Prophet of the Most High

MEMORY VERSE: “Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before Me; and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts.” —Malachi 3:1

LUKE 1:67-80

JOHN the Baptist is the “Prophet of the Most High” who constitutes the subject of this lesson. In our memory verse he is referred to as the Lord’s “messenger,” who would be sent to prepare the way for Jesus; and this was the mission performed by John the Baptist through the message of repentance he preached in Israel prior to the time when Jesus began his ministry, and for a short time thereafter.—vss. 76,77

Zacharias was John’s father, and in his prophecy he refers to Jesus as “the dayspring from on high,” the One who would come “to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.” Zacharias also refers to God’s oath-bound covenant to Abraham, that covenant in which he promised to bless all the families of the earth; and he shows that Jesus, whom John would announce, would be the messenger of that covenant, even as foretold in our memory text. Zacharias indicates that all God’s holy prophets had foretold the coming of this great messenger, this Messiah and King.

John the Baptist was the forerunner of Jesus. The record is that “he came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.” (Luke 3:3) John’s ministry was to the Jewish people—those who, through Moses, had entered into a covenant with the Lord. Their sins against God and against the terms of the Law Covenant had estranged them from God, and their repentance brought them back into harmony with him and into a proper attitude to accept Jesus as the Messiah.

Luke, quoting from the Old Testament, refers to John as “the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” (Luke 3:4; Isa. 40:3-5) Isaiah’s prophecy that “the glory of the Lord shall be revealed” is further interpreted by him in chapter 52, verse 10, in the statement that “all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

Multitudes went forth into the wilderness to hear John preach, but only those who were willing to repent were specially benefited by his message. He called the non-repentant “a generation of vipers” and asked who had warned them to flee from the wrath to come. This is not a reference to the wrath of God manifested in the traditional hell of fire; rather, John is calling attention, prophetically, to the impending destruction of Jerusalem and the scattering of the nation, which began in A.D. 70-73. This is the baptism of fire which was to come upon Israel.

Malachi 4:5,6 reads, “Behold, I [the Lord] will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.” When John the Baptist began his ministry he was asked by leaders in Israel if he were this foretold “Elijah,” and his answer was, “I am not.”—John 1:21

Later, however, Jesus told his disciples that if they could receive it, John was Elias, meaning, we believe, that if his ministry had accomplished in their hearts the work of reformation foretold by Malachi, then to them he would be the foretold Elijah (or Elias, as it is written in the New Testament).

But Israel as a whole failed to reform under the ministry of John, with the result that the foretold “curse” came upon the nation in that great time of destruction and scattering in which the people were later engulfed. But this does not mean that the work of reformation and restoration will never be accomplished. The Emphatic Diaglott translation of Matthew 17:11 reads, “Elias indeed comes, and will restore all things.” This is a reference to the work of Christ and his true church during the Millennial. Age, when there will be “times of restitution of all things”—Acts 3:19-21

Meanwhile the church in the flesh has carried on a ministry of repentance, but this also has failed so far as the vast majority of the people are concerned. As a result, the world is even now suffering the “curse” of “great tribulation.” (Matt. 24:21,22) We rejoice that the time of genuine repentance and reformation is close at hand.

QUESTIONS

Who was John the Baptist, and what was his principle mission?

Was John successful in his ministry?

In what sense was John the foretold Elijah?

When will the full work of the prophetic Elijah be accomplished?

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