Was John the Baptist killed for the gospel? I think it’s an interesting question because these days we like to talk about the primary nature of the Gospel. We don’t want anything else getting in the way. But I think we have so minimized the Gospel that there is almost nothing left. This is the legacy of all-I-need-is-my-Bible radical reformers like D. L. Moody. Now Moody did a lot of things right. And perhaps he was the person with the message for his time. But the legacy has turned into something that is utterly unthreatening to the evil forces in this world and ultimately not the Gospel.
The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist, Caravaggio, c.1608
We say we don’t believe in compartmentalization, that is the division between sacred and secular. But we function as if we do believe in such a divide. We believe that religion is confined to a personal relationship that can get us through tough times but that every other area of life requires a secular specialist. We don’t think there is any room in politics or the public sphere in general for our religious ideas. That would be too ‘judgey’
But John the Baptist, spoke up against Herod, a civil ruler, for marrying his brother’s wife.
For Herod had seized John and bound him and put him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, because John had been saying to him, “It is not lawful for you to have her.” And though he wanted to put him to death, he feared the people, because they held him to be a prophet. Matthew 14: 3-5
And so John was a prophet. He had a special duty, he was the forerunner of Jesus, a herald of the messiah. But why was he off telling the ruler of the land what to do? That’ wasn’t his purpose. Church and state are supposed to be separate, right? In reality, prophets in the Old Testament were not that common, and they were the most common during the time of the Kings. There is something to the separation of church and state, the protestant tradition goes back to Calvin. There should be two realms but they must interact, and it’s clear that the civil magistrates must not mess with the church but that the church should inform the civil magistrates. That’s what you see a lot of times with the prophets of the Old Testament and that’s what you see here with John. I think it’s very helpful to spend time thinking about John as a prophet, because he is the closest to our hearts and our knowledge because we tend to know the New Testament better. The OT prophets tend to be distant and mysterious and we come to all sorts of silly conclusions about them. But connecting them to John can bring us back to reality.
I think we view the prophets as people who just had strange visions about stuff no one understood, but that was guaranteed to happen. They provided fodder for modern prophecy speculation in it’s many forms, TV evangelist, apocalypse movies and Christian fiction. Which is unfortunately left behind in the dust by secular culture. But that’s no John. John had a specific task. He pointed people to the Messiah. He participated in some living metaphors such as passing people through the waters of the Jordan the way the people of Israel passed through the Jordan before they conquered the land, Joshua 1:10. And, he criticized Herod. And so, he was put to death like most of the other prophets, Hebrews 11:37. But I don’t recall the prophecies of John the Baptist being applied ever time something happens in the Middle East. Every time someone carves a statue it fulfills the prophecy “God can raise children from these stones.” Matthew 3:9 When people are cutting down the rain forests, oh “Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” Matthew 3:10. The end is near, operators are standing by to get your credit card numbers.
I used to be bothered by this clip from the Matrix:
It seemed like the oracle was being deceptive or manipulative. But really she was being interactive, of course she was trying to change the outcome by what she said. She never really said he was not ‘The One’ but she let him think it while encouraging him to act like it and prove he was. I had the idea that is common from the ‘prophet test’ in Deuteronomy 18:22. Basically if what he says happens he is a true prophet. But this should be seen in light of all the Old Testament prophecies, many of which had contingencies. If the people repented then a prophecy of judgement might be delayed. If the people did not repent a prophecy of blessing might be postponed. The prophets were there to interact, like John they called for repentance, because the people were in sin. God said he would destroy Nineveh in 40 days, but the people repented and he did not, Jonah 3. Daniel read the prophet Jeremiah and saw that the 70 years were almost up, so he began praying for his people for repentance. He didn’t just wait for history to happen, he realized that his people had not repented and so they did not deserve blessing. As it turns out the people never did come out of exile, fully, as was promised, because they never repented.
The prophets, encouraged the people to change and change the course of history, their history. We have become like the Greeks thinking that prophecy is a fatal trick played by the Gods. I think of the legend of Perseus; an oracle told his father that he would kill him, so his father set about a course of events that lead to Perseus killing him. It was a trap, a game played by the gods with man. But the prophecies of Yahweh are not like that, he lays out what might happen if we disobey his commands, he tells us the blessings that await if we repent.
The same applies to us today. The church was told
Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you -II Peter 3:11-15
We hasten the return of the Lord the same way that blessings were secured in the Old Testament, by holy, godly living. God delays when we are wicked, because he is patient. We almost think the opposite these days. We view the difficulties of persecution and hardship as inevitable and so we welcome their coming as if that will bring in the return of Jesus. We need to follow the advice of John today “Repent for the Kingdom of heaven is here.” Matthew 3:2,3. Our church and our nation must repent, or we aren’t getting whisked away while everything blows up, we will be in the middle of the explosion and it won’t be pretty. If you want him to come back quickly, get to work ensuring that every knee bow, starting with your own. This is not a fatalistic trap, this is the God of the Universe patiently waiting for every tongue and tribe and nation to be saved. So get to it!
Further study: