John 3:22-36 John’s Final Testimony

Video Teaching
Verse-by-Verse Commentary
Full Transcript

Video Teaching

Verse-by-Verse Commentary

22 After this, Jesus and his disciples went out into the Judean countryside, where he spent some time with them, and baptized. 

1. Note that according to John 4:2, Jesus didn’t personally baptize anyone.  His disciples did it for him while he oversaw it.

23 Now John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because there was plenty of water, and people were coming and being baptized. 24 (This was before John was put in prison.) 25 An argument developed between some of John’s disciples and a certain Jew over the matter of ceremonial washing. 26 They came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan—the one you testified about—look, he is baptizing, and everyone is going to him.”

1. John’s disciples are worried that Jesus is now stealing John’s ministry!  Not only is he baptizing people, something that John literally has a title about, but he’s drawing bigger crowds!
2. Ministries built on ego or a sense of territory do not reflect the kingdom of Heaven.  Many such “ministries” exist to this day, much to the sadness of God.

27 To this John replied, “A person can receive only what is given them from heaven. 28 You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah but am sent ahead of him.’ 29 The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. 30 He must become greater; I must become less.”

1. In his response, John submits to the authority of Jesus.
   1. John’s response to his disciples reveals a fundamental truth about the prophets: prophets are people who submit.  
      1. The image of a prophet being a wild man standing at the edge of society, unwilling to submit to church authorities isn’t accurate.  They only refuse to submit to authorities who have abandoned God’s word.  
      2. When leaders stop submitting to God, they lose their authority, and prophets arise as God’s true spokesmen.
   2. Conversations about “submitting” to anyone in our culture can be very jarring and even offensive!  Submission seems as though it’s against our core expectations to live as free people in this world!
      1. Modernity tends to defines freedom via “negative freedom”–you’re free from external obligations when making choices.
      2. The Bible presents a definition of freedom that might be called positive or teleological freedom–you’re free to live well and be what you were made to be through the grace of God.
      3. We can only understand how submission can lead to freedom if we understand freedom on God’s terms.  Through modern expectations, submission to anyone would seem tyrannical, but on Biblical terms, freedom requires you to submit to God and to others in your life.
   3. The willingness to submit that John models is important for every Christian today as well.  The Bible speaks often about submission.  
      1. Colossians 3:20: “Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord,” 
         1. Notice that there is no age limit specified in the text.
      2. Colossians 3:18-19 reads “Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.  Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.”
         1. Uncomfortably enough, the passage doesn’t advocate for mutual submission.  The language for each gender is intentionally different.
         2. Ephesians 5 explains the husband’s role in greater detail: “Love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” This is servant leadership—putting his wife first, himself second. To exploit this authority is to abuse one’s spouse.
      3. Colossians 3:22: “Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything… work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.”
         1. The idea of getting rid of slavery would have been ridiculous to most people in the ancient world.
         2. Athenaus’s comedy, “The Banqueting Sophists” includes a section where people theorize about a world without slaves, but it would require automata, or items that move themselves.  They imagine a world where you could just tell objects, “Table, lay yourself! … Cup, pour yourself!”
            1. Depressingly enough, this seems to be somewhat prophetic–slavery in our world mostly ended with the advent of the Industrial Revolution
         3. For Christian slaves, the question would have been, should we stage a violent uprising?  That’s what is being addressed in submission.  The answer is no.
         4. For Christian slaveholders, The Book of Philemon shows that slavery is incompatible with Christianity as Paul encourages a master to treat his runaway slave both as a brother, a partner, and as he would treat Paul himself (v. 16-17)
      4. Many other examples can be found throughout the Bible, in reference to civil authority, religious authority, and so forth.  If it does not disobey God to submit, Christians are encouraged to submit
2. “He must become greater; I must become less.”
   1. This especially sums up the way John has completely submitted to God.  He knows that his authority must give way to Christ’s. He doesn’t sabotage Jesus–he makes room.
   2. As God becomes greater in us, we don’t become less ourselves but more truly ourselves, the people we were made to be, freed from sin’s distortion. This is good, though it may frighten us at first.
      1. “Imagine turning a tin soldier into a real little man. It would involve turning the tin into flesh. And suppose the tin soldier did not like it? He is not interested in flesh: all he sees is that the tin is being spoilt. He thinks you are killing him” -CS Lewis

31 The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and speaks as one from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above all. 32 He testifies to what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony. 33 Whoever has accepted it has certified that God is truthful. 

1. John’s witness to Jesus affirms God’s truth; whoever accepts Jesus’s testimony isn’t doing anything wild!  They’re just certifying that God is doing exactly what he said he would do.
   1. Affirming God’s truthfulness in worship and Scripture reading is a daily opportunity.

34 For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit. 35 The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. 36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.

1. Submission to the authorities we can see helps us submit to the authorities we can’t see until they’re fully revealed in their glory
   1. IfJesus entered the room, radiant with heavenly rays, wearing an otherworldly crown and the finest robes imaginable, the ONLY response would be to kneel and submit.  To do anything else would be absurd!  But if we don’t prepare our hearts for that moment, we’ll miss it.
2. “[H]e who denies God the glory of redemption, in addition to his folly, has robbed the Lord of the choicest jewel of his regalia, and aimed a deadly blow at the divine honor. I may say of him who despises the great salvation, that, in despising Christ, he touches the apple of God’s eye. “This is my beloved Son,” saith God, “hear ye him.” Out of heaven he saith it, and yet men stop their ears and say, “We will not have him.” Nay, they wax wrath against the cross, and turn away from God’s salvation. Do you think that God will always bear this?” -Charles Spurgeon

Full Transcript

Submit. There is a word that appears in the Bible an uncomfortable amount of times—uncomfortable for anyone, but especially for us, who culturally value our individuality and autonomy so much. The amount of submitting isn’t just uncomfortable; it’s downright offensive. I mean, did you hear that first passage I read this morning? I hesitated before I chose that one. I actually asked my wife, “I’ve only been here three months. You think I can read that one?”

And she said, “It’s in the Bible. People have eyes.”

I said, “All right, I’ll go with it.”

But look at it—you can see why it’s controversial. We start right out in verse 18: “Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.” I have never been present in a church service where a pastor preached on that passage. But I was in a church where someone had that as a reading that the pastor didn’t touch. And while they were reading it, I looked around the room at people’s faces. Boy, was that an adventure. People had feelings. I saw quite a few women who were outraged, and I saw quite a few men who had the weirdest mix of a little bit of smugness combined with a lot of fear of what’s going to happen after church today.

Regardless of the feelings it evokes, there it is: “Wives, submit to your husbands.” And then you follow up in verse 19.  Wouldn’t it be more comfortable if it followed up with, “And husbands submit to your wives”? My goodness. Then I wouldn’t be sweating up here talking about it, because two submits practically cancel each other out. We’re good to go. But that’s not what it follows up with. Instead, it says, “Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.”

I think Ephesians goes into a little more depth on this general concept. Ephesians 5 talks about what kind of love the husband should have for the wife. It says, “Love your wives as Christ loved the church, giving himself up for her.” That’s intense. An intense responsibility. This leadership is not just so you can bask in the glory of yourself. It’s intended to serve her. You are supposed to be putting her first and yourself second. That’s what it’s supposed to be. If you’re not willing to give yourself up for her, if you’re not putting her first, there is a problem. You are not only abusing your position—you are abusing your spouse.

Then we continue on. Verse 20.  We’re still on that general theme of submission: “Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.” Commandment number five, right there. And notice that there is no age limit on that. It doesn’t say, “until you are eighteen and then you’re good to go.” Obey your parents.

Then it goes right back to that leadership role of the head of the household. It says, “Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged.” Again, what is your goal here? You work for them. That’s your goal. As you discipline them, it’s not so you can have a nice quiet evening. If you need to discipline them, your goal is to guide them, to help them. If you are interacting with them in a way that’s making them permanently frustrated and warping them, you’re doing it wrong.

We’ve got a model of a household that would be controversial in a lot of places. But as we continue on, controversy of controversies, “slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything.” Obey your earthly masters in everything, and do it not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward.

Now, there are some who have used verses like this to claim that the Bible supports and encourages slavery. This is not the case. Not only is it not the case, it betrays a lack of knowledge about the Bible. One need only look in the book of Philemon to see more about this.  The book of Philemon—short but important, near the end of your Bible—is a letter from the apostle Paul. Paul is writing to a Christian slave owner, and he says, “Hey, I found your runaway slave, and I’ve got good news for you. I’m sending him back. And whereas before you had him as a slave, good news—now you get to accept him as your brother. He used to be your servant, but now he’s your fellow worker for Christ. I know how excited you’re going to be about this. So I want you to receive him as though he were me.”  

I want you to treat him in the exact same way you would treat me, the apostle Paul.  In other words, slavery, if you’re really caring about your neighbor the way you’re supposed to be, is incompatible with Christianity. Now, there are still some who say Paul is not direct enough on that point. And while I think he’s pretty direct, it’s actually shocking to think that in the ancient world this would even appear anywhere. In the ancient world, slavery was not considered morally ambiguous. It was just a fact of life. It was normative.

If you look, for example, a couple hundred years after the New Testament was finished, there is a Greek writer named Athenaeus. He wrote comedies. He wrote one called The Banqueting Sophists, and it’s about rich people having a dinner party. At one point they say, “There are no more slaves. We’re done with slaves. Let’s enjoy dinner.” And then the table magically sets itself, the food magically cooks itself, and the wine magically serves itself.  The point is, it’s a joke. The idea that there could be no slaves is literally a joke played for comedic effect. It’s absurd. Who’s going to do the cooking?

Slavery continued to be the dominant system of labor in the world, in every culture, up until—grimly enough—the Industrial Revolution, when it became less economically viable. But it is a shame how little Christians often followed the clear words of Scripture. And they are clear enough. You can see, going all the way back to the ancient era, people understood Paul’s condemnation of slavery in Philemon.  They just didn’t always follow it.

Either way, wouldn’t it be more comfortable? Paul here is talking to Christians serving under non-Christian slave owners. He tells them to serve. Wouldn’t it be more comfortable if he said, “Take up arms and fight for your freedom”? That would be considered much more justifiable today. But instead, he says to serve as you would serve Christ.

And we could go on and on about this. We could go into detail about the ones presented here, or we could look at other instances. We could look in 1 Peter, where it tells us to submit to civil authorities. We could look in Hebrews, where it talks about submitting to your leaders more broadly. There are a lot of places we could continue to explore. We could even talk about Jesus—how He submits to God the Father and is crucified.

But I bring all of this up not because we have time to delve into each of these in their fullness today, but just to remind us how often submitting appears in the Bible, and how uncomfortable it is to think about. Submitting is shown as a normal part of Christian life, because if you can’t submit to what you can see, how on earth are you going to be able to submit to a God that you can’t see?  Learning to submit is an important part of Christian life. And today we are going to look at someone who submitted practically perfectly—not quite, but he’s up there. He is a master of submitting: John the Baptist.

As a prophetic figure, John the Baptist is not often considered for his ability to submit. The popular image of a biblical prophet is not someone who submits, but a madman standing at the edge of society, saying whatever he wants and doing whatever he wants because no one can tell him what to do.  That’s not actually true. If you look in the Bible, there are a lot of prophets who do a considerable amount of submitting—not only to God, but to other figures. How many Old Testament prophets end up delivering messages to evil kings? They do this knowing the king is going to do bad things. They do this knowing they will likely be punished for the message God has given them. And sometimes they are. And yet they submit.

Just about the only figure that prophets genuinely don’t submit to is religious authorities. Religious authorities in the eras when prophets arise have usually abandoned their true source of authority. Religious leader, your authority comes from God—from submitting to His Word. That’s what makes you a leader. The second you stop doing that, the second you abandon God’s Word and start doing your own thing, that’s the moment you don’t have any real authority left.

And so prophets are raised up as the true authorities. That’s why they appear in Scripture. The religious leaders of Israel in those eras fade because they abandoned their relationship with God and sought to say whatever they thought was best.  Bottom line: prophets do submit. And here we see John the Baptist showing us an amazing picture of submitting to God.

Go ahead and let’s look at it. Let’s go through it piece by piece—John chapter three. By the way, we said we were going to do the first five chapters of John together. We’re a little over halfway through this morning, so I encourage you to take a minute at some point today and look back on everything we’ve covered and think about what you’ve learned. It is so easy to deliberately go about learning things and then not take the time to reflect on them. That’s what helps you remember things long-term.  What have you learned? Something you heard in a sermon, something you found in your own private study, something you experienced. There will be a quiz on this at the end, because I want to hear from you. Not quite yet, though—you’ve got some time. Think about it.

Verse 22:

After this, Jesus and his disciples went out into the Judean countryside, where he spent some time with them and baptized. Jesus baptized people. I don’t think that’s something we think about all that often, but it happens. That’s one of the ways you see continuity between John the Baptist’s ministry and Jesus’s ministry. John the Baptist comes before, showing them this baptism of repentance, preparing the way for Jesus, and then Jesus comes along and also baptizes.

Now John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim because there was plenty of water, and people were coming and being baptized. This was before John was put in prison. An argument developed between some of John’s disciples and a certain Jew over the matter of ceremonial washing. They came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan, the one you testified about—look, he’s baptizing, and everyone’s going to him.”

In other words, John, that Jesus guy is stealing your shtick. You’re the baptism guy. You came up with that. You gave him some credibility, and look how he’s repaid you. He’s turned around and he’s doing your thing, and now everybody’s going to him. We’ve got to find a way to get our people back. What are we going to do? We need something new to catch people’s attention.

And John responded, “A person can receive only what is given them from heaven.”

God is the one who brings people to his ministry, and if people move on, that’s all right. Any person—even just one—is a gift from God. I know a lot of you are involved in different ministries. Some of you have Bible studies at your house. Some of you are involved in programs. I know how passionate you are about serving God.

It can be really tempting to equate success with size. And if something doesn’t get big, it can be frustrating. But that’s thinking the way the world thinks. The world says bigger is better. The world says the more impressive, the more money coming in, the more people in seats—that proves success.

That’s not how God thinks. You can have a small ministry that is still a vital ministry. Think back to one of the first Bible studies I led. This was before I went to seminary. We began with six people, and we ended, by the grace of God, with five people. We actually lost one.

But when I look back on it, it’s amazing to think about each person in that study—the ways they grew and what they went on to do afterward. Even though it was small, it made a difference in people’s lives.

So don’t judge your ministries by, “Did I blow it up? Did I become the next massive thing everyone’s talking about?” God has given you the gift of even one person who wants to talk to Jesus with you. How exciting is that? That’s a blessing.

“A person can receive only what is given them from heaven.”

You yourselves testify that I said, “I am not the Messiah, but am sent ahead of him.” The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice.

This language of the bride and the bridegroom—we’d probably just say “groom” today—but it’s language you find throughout Scripture, both Old and New Testaments. Probably the clearest example is the Song of Songs, a whole book about the relationship between the bride and the bridegroom. But you also see it in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and several other places.

When you see that language, it’s talking about God. God is the groom, and God’s people—individually and corporately—are the bride. The bride prepares herself for the groom, and the groom waits with excitement for the bride. They are made for each other. This is our relationship with God.

So what John is saying here—remember, when he saw Jesus earlier, he said, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Now he uses even stronger language. Jesus is the groom; his people are the bride. It’s pretty unambiguously calling Jesus God.

The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete.

He must become greater; I must become less.

I think that can seem scary. I remember when I was a new Christian, when I first started attending church regularly and reading my Bible and praying. I was on fire for the Lord, and I remember feeling different—feeling the Holy Spirit inside me, changing me and making me something other than what I was.  That sounds really cool to us in church, but at the time it wasn’t cool. It was pretty freaky. I didn’t want anything to do with it. So I stopped reading the Bible and prayed a little less for a while because I didn’t want to become something other than what I was. The idea was terrifying.

But it shouldn’t be terrifying. When the Holy Spirit is at work in our lives, transforming us, it’s not making us less of ourselves. As God becomes greater in our lives and we become less, we actually become more of ourselves. The “us” we usually know is an “us” tainted by sin. It’s not what we were made to be.  As God becomes more present in our lives, we become more of the person we were made to be. It’s not something to be afraid of. Don’t back away from it. It’s a good thing.

Verse 31: “The one who comes from above is above all. The one who is from the earth belongs to the earth and speaks as one from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above all.”

“Above all” has both a cosmic and a rank dimension. Jesus is literally from heaven, and he is above in authority. He is the One above all—the King of the universe, the divine ruler over everything.

He testifies to what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony. Whoever has accepted it has certified that God is truthful. We have the opportunity to do that every day. That’s what we’re doing right now in worship. When we read the Bible and affirm it, we are affirming that God is truthful. When we worship God, we are affirming that He is good.

So much of the Christian life is simply affirming what is true—responding rightly to what we know.

Imagine, for example, if King Jesus in all his glory walked into this room right now—heavenly light shining off him, an otherworldly crown, the finest robes imaginable. What would be the right response? To kneel. Maybe something like that. The natural response in the presence of one who is so clearly above all is to serve, to submit.

It continues: “For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit. The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.”

We have the opportunity to affirm what is true, but we can also, unbelievably, deny it—even when it’s obvious.  Imagine Jesus in all that glory standing here, and someone says, “You’re not in charge. I don’t know who you are. You have no authority here. Get out.” In that moment, seeing something so clearly from heaven, how absurd would it be to deny what’s right in front of you?  And yet we can do that.  We can choose to deny the truth. There is no life in that.

I’m grateful that God brought this passage into my life, especially as I’m getting ready to go to one of our Global Methodist conferences. It’ll be my first one. I’m stepping into a new world—new leaders to submit to, new leadership to learn from, new rules to understand.

I won’t lie—it makes me a little nervous. I’ve seen some religious abuses of authority that I’m not going to forget anytime soon. It makes me a little skittish. But part of the Christian life is learning to submit to the leaders God has given you.  So as I go in, knowing these are people who have submitted themselves to Scripture, I have to learn to submit—even when it’s uncomfortable, even when it’s challenging.

I wonder where this intersects with your life. I don’t know what authorities God has placed in your life that you need to learn to submit to. And to be clear, this is always something people get nervous about, especially if they’ve seen abuses.  Remember: it is never true submission if it involves sin. If someone asks you to submit by doing something wrong, that’s out of the question. You can’t submit to a lesser authority and ignore a greater one. Submission never involves sinning.

But often, it’s not about being asked to do something blatantly sinful. Maybe you’ve seen abuses and don’t want to put yourself in that position. Maybe it’s pride—you think, “They may be in charge, but I’m better than them.” Maybe it’s vanity. There are a lot of reasons we can be skittish about authority. Some are legitimate; some are less so.

But the challenge as a Christian is to learn to submit well. Because if we can’t submit to the authorities we can see, how on earth are we going to submit to the Lord we don’t see?  Amen.