Who Was John The Baptist? A Bible Character Study

Who was John the Baptist? What was his connection with Jesus all about?

The Significance of John’s Name

The name John is of Hebrew origin and in the Hebrew his name is “Iōannēs” and means “Jehovah is a gracious giver.” Now the Bible teaches that children are a gift of God but John the Baptist was no ordinary man. He was extraordinary in many ways. In the beginning, John the Baptist had considerably more followers than Christ did. In fact, John’s disciples were still around long after he was gone and are still around much later, after the church had been around for some time (Acts 18:26-19:4). An angel of the Lord told Zechariah that his wife was to bear a child and “he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared” (Luke 1:15-17) which is mentioned in a prophecy found in Malachi 4:5-6 so John the Baptist is certainly worth exploring in this Bible study.

The Last Old Testament Prophet

The last of the Old Testament prophets didn’t come in the Old Testament but with John the Baptist in the New Testament. This is what Isaiah wrote in 40:3 “The voice of one crying in the wilderness; Make straight in the desert. A highway for our God” of which is mentioned in John 1:23 where John himself said “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.” This was exactly how Elijah dressed and was identified (2nd Kings 1:8) which is what Malachi wrote about in 4:6 “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes.” Jesus places John the Baptist in the Old Testament prophet period when He said “For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John, and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come” (Matt 11:13). Notice that John is in this period “until” or basically to the end of the prophet’s period. He also identified John as Elijah, not the original Elijah of course, but it was in the spirit and prophecy of the Elijah that John came and he it was who was to “Make straight the way of the Lord.” That is exactly what John the Baptist did.

Isaiah’s Fulfilled Prophecy

You might also notice that in the beginning of John’s ministry it was said that “In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah” (Matt 3:1-3a). Now we have on record Jesus, Matthew and John himself testifying that he was the one spoken of in Isaiah (but also by Malachi) so this is a three-fold witness to John the Baptists identify. As mentioned earlier, John had a large following and he dressed and acted just like the Old Testament prophets as “John wore a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him” (Matt 3:4-5) and exactly as the prophet Elijah dressed in the Old Testament (2nd Kings 1:8). When they came to John “they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins” (Matt 3:6).

Jesus’ and John’s Relation

Jesus was apparently related to John the Baptist as Jesus’ mother, Mary, and John’s mother, Elizabeth, were relatives (Luke 1:36). It is possible that Elizabeth might have been Mary’s aunt because John the Baptist’s parents were beyond the childbearing age (Luke 1:7) and Mary was quite young when Jesus was born and so Jesus and John the Baptist may have been cousins. This might explain why after John the Baptist was beheaded Jesus “withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself” (Matt 14:13). Either way, we know they were closely related as either first or second cousins.

Greatest Born of Women

Jesus gave one of the highest compliments given of any man in the New Testament when He spoke about John the Baptist saying “Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he” (Matt 11:11). What did Jesus mean by saying that John was the greatest among those born of women yet the least in the kingdom is greater than him? That is likely due to the fact that those in the kingdom will have glorified bodies or spirit bodies and be superior to any man or woman who is still in the flesh. Jesus wasn’t necessarily talking about the character but the composition of the bodies. He wasn’t referring to the position someone would have in the kingdom but the comparison to the physical body and the spiritual one.

Conclusion

John the Baptist is someone that I look forward to meeting someday and I am sure that he could tell us much about his early life that is missing from the pages of Scripture. He might even have something to add about Jesus during the years where the Bible is silent regarding Christ’s youth but that is only something we can speculate about today.

Article by Jack Wellman

Jack Wellman is Pastor of the Mulvane Brethren church in Mulvane Kansas. Jack is also the Senior Writer at What Christians Want To Know whose mission is to equip, encourage, and energize Christians and to address questions about the believer’s daily walk with God and the Bible. You can follow Jack on Google Plus or check out his book Blind Chance or Intelligent Design available on Amazon.