And welcome back.
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Well, Dr. Jon Paulien,
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we are studying that
the John, the Baptist,
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he is denying these questions.
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He said, "No, I'm not Elijah.
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No, I'm not the prophet.
No, I'm not the Christ."
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He is almost
putting himself down.
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Whereas in other gospels,
he is this great prophet.
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And even Jesus said
he was a great prophet.
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Where he calls
him Elijah? Right.
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Here John denies he is Elijah
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even when Jesus had called him.
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And so why does John do that?
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Why does he deny?
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Why can't he
just clearly go direct
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to the answer who he is?
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Well, the impression you gave
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when you study carefully
the history in the background
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is that the Baptist movement
didn't die when Jesus came.
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Apparently, a lot of people
didn't get the message that--
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And by Baptist movement,
you mean they were followers?
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People who followed him.
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I mean, you see
even in these stories
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as crowds of
people coming to him.
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You know, to hear his preaching.
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In all the gospels, you have--
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that's one of the things
all four gospels has in common.
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John's out in the
desert. He is preaching.
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Crowds of people
are coming to him.
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He is a sensation.
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He is a rock star, you
know, in their kind of world.
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So John is this great figure
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and he becomes great in
order to point out the Messiah
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when he comes 'cause
the Messiah will not be
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as obviously great as
John when he first appears.
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So he is there
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to get the people's attention
and then point him out.
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But here in the Gospel of John
happens what didn't happened.
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Apparently, in the years
between Matthew, Mark, and Luke,
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which were probably written in
'50s, '60s something like that,
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now we are about
30-40 years later.
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In the intervening
time, something has happened.
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Apparently, the Baptist movement
didn't end when Jesus came.
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For example, in
the Book of Acts,
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you have Apollos
who was a follower,
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who'd never even
heard about the spirit,
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he was a
follower of the Baptist.
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He missed a lot of
the memos about Jesus.
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Then you have
also in the gospel--
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in the Book of Acts,
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there are
stories about some people
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who are following the Baptist.
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They didn't baptized by John,
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but they didn't know
anything about Jesus.
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So they
evidently were continuing
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the follower of the Baptists
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until they ran into
Paul and his companions.
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And then there
is a group of people
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in ancient times
called Mandaeans,
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who continued to follow Baptist
and they still exist today.
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A many of them are in Iran.
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You know, modern day Persia.
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And they still continue
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to worship the
Baptist as the chief guy.
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So, when you realize the
Baptist movement continued
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suddenly some of
this makes sense.
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Even what the Baptists
says in this gospel made sense.
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And it would seem reasonable
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that this Baptist movement
actually got kind of radical
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because John lost his
head for political reasons.
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Do you remember the story?
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He was saying stuff
about the king and his wife.
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Now that will get
you in trouble, you see.
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So he was taking a
strong political kind of role,
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and so it's possible that
the followers of the Baptist
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might have even
gotten a bit challenging.
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And the John, the
Baptist was careful
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not to draw people to himself.
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That's what the Gospel of
John is telling us. Right.
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But evidently,
there were some people
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who after John,
the Baptist was gone
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were seeing him as a Messiah,
seeing him as the light,
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seeing him as Elijah, etcetera.
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And the Gospel of
John is correcting this
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by bringing data to fore
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that they'd
overlooked about the Baptist.
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And you asked the question,
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who in his right mind would see
the John as any rival to Jesus,
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was a couple of
things you need to know.
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First of all,
the Jews of that time
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were expecting
more than one Messiah.
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When you go to the writings
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between the old
and New Testament,
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you discover that they
actually had two Messiahs.
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One would be from
the tribe of Judah
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and the other
from the tribe of Levi.
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And so when you have
the idea of two Messiahs,
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where Jesus is
from the tribe of Judah,
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John is a priest, so he
is from the tribe of Levi.
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So that fits
perfectly with the expectation
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that they had at that time.
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In the Old Testament, you had
the king and the high priest.
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You had Zerubbabel and Joshua.
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You had the priestly Messiah
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and the kingly
Messiah at Qumran,
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you know, where the
Dead Sea scrolls were found.
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You have this kind of a concept.
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So the idea was the two Messiah.
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So the question is
which of these is greater?
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And in Judaism, there is
another concept that comes here
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and that is that
earlier is better.
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Earlier is better.
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If you come later, you're not
as good as what came earlier.
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I think of Jesus, when he says,
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you know, they said Moses
allowed us to divorce our wives
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and Jesus says, "I know He did."
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But in the
beginning it wasn't so.
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Jesus is appealing back
earlier as authority for them.
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He is accepting there the
kind of concept that they had.
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So to convince them that
really he shouldn't divorce.
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When it comes to
Sabbath, you know, people say,
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"Well, the Sabbath is
something at the Jews did."
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And Jesus said,
"No, wait a minute.
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In the beginning, man
was made not for the Sabbath,
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the Sabbath was not
made from-- that was ago.
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Sabbath was made for man
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not man for the
Sabbath, you see."
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And that man is
speaking of Adam.
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So you see Jesus had a
tenancy to go back earlier
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to establish the thing and say,
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if you want to reform something,
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you go back to an
earlier period when it was good.
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So it makes sense
what the Jews were saying.
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The high priest
was there for 400 years
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before there was a king.
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The high priest anoints the king
and puts the crown on his head.
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So they were thinking
that if John came first
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and he was from the Levi,
he was greater than Jesus.
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And so, what does
the text here tell us?
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How does it respond?
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And for the gospel writers,
Jesus is both priest and king.
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He is the sacrificial lamb,
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He is that the
priest of ancient Israel,
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and He is also the king
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and the model for Jesus
was guy name Melchizedek.
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You remember Melchizedek
in the Book of Hebrews?
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He is both king and priest.
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And he is before Aaron.
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So he trumps the priestly line.
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He is the king and priest that
came before Aaron and David.
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So the New
Testament writers are arguing
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with some of these concepts,
these reveals to Jesus.
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And what is John's
answer in the prologue?
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How does he answer?
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Who came first? Jesus.
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How would you know
that he came first?
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'Cause He was in the
beginning from eternity was God.
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So the prologue sets the
table for these statements.
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When John says,
"He is greater than me
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because he came
he was before me."
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That made no sense to
the people here in John talk.
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Obviously, 'cause some of them
didn't even follow it, you know.
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But the reader of the gospel
with the prologue and my--
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now he understands,
"Oh, Jesus was earlier.
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He was greater
than the Baptist."
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So the Gospel of John is
trying to restore the Baptist
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to the place that God
actually intended for Him to be,
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and this chapter 1,
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you won't find it in
Matthew, Mark, or Luke,
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but it's building on
the story that's going on
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behind the scenes
in that first century.
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And then He says He
makes that answer now.
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He says, "I am the voice of one
crying out in the wilderness."
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So He then--after He
denies three times then he says,
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"Okay, that's not who I am,
but let me tell you who I am.
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I am that voice of one
crying in the wilderness,
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make straight
the way of the Lord."
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So his only mission
is to point out Jesus.
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He is not be a rock
star, that's what happened.
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But John, he was
deferring all of that praise
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and all the glory, so
he can point that Jesus.
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Why don't you read
verses 29-34 because it is there
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that John actually
carries out His mission?
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"The next day John saw
Jesus coming told him he said,
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'Behold the Lamb of God,
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who takes away
the sin of the world
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this is he of whom I said,
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after me comes a man
who is preferred before me,
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for he was before me.
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I did not know him but that
he should be revealed to Israel,
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therefore I came
baptizing with water.
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And John witness saying,
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I saw the Spirit descending
from heaven like a dove,
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and he remained upon him.
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I did not know him,
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but he who sent me to
baptize with water, said to me,
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upon whom you see
the Spirit descending,
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and remaining on him,
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this is he who
baptizes with the Holy Sprit.
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And I have seen and testified
that this is the Son of God."
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So here he
accomplishes his mission
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that is what he came for
when Jesus comes to be baptized.
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It even says
John didn't know him.
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They apparently
were somewhat related,
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but it maybe that
they were separated,
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you know, from a very early
time and so the adult Jesus,
00:09:58.71\00:10:01.50
the adult John did
not know each other.
00:10:01.53\00:10:03.74
John would not
have recognized Jesus
00:10:03.77\00:10:06.03
if he saw him on the street,
00:10:06.06\00:10:07.78
but the Holy Spirit said
to him, "This is the one.
00:10:07.81\00:10:11.61
This is the one that
you where to point out."
00:10:11.64\00:10:13.39
And so John points to Jesus.
00:10:13.42\00:10:16.54
He is setting the
table for Jesus here.
00:10:16.57\00:10:20.10
And in the rest of this chapter
that's what we see happening.
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The disciples of John
start coming to Jesus.
00:10:24.60\00:10:28.58
You're seeing the
transition between the two.
00:10:28.61\00:10:32.49
So let's take a
look at verses 36 and 37,
00:10:32.52\00:10:35.44
we can see that transition.
00:10:35.47\00:10:36.96
"And looking at
Jesus as he walked,
00:10:36.99\00:10:39.25
he said,
'Behold the Lamb of God.
00:10:39.28\00:10:41.99
The two
disciples heard him speak,
00:10:42.02\00:10:44.42
and they followed Jesus.'"
00:10:44.45\00:10:46.34
Now one could ask the
question, which Lamb of God?
00:10:46.37\00:10:50.29
You know, is it
the past over lamb?
00:10:50.32\00:10:52.07
Is it the sacrificial lamb?
Is it the lamb of Isaiah 53?
00:10:52.10\00:10:56.39
You know, you have all
these different options.
00:10:56.42\00:10:58.73
I think in John
particularly is a passover lamb.
00:10:58.76\00:11:02.88
Because it
mentions at the crucifixion
00:11:02.91\00:11:05.87
that no bone was broken
because in the passover,
00:11:05.90\00:11:10.30
they came at passover time.
00:11:10.33\00:11:12.47
So that's more of
a technical question,
00:11:12.50\00:11:14.80
but you'll notice that
when John identifies Jesus
00:11:14.83\00:11:19.49
some of His
disciples immediately follow
00:11:19.52\00:11:22.90
and they go on their way.
00:11:22.93\00:11:25.30
And then notice verse 46.
00:11:25.33\00:11:28.40
"And Nathanael said to him,
00:11:28.43\00:11:30.02
'Can anything good
come out of Nazareth?'
00:11:30.05\00:11:32.90
Philip said to
him, 'Come and see.'"
00:11:32.93\00:11:35.79
So first of all, these
two disciples John points to,
00:11:35.82\00:11:40.46
they find the couple of more,
00:11:40.49\00:11:42.02
Peter and Philip and
then Philip finds Nathaniel,
00:11:42.05\00:11:46.10
and so the thing
is kind of cascading
00:11:46.13\00:11:49.15
and they're coming to Jesus.
00:11:49.18\00:11:50.93
So it's drawing the transition
00:11:50.96\00:11:53.11
between the time of
John and the time of Jesus.
00:11:53.14\00:11:57.48
Just a note on this,
00:11:57.51\00:11:58.88
can any good thing
come out of the Nazareth?
00:11:58.91\00:12:01.31
You had three types
of towns in Galilee.
00:12:01.34\00:12:04.75
There were strict Jewish towns.
00:12:04.78\00:12:07.96
There were loose Jewish towns
00:12:07.99\00:12:11.28
where they didn't
follow laws all that great.
00:12:11.31\00:12:14.47
And then there
were Gentile towns,
00:12:14.50\00:12:16.86
your Greek towns like,
Sepphoris, so Tiberias.
00:12:16.89\00:12:22.50
So you have these
three types of towns.
00:12:22.53\00:12:24.87
Cana and Nazareth were
actually not far apart.
00:12:24.90\00:12:28.86
I could imagine that
Cana was an observing town
00:12:28.89\00:12:32.15
and Nazareth
seems to be loose area,
00:12:32.18\00:12:34.60
you know, not so
serious about the Jewish faith.
00:12:34.63\00:12:37.72
I can imagine when
Nathan was a little child,
00:12:37.75\00:12:40.07
you know, his father would say,
00:12:40.10\00:12:41.47
"Boy, I tell you,
when Messiah comes,
00:12:41.50\00:12:43.87
he is definitely not
gonna be coming from Nazareth."
00:12:43.90\00:12:47.11
They probably--
Anywhere but Nazareth.
00:12:47.14\00:12:48.51
Yeah, and exactly,
00:12:48.54\00:12:49.91
they're probably pretty
frustrated with Nazareth.
00:12:49.94\00:12:52.45
So, you know, underlying here
you see the skeptic Nathaniel
00:12:52.48\00:12:57.49
and yet he is really
the faithful one, you know.
00:12:57.52\00:13:00.00
He is not easy to persuade,
00:13:00.03\00:13:01.97
but once he finds,
Jesus is truly who He is.
00:13:02.00\00:13:06.03
He falls behind 100%.
00:13:06.06\00:13:09.07
Well, Dr. Paulien,
we want to thank you
00:13:09.10\00:13:10.76
for being with us again
and do some Bible study.
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And thank you too
friends for joining us.
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I hope that you
also make that decision
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to follow Jesus
Christ always. God bless.
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