Chapter 3
John the Baptist
preaches in Judæa—Jesus is baptized, and the Father acclaims Him as His Beloved
Son.
None of the Gospels discuss the life of the young Christ. Luke
tells us about Christ in the temple at age twelve. Matthew makes no mention of
Him until His ministry began. Even so, we can make some assumptions.
Like any other boy, He was taught the law and the
scriptures. Though He were the Son of God, he still had to be taught as He grew
up. He learned through lessons, study, and prayer. It didn’t come to Him all at
once.
Nephi described how we learn God’s truth. “For behold, thus
saith the Lord God: I will give unto the children of men line upon line,
precept upon precept, here a little and there a little” (2 Nephi 28:30).
“He was trained to labor, for idleness was abhorred then as
it is now; and every Jewish boy, whether carpenter’s son, peasant’s child, or
rabbi’s heir, was required to learn and follow a practical and productive
vocation. Jesus was all that a boy should be, for His development was
unretarded by the dragging weight of sin; He loved and obeyed the truth and
therefore was free.”[1]
Matthew begins with John the Baptist. We learn he was
preaching in the wilderness, calling the people to repentance. “Repent[2]
ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand [GR has come]” (Matthew 3:1). He
quoted the words of Isaiah, “The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness,
Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our
God” (Isaiah 40:3).
John wore a garment made of camel’s hair, a leathern girdle,
and he ate locusts and wild honey. He had been preaching in Jerusalem, all
Judea, and the region around the Jordan River. He baptized those who confessed
their sins in the Jordan River.
Many Pharisees and Sadducees had come to his baptism. John
was direct in his words to them. “O generation of vipers [GR crop of serpents],
who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come” (Matthew 1:7).
They claimed Abraham as their father, but John rejected this
claim. “The ignoring of their claims to preferment as the children of Abraham
was a strong rebuke, and a cause of sore affront alike to aristocratic Sadducee
and rule-bound Pharisee. Judaism held that the posterity of Abraham had an
assured place in the kingdom of the expected Messiah, and that no proselyte
from among the Gentiles could possibly attain the rank and distinction of which
the ‘children’ were sure. John’s forceful assertion that God could raise up,
from the stones on the river bank, children to Abraham, meant to those who
heard that even the lowest of the human family might be preferred before
themselves unless they repented and reformed.”[3]
While he baptized the people “with water unto repentance,” he
told them there would be one who “cometh after me is mightier than I, whose
shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and
with fire” (Matthew 3:11).
“[T]his was the way by which the Baptist declared his
inferiority to the Mightier One, who was to succeed and supersede him; and a
more effective illustration would be difficult to frame. To loosen the shoe
latchet or sandal thong, or to carry the shoes of another, ‘was a menial office
betokening great inferiority on the part of the person performing it.’ (Smith’s
Dictionary of the Bible.)”[4]
In an early revelation (before the church was organized),
the Lord told Joseph Smith, “And of tenets thou shalt not talk, but thou shalt
declare repentance and faith on the Savior, and remission of sins by baptism,
and by fire, yea, even the Holy Ghost” (D&C 19:31).
“Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his
floor, and gather his wheat into the garner [GR storehouse]; but he will burn
up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (Matthew 3:12).
“To the Jews, who were living in a state of expectancy,
waiting for the long-predicted Messiah, the words of this strange prophet in
the wilderness were fraught with deep portent. Could it be that he was the
Christ? He spoke of One yet to come, mightier than himself, whose shoe-latchet
he was not worthy to loosen, One who would separate the people as the thresher,
fan in hand, blew the chaff from the wheat; and, he added, that mightier One ‘will
gather the wheat into his garner; but the chaff he will burn with fire
unquenchable.’ In such wise did the predicted herald of the Lord deliver his
message.”[5]
No comments:
Post a Comment