John the Baptist – a reset for 2026

Part 1

(i) Brood of vipers – not just the Pharisees and Sadducees
(ii) Coming wrath – the inadequacy of Jewish lineage

John the Baptist is often overlooked. The warm-up act before the entrance, stage-left, of the Messiah: Jesus of Nazareth, and eclipsed, as we all are, by the Word made flesh..

He is mentioned in all four gospels, but here’s Luke’s account, which is the fullest.

John said to the crowds coming out to be baptised by him, ‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The axe is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.’

The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might be the Messiah.

John answered them all, ‘I baptise you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.’

But when John rebuked Herod the tetrarch because of his marriage to Herodias, his brother’s wife, and all the other evil things he had done, Herod added this to them all: He locked John up in prison.

John travelled up and down the River Jordan baptising all who came to him. The Greek word baptism means to immerse or dip. None of the baptisms recorded in the New Testament are of babies being sprinkled by a minister or priest in a font or a baptistry – far too sanitised for the mostly open-air ministries of John, then Jesus, and the apostles of the New Testament era.

Luke records the buzz, ‘Is John the promised Messiah?’, speculation was running rife.

When a whole population is stirred, the authorities send their spies, and ordinary, everyday people flock. An unease is in the air.

John addressed the spies and the genuinely curious equally:

John said to the crowds coming out to be baptised by him, ‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The axe is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.’

(i) Brood of vipers - not just the Pharisees and the Sadducees

Whereas Matthew’s gospel suggests that John reserved this sharp criticism for the Pharisees and the Sadducees, Luke’s gospel makes it plain that he did not. He applied it to all who came to him.

It is the unsavoury task of the prophet, just like an honest physician, to announce to the elite and the poor alike that they are infected with a deadly disease, the cause of their present disfigurement. In the case of the prophet, the disease is sin. The effect of sin is to disfigure a person spiritually so that they rebel against their creator from the heart. They are in a state of spiritual death and estrangement from God.

And yet, within this diagnosis, there is hope. ‘Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?’ This is not a rhetorical or theoretical question. For those who came to John with no intention to repent, the answer is plain: their line managers in the evil pyramid of religio-political power that would one day arrest and call for the execution first of John, and then Jesus, had sent them as spies. Genuine seekers, however, were motivated by conviction and were responding to the loving call of God through John to baptism.

A doctor pronouncing a diagnosis and treatment is not only acting honestly but with true love of neighbour. John’s words may seem sharp, but they are with loving intent.

(ii) the coming wrath – the inadequacy of Jewish lineage

We could telescope John’s reference to the coming wrath way off to the future Day of Judgement: ‘the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ’ (Rom 2v16), but in the context of the passage referring to the coming Messiah, the wrath that John announced had arrived.

A cursory reading of the Gospels will reveal just how divisive Jesus was. One of his pronouncements against the Pharisees was ‘Let them alone, they are blind leaders of the blind…both will fall into a ditch’ Matthew 15v14

By AD 70, the nation of Israel, under the religio-political leadership of the Herodians and the Sanhedrin, the ruling council made up from Pharisees and Sadducees, was dismantled. Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed, reduced to the Western or ‘Wailing’ Wall that we see today, the people massacred, and survivors scattered. Also, by AD70, the gospel had reached Rome, and those who believed in the resurrected Messiah had grown into a great nation without borders and continued to spread across the whole globe.

When Simeon saw the child Jesus in the temple, he prophesied that ‘this Child is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel…that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed’ Luke 2v34,35. John had made sure his audience, genuine or not, understood that Jewish lineage, being ‘sons of Abraham’ by physical descent, does not blind God to the true condition of the human heart.

John’s baptism in the water of repentance was a prophetic sign of the true baptism to come that would be administered not by John or his disciples, but by the coming Messiah: a baptism of fire and the Holy Spirit.

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In Part 2 we will examine is an arithmetic equation as sure as 2+2=4.

True Christianity is the baptism of the Holy Spirit…not an optional extra for Pentecostal or Charismatic believers.

It is like turning the key in the ignition to start the spiritual life of a Christian.