John 1:6-8 There was a man sent from God whose name was John

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.  This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe.  He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.

 

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.  John the Apostle and author of this gospel refers to another man named John - John the Baptist.  This John was not sent from heaven as the Son of God was sent.  John was sent from God as a man who was set apart from ordinary life as the last of the Old Testament prophets.

 

Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament, makes two references to the prophet who would be sent from God to prepare the way for the Christ.

 

Behold, I send My messenger,
And he will prepare the way before Me. - Malachi 3:1

 

Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet
Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.
And he will turn
The hearts of the fathers to the children,
And the hearts of the children to their fathers,
Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse. - Malachi 4:5,6

 

John prepared the way for Jesus in several ways.  John fulfilled Malachi's prophecy as a type of Elijah by turning the hearts of the people from sin by his call to repentance.  We have no record of John addressing the father-child relationship.  But by turning people away from their sins he was aiding in the healing of broken relationships, because sin severs relationships.  Isaiah pointed out that the people's sins had separated them from their God.  Addressing the problem of sin is the first step in truly healing a torn relationship.

 

This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe.  John came preaching repentance - the turning away from sin.  But baptism was not the traditional way of recognizing and resolving the issue of sin.  The Old Testament prescribed the offering of sacrifices for the satisfaction of the debt owed for trespassing God's laws.  John's water baptism was a symbolic washing of the heart.  So John further prepared the way for Jesus by supplementing the legal requirements with the confession of a penitent and changed heart - recognized by the outward act of water baptism.

But foremost in preparing the way for Christ was John's role as a prophet.  John confessed that the water baptisms he was performing merely foreshadowed the perfect salvation from sin that would be provided by Jesus.  Doctor Luke states in Acts 19:4: John indeed baptized with a baptism of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe on Him who would come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus.  Indeed, John's baptism unto repentance shifted the focus from the obligatory sacrifice of possessions such as bulls and goats, to the real and inward sacrifice of heart; that is, a sincerely heartfelt remorse and humility because of the wickedness within - which is the real cause of outward transgressions.  Thus John's water baptism prophetically prepared the way for the new covenant as stated in Hebrews:

For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second.  Because finding fault with them, He says: “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah - not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they did not continue in My covenant, and I disregarded them, says the Lord.  For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.  None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them.  For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”  In that He says, “A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. - Hebrews 8:7-12

He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.  The objective of John's ministry was to lead those who came to him to faith in Christ.  We will see later in John's gospel that God, who sent John to baptize, had a greater purpose in his ministry than baptism.  As a prophet, John pointed to the greater One who would follow him.  And as a witness he would certify that the long awaited Messiah had come.  John the Baptist was happy to be a transparent conduit by which all who came to him might subsequently believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Lord, and the Son of the living God.