John The Baptist: The Last Prophet

Last updated on: January 5, 2025 at 3:15 am by Henry Karlson

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John The Baptist: The Last Prophet 2025-01-05T03:15:45-05:00 Henry Karlson

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Лапоть: John the Baptist / Wikimedia Commons

St. John the Baptist was. in some respects, the last of the prophets (even if prophecy would not end with him), because Christians see in him the end of the preparatory stage of human history and the way God worked in and with prophets in Israel (and around the world) to prepare for the incarnation. He became the living embodiment of that tradition, that is, his mission was to be the sign that the eschatological kingdom of God was at hand. To be this, he also had to be a man full of grace, someone who had been touched by the Holy Spirit in a unique way (that is, in a manner which transcended the prophets who came before him). This happened when Mary came to visit Elizabeth, when Elizabeth was near the end of her pregnancy and Mary at the beginning of hers. John was filled with the Holy Spirit while in his mother’s womb, cleansing him from all stain, making him, in some ways, equal to the angels. It is for this reason that Jesus said that no man was born of a woman greater than John, because he had received a special grace from God even before he was born.

John, therefore, was elevated by the Holy Spirit, making him the greatest of the prophets, and yet he knew that, no matter how great he was, he was nothing in relation to the messiah. His role was to point to and prepare for the messiah, someone he knew would be superior to him because the messiah would be able to give to others the gift of the Holy Spirit. John understood that he had been sent into the world to prepare others for the time of the messiah, and he did that by preaching to them the coming of the kingdom of God. He said that people should do what they can to make themselves right with God, to repent and be baptized in order to show God they are ready for what God has planned for them and the world. That was all that he could do by himself; he made it clear, the one thing he could not do is give others a share of the Spirit which he had received:

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, “Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, who shall prepare thy way; the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight — ” John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And there went out to him all the country of Judea, and all the people of Jerusalem; and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, and had a leather girdle around his waist, and ate locusts and wild honey. And he preached, saying, “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit” (Mk. 1:1-8 RSV).

John was filled with the spirit; he, like Mary, was born full of grace, full of the Holy Spirit; traditionally, it is said that Mary had such grace such at her conception, making her free from the stain of sin throughout her existence, while John received such grace several months after his conception. In this way, though no man born of a woman can be said to be greater than John, Mary, a woman, was greater, for she was not a man, but a woman, one whose mission was not only to prepare the way for Christ but to share herself completely to God so that the incarnate God-man could establish his humanity from her and her flesh. Both Mary and John show us the way God’s grace had been at work in and with the people of Israel, working with and preparing the way for Christ, the coming of the God-man. They both represent the end of that work, where in and through them, natural humanity in its purity can be seen. Then, in the God-man, we see something greater emerging. For, because humanity was assumed by God, it could become deified: God became man to open up the divine life to humanity, allowing humanity to grow in grace throughout eternity. Mary and John represent the height of natural human glory, but those born of grace, those who have joined themselves to Christ and found themselves to be adopted children of God, can be said to be greater, which is why Jesus said that those born of the kingdom of God are greater than John. Of course, saying this, we must also recognize that Mary and John shared in the deifying grace of the kingdom of God, and so they also transcended what they were in their birth and are greater than themselves thanks to their own participation in the kingdom of God.

John, filled with the Spirit, saw the state of the world around him; he knew how bad things were, but, filled with the Spirit, he knew people could change. He preached metanoia and forgiveness, telling people if they set themselves up to be better, to change, to dedicate themselves to God in that change, God is willing to forgive them. But that is all he could do. He could not help them to transcend themselves, to become greater, to be deified; only Christ could do that.

John prepared the way for Jesus in many ways. He could do this because he was filled with the Holy Spirit. He was born to be a prophet, to be the greatest of the prophets. He was not called to predict future events (for that is not the point of prophecy), but rather, to speak about God and the coming of the messiah, and what that meant for everyone. In him, as in Mary, humanity achieved its peak spiritual potential, that is, its natural peak. In them, we find humanity free from sin, but we must not confuse that as being all that God intended for us. God wants us to grow in grace, to go from such natural purity and to become something greater, which is possibly only if we do not get stuck and try to hold onto what we are like at a given time. John shows us the way. He never held the glory which he experienced, the glory which he participated in, to undermine his right relationship with God; he never tried to supplant God’s glory with his own, but rather, he knew, he must always give way to God if he wanted to receive all God offered him. We, likewise, must do the same, realizing it is only in a right relationship with God that we can receive deifying grace, and with it, find our proper place in the kingdom of God.

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John the Baptist

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