5  The Greatest Man (3:1-6)

Now in those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” For this is the one referred to by Isaiah the prophet, saying, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make ready the way of the Lord, make His paths straight!’” Now John himself had a garment of camel’s hair, and a leather belt about his waist; and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then Jerusalem was going out to him, and all Judea, and all the district around the Jordan; and they were being baptized by him in the Jordan River, as they confessed their sins. (3:1-6)

At a conference one time a young person asked me, “What makes a person great?” I could not think of a good answer right then, but I began thinking about it. In the world’s eyes, such things as being born into a famous, wealthy, or influential family bring a certain measure of greatness simply by heritage. Earning a great deal of money is another mark of the world’s greatness, as are academic degrees, expertise in some field, outstanding athletic ability, artistic talent, high political or military office, and other such things.

By those criteria, however, even Jesus Christ was not great. Though He manifested surpassing wisdom and power, He was born into a quite ordinary family, His father being a simple carpenter. Even after He was grown, Jesus did not own a business, a herd of cattle or sheep, a house, or even a tent. He said, “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head” (Matt. 8:20). He had little, if any, formal education, no political office, no artistic accomplishments—in short, almost no marks of what the world considers greatness.

John the Baptist had even fewer of the world’s marks of greatness than did Jesus. Yet Jesus called John the greatest man who had ever lived until that time: “Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist” (Matt. 11:11). John was greater than Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, or Joseph; greater than Moses, Elijah, David, or any of the other Old Testament men of God. He was greater than any of the kings, emperors, philosophers, or military leaders of history. Yet, like Jesus, he was born into a simple, obscure family. His father, Zacharias, was one of many priests who took turns ministering in the Temple when their course, or division, was scheduled to serve. His mother, Elizabeth, was also from the priestly tribe of Levi and a descendant of the first high priest, Aaron (Luke 1:5). But there were many such descendants, most of whom had no place of special dignity or recognition.

That was John’s family heritage. When he was grown, probably starting in his teen years, John the Baptist went to live in the wilderness of Judea, existing much like a hermit and forsaking even what little social and economic status he had. Yet Luke recorded of him, “for he will be great in the sight of the Lord” (1:15).

Reasons for such superlative commendation can be seen in 3:1-6, where Matthew gives a brief picture of the life and work of John the Baptist and also shows that John’s ministry was yet another evidence of Jesus’ kingship.

In chapter 1 Jesus’ kingship is shown by his birth—by His descent from the royal line of David and by His miraculous conception. In chapter 2 His kingship is shown by the circumstances surrounding His birth—by the homage of the magi, the hatred of Herod, and God’s miraculous protection of the young Jesus. Now we are shown the evidence through the herald who announced the King’s arrival. The greatest man who had yet lived was primarily so because he was herald of the Messiah, the One who was greater still. His greatness was related to his calling.

In ancient times it was common for a herald to precede the arrival of the monarch, to announce his coming and to prepare for his safe and proper travel. With a coterie of servants, the herald would make sure that the roadway was as smooth and uncluttered as possible. Holes would be filled, rocks and debris would be removed, and unsightly litter would be burned or hidden. As the group traveled along and worked, the herald would proclaim the king’s coming to everyone he encountered. His twofold duty was to proclaim and to prepare. That is what John’s ministry did for God’s great King, Jesus Christ.

In presenting the herald of Christ, Matthew shows us the man, the message, the motive, the mission, the manner, and the ministry.

THE MAN

Now in those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, (3:1)

Now in those days serves as a transition between chapters 2 and 3. It was a common literary phrase, indicating the general time in which the events being described occurred. Nearly thirty years had elapsed between Joseph’s taking the young Jesus and His mother to Nazareth and the beginning of John’s public ministry. Only Luke (2:39-52) tells us anything of Jesus’ life during the intervening years. Apart from that brief account, Scripture is silent.

John was a common Jewish name in New Testament times and is the Greek form of the Hebrew Johanan (see 2 Kings 25:23; Jer. 40:8; etc.), which means “Jehovah, or Yahweh, is gracious.” Baptist, or Baptizer (baptists; the Greek ending, ts, signifies one who performs an act), was an epithet given him because baptizing was such an important and obvious part of his ministry.

John’s father and mother “were both righteous in the sight of God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and requirements of the Lord.” But they had no children and, like Sarah before Isaac was conceived, Elizabeth was beyond normal childbearing years (Luke 1:6-7; cf. Gen. 17:17). One day as John’s father was performing his priestly function in the Temple, “an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing to the right of the altar of incense” (Luke 1:11). The angel proceeded to tell Zacharias that “Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will give him the name John. And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth. For he will be great in the sight of the Lord” (vv. 13-15). John was named by God Himself and set apart for greatness even before he was conceived!

John would “be filled with the Holy Spirit, while yet in his mother’s womb. And he [would] turn back many of the sons of Israel to the Lord their God” (Luke 1:15-16). Most significantly of all, he would “go as a forerunner before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah . . . so as to make ready a people prepared for the Lord” (v. 17). John’s own father, himself “filled with the Holy Spirit,” declared that John “will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you [John] will go on before the Lord to prepare His ways” (vv. 67, 76). “And the child continued to grow, and to become strong in spirit, and he lived in the deserts until the day of his public appearance to Israel” (v. 80).

That was John. His conception was miraculous, he was filled with the Holy Spirit before he was born, he was great in the sight of God, and he was to be the herald of the Messiah, announcing and preparing the people for His coming. It is therefore not strange that Jesus said, “There has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist” (Matt. 11:11). That great man was a sovereignly designed and chosen herald for the great King.

Came is from paraginomai, which often was used to indicate an official arrival, such as that of the magi (Matt. 2:1), or the public appearance of a leader or teacher (Matt. 3:13). For thirty years both John and Jesus had lived in relative obscurity. Now the coming of the herald signified the coming of the King. The beginning of John’s ministry signaled the beginning of Jesus’ ministry (see Acts 10:37-38).

Preaching is from kruss, the primary meaning of which is “to herald.” It was used of the official whose duty it was to proclaim loudly and extensively the coming of the king. Matthew also uses this term with reference to Jesus and the apostles.

John knew his position and his task. He never sought or accepted honor for himself, but only for the One whose coming he proclaimed. As a child John no doubt had been told many times of the angel’s announcement of his birth and his purpose, a purpose from which he never wavered, compromised, or tried to gain personal recognition or advantage. When questioned by the priests and Levites who had been sent from Jerusalem to ask his identity, John replied, “I am not the Christ” (John 1:19-20). He also denied being Elijah and “the Prophet” (v. 21; cf. Deut. 18:15). When they persisted in knowing who he was, he simply said, “I am a voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as Isaiah the prophet said” (v. 23).

The question about his being Elijah introduces some important truth. At every orthodox Passover ceremony even today a cup is reserved at the table for Elijah. At the circumcision of orthodox Jewish baby boys a chair is placed for Elijah. The anticipation is that, if Elijah would ever come and sit in the chair or drink from the cup, the Messiah’s arrival would be imminent. That belief is based on Malachi 4:5-6, in which the prophet predicts, “Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. And he will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers.”

Yet, as he himself testified, John the Baptist was not the literal, resurrected Elijah most Jews of his day were expecting, or that many Jews of our own day expect. But he was indeed the Elijah that the prophet Malachi predicted would come. Luke 1:17 confirms that when it says that John “will go as a forerunner before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah.”

That the Elijah who was commonly expected by the Jews was not the Elijah of God’s plan was stated plainly by Jesus Himself after John the Baptist had been imprisoned and killed. ‘“Elijah is coming and will restore all things; but I say to you, that Elijah already came, and they did not recognize him, but did to him whatever they wished.’ . . . Then the disciples understood that He had spoken to them about John the Baptist” (Matt. 17:11-13).

Because the Jews rejected John the Baptist as the true Elijah who was to come, they prevented the complete fulfillment of the prophecy as God had originally given it through Malachi. “If you care to accept it,” Jesus explained about John, “he himself is Elijah, who was to come” (Matt. 11:14). But John not only was not accepted, he was ridiculed, imprisoned, and beheaded. Because he was not received by the great body of God’s chosen people, he was not able to be the Elijah and there is therefore an Elijah yet to come. Some interpreters believe he will be one of the two witnesses of Revelation 11, but we cannot be certain. In any case, John the Baptist was rejected as the coming Elijah. And just as the herald was rejected, so was the King he heralded. John was beheaded, and Jesus was crucified. Israel therefore was set aside, and the kingdom was postponed.

Everything about John the Baptist was unique and amazing—his sudden public appearance, his life-style, his message, his baptizing, and his humility. He was born to a mother who was barren. He was a priest by heritage but became a prophet. He forsook his earthly father’s ministry for the sake of his heavenly Father’s. After spending most of his life in the desert, at the right moment God spoke to his heart, and he began to thunder out the message God had given him in that desert—to announce the coming of the King.

John’s primary place of ministry, like his primary place of training, was in the wilderness of Judea. By the world’s standards and procedures, the coming of a king, or of a great person of any sort, is proclaimed and prepared for with great expense, pomp, and fanfare. Even the announcer dresses in the best suits, stays in the best hotels, contacts only the best people, and makes preparations for the monarch to visit only the best places. But that was not God’s plan for the heralding of His Son. John the Baptist was born of obscure parents, dressed strangely even for his day, and carried on his ministry mostly in out-of-the-way and unattractive places.

All of that, however, was not incidental or circumstantial. It was symbolic of John’s ministry to call the people away from the corrupt and dead religious system of their day—away from ritualism, worldliness, hypocrisy, and superficiality. John called them away from Jerusalem and Jericho, away from the cities into the wilderness—where most people would not bother to go if they were not serious seekers. John brought them away, where they were freer to listen, think, and ponder, without the distractions and the misleading leaders they were so accustomed to following. In such a seemingly desolate place, they could begin to see the greatness of this man of God and the even greater greatness of the One whose coming he announced.

THE MESSAGE

The message John proclaimed was simple, so simple it could easily be summarized in one word: repent (3:2a; cf. Acts 13:24; 19:4). The Greek word (metanoe) behind repent means more than regret or sorrow (cf. Heb. 12:17); it means to turn around, to change direction, to change the mind and will. It does not denote just any change, but always a change from the wrong to the right, away from sin and to righteousness. In his outstanding commentary on Matthew, John A. Broadus observes that “wherever this Greek word is used in the New Testament the reference is to changing the mind and the purpose from sin to holiness.” Repentance involves sorrow for sin, but sorrow that leads to a change of thinking, desire, and conduct of life. “The sorrow that is according to the will of God,” Paul says, “produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation” (2 Cor. 7:10; cf. v. 9). John’s command to repent could therefore be rendered “be converted.”

John’s message of preparation for the coming of the King was repentance, conversion, the demand for a completely different life. That must have been startling news for Jews who thought that, as God’s chosen people—the children of Abraham, the people of the covenant—they deserved and were unconditionally assured of the promised King. Knowing what they must have been thinking, John later told his listeners, “Do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you, that God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham” (3:9). God was not interested in His people’s human heritage but in their spiritual life. “What the King wants from you,” John was saying, “is that you make a complete turnaround from the way you are, that you be totally converted, totally changed.” God calls for radical change and transformation that affects the mind, the will, and the emotions—the whole person. John’s point was simple: “You are in the same condition as the Gentiles. You have no right to the kingdom unless you repent and are converted from sin to righteousness.” He called for a true repentance that results in the fruit of a translated life (v. 8) and that includes baptism with water (v. 11a). Failure to repent would result in severe judgment, as Matthew 11:20-24 and 12:38-41 demonstrate.

Repentance was exactly the same message with which Jesus began His preaching and the apostles began theirs. The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand,” Jesus proclaimed; “repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15; cf. Matt. 3:2; 4:17; Luke 5:32). Mark 6:12 says of the twelve: “And they went out and preached that men should repent.” In his Pentecost sermon, Peter’s concluding words were, “Repent, and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins” (Acts 2:38; cf. Acts 3:19; 20:21; 26:18).

The close connection between repentance and conversion is also indicated in texts that do not specifically use the word repentance, yet convey the same idea (see Matt. 18:3; Luke 14:33). The best summary statement may be that of Paul in Acts 26:20, where he states that the objective of his ministry was that men “should repent and turn to God, performing deeds appropriate to repentance.”

THE MOTIVE

The motive John gave for repentance was: the kingdom of heaven is at hand (3:2b). The people should repent and be converted because the King was coming, and He deserves and requires no less. The unrepentant and unconverted cannot give the heavenly King the glory He deserves, do not belong to the heavenly King, and are unfit for His heavenly kingdom.

After four hundred years, the people of Israel again heard God’s prophetic word. Malachi’s prophecy was followed by four centuries of silence, with no new or direct word from the Lord. Now, when His word came to Israel again, proclaiming the coming of the King, it was not the expected word of joy and comfort and celebration but a message of warning and rebuke. The kingdom of heaven is at hand, waiting to be ushered in, but Israel was not ready for it.

Despite many similar warnings by the prophets, many of the people and most of the leaders were not prepared for John’s message. What he said was shocking; it was unexpected and unacceptable. It was inconceivable to them that, as God’s people, they had anything to do to inherit God’s kingdom but simply wait for and accept it. The Messiah was their Messiah, the King was their King, the Savior was their Savior, the promise was their promise. Every Jew was destined for the kingdom, and every Gentile was excluded, except for a token handful of proselytes. That was the common Jewish thinking of the day, which John totally shattered.

But John’s message was God’s message, and he would not compromise it or clutter it with the popular misconceptions and delusions of his own day and his own people. He had no word but God’s word, and he proclaimed no kingdom but God’s kingdom and no preparation but God’s preparation. That preparation was repentance. God’s standard would not change, even if every Jew were excluded and every Gentile saved. God knew that some Jews would be saved, but none apart from personal repentance and conversion.

Although the precise phrase is not found there, the kingdom of heaven is basically an Old Testament concept. David declares that “the Lord is King forever and ever” (Ps. 10:16; cf. 29:10), that His kingdom is everlasting, and that His dominion “endures throughout all generations” (Ps. 145:13). Daniel speaks of “the God of heaven [who] will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed” (Dan. 2:44; cf. Ezek. 37:25), a “kingdom [that] is an everlasting kingdom” (Dan. 4:3). The God of heaven is the King of heaven, and the heavenly kingdom is God’s kingdom.

Matthew uses the phrase kingdom of heaven thirty-two times, and is the only gospel writer who uses it at all. The other three use “the kingdom of God.” It is probable that Matthew used kingdom of heaven because it was more understandable to his primarily Jewish readers. Jews would not speak God’s name (Yahweh, or Jehovah), and would often substitute heaven when referring to Him—much as we do in such expressions as “heaven smiled on me today.”

There is no significant difference between “the kingdom of God” and the kingdom of heaven. The one phrase emphasizes the sovereign Ruler of the kingdom and the other emphasizes the kingdom itself, but they are the same kingdom. Matthew 19:23-24 confirms the equality of the phrases by using them interchangeably.

The kingdom has two aspects, the outer and the inner, both of which are spoken of in the gospels. Those aspects are evident as one moves through Matthew. In the broadest sense, the kingdom includes everyone who professes to acknowledge God. Jesus’ parable of the sower represents the kingdom as including both genuine and superficial believers (Matt. 13:3-23), and in His following parable (vv. 24-30) as including both wheat (true believers) and tares (false believers). That is the outer kingdom, the one we can see but cannot accurately evaluate ourselves, because we cannot know people’s hearts.

The other kingdom is the inner, the kingdom that includes only true believers, only those who, as John the Baptist proclaimed, repent and are converted. God rules over both aspects of the kingdom, and He will one day finally separate the superficial from the real. Meanwhile He allows the pretenders to identify themselves outwardly with His kingdom.

God’s kingly rule over the hearts of men and over the world may be thought of as having a number of phases. The first is the prophesied kingdom, such as that foretold by Daniel. The second phase is the present kingdom, the one that existed at the time of John the Baptist and that he mentions. It is the kingdom that both John and Jesus spoke of as being at hand (cf. 4:17). The third phase may be referred to as the interim kingdom, the kingdom that resulted because of Israel’s rejection of her King. The King returned to heaven and His kingdom on earth now exists only in a mystery form. Christ is Lord of the earth in the sense of His being its Creator and its ultimate Ruler; but He does not presently exercise His full divine will over the earth. He is, so to speak, in a voluntary exile in heaven until it is time for Him to return again. He reigns only in the hearts of those who know Him as Savior and Lord. For those “the kingdom of God is . . . righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 14:17).

The fourth phase can be described as the manifest kingdom, in which Christ will rule, physically, directly, and fully on earth for a thousand years, the Millennium. In that kingdom He will rule both externally and internally—externally over all mankind, and internally in the hearts of those who belong to Him by faith. The fifth, and final, phase is the “eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,” which “will be abundantly supplied” to all of His own (2 Pet. 1:11).

Had God’s people Israel accepted their King when He first came to them, there would be no interim kingdom. The kingdom at hand would have become the kingdom of a thousand years, which, in turn, would have ushered in the eternal kingdom. But because they killed the forerunner of the King and then the King Himself, the millennial kingdom, and consequently the eternal kingdom, were sovereignly postponed.

THE MISSION

For this is the one referred to by Isaiah the prophet, saying, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make ready the way of the Lord, make His paths straight!’” (3:3)

The mission of John the Baptist had long before been described by Isaiah the prophet (see Isa. 40:3-4). Here Matthew again emphasizes fulfilled prophecy in the coming of Jesus Christ as divine King (cf. 1:22; 2:5,15,17). But as herald of the great King, John did not clear the roads and highways of obstacles, but sought to clear men’s hearts of the obstacles that kept them from the King. The way of the Lord is the way of repentance, of turning from sin to righteousness, of turning moral and spiritual paths that are crooked into ones that are straight, ones that are fit for the King. “Let every valley be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low,” Isaiah continues, “and let the rough ground become a plain, and the rugged terrain a broad valley; then the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all flesh will see it together” (Isa. 40:4-5). The call of John’s voice that was crying [bntos] in the wilderness of Judea was the shouting of urgency commanding people to repent, to confess sin and the need of a Savior. His paths (tribous) are well known, as the Greek term implies, because they are clearly revealed in Scripture.

THE MANNER

Now John himself had a garment of camel’s hair, and a leather belt about his waist; and his food was locusts and wild honey. (3:4)

John must have been a startling figure to those who saw him. He claimed to be God’s messenger, but he did not live, dress, or talk like other religious leaders. Those leaders were proper, well-dressed, well-fed, sophisticated, and worldly. John obviously cared for none of those things and even made a point of forsaking them. His garment of camel’s hair and his leather belt about his waist were as plain and drab as the wilderness in which he lived and preached. His clothes were practical and long-wearing, but far from being comfortable or fashionable. He was much like the first Elijah in that regard (2 Kings 1:8). His diet of locusts and wild honey was as spartan as his clothing. It was nourishing but little else.

John’s very dress, food, and life-style were in themselves a rebuke to the self-satisfied and self-indulgent religious leaders of Israel—the scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, and priests. It was also a rebuke to most of the people, who, though they may not have been able to indulge in the privileges of their leaders, nonetheless admired and longed for the same advantages.

John’s purpose was not to turn the people into hermits or ascetics. He called on no one, not even his disciples, to live and dress as he did. But his manner of living was a dramatic reminder of the many loves and pleasures that keep people from exchanging their own way for God’s.

THE MINISTRY

Then Jerusalem was going out to him, and all Judea, and all the district around the Jordan; and they were being baptized by him in the Jordan River, as they confessed their sins. (3:5-6)

The immediate effect of John’s preaching was dramatic. People were coming from the great city of Jerusalem, which was a considerable distance away. They came, in fact, from all Judea, and all the district around the Jordan. In other words they were coming from all over southern Palestine, including both sides of the Jordan River. As Matthew reports later in his gospel, the people recognized John as a prophet (21:26).

That those Jews submitted to being baptized was more than a little significant, because that was not a traditional Jewish ceremony. It was completely different from the Levitical washings, which consisted of washing the hands, feet, and head. The Essenes, a group of Jewish ascetics who lived on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, practiced a type of ceremonial washing that more nearly resembled baptism. But both the Levitical and the Essene washings were repeated, those of the Essenes as much as several times a day or even hourly. They represented repeated purification for repeated sinning.

John’s washing, however, was one-time. The only one-time washing the Jews performed was for Gentiles, signifying their coming as outsiders into the true faith of Judaism. A Jew who submitted to such a rite demonstrated, in effect, that he was an outsider who sought entrance into the people of God—an amazing admission for a Jew. Members of God’s chosen race, descendants of Abraham, heirs of the covenant of Moses, came to John to be baptized like a Gentile!

That act symbolized before the world that they realized their national and racial descent, or even their calling as God’s chosen and covenant people, could not save them. They had to repent, forsake sin, and trust in the Lord for salvation. It is that of which the baptism was a public witness, as they confessed their sins. They had to come into the kingdom just like the Gentiles, through repentance and faith—which included a public admission of sins (cf. the same Greek term [exomologe] in Phil. 2:11, where it refers to a verbal confession).

We know from subsequent accounts in the gospels that many of those acts of repentance must have been superficial and hypocritical, because John soon lost much of his following, just as Jesus would eventually lose most of His popularity. But the impact of John’s ministry on the Jewish people was profound and unforgettable. The way of the King had been announced to them, and they had no excuse for not being ready for His coming.

Six things demonstrate the true greatness of John. (1) He was filled with and controlled by the Spirit, even from “his mother’s womb” (Luke 1:15b). (2) He was obedient to God’s Word. From childhood he followed God’s will, and from it he never wavered. (3) He was self-controlled, drinking neither “wine or liquor” (Luke 1:15a). In his food, dress, and life-style he was temperate and austere. (4) He was humble. His purpose was to announce the king, not to act kingly or take for himself any of the king’s prerogatives. Speaking of Jesus, John said, “After me One is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to stoop down and untie the thong of His sandals” (Mark 1:7), and on a later occasion, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). (5) He courageously and faithfully proclaimed God’s Word, thundering it across the wilderness as long as he was free to preach, to whomever would listen. (6) Finally, he was faithful in winning people to Christ, in turning “back many of the sons of Israel to the Lord their God” (Luke 1:16). He stands as a pattern for all who seek genuine greatness.