John the Baptist and the Gospel of the Kingdom

He was a wild man! He lived on locusts and wild honey. Wore clothes made out of camel’s skin. And shook up the religious paradigm in Jerusalem. But what lessons can we take from the life and ministry of John the Baptist? The most important, is that the Gospel of the Kingdom begins with repentance, but doesn’t end there.

John the Baptist enters the scene in the Gospel of Matthew with a vengeance. There’s not political correctness. Feelings aren’t being spared. The message is simple: Repent! God’s Kingdom is here! 2,000 years removed, we think about salvation and atonement. The Gospel is about saving people from their sins. Jesus died on a cross. He was buried. And He rose again three days later. But John the Baptist didn’t live to see any of this. He was beheaded long before that fateful Passover. So, how does John preach a Gospel he doesn’t understand?

Who Was John the Baptist?

John the Baptist came out of the wilderness. He preached about the coming Kingdom of Heaven; called the people to confess their sins and repent; lived off of a restricted diet. And his ministry was distinguished by water baptism. Was John the Baptist an Essene?

There’s really no way for us to really know, but John the Baptist feels like an Essene. John’s message could easily be tied into the “Sons of Light” vs “Sons of Darkness” rhetoric of the Qumran Community. Both taught that the Messiah’s arrival was coming any day. And when He came, the world would be divided into those who repented and followed Him, and those who would be judged. 

The Essenes also had a curious rule about not eating food prepared by outsiders. The fear was that this food would be unclean in some manner. So, when they were outside of their community, they often resorted to living off the land in a way. John the Baptist did this as well. 

One little nugget of context is that the Greek for “locusts” might have a bit of a transcription issue. Some scholars believe that the word is actually for a seed that is found in the deserts of Israel. This seed was ground into a flour of sorts and combined with honey which would be fried like a pancake. This is also really interesting because this parallels the way Israel prepared manna in the wilderness. 

Again, all of this is speculation. But what we do know is that John the Baptist preached that the Kingdom was coming. But what did he mean?

The Gospel According to John the Baptist

The Gospel writers all agree about John the Baptist’s core message: “Repent! For the Kingdom of Heaven is near!” But Mark gives us another little nuance of John’s message that we really need to look at. It says that John the Baptist preached the “gospel.” This idea will go forward through Jesus, His instructions to His disciples, and in the early Church in the Book of Acts. 

Here’s why it’s important: most Christians define the “Gospel” as the good news of our individual salvation and forgiveness of sins. Jesus lived a perfect life. Jesus died a substitutionary death. He was buried and rose from the grave three days later. He is now ascended to Heaven and seated at the right hand of the Father. All of this is true. But it is also woefully incomplete. 

Reframing the Gospel

John the Baptist didn’t understand the substitutionary atonement of Jesus. The Twelve didn’t either. Every one of them was completely caught off guard by the way Jesus carried out His mission on earth. So, how could John the Baptist proclaim a Gospel that he didn’t understand?

It’s time to reframe the Gospel. The Gospel is that the world is broken and trapped in sin and the power of the evil one. Jesus’ mission is so much greater than dying on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins. Jesus is God in flesh coming to Earth to defeat Satan and the rulers that enslave humanity –  both earthly and heavenly. The Gospel is that a new King has arrived. He is conquering oppression and evil. And the world is being set right. We have two choices in response: repent of our rebellion and surrender to the King of Kings, or continue in our rebellion and reap the consequences. This is John the Baptist’s message. Now, what does that repentance look like?

Repentance = Change

John the Baptist would probably have a problem with the way most of us think about repentance. We think of feeling badly for the wrong things we’ve done. I’m not sure John would even care what we feel about these things. John the Baptist wanted the people he preached to to change the way they were living. Luke’s Gospel gives us a deeper look at this. After preaching the Gospel, the people asked the $64,000 question:

So the crowds were asking him, “What then should we do?” John answered them, “The person who has two tunics must share with the person who has none, and the person who has food must do likewise.” Tax collectors also came to be baptized, and they said to him, “Teacher, what should we do?” He told them, “Collect no more than you are required to.” Then some soldiers also asked him, “And as for us—what should we do?” He told them, “Take money from no one by violence or by false accusation, and be content with your pay.”

Luke 3:10-14 NET

Feeling badly about our wrong means nothing. John the Baptist wanted the people to understand that along with the coming Kingdom of Heaven was a coming new expectation of what life was to be like. The Messiah had arrived. His rule was a restoration of the principles of the Torah and the expectation that those in the Kingdom would live differently because of it.  And it also meant that being Jewish wasn’t going to be enough. 

The Kingdom of Heaven

One of the biggest challenges both John the Baptist and Jesus faced was that the religious leaders believed that being Jewish was all that mattered. It was a combination of national and ethnic identity. Israel’s God made a covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. That covenant was about building a nation for Himself. Sin was still bad. But that was in-family business. John the Baptist took this lie head-on:

But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

“I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

Matthew 3:7-12 NET

John the Baptist uses language that Jesus will use later when he talks about the winnowing fork and the chaff. Jesus said there will be those among us that look like good wheat who are actually weeds. A day is coming when these will be separated, and those who are not truly a part of the Kingdom will be judged. 

Repentance is only the first step toward entering the Kingdom of God. That repentance must result in a change of heart and action. But his message is clear: this call to repentance isn’t negotiable. We will be baptised with water as an outward pledge of allegiance to the Kingdom of Heaven, or we will be baptised by fire in the Judgment.