When I call someone to repentance, I am not asking him to make himself worthy of Christ’s forgiveness. I am asking him to admit his sin and return to the God he has refused to obey. Regret can be part of that response, but feeling terrible about what happened is not the same as turning to the Lord. Scripture explains both why that return is necessary and why a guilty person can come with hope.
Return to Me
Joel preached to Judah after locusts had devastated the fields and vineyards. The ruined harvest threatened their food supply, and Joel 1 describes grain and drink offerings cut off from the Lord’s house. As the prophet warned of the coming day of the Lord, God called the people to return to Him:
“Now, therefore,” says the LORD, “Turn to Me with all your heart, With fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.” So rend your heart, and not your garments; Return to the LORD your God, For He is gracious and merciful, Slow to anger, and of great kindness; And He relents from doing harm.
Joel 2:12-13
The invitation was “Turn to Me.” The people could have wanted their crops restored while remaining unwilling to obey the Lord. He called them to face the rebellion that had drawn their hearts away from Him. Returning to Him would mean giving up that rebellion, even before they knew whether their fields would recover.
A man may stop cheating because he is afraid of losing his job, while wishing he could find a safer way to get away with it. His outward restraint may prevent further harm, but it does not mean he has returned to God. Repentance requires him to stop defending the conduct and acknowledge the Lord’s judgment of it. Wanting a better reputation or fewer repercussions is not enough.
Joel adds “with all your heart.” In biblical usage, the heart includes our thinking and will as well as our desires. God calls the whole person back to Him. I cannot answer that call by improving what other people see while insisting that a private part of my life must remain beyond His authority.
Tearing one’s garments could express grief or fear and sometimes accompanied repentance. Joel told the people to rend their hearts because a gesture could be imitated without the inward response. God knew whether the person beneath the torn clothing was genuinely returning to Him.
Joel’s call to fast, weep, and mourn makes it clear that he was not forbidding visible grief. Sorrow over sin can be deeply felt and honestly expressed. Yet tears and humble language can also persuade an audience while concealing a refusal to change. We therefore need to consider whether the person is returning to God, rather than treating an emotional display as proof.
Public wrongdoing may require public confession, and private sin needs to be acknowledged honestly before God. Neither requires a person to make a spectacle of his despair. Admitting guilt does not mean concluding that mercy is beyond reach. Joel gives the sinner a reason to return by describing the character of the God who is calling him.
The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abundant in kindness. Joel was recalling what God had already revealed about Himself to Moses:
And the LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth.”
Exodus 34:6
God did not become merciful because His people finally repented well enough. His mercy was already the reason He called them back. We are not trying to persuade a reluctant God to care about us; we are responding to the mercy He has made known.
That does not mean He overlooks guilt. Exodus 34 also says that He will by no means clear the guilty. His justice requires us to admit that our conduct deserves judgment, rather than ask for forgiveness while insisting there was nothing to forgive.
When Joel says that God relents from doing harm, he is speaking about threatened judgment. The Lord has not discovered that His warning was mistaken. He genuinely calls people to turn and may withhold the judgment He warned of when they humble themselves. Joel’s next verse leaves the requested relief in God’s hands. His mercy gives them reason to return without giving them control over how He must respond.
What Repentance Means
The Hebrew verb shuv means to turn back or return. It expresses the prophets’ repeated call, “Return.” Their hearers had turned away from God and needed to come back to Him. Acquiring more religious information would not answer that call if they still intended to disregard what He said.
In the New Testament, metanoia, commonly translated repentance, involves a change of mind. Its biblical use concerns our response to God and sin. Instead of justifying my rebellion, I agree with His judgment of it and turn toward Him. Recognizing who Jesus is also requires me to reconsider my claim to govern my life independently of Him.
This does not produce instant maturity. A new believer still has much to learn, and an experienced Christian may need a sharp reprimand. We should not confuse struggling against sin with insisting on the right to practice it. If Scripture exposes wrongdoing, repentance requires me to receive that correction instead of devising a reason God’s command should not apply to me.
Repentance and Faith
Paul described what he had preached to Jews and Greeks in these terms:
testifying to Jews, and also to Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.
Acts 20:21
In repentance, I stop defending my rebellion and turn toward God. In faith, I entrust myself to Jesus Christ for the salvation I cannot provide. I cannot honestly ask Him to save me while insisting He has no authority over me. Neither can I save myself by admitting my guilt without turning to Him.
Jesus also joined the commands to repent and believe when He announced the kingdom of God:
The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.
Mark 1:15
We should not teach repentance as a way to purchase salvation. Yet removing it from the gospel can leave someone claiming faith in Jesus while openly refusing His authority. Paul describes salvation as God’s gift and then explains the good works that follow it:
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.
Ephesians 2:8-9
Salvation is God’s gift, received through faith. If I repay money I wrongfully took, I am returning what already belonged to another person. I have not given God something that obliges Him to forgive me. Tears cannot make that payment either. Verse 10 goes on to describe believers as created in Christ Jesus for good works. Their obedience follows from the new life they have received; it does not buy that life.
Paul’s correction of the Corinthian church helps us see how sorrow can lead to that changed conduct. His letter grieved them, and at first he regretted sending it. When Titus brought news that they were eager to address the wrong, Paul rejoiced because their sorrow had led to repentance. He explained the difference between sorrow that leads us to God and sorrow that ends in death:
For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death.
2 Corinthians 7:10
Godly sorrow acknowledges sin against the Lord and leads a person toward Him. Worldly sorrow can be intense because of what the wrongdoing has cost. Someone may be devastated at the prospect of losing a relationship or a good reputation while still insisting that his conduct was justified. The pain is real, but it has not brought him to agree with God about the sin.
Judas felt remorse after betraying Jesus and tried to return the money. Matthew records his response when he saw that Jesus had been condemned:
Then Judas, His betrayer, seeing that He had been condemned, was remorseful and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders.
Matthew 27:3
Judas admitted that he had betrayed innocent blood. Matthew then records his despair and death, without describing a return to Christ for mercy. Acknowledging the wrong and giving up the money did not, by themselves, amount to a return to God.
I cannot measure repentance by the strength of someone’s emotion. I need to consider whether the person is returning to the Lord, including how he responds to the wrong he has confessed. Feeling ashamed may awaken someone to his need, but shame cannot provide the mercy he needs from Christ.
John the Baptist likewise directed attention to the conduct that should follow repentance:
Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance.
Matthew 3:8
John was addressing Pharisees and Sadducees who came to his baptism, warning them against relying on their descent from Abraham. The fruit he called for would show that their response to God was real; it would not purchase forgiveness. Zacchaeus gives us a later example of how that response could change a person’s dealings with others.
Zacchaeus was a wealthy chief tax collector in Jericho. His work was associated with Roman authority and opportunities to exploit people. He joyfully received Jesus when the Lord chose to stay at his house, although the crowd complained about Jesus becoming a sinner’s guest. What Zacchaeus then said addressed his wealth and his treatment of other people:
Then Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord, I give half of my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold.”
Luke 19:8
Jesus then announced that salvation had come to that house. Zacchaeus was prepared to share his wealth with the poor and put right any fraud for which he was responsible. Those commitments showed that receiving Jesus had affected his conduct, although they could not purchase salvation.
Restitution should address the actual harm wherever that is possible and lawful. If I spread a false accusation, I should be willing to retract it before the people who heard it. Saying I feel terrible does not remove that accusation from their minds. Where harm cannot be undone, I can still stop defending it and accept the repercussions.
Nor can restitution become a way to regain control of the person who was harmed. An apology does not entitle someone to demand renewed contact or immediate forgiveness. I cannot use my confession to pressure another person into trusting me again. Repentance accepts appropriate boundaries and consequences while seeking to put right what can be repaired.
We should expect repentance to affect the very conduct a person had been defending. But grace does not wait until he can present a flawless record. Christians still need instruction and correction as they learn to obey the Lord who has saved them.
Pharaoh’s confession in Exodus gives us a contrast to Zacchaeus’s response. During the seventh plague, hail devastated Egypt while Goshen was spared. The king summoned Moses and Aaron, and his confession named both his own sin and God’s righteousness:
And Pharaoh sent and called for Moses and Aaron, and said to them, “I have sinned this time. The LORD is righteous, and my people and I are wicked.”
Exodus 9:27
Pharaoh asked Moses to pray for the thunder and hail to stop, promising to release Israel. Moses warned him that neither he nor his servants yet feared the Lord. When Moses prayed and the storm ended, Pharaoh sinned again and hardened his heart. He still refused to let Israel go, despite the promise he had just made.
If I will admit wrongdoing only while the consequences threaten my comfort, then return to it once the pressure eases, I am following that same pattern. I need to consider whether I ever agreed with God about the sin or was only looking for a way to escape its consequences. Proverbs brings confession and forsaking together:
He who covers his sins will not prosper, But whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy.
Proverbs 28:13
Covering sin does not always require an outright denial. I may admit what has been discovered while concealing the part no one has proved. I can describe a calculated lie as a misunderstanding or blame the person I deceived for putting me under pressure. A joke or a spiritual explanation can also deflect attention from the wrong. These are ways of continuing to defend it while appearing to acknowledge it.
Repentance in the Christian Life
Repentance continues after new birth because Christians can still sin and need correction. Coming to God for forgiveness does not mean being born again each time. John puts confession within his teaching about walking in the light and fellowship with God:
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
1 John 1:9
Being God’s child does not give me permission to walk deliberately in darkness while claiming fellowship with Him. Confession acknowledges the wrong before God, and repentance turns from it. I cannot replace either with an argument that a believer’s sin is no longer serious.
Following Jesus includes obeying Him when I would prefer to do what is comfortable or advantageous to me. He was plain about what following Him involves:
If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.
Luke 9:23
On another occasion, He used the example of a builder calculating the cost of a tower to teach people to consider what discipleship would require:
For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it.
Luke 14:28
Jesus was not asking people to determine whether they had enough moral strength to save themselves. He was requiring them to consider what they would have to give up to follow Him. I cannot receive Him as Lord while reserving the right to disobey whenever obedience threatens something I want to keep.
Continuing repentance need not leave us permanently gloomy. Because I trust Christ’s mercy, I can admit wrongdoing without spending my life protecting an appearance of innocence. I can receive correction, seek to repair the harm, and learn to obey without pretending that my effort is what earns forgiveness.
Christ gives eternal life to His sheep, and no one can snatch them from His hand. Those who have genuinely been born again are indwelt and sealed by the Holy Spirit, eternally secure in the Savior. He keeps them despite their failures as they learn to obey Him. Their obedience is evidence of new life, but it neither earns nor keeps salvation.
That does not make every profession of faith genuine. Strong emotion, church membership, and baptism cannot produce new birth. In 1 John 2:19, John describes people who left the apostolic fellowship and denied the truth about the Son, explaining that they had never truly belonged to Christ. Regeneration is genuine new birth, and a Christian label cannot take the place of the new life that should become evident in our conduct.
A troubled believer does not need to make his repentance impressive enough to persuade Christ to keep him. If he is bringing his sin to Christ, we should direct him to the Savior’s promise rather than tell him to produce a more convincing display of grief. Someone who is defending his sin needs a different response. We cannot assure him that his profession of faith makes his refusal to turn irrelevant.
Calvinism distinguishes a gospel call heard by many people from a saving call it regards as irresistible and given only to the elect. I reject that distinction because I believe God’s invitation gives every sinner a real opportunity to respond. I also reject the Arminian teaching that a truly born-again believer can lose salvation. People can resist God’s appeal, while those who truly repent and believe are made new and kept by Him.
Peter explained God’s patience while answering scoffers who treated the apparent delay of Christ’s return as proof that His promise would fail. The Lord does not measure time as we do, and His delay did not mean He had forgotten His word. It gave sinners time to repent before the coming judgment:
The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.
2 Peter 3:9
That does not mean everyone will eventually be saved. People can resist and finally reject the truth. It does mean that God’s patience is an opportunity to return to Him, rather than a reason to assume that His warning has become empty. We should respond to His mercy while He gives us time.
The invitation rests on Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, fully God and fully man. He lived without sin and voluntarily gave Himself to be slain as the perfect sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. Wicked men mocked, beat, and crucified Him according to God’s foreknown saving purpose, but the Father neither punished nor abandoned His Son. Father and Son acted in unity, and Christ’s shed blood and death completed His saving sacrifice before His burial and bodily resurrection. Forgiveness is possible because Christ redeemed us with His blood, rather than because God has decided that sin does not deserve judgment.
If God is pressing on your conscience, you do not need to make yourself presentable before coming to Christ or punish yourself into peace. Jesus came to seek and save the lost, and He receives those who come to Him in faith. Admit the sin and turn from it, trusting the Savior whose grace you cannot earn. You do not have to defend the wrongdoing or pretend it never happened to come to Him for mercy.
My Final Thoughts
I do not want to explain repentance in a way that leaves a guilty sinner afraid to come to Christ. Nor do I want to assure someone that grace gives him the right to keep rebelling. God calls us to return to Him, and He has provided the Savior we need. I can admit my sin without excusing it or trying to pay for it myself. Trusting Christ’s mercy gives me reason to begin obeying Him.
People came out to hear John the Baptist, yet he was preparing them to follow Someone else. When Jesus appeared, John directed his own hearers to Him and rejoiced as they went. That willingness to step back deserves as much attention as his courage in confronting sin. I want my teaching to help people trust Christ, and John’s ministry makes me examine whether I would welcome their growing confidence in the Lord if it meant they needed less help from me. His imprisonment also forces us to consider what faithful service can cost when the truth offends someone with power.
The Promised Forerunner
The Gospels explain John’s calling through promises in Isaiah and Malachi. He was the forerunner, a messenger sent ahead to prepare people for the Lord’s arrival. His preaching and baptism called them to face their sin and turn back to God. John could urge them to repent, but taking away their sin and giving them the Holy Spirit belonged to the One he announced. Isaiah helps us understand why preparing people for Him was necessary.
The voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the LORD; Make straight in the desert A highway for our God.”
Isaiah 40:3, NKJV
Isaiah 40 brings comfort to people who have experienced God’s discipline: the LORD promises to rescue and shepherd them. Preparing a road for a king’s arrival gives a picture of the welcome due to Him. In John’s ministry, making ready for the Lord required people to face the condition of their hearts. A respected family or religious standing could not prepare them to receive Him while they continued defending the sin He condemned.
Malachi carries that promise further by identifying whom the messenger would precede. The LORD Himself speaks of the messenger preparing the way before Him.
“Behold, I send My messenger, And he will prepare the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, Will suddenly come to His temple, Even the Messenger of the covenant, In whom you delight. Behold, He is coming,” Says the LORD of hosts.
Malachi 3:1, NKJV
The Gospels apply this promise to John preparing people for Jesus. I understand that connection as testimony to Christ’s deity, meaning that He is truly God. Jesus is the Lord whose coming Malachi announced, so I cannot reduce Him to a gifted teacher. The study on the deity of Jesus examines the wider biblical teaching.
Malachi also speaks of Elijah coming before the great and dreadful Day of the LORD. Luke explains how John’s calling relates to that promise: he would come “in the spirit and power of Elijah.” This was an Elijah-like ministry of calling the disobedient back to God and preparing people for the Lord. John was not Elijah reincarnated in another body.
Luke takes us back to the announcement of that calling before John was born. His father, Zechariah, was a priest, and his mother, Elizabeth, was also descended from Aaron. They had grown old without children, although Luke describes them as righteous before God. Their childlessness gives us no grounds to conclude that He had rejected them. While Zechariah served in the temple and the people prayed outside, Gabriel announced that Elizabeth would bear a son and explained the work God would give him.
He will also go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, “to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,” and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.
Luke 1:17, NKJV
Gabriel’s words describe more than the arrival of a long-awaited child. John would turn hearts toward the LORD, calling disobedient people to the wisdom of the just. Luke also says he would be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb, marking him out for this unique responsibility. After John’s birth, Zechariah spoke of his son as the prophet of the Highest who would prepare the Lord’s ways. From these first announcements, John’s importance lay in the One he would serve.
The Wilderness Voice and the Call to Repent
When Matthew introduces John’s public preaching, he places him in the wilderness of Judea. Israel had known the wilderness as a place of testing and dependence on God. Now, away from the usual centers of religious and political influence, John called the people to prepare for the Lord by repenting.
In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”
Matthew 3:1-2, NKJV
To repent was to change their minds about sin and turn back to God. A person can regret the embarrassment of being found out while remaining determined to carry on with what he has done. John called for an honest acknowledgment that God’s verdict was right and that their sin needed to be confessed and forsaken. He wasn’t requiring people to punish themselves until God accepted them. I need to examine the same difference in my own response: if I will admit only what leaves my reputation intact, I am still trying to control how much correction I receive.
The prophet delivering that warning wore a garment of camel’s hair with a leather belt, and he ate locusts and wild honey. His appearance recalled Elijah, and his way of life was far removed from the comforts of Herod’s court. People had come out to the wilderness to hear a man who challenged their sin rather than assuring them that their present condition was acceptable.
That warning applied to religious leaders as well as the other people who came to him. When Pharisees and Sadducees came to his baptism, John challenged their reliance on descent from Abraham. Belonging to that family did not excuse them from the repentance he required.
Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not think to say to yourselves, “We have Abraham as our father.” For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones.
Matthew 3:8-9, NKJV
John required fruit as evidence that their repentance was genuine. He was not setting a price they could pay for forgiveness. If they claimed to have repented while continuing to cherish their pride and sin, their conduct contradicted the claim. Having Abraham as an ancestor would not make God overlook that refusal to change.
For those who did repent, John’s baptism provided a public way to acknowledge that God’s verdict about their sin was right. The water neither removed sin nor caused the new birth. Baptism served John’s calling to prepare Israel for the Messiah, who would provide the salvation they needed. Receiving the ceremony without responding to its message would leave them unprepared to meet Him.
Jesus at the Jordan
Because John’s baptism accompanied repentance, Jesus’ request to be baptized presented an obvious difficulty. He came from Galilee to the Jordan without any sin to confess or any need for cleansing. John knew that he needed what Jesus could give and initially tried to prevent the baptism.
Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him. And John tried to prevent Him, saying, “I need to be baptized by You, and are You coming to me?” But Jesus answered and said to him, “Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he allowed Him.
Matthew 3:13-15, NKJV
Jesus answered John’s objection by explaining that their obedience would fulfill righteousness. I understand His baptism as identifying Himself with the people He had come to save, while remaining the sinless One who would stand in their place. He was willingly accepting the Father’s appointed path, which would lead to the cross. The baptism also became the occasion for the Father and the Holy Spirit to testify to His identity.
When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
Matthew 3:16-17, NKJV
The Father spoke from heaven about His Son, who had just been baptized, while the Spirit descended upon Him. We cannot explain their distinct actions as one Person changing roles. This is a revelation of the Trinity: one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, personally distinct without being separate gods.
John’s own preaching emphasized the authority of the One coming after him. John baptized with water, but Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit. John also warned of baptism with fire, and the wheat and chaff in Matthew 3 explain that warning. The coming King gathers His wheat into the barn and burns the chaff with unquenchable fire. I understand the fire as judgment, so I would not use John’s warning as a way to describe spiritual excitement.
John’s water baptism also had a preparatory purpose that distinguishes it from Christian baptism after Christ’s death and resurrection. Much later, in Acts 19, Paul met men who knew only John’s baptism and explained that John had told people to believe in the One coming after him, Jesus Christ. Christian water baptism follows salvation and publicly identifies the believer with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection. It pictures that union without causing forgiveness or new birth. The study on baptism in the Bible develops that distinction.
Behold the Lamb of God
John’s baptism and preaching therefore directed people beyond their acknowledgment of sin to the Savior who could take it away. Admitting that I have done wrong does not make atonement for it. I still need a sacrifice that deals with my guilt before God, and John announced the One who would provide it. His declaration in John 1 comes on the day after a delegation from Jerusalem questioned him about his own identity.
The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
John 1:29, NKJV
The title Lamb of God connects Jesus’ work with sacrifice and substitution, including the Passover pattern and the need for shed blood. He would give Himself for people whose sin neither better behavior nor John’s baptism could remove. John went on to testify that the Savior he announced was God’s own Son.
And I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God.
John 1:34, NKJV
John’s reverence for Jesus followed from who Jesus was. He said he was unworthy even to loosen His sandal, and his explanation that Jesus “was before me” points beyond their ages, because John was born first. I understand his words as testimony to the Son’s eternal existence as well as His superior rank.
The eternal Son was the Lamb John said would take away the sin of the world. I understand John 1:29 as describing a genuine provision for everyone. Christ’s blood is sufficient for all, and His offer of salvation remains sincere even when people resist it. This does not mean that everyone is automatically saved, since each person must repent and believe. Everyone who receives Him by faith will be saved.
John’s announcement looked ahead to the cross, where the sinless Jesus willingly gave Himself to be slain as the perfect sacrifice for our sins. Wicked men tortured Him and put Him to death, but He offered His own innocent life for us. His shed blood and death completed His saving sacrifice before He was buried and rose bodily. The Father did not punish, curse, abandon, strike, bruise, or pour wrath on Jesus. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit remained united in our redemption. John could prepare people to receive that salvation, but he could never provide it himself.
He Must Increase
John kept directing people to Jesus even when his own disciples became concerned about how many were going to Him. He reminded them that his assignment had come from heaven: he was not the Christ, but the messenger sent ahead of Him. People turning to Jesus fulfilled the purpose of John’s work. Trying to win them back for himself would have opposed the very reason God had sent him.
He must increase, but I must decrease.
John 3:30, NKJV
John described himself as the bridegroom’s friend, who rejoices to hear the bridegroom’s voice. The arrival of the One he had announced gave him joy, even as his own prominence diminished. He wasn’t despising himself or declaring his ministry a failure. He could gladly accept the place God had given him because people were coming to Christ.
John 1 says he was sent to bear witness to the Light, but he was not the Light himself. I need to remember that when I teach. If someone I have helped begins to understand Scripture and trust Christ without needing my approval for every decision, I ought to welcome that growth. Trying to preserve his dependence on me would make my own importance more precious to me than his confidence in the Lord.
The same temptation can enter other forms of service. A person writing or singing in Christ’s name can become preoccupied with admiration, and a parent can begin to value being needed more than helping a child trust the Lord. We still have responsibilities to the people we serve, but fulfilling them should strengthen their faith in Jesus. I want to be glad when the help I give enables someone to rely on Him with greater confidence.
John in Prison and a Faithful Death
John’s service also brought him into conflict with a ruler whose sin he would not excuse. Herod Antipas ruled Galilee under Roman authority and had married Herodias, his brother’s wife. When John told him that the marriage was unlawful, Herod imprisoned him. The ruler had heard the same moral standard John preached to the crowds, and his royal power did not exempt him from it.
During that imprisonment, John sent disciples to ask Jesus, “Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?” Some readers understand the question as John’s own struggle in prison; others think he wanted his disciples to hear Jesus’ answer for themselves. I would not claim to know a motive the passage does not state. What we can examine is the answer Jesus sent back to John, drawn from works the messengers could hear and see.
Jesus answered and said to them, “Go and tell John the things which you hear and see: The blind see and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them.”
Matthew 11:4-5, NKJV
Isaiah 35:5-6 had described blind eyes opening and the lame leaping, while Isaiah 61:1 announced good news to the poor. Jesus directed John to works that fulfilled those promises, providing evidence that the Messiah had come. John had announced judgment as well as salvation, yet a corrupt ruler still held him in prison. Jesus’ answer drew attention to the mercy already being shown; it did not require John to conclude that every part of the promised judgment had already occurred. The study on the Messiah in the Bible examines those promises.
After John’s disciples left, Jesus honored him before the crowd, saying that none born of women had been greater than John the Baptist. He answered John’s question without disowning the servant who had asked it. In the same discourse, Matthew 11:13 says that the prophets and the Law prophesied until John. His calling placed him at the point when the Messiah they had foretold appeared publicly. John had been entrusted with preparing people to receive Him.
John remained in prison, however, and Herodias wanted him killed. Mark records that Herod feared John as a just and holy man, protected him, and even heard him gladly. At his birthday feast, Herod made a rash promise after Herodias’s daughter pleased him with her dancing. Her mother told her to ask for John’s head. Herod was deeply sorry when she made that demand, yet his concern for his oaths and his guests prevailed over what he knew about John. He ordered the prophet beheaded in prison. Making a reckless promise had given him no right to murder an innocent man.
John died before the cross and the empty tomb. He never saw Pentecost or the spread of the gospel to the nations, but he had seen the Lamb and directed people to Him. I think it is reckless to treat his death as evidence that he needed stronger faith. Jesus had honored him, and Herod was responsible for the wicked decision to kill him. John’s obedience did not keep him safe, but his murder could not undo the work God had given him to do.
That cost makes John’s example uncomfortable to consider. Would I speak as plainly about sin if the person hearing me could damage my livelihood or reputation? Firm words are easier when I expect no repercussions. John does not give us an excuse for harshness or reckless accusations, but neither does his death give us a reason to soften Scripture for our own protection. Herod needed the warning John gave him, although he had the power to imprison the man who spoke.
John’s call to repentance also confronts those of us who feel safe within a religious community. His hearers could not rely on descent from Abraham while refusing God’s verdict about their sin. Familiar Christian language gives us no exemption from repentance either. I need the Savior John announced, not simply a respectable identity among people who know the Bible.
Everyone who receives the risen Christ by faith is forgiven and declared righteous before God. He gives that person new birth, and the Holy Spirit indwells and seals the believer. This salvation is eternally secure, and the new life should produce the fruit of repentance John called for. That fruit never earns or keeps salvation, but a profession of faith without any intention of turning from sin gives us no grounds to assume someone has been born again. We need to distinguish the life Christ gives from permission to continue in lawlessness.
My Final Thoughts
John could rejoice when people left him to follow Jesus, and he could tell Herod the truth when silence would have been safer. Both responses grew from accepting the work God had given him. I want to teach with that honesty, willing to lose attention or face opposition when faithfulness requires it. Above all, I need to keep directing people to the Savior I need myself, the Lamb whose sacrifice accomplished what no preacher or religious ceremony could do.
