? Jeremiah prophesied in Jerusalem, even the palace. Why the wilderness? Continue reading →

To a First Century Jew raised on the Torah, a central text was —

(Deu 30:6 ESV)  6 And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live. 

This text was so central that the authors of the NT refer to often so obliquely that we miss it. They understood Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and Joel to promise that hearts would be circumcised by the Holy Spirit.

(Eze 36:26-27 ESV)  26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.  27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

(Eze 37:12-14 ESV) 12 “Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel.  13 And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people.  14 And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the LORD; I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the LORD.”

Continue reading →

On the other hand, the non-biblical literature is very limited and we really don’t know how typical, say, the Book  of Jubilees, was of the Jews of its era. We have the Talmuds — the Oral Law now in written form — but they weren’t written down until centuries after the Temple was destroyed. It’s hard to say to what extent the Judaism of the Talmud reflects the Judaism of Jesus’ day.

Meanwhile, in Europe and the US, during the 19th and early 20th Century, NT studies became very un-Jewish, due in part of anti-Semitism, and in part due to the influences of Modernity. Efforts were made to read Jesus and Paul as Existentialists or whatever the contemporary philosophers were spouting at the time.

Fortunately, E. P. Sanders famously argued for a “new perspective” on NT studies. Continue reading →