Away from civilization

John baptised Jesus, but who baptised John, yes God baptised John when he was conceived, he was filled and empowered by The Holy Spirit from when he started to grow in his mother’s womb. John was born already baptised in The Holy Spirit; he was born spiritual ready to stand against the devil’s attacks of deception. And when he started preparing his ministry, he stayed away from civilization, away from people and all kinds of human ideas.

A spiritual heart

Jesus told people to repent, meaning they had to changes their way of thinking. We think with our brain, however our “way of thinking” is in the fountain of thoughts and this “fountain” is called the heart or the inner man and is in the center of the human body. It is not our blood pump we call heart, this pump is our physical heart, however we also have a spiritual heart that guides our thinking.

The wilderness university of God

The human brain of grown up people is mostly filled with the world’s ideas which leads nowhere, the brain has to be cleansed and then filled with God’s thoughts, God’s Words also called “Jesus” in John 1:1. This emptying and filling is what Jesus and John call “repent”. Most of his young life John stayed in the wilderness, he lived there eating wild honey and locusts, nobody impacted his thoughts except the scripture he had learned from his father Zechariah the high priest and his mother Elisabeth. In the wilderness John meditated on the words of God and when he finished at the wilderness university of God, he did not have to repent, his heart and brain belonged to God, governed by The Holy Spirit.

About Jesus the Messiah

When John at about the age of thirty started his half year explosive ministry, everyone in Judah had heard of this unusual individual living and surviving in the dessert beyond the river Jordan by the dead sea. He was known and people wanted to know more about him. John did not announce in the cities or countryside to attract a crowd to preach to, the crowds came to him, everyone in the Judea area and most of Israel. What did John tell them, his main message was about Jesus the Messiah

Where? When?

People came to John at the banks of the Jordan river and by his words the crowds knew that this man preached the words of God and was of God and by listening to him they knew and felt they were sinners, and when he said repent and be baptised, they just did. Finally, they found the real man of God and they looked up to him and felt secure by his words. Then he surprised them by saying he was nothing compared to the man coming after him. John turned up the expectation for this “superman” coming after him. I baptise you with water, but He will baptise you with The Holy Spirit and fire.  Leaving John at the banks of the river Jordan they had two questions in their heads, Where? When?

The source of this text

Who was John the Baptist? Matthew wrote that this was the one the prophet Isaiah described as a voice shouting in the wilderness to prepare the road for the Lord, to make his highways straight. Matthew is here talking about the “Superman” to follow John and in Matthew this man is translated The Lord, in the Greek basic text the word is Κυρίου in Greek or Kurious in English. It could mean something like “supreme in authority”. A lord has authority but not supreme authority, a lord with supreme authority should be over all the lords that exist. To find the truth about this “Superman” we need to look at the source of this text.

In Hebrew

As Matthew said, it is written in Isaiah, more specifically in Isaiah 40: 3 and 4. Isaiah is here also talking of a voice calling out to clear the road for someone, he calls him the Lord in the Amplified bible, with a capital letter L, however with small letters, ord. And if we change the translation to the King James bible, we find this man described differently, like this: the LORD, LORD written with capital letters. As you know, the prophet Isaiah worked in The Old Testament times and the text is originally written in Hebrew.

5000 times

So, who is this man described in basic Hebrew, we find it like this in Isaiah 40:3, יְהוָ֑ה. Here we have only four letters read from right to left, and the small signs beneath has been added later, might have been in the seventh or eighth century.  Those four letters in English read from left to right are: YHWH. These four letters is what is written in The Old Testament as the name of God, the name of the only God that created everything and you find those four letters describing His Name 5000 times in The Old Testament.

Before they saw him

This name is also the name of this “Superman” John said would come after him. In other words, God sent Himself to earth to save the world from itself. John prepared the way for God, John was destined to be a publicity expert, heralding the coming of God’s 3 years ministry in Israel and its neighborhood. How can this be, can God be both in heaven and on earth at the same time, yes, He can. In the beginning all three were in heaven, God the father, God the son and God The Holy Spirit, together they created everything and gave the authority to mankind,  they however messed it all up and lost control. And now some thousand years later he sent His Son to earth to take control and make it right once more. John the Baptist opened the gate and cleared the way for the three years ministry of Jesus, the crowds knew Jesus before they saw him.

Born of repentance

Thousands of people came to John and he baptized them all, to baptize John needed water, not a bucket or a cup, he needed a river and he dipped the people into the water of the river Jordan. The body sank into the water, the whole body. Before the dipping or sinking they confessed their sins, not every sin one by one. Do you remember all your sins, probably not? No, they acknowledged having sinned and being a sinner and wanted to change it, then John dipped them into the water, meaning they died from their sinful personality, and then John rose them out of the water, meaning they were cleansed and could start all over again, they were born of repentance.

Submerged people in the river Jordan

The word baptize in Greek is the word βαπτίζω, in English baptize. This Greek word means to dip or submerge and for that a lot of water is needed, John the Baptist submerged people in the river Jordan by the Red sea out in the wilderness far away from synagogues and other buildings, and the people were old enough to decide to be submerged in water and to change their way of thinking waiting for the “Superman” to baptize them in The Holy Spirit and fire.

Questions

1. Can children be baptized?
2. In what connection is the word sprinkle used in the Bible?
3. Is the Baptism the final solution on our problems in life?
4. In this world, how do you repent?