<p>3:3&nbsp;<em>For this is he</em>- Is this part of John's message about&nbsp;<em>Jesus</em>? Or is this a note from Matthew about&nbsp;<em>John</em>&nbsp;being the voice in the wilderness? The other Gospel writers use the Isaiah quotation as if it is their comment on John (Mk. 1:3; Lk. 3:4). The present tense 'this is he' can be understood as part of the dramatic present tense style of some parts of the Gospels [see on 2:19]. The way Mt. 3:4 continues &quot;And this same John...&quot; might suggest that &quot;This is he&quot; is also Matthew's comment about John. &nbsp;</p>
<p><em>The voice of one crying</em>- When asked who he was, John&rsquo;s reply was simply: &ldquo;a voice&rdquo; (Lk. 3:7). He was nothing; his message about Jesus was everything. In all this there is a far cry from the self-confident, self-projecting speaking off the podium which characterizes so much of our &lsquo;preaching&rsquo; today. So John&rsquo;s appeal to repentance was shot through with a recognition of his own humanity. It wasn&rsquo;t mere moralizing. We likely don&rsquo;t preach as John did because we fear that confronting people with their sins is inappropriate for us to do, because we too are sinners. But with recognition of our own humanity, we build a bridge between our audience and ourselves. In this context it's worth reconsidering Lk. 3:7: &quot;Who has warned you to flee from the wrath to come?&quot;. John said these words to those who were coming to him wishing to be baptized by him- exactly because he had warned them of the wrath to come. It's possible that John meant this as a rhetorical reflection, thus enabling us to paraphrase him something like this: 'And what kind of man am I, who am I, just another sinful guy like you, who has warned you to flee? I'm nothing- don't get baptized because of me, but because you repent and are committed to bringing forth the fruits of repentance&quot;. And it&rsquo;s worth meditating that if Israel had responded to his preaching, then the glorious salvation of God might have even then been revealed in the form of the Kingdom coming on earth, even then. But instead of heeding John&rsquo;s message, Israel in the end crucified their King, necessitating a latter day John the Baptist mission (Mt. 11:13,14; 17:11,12). And it&rsquo;s not going too far to suggest that our latter day witness to Israel and indeed to the world is to conducted in the spirit of John&rsquo;s preaching; hence the crucial importance of understanding the spirit and content of his witness.</p>
<p><em>In the wilderness</em>- John the Baptist prepared a highway in the desert through baptizing repentant people (Mk. 1:3,4). This highway was to be a path&nbsp;<em>to&nbsp;</em>Christ as well as the one He would travel. Those converted became a path to Christ for others. One purpose of our calling to the Gospel is to assist others onto that same way. And it's worth reflecting that Christ can only come once the way for Him is prepared- as if His coming depends upon a certain level of response to our preaching, especially to the Jews of the very last days.</p>
<div><em>Make ready the way of the Lord</em>- The quotation from Isaiah suggests that if the way was prepared by human repentance, then this would be the path over which the Lord's glory would return to Zion in the establishment of the Kingdom. See on 3:2&nbsp;<em>repent</em>. The strong suggestion is that the Lord's coming in glory was a possibility if Israel had repented at John's preaching and accepted Jesus as their Messiah. Lk. 3:6 goes on to say that if they had repented, then the prophecy that &quot;all flesh shall see the salvation of God&quot; would come true- and that is clearly language of the future Kingdom of God on earth. For not even all Israel saw / perceived the Jesus / salvation of God, let alone &quot;all flesh&quot;. The term &quot;all flesh&quot; is used frequently in the OT about mankind generally rather than just Israel; indeed it is used in contradistinction to Israel (Dt. 5:26; Job 34:15; Is. 49:26; Is. 66:16,23,24; Jer. 25:31; Dan. 4:12).
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<p><em>Make His paths straight</em>- The implication is that the repentance of people in Judah would make straight the Lord's path over which He would travel. Repentant people are therefore His way to Jerusalem. This of itself suggests that the Lord shall only come to Zion once there is repentance in Israel, seeing repentant people are the way or road which enables Him to travel. The allusion is clearly to the practice of preparing the road for an important person to travel upon. The whole metaphor suggests that Christ will only come to Zion once His people are spiritually ready, once there is repentance, perhaps specifically in Israel. John the Baptist was to prepare the Lord's way (Lk. 1:76 same Greek words). But it was repentant people who were to prepare the Lord's way. John's appeal was for others to prepare the Lord's way by repentance. But his preaching meant that he was the one preparing the way; the change of life in his hearers would therefore as it were be counted to John. The work of preparing the Lord's way is mentioned in Mal. 3:1 as being the work of &quot;the messenger&quot;; and the context appears to be the restoration from Babylon. Perhaps because those addressed in Is. 40:1 (&quot;Prepare&nbsp;<em>ye</em>&quot;) failed in their task and God sought to see it fulfilled through a specific messenger.</p>
<p>The ideas of fleeing wrath (Lk. 3:7) and preparing a way are surely based upon the Law&rsquo;s command in Dt. 19:3 that a way or road should be prepared to the city of refuge (symbolic of Christ- Heb. 6:18), along which the person under the death sentence for manslaughter could flee for refuge. John was preparing that way or road to Christ, and urging ordinary people to flee along it. They didn&rsquo;t like to think they were under a death sentence for murder. They were just ordinary folk like the soldiers who grumbled about their wages, and the publicans who were a bit less than honest at work. But they had to flee. But they wouldn&rsquo;t be alone in that. If a man prepares his way after God&rsquo;s principles (2 Chron. 27:6; Prov. 4:26), then God will &lsquo;prepare&rsquo; that man&rsquo;s way too (Ps. 37:23; 119:5), confirming him in the way of escape.&nbsp;<br />
<em>His paths straight</em>- There is a definite allusion to the language here in Acts 13:10, where a man is accused by Paul of perverting &quot;the right [s.w. 'straight'] ways of the Lord&quot;. Paul clearly saw&nbsp;<em>his</em>&nbsp;mission as likewise to prepare straight paths for the Lord Jesus by preaching the Gospel of transformation. The implication could be that John's mission ultimately failed, in that the Lord Jesus did not come to Zion in glory. Paul seems to imply that therefore that work is now placed upon all Christian preachers; we are to prepare the way so that the Lord can come to Zion and establish God's Kingdom. When we read that Paul instructed men &quot;in the way of the Lord&quot; (Acts 18:25) we have the same idea- we are preparing the way of the Lord Jesus. Each person who is truly converted is part of the Lord's highway, and once there is sufficient transformation of human life, the way will be ready enough for the Lord to return upon it.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Just as the preaching of the Gospel was to make straight paths for the Messiah to come (Lk. 3:4), so we are to make&nbsp;<em>our</em>&nbsp;paths straight (Heb. 12:13)- as if somehow we are the Lord Jesus; His revelation to this world at the second coming will in a sense be our revelation. Hence the final visions of Revelation speak of the Lord's second coming in terms which are applicable to the community of those in Him [e.g. a city of people coming down from Heaven to earth]. John&rsquo;s preaching was in order to make [s.w. &lsquo;to bring forth fruit&rsquo;] His [the Lord&rsquo;s] paths straight- but the ways of the Lord are &ldquo;right&rdquo; [s.w. &ldquo;straight&rdquo;] anyway (Acts 13:10). So how could John&rsquo;s preaching make the Lord&rsquo;s ways straight / right, when they already are? God is so associated with His people that their straightness or crookedness reflects upon Him; for they are His witnesses in this world. His ways are their ways. This is the N.T. equivalent of the O.T. concept of keeping / walking in the way of the Lord (Gen. 18:19; 2 Kings 21:22). Perhaps this is the thought behind the exhortation of Heb. 12:13 to make straight paths for our own feet. We are to bring our ways into harmony with the Lord&rsquo;s ways; for He is to be us, His ways our ways. Thus Is. 40:3, which is being quoted in Lk. 3:4, speaks of &ldquo;Prepare ye the way&nbsp;<em>of the Lord</em>&rdquo;, whereas Is. 62:10 speaks of &ldquo;Prepare ye the way&nbsp;<em>of the people</em>&rdquo;. Yet tragically, the way / path of Israel was not the way / path of the Lord (Ez. 18:25).</p>
<p>There was an intensity and critical urgency about John and his message. John urged people to make their path &ldquo;straight&rdquo;- using a Greek word elsewhere translated &ldquo;immediately&rdquo;, &ldquo;forthwith&rdquo; (Lk. 3:4 s.w. Mk. 1:12,28 and often). Getting things straight in our lives is a question of immediate response. He warns people to &ldquo;flee from the wrath to come&rdquo; (Lk. 3:7). This was what their changed lives and baptisms were to be about- a fleeing from the wrath to come. He speaks as if that &ldquo;wrath to come&rdquo; is just about to come, it&rsquo;s staring them in the face like a wall of forest fire, and they are to flee away from it. And yet Paul (in one of his many allusions to John&rsquo;s message, which perhaps he had heard himself &lsquo;live&rsquo;) speaks of &ldquo;the wrath to come&rdquo; as being the wrath of the final judgment (1 Thess. 1:10), or possibly that of AD70 (1 Thess. 2:16). But both those events would not have come upon the majority of John&rsquo;s audience. And the day of &lsquo;wrath to come&rsquo; is clearly ultimately to be at the Lord&rsquo;s return (Rev. 6:17; 11:18). Yet John zooms his hearers forward in time, to perceive that they face condemnation and judgment day right now, as they hear the call of the Gospel. This was a feature of John; he had the faith which sees things which are not as though they already are. Thus he looked at Jesus walking towards him and commented that here was the &ldquo;Lamb of God&rdquo;, a phrase the Jews would&rsquo;ve understood as referring to the lamb which was about to be sacrificed on Passover (Jn. 1:29). John presumably was referencing the description of the crucified Jesus in Is. 53:7; for John, he foresaw it all, it was as if he saw Jesus as already being led out to die, even though that event was over three years distant. And so he could appeal to his audience to face judgment day as if they were standing there already. We need to have the same perspective.</p>
<p>John the Baptist's ministry was so that the 'crooked' nation of Israel should be 'made straight' and ready to accept Jesus as Messiah (Lk. 3:5). God's enabling power was present so that this might have happened; but the same word is used in Acts 2:40 and Phil. 2:15 to describe Israel as still being a 'crooked' nation. John's preaching, like ours, was potentially able to bring about the conversion of an entire nation. So instead of being discouraged by the lack of response to our witness, let's remember the enormous potential power which there is behind it. Every word, witness of any kind, tract left lying on a seat... has such huge potential conversion power lodged within it, a power from God Himself. John&rsquo;s mission was to prepare Israel for Christ, to figuratively '<em>bring low'&nbsp;</em>the hills and mountains, the proud Jews of first century Israel, and raise the valleys, i.e. inspire the humble with the real possibility of salvation in Christ (Lk. 3:5). Paul uses the same Greek word for &quot;bring low&quot; no fewer than three times, concerning how the Gospel has humbled him (Acts 20:19; 2 Cor. 11:7; Phil. 4:12). It's as if he's saying: 'John's preaching did finally have its&rsquo; effect upon me; it did finally make me humble enough for the Lord Jesus'. And as John made straight paths for men's feet that they might come unto Christ (Mt. 3:3), so did Paul (Heb. 12:13).&nbsp;There was another reason behind John&rsquo;s appeal for repentance. It was that he perceived how eager God is to forgive, and how our acceptance of that forgiveness is His glory and His salvation. John says, quoting Is. 40:5, that if men repent and ready themselves for the Lord&rsquo;s coming, then &ldquo;all flesh shall see the salvation of God&rdquo;. But he is changing the quotation- Isaiah said that all flesh shall see the glory of God. But saving men and women is the thing God glories in.&nbsp;</p>
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