John 1v25

And they asked him, and said unto him, Why baptizest thou then, if thou be not that Christ, nor Elias, neither that prophet?

This is John the Baptist’s introduction in John’s gospel. In this passage (John 1v19-28) “the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who art thou?” (verse 19). The first question that they asked was whether he was the Christ – which he denied. Then they asked whether he was Elias (Elijah), which he also denied. Then they asked whether he was “that prophet” which he also denied. (References to ‘that prophet’ were most likely references to the prophet foretold in Deuteronomy 18, especially verses 15 and 18 – apparently this reference was not seen at the time as referring to the Christ.)

After all of his denials, the ‘priests and Levites’ stopped asking assuming type questions – “are you …” and moved on to the question they should have asked from the start – “What sayest thou of thyself?” (verse 22). It is possible that all of their previous questions were based on second hand reports of what John might have said or claimed for himself. Now that he has denied ever claiming such things, he is given the opportunity to make his own statement. So in verse 23 he answers “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord” – here he is quoting Isaiah 40v3, and showing that he was the forerunner for the Lord.

The ‘priests and Levites’ – identified as Pharisees in verse 24 – now ask the question ‘why do you baptize then?’ Clearly John’s ministry of baptism caused the religious leaders to ask this question among themselves. Perhaps in their internal debates they came up with possibilities which they thought were the only ones for who John the Baptist was. Their assumptions however were always letting them down, just as they did in this case. It might seem incredible that those that are supposed to study and know God’s word the best were those that missed the point on so many occasions – this can still be the case today, and a challenge for the Christian not to fall into. Let us not forget that it is the devil himself that is the expert at quoting scriptures out of context – for an example of this, you only need to look at the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness, in Luke 4v9-12.

One thing that we can see from this question is that the ‘priests and Levites’ recognised the right that the Messiah would have to baptize. To their way of thinking, if you are the Messiah you would have this right, but John didn’t. Perhaps they were also looking at what came as part of baptism – the remission of sins, as we have already seen in earlier sections, starting at section {18 }. After Jesus appeared on the scene, this attitude would harden to the point where they would ask: “who can forgive sins but God only?” (Mark 2v7) – but for now they would be happy for the Messiah and a select few of His prophets to have the ministry of baptism for the remission of sins.