The Baptism of John from a Jewish Perspective, Part 3

Isaac & Jesus

As mentioned previously, Isaac the son of Abraham nearly died at the hand of his father, Abraham in Genesis 22:

⁶And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together.

 ⁷And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?

 ⁸And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.

 ⁹And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood.

 ¹⁰And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.

 ¹¹And the angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I.

 ¹²And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.

 ¹³And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.

 ¹⁴And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovahjireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the LORD it shall be seen.

 ¹⁵And the angel of the LORD called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time,

 ¹⁶And said, By myself have I sworn, saith the LORD, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son:

 ¹⁷That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies;

 ¹⁸And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice. (KJV)

Isaac was spared, but God always intended someone to take his place. Jesus was a direct descendent of Abraham through King David, on his mother’s side. The father of Jesus is God himself, Abraham’s best friend. This would be the same God who orchestrated the promise of Genesis 22, which means that one day, God would provide a way for the promise to ultimately come to fruition. This meant that someone was going to have to be sacrificed on Mount Moriah.

Before that could happen that someone, Jesus, had to be anointed in such a way that he could take Isaac’s place as the firstborn son of Abraham. And guess what? That’s what John did!

What was the baptism of John? What was it specifically that he was doing at the Jordan River?

Next time...when Pagans convert to Judaism...

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The Baptism of John from a Jewish Perspective, Part 1

The Baptism of John

By Tov Rose

Why was John considered a prophet and what does this have to do with Baptism?

There are many misconceptions about Baptism of the believer. Some teach that Baptism is simply and outward expression of the internal spiritual commitment. Others teach that it is a requirement, a sacrament. While all of these may be true, there is a background story that is rarely taught, understood and mostly unknown to most pastors.

You may have heard that John’s baptism was for repentance alone, and this is true. However, what is missing from this simple description is the purpose and history of that specific form of baptism John was practicing and the authority, which he carried in Israel.

John’s Father

You might be familiar with his father’s story in Luke 1:5 “There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judaea, a certain priest named Zechariah, of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth.”

There are some very important points expressed in this rather short verse!

1.       The name and location of the king give us the general time period

2.       It specifically notes that Zechariah was a priest, which is an inherited office from father to son

3.       The Course of Aviah is mentioned, which tells us specifically what time of year Zechariah was required to serve as priest in the Temple and for how long.

4.       His wife is listed as also being a daughter of Aaron (Zechariah had to be a son of Aaron, or he couldn’t be a priest).

The next verse states something very unusual in scripture, “⁶And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless,” reflecting the theme of Matthew -7:17-18 that they were good trees producing good fruit at a time when the High Priesthood was literally bought and paid for, or appointed by the pagan king.

In Luke 1:8-10 it further says, “Now while he was serving as priest before God when his division was on duty, ⁹ according to the custom of the priesthood, he was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense. ¹⁰ And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense.”

Combined with Luke 1:5, this tells us specifically which day of the year Zechariah was in the Temple: The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur). It was the one day of the year that the High Priest of Israel entered the Holy of Holies in the Temple to offer the sin sacrifice for all of the people of Israel. Zechariah was preparing the Holy of Holies, filling it with Incense prior to the High Priest’s entering in!

Yet there is even more to the story…

In those days the High Priest was appointed as a political office. Another way of saying this is that God did not recognize the political office as being legitimate, because he was not selected in the way prescribed by God in the Bible. How can I say this? What I mean is that there was an appointed High Priest, and then there was the one who was supposed to have been God’s High Priest.

If the succession for the High Priest office was unclear it was the tradition to cast lots (throw the dice), to see whom God wanted to take the office. The disciples of Jesus followed the same tradition in Acts 1:15-26 in choosing a replacement for Judas who had betrayed Jesus to the illegitimate High Priest.

According to Luke 1:8-10 this is precisely what happened with Zechariah: He was chosen by lot. To put this another way, if the Illegitimate High Priest died in the presence of God, Zechariah was runner up to take his place and offer the sacrifice in the Holy of Holies before God. Or, to put it yet another way, Zechariah was chosen by God to be the Legitimate High Priest of Israel. This is confirmed by the simple fact of an Angel actually showing up and speaking to him about his future son, the future legitimate High Priest of Israel—John the Baptist. 

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