‘They therefore said to him, “Who are you, so that we may give an answer to those who sent us? What do you say about yourself?”. He said, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness - ‘Make the way of the Lord straight' - as Isaiah the prophet said”.'
On being pressed he connected himself with the words of Isaiah 40:3. He claimed not to be an important personage but only to be a voice, ‘the preparer of the way', pointing to and making ready for the coming activity of God (v. 23). Just as when great kings were making a journey men would go before them to straighten up the roads and make them passable, so John had come to prepare the way for another, by straightening up men's lives and removing from them all the hindrances that had built up in them. This passage is applied to him in all four Gospels. Thus John is ‘the Voice', the introducer, Jesus is ‘the Word' the full revelation of God. (As mentioned above this same passage was cited by the Qumran community about themselves)