The apostle Paul, speaking to the crowd gathered at the synagogue in Pisidian Antioch, said, “Before the coming of Jesus, John preached repentance and baptism to all the people of Israel. As John was completing his work, he said: ‘Who do you think I am? I am not that one. No, but he is coming after me, whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.’”
From that, we can know that when John made that statement, it was toward the very end of his ministry. That’s an important clue to understanding why John was saying that as he rebuked the Pharisees and Sadducees who were now showing up in the crowds. After insulting them and warning them that judgment was at hand, he said, “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with 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.”
John’s comment about the one who comes after him (which could only be Messiah) gives both weight and reason for his recent harsh rebuke of the Jewish spiritual leadership. For not only is judgment at hand, but the judge Himself is the one coming – and John’s knows his opportunity to warn them is growing short. He is therefore prompted to speak not merely out of the truth of the matter, but the urgency also. In modern parlance, the stakes could not be higher or the time more opportune. His poignant warning becomes all the more succinct.
In it, John gives seven reasons why the Jewish leadership ought to be earnestly repentant. The first of those reasons is that the one to come is more powerful than John.
Now John had not demonstrated a lot of power in the sense of working miracles – in fact, John never performed a miracle. But he did have power. In fact, it was the power of his message that caused people to stream out to the desert to see him to start with. Of this we cannot doubt; John preached with power! That power was so great it even stirred the Jewish leadership to come out to see him. Surely such a fact could not be lost in the irony of how so harshly John addressed them.
No doubt they felt a strong conviction even as he spoke these words. But feeling conviction and acting on that conviction are not the same thing – and the essence of John’s phrase is to that very point. He knows Messiah is coming very soon, and he knows the leadership before him are not ready at all.
It is time for the most crucial of crucial conversations. A more poignant moment is hard to imagine. If they’ve felt convicted now (yet are fixing to avoid acting on it), then what will happen should they wait to meet Him? Then their conviction will not be mere heartfelt prompting, but an inescapable sentence of destruction.
Repentance is never something to be put off. In fact, the closer we get to the Lord the more we sense the urgency of being truly ready to meet Him. Therefore, repentance in the kingdom of God is not something one has done once, long ago. Instead, it becomes a way of life, and all the more so the closer we draw to Him.
I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation!
The Apostle Paul (2Corinthians 6:2)
APPLICATION: Intentionality
Ask the Lord to show you the fruitfulness of your life. What do you see?