If the verses which precede comprise the divine preface, the section which follows may be viewed as an introduction. The Baptist in answer to the inquiring deputation gives an explicit, though in the first place negative, testimony to the Lord Jesus. Singularly fitted vessel of witness to the Messiah, as was he himself filled by the Spirit from his mother's womb, he was sustained as scarce another had ever been in nothing but the function of making straight the path of Jehovah.
“And this is the witness of John when the Jews sent from Jerusalem priests and Levites that they might ask him, “Who art thou? And he confessed, and denied not; and confessed, I am not the Christ. And they asked him, “What then? Art thou Elias? And he saith, I am not. Art thou the prophet? And he saith, No. They said therefore to him, Who art thou, that we may give an answer to those that sent us? What sayest thou of thyself? He said I [am the] voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the path of [the] Lord, as said Esaias the prophet. And they were sent from among the Pharisees; and they asked him and said to him, Why then baptizest thou, if thou art not the Christ, nor Elias, nor the prophet? John answered them saying, I baptize with water: in the midst of you standeth, whom ye know not, he who cometh after me, of whom I am not worthy to unloose the thong of his sandal. These things took place in Bethany, across the Jordan where John was baptizing.” (Ver. 19-28.)
Thus did God take care to rouse a general expectancy of the Messiah in the minds of His people, and to bear them the fullest witness. And never was there a more strictly independent witness than John, born and brought up and kept till the fit moment to testify of the Messiah. For while the minute questions of those sent by the Jews from Jerusalem show how men's minds were then exercised, how they wished to ascertain the real character and aim of the mysterious Israelite, himself of priestly lineage, and thereby as they ought to have known excluded from the Messianic title, there was no vagueness in the reply. John was not the Anointed. This was the main aim of their search; and our Gospel very simply attests the reply.
There is somewhat of difficulty in the next answer. For when asked, “Art thou Elijah?” he says, “I am not.” How is this denial from the lip of John himself to be reconciled with the Lord's own testimony to His servant in Matt. 17:11, 1211And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things. 12But I say unto you, That Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the Son of man suffer of them. (Matthew 17:11‑12)? “Elias truly shall first come and restore all things. But I say unto you, that Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the Son of man suffer of them. Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist.” And they were right. The key appears to lie in Matt. 11:1414And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come. (Matthew 11:14): “And if ye will receive it,” (says the Lord in vindicating John at a time when, if ever, he seemed to waver in his testimony, for who but One is the Faithful Witness?) “this is Elias which was for to come.” Such a word however needed ears to hear. Like the Lord (Son of man no less than Messiah), his testimony and his lot were to be in unison with an advent in shame and sorrow as well as in power and glory. The Jews naturally cared only for the latter; but, to avail not only for God but for the true wants of man, first must Jesus suffer before He is glorified, and come again in power. So Elijah came to faith (“if ye will receive it") in the Baptist who testified in humiliation and with results in man's eyes scanty and evanescent. But Elijah will come in a manner consonant with the return of the Lord to deliver Israel and bless the world under His reign. To the Jew who only looked at the external he was not come: to point to the Baptist would have seemed mockery; for if they had no apprehension of God's secrets or His ways, and they saw no beauty in the humble Master, what would it avail to speak of the servant? The disciples, feeble though they might be, enter into the truths hidden from men and are given to see beneath the surface the true style of the servant and of the Master to faith.
Nevertheless John does take his stand of witness to Jesus, to His personal and divine glory; and to this end, when challenged who he was, applies to himself the prophetic oracle in every Gospel attached to him: “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of Jehovah.” Jesus was Jehovah, John no more than a voice in the desolation of the earth, yea, of Israel, to prepare the way before Him.
They further inquire why he baptized, if neither the Messiah, nor Elijah (that is, the immediate precursor of the kingdom in power and glory over the earth, Mal. 4), nor the prophet (that is, according to Deut. 18 which, however, the apostle Peter in Acts 3 as clearly applies to the Lord Jesus, as the Jews seem to have then alienated from the Messiah). This gives John the occasion to render another testimony to Christ's glory; for his answer is, that he baptized with water: but there stood among them, unknown to them, One coming after, whose shoe-latchet he was not worthy to unloose.
It is evident that John's baptism had a serious import in men's minds, since, without a single miracle or other sign, it awakened the question whether the Baptist were the Christ. It intimated the close of the old state of things and a new position, instead of being the familiar practice which traditionaries would make it. On the other hand, scripture is equally plain that it is quite distinct from Christian baptism: so much so, that disciples previously baptized with John's baptism had to be baptized to Christ when they received the full truth of the gospel. (Acts 19) The Reformers and others are singularly unintelligent in denying this difference, which is not only important but plain and certain. Think of Calvin's calling it a foolish mistake, into which some had been led, of supposing that John's baptism was different from ours! The confession of a coming Messiah widely differs from that of His death and resurrection, and this is the root of differences which involve weighty consequences.