'Prepare ye the way!' Viewed especially in the light of those self-glorious times, this reads not like a ficitious account of a fictious mission; nor was such the profession of an impostor, an associate in a plot, or an enthusiast. There was deep reality of all-engrossing conviction which underlay such self-denial of mission.
And all this must have ripened during the forty days of probably comparative solitude, [3 We have in a previous chapter suggested that the baptism of Jesus had taken place at Bethabara, that is, the furthest northern point of his activity, and probably at the close of his baptismal ministry. It is not possible in this place to detail the reasons for this view. But the learned reader will find remarks on it in Keim, i. 2, p. 524.] only relieved by the presence of such 'disciples' as, learning the same hope, would gather around him. What he had seen and what he had heard threw him back upon what he had expected and believed. It not only fulfilled, it transfigured it. Not that, probably, he always maintained the same height which he then attained. It was not in the nature of things that it should be so. We often attain, at the outset of our climbing, a glimpse, afterwards hid from us in our laborious upward toil till the supreme height is reached. Mentally and sprirtually we may attain almost at a bound results, too often lost to us till again secured by long reflection, or in the course of painful development. This in some measure explains the fulness of John's testimony to the Christ as 'the Lamb of God, Which taketh away the sin of the world,' when at the beginning we find ourselves almost at the goal of New Testament teaching. It also explains that last strife of doubt and fear, when the weary wrestler laid himself down to find refreshment and strength in the shadow of those prophecies, which had first called him to the contest. But during
those forty days, and in the first meetings with Jesus which followed, all lay bathed in the morning-light of that heavenly vision, and that Divine truth wakened in him the echoes of all those prophecies, which these thirty years had been the music of his soul.
And now, on the last of those forty days, simultaneously with the final great Temptation of Jesus [1 This, of course, on the supposition that the Baptism of Jesus took place at Bethabara, and hence that the 'wilderness' into which He was driven, was close by. It is difficult to see why, on any other supposition, Jesus returned to Bethabara, since evidently it was not for the sake of any personal intercourse with John.] which must have summed up all that had preceded it in the previous days, came the hour of John's temptation by the deputation from Jerusalem. [2 This is most beautifully suggested by Canon Westcott in his Commentary on the passage.] Very gently it came to him, like the tempered wind that fans the fire into flame, not like that keen, desolating storm-blast which swept over the Master. To John, as now to us, it was only the fellowship of His sufferings, which he bore in the shelter of that great Rock over which its intenseness had spent itself. Yet a very real temptation it was, this provoking to the assumption of successively lower grades of self-assertion, where only entire self-abnegation was the rightful feeling. Each suggestion of lower office (like the temptations of Christ) marked an increased measure of temptation, as the human in his mission was more and more closely neared. And greatest temptation it was when, after the first victory, came the not unnatural challenge of his authority for what he said and did. This was, of all others, the question which must at all times, from the beginning of his mission to the hour of his death, have pressed most closely upon him, since it touched not only his conscience, but the very ground of his mission, nay, of his life. That it was such temptation is evidenced by the fact that, in the hour of his greatest loneliness and depression it formed his final contest, in which he temporarily paused, like Jacob in his Israel-struggle, though, like him, he failed not in it. For what was the meaning of that question which the disciples of John brought to Jesus: 'Art Thou He that should come, or do we look for another?' other than doubt of his own warrant and authority for what he had said and done? But in that first time of his trial at Bethabara he overcame, the first temptation by the humility of his intense sincerity, the second by the absolute simplicity of his own experimental conviction; the first by what he had seen, the second by what he had heard concerning the Christ at the banks of Jordan. And so, also, although perhaps 'afar off,' it must ever be to us in like temptation.
Yet, as we view it, and without needlessly imputing malice prepense to the Pharisaic deputation, their questions seemed but natural. After his previous emphatic disclaimer at the beginning of his preaching (St. Luke iii. 15), of which they in Jerusalem could scarcely have been ignorant, the suggestion of his Messiahship, not indeed expressly made, but sufficiently implied to elicit what the language of St. John [1 'He confessed, and denied not' (St. John i. 20). Canon Westcott points out, that 'the combination of a positive and negative' is intended to 'express the fulness of truth,' and that 'the first term marks the readiness of his testimony, the second its completeness.'] shows to have been the most energetic denial, could scarcely have been more than tentative. It was otherwise with their question whether he was 'Elijah'? Yet, bearing in mind what we know of the Jewish expectations of Elijah, and how his appearance was always readily recognised, [2 See Appendix VIII: 'Rabbinic Traditions about Elijah, the Forerunner of the Messiah.'] this also could scarcely have been meant in its full literality, but rather as ground for the further question after the goal and warrant of his mission. Hence also John's disavowing of such claims is not satisfactorily accounted for by the common explanation, that he denied being Elijah in
the sense of not being what the Jews expected of the Forerunner of the Messiah: the real, identical Elijah of the days of Ahab; or else, that he denied being such in the sense of the peculiar Jewish hopes attaching to his reappearance in the 'last days.' There is much deeper truth in the disclaimer of the Baptist. It was, indeed, true that, as foretold in the Angelic announcement, [a St. Luke i. 17.] he was sent 'in the spirit and power of Elias,' that is, with the same object and the same qualifications. Similarly, it is true what, in His mournful retrospect of the result of John's mission, and in the prospect of His own end, the Saviour said of him, 'Elias is indeed come,' but 'they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed.' [b St. Mark ix. 13; St. Matt. xvii. 12.] But on this very recognition and reception of him by the Jews depended his being to them Elijah who should 'turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just,' and so 'restore all things.' Between the Elijah of Ahab's reign, and him of Messianic times, lay the wide cleft of quite another dispensation. The 'spirit and power of Elijah' could 'restore all things,' because it was the dispensation of the Old Testament, in which the result was outward, and by outward means. But 'the spirit and power' of the Elijah of the New Testament, which was to accomplish the inward restoration through penitent reception of the Kingdom of God in its reality, could only accomplish that object if'they received it', if'they knew him.' And as in his own view, and looking around and forward, so also in very fact the Baptist, though Divinely such, was not really Elijah to Israel, and this is the meaning of the words of Jesus: 'And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come.' [a St. Matt. xi. 14.]
More natural still, indeed, almost quite truthful, seems the third question of the Pharisees, whether the Baptist was 'that prophet.' The reference here is undoubtedly to Deut. xviii. 15, 18. Not that the reappearance of Moses as lawgiver was expected. But as the prediction of the eighteenth chapter of Deuteronomy, especially when taken in connection with the promise [b Jer. xxxi. 31 &c] of a 'new covenant' with a 'new law' written in the hearts of the people, implied a change in this respect, it was but natural that it should have been expected in Messianic days by the instrumentality of'that prophet.' [1 Can the reference in St. Stephen's speech (Acts vii. 37) apply to this expected alteration of the Law? At any rate St. Stephen is on his defence for teaching the abolition by Jesus of the Old Testament economy. It is remarkable that he does not deny the charge, and that his contention is, that the Jews wickedly resisted the authority of Jesus (w. 51-53).] Even the various opinions broached in the Mishnah, [c Eduy. viii. 7.] as to whatwere to be the reformatory and legislative functions of Elijah, prove that such expectations were connected with the Forerunner of the Messiah.
But whatever views the Jewish embassy might have entertained concerning the abrogation, renewal, or renovation of the Law [2 For the Jewish views on the Law in Messianic times, see Appendix XIV.: 'The Law in Messianic Days.'] in Messianic times, the Baptist repelled the suggestion of his being 'that prophet' with the same energy as those of his being either the Christ or Elijah. And just as we notice, as the result of those forty days' communing, yet deeper humility and self-abnegation on the part of the Baptist, so we also mark increased intensity and directness in the testimony which he now bears to the Christ before the Jerusalem deputies, [d St. John 1. 22- 28.] 'His eye is fixed on the Coming One.'He is as a voice not to be inquired about, but heard;' and its clear and unmistakable, but deeply reverent utterance is: 'The Coming One has come.' [1 The words within quotations are those of Archdeacon Watkins, in his Commentary on St. John.]
The reward of his overcoming temptation, yet with it also the fitting for still fiercer conflict (which two, indeed, are always conjoined), was at hand. After His victorious contest with the Devil, Angels had come to minister to Jesus in body and soul. But better than Angels' vision came to refresh and strengthen His faithful witness John. On the very day of the Baptist's temptation Jesus had left the wilderness. On the morrow after it, 'John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold, the Lamb of God, Which taketh away the sin of the world!' We cannot doubt, that the thought here present to the mind of John was the description of'The Servant of Jehovah,' [a Is. Hi. 13.] as set forth in Is. liii. If all along the Baptist had been filled with Isaiah-thoughts of the Kingdom,
