‘John answered them, saying, “I baptise with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, even He who comes after me, the clasp of whose sandal I am unworthy to unloose”.'
His reply was that he was baptising with water in preparation for the coming of Another, someone who was already standing among them, and was yet unknown to them, someone so great that he, John, was not worthy to untie His sandals.
The writer does not bring out the significance of John's baptism here, for he says little about the teaching of John, (although he does bring out its significance later in, for example, the visit of Nicodemus - chapter 3). He is aware that it is well known from elsewhere, and he leaves that to others and does not consider it necessary. But it is so important for the meaning behind the Gospel that we must consider it briefly.
John proclaimed a ‘baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins' (Mark 1:4: Luke 3:3), and the connection between repentance from sin and his baptism is made clear by John himself. However, he also goes on to declare that his baptism is a precursor to the age of the Spirit (Mark 1:8; Matthew 3:11; Luke 3:15-16; John 1:30-34), and he specifically parallels his baptism with water with Jesus' coming ‘baptism (drenching) with the Holy Spirit'. It is this fact which makes clear the significance of John's baptism.
He constantly used harvest imagery. The Pharisees and Sadducees were like snakes fleeing from the burning cornfields (Matthew 3:7; Luke 3:7) and should rather ‘bear fruit' (Matthew 3:8). The judgment is like the axe laid to the root of the trees that do not bear fruit (v. 10). The One who is coming comes with a winnowing fork in His hands to gather the wheat into the granary and to cast the chaff into the fire (v. 12). So all the time John has in mind pictures of fruitfulness and harvest, of the threshing floor and overflowing barns, and of the clearing of chaff and of ‘dead' trees. This powerfully suggests that when he speaks of his baptism in the light of the coming of the Spirit he has in mind the pictures common in the Old Testament prophets of fruitfulness and blessing caused by the coming of the rains, which are constantly connected with the coming of the Spirit (Isaiah 44:3-6; Isaiah 32:15-18; Joel 2:28-29 see also Isaiah 55:10-13; Isaiah 59:19-21).
At that time, says the prophet Isaiah, the Spirit will be ‘poured out from above', the land will flourish and the desert will become fruitful, and justice and righteousness, peace and confidence will abound (Isaiah 32:15-18). It is clear here that the pouring out of the Spirit includes the thought of the pouring out of rain producing fruitful harvests, although there is no doubting that it also includes a life changing activity in the hearts of men.
This is especially confirmed by Isaiah 44:4-5. “I will pour water on him who is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground. I will pour My Spirit upon your children, and my blessing upon your offspring”. The people will flourish “like the grass at the coming of the rainy season, like willows planted by flowing rivers”. Once again we have the life-giving rain, but here the pouring out of the Spirit is on the people, who will thus each say ‘I am the Lord's' (v. 6). Compare Isaiah 35:6-7; Isaiah 41:17-20; Isaiah 55:10-13; Isaiah 59:19-21; Joel 2:23-29; Ezekiel 34:26-27 which all see the future blessing in terms of rain pouring down, floods of water, abundant fruitfulness, and so on.
Most of us vaguely recognise the importance of rain to our lives but it is not seen as hugely important to many of us. However, that is because we do not benefit from it directly and find it uncomfortable to go out in. But to people who lived in a land where their very lives depended on the sequence of the rains it was very different. No rain meant famine and hardship, even starvation and death. Rain was the source of life, the life-giver, the greatest of all boons to man. All their festivals concentrated on the need for rain. So the prophetic words touched a deep chord in all their hearts.
John clearly had these Scriptures in mind when he preached, and it is surely beyond all doubt that this is what his baptism signified, the drenching with life-giving rain that produces fruitfulness and blessing. We can compare how Jesus must also surely have had these Scriptures in mind when He speaks of being ‘born from above' (John 3:6). Thus John's baptism is a picture of the coming of the life giving Spirit in terms of rain, and he is seeking to prepare the way for this by bringing the people to repentance from sin and baptising them as a symbol of what God is about to do on those who respond to Him. The idea is not of washing from sin but of the giving of life and the transformation of the heart. That was why he baptised with water. And it pointed ahead to, and prepared the way for, the coming outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
Contrary to popular opinion there are no grounds for connecting John's baptism with cleansing. The Old Testament washings never cleansed. They were only preparatory to cleansing, removing the earthiness prior to waiting before God ‘until the evening'. Furthermore the often cited full scale bath of the Gentile convert to Judaism was carried out by the person himself, not by someone who ministered to him. And it was simply part of the process by which he left the Gentile world behind. He was ridding himself of the stain of all his past offences against Jewish ritual cleanness. It could have no connection with what John was proclaiming. (Nor did the Pharisees see his baptism in that way. Had they thought that he was suggesting that ‘they' needed to be purified from a past life of ‘uncleanness' they would have protested vigorously, for they daily ‘cleansed' themselves by various washings).
But the writer here is more concerned with the fact that John is a witness to Jesus, and his emphasis is more on ‘there stands One among you whom you do not know, even He who comes after me, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie'. He wants it to be clear that John simply prepares the way for another, for ‘the Word of God', Who is so far superior to him that he is not even fit to unfasten His sandals.
‘Whom you do not know.' John could say elsewhere, ‘and I knew Him not' (John 1:31), so that these are not words of blame. But they are a warning to them to keep their eyes open and recognise Him when He comes. Their guilt lay in the fact that when they did see Him they still refused to recognise Him.
‘Even He who comes after me.' Again John stresses that he is only the pointer of the way, pointing to a Greater yet to come. Yet behind his words lie the thrilling promise that ‘He is coming'.
‘The clasp of whose sandal I am unworthy to unloose.' When men visited a home someone would unfasten their sandals, a job done by the meanest servants. John is here saying that Jesus will be so superior to him that he is not even worthy to be the meanest of servants to Jesus.