Sermon Tone Analysis

Series: John: Life in Christ’s NameText: John 3:22–30

By: Shaun Marksbury Date: January 1, 2023

Venue: Living Water Baptist ChurchOccasion: AM Service

Introduction

What would mark success in our ministry this year?

There are a lot of ministers out there who care about little more than the numbers.

How many people came?

How many raised their hand?

How many walked the aisle?

The old adage is that they’re counting “nickels and noses” — how many people are in the pews and how much money was in the offering plate.

It’s not that God commands us to never keep accounting, but it’s fraught with dangers for the minister who wants to point to these numbers as a sign of his success in ministry.

Success in ministry in something entirely different than what the world expects, and that’s what we see when we return briefly to John the Baptist.

His disciples believe John should have an issue with what the Messiah is doing because of the overlap of their ministries.

However, he instead exalts in the Lord and redirects his disciples to where their view should be.

Here, we see John willingly decreasing before the Lord.

First, we see his system decreasing.

Second, we see his ministry decreasing.

Third, paradoxically, we see his joy increasing.

Let’s consider the first of these.

First, we see his system decreasing (vv.

22–25).

After these things Jesus and His disciples came into the land of Judea, and there He was spending time with them and baptizing.

John also was baptizing in Aenon near Salim, because there was much water there; and people were coming and were being baptized— for John had not yet been thrown into prison.

Therefore there arose a discussion on the part of John’s disciples with a Jew about purification.

We read that this happened after what we read, after the events in Jerusalem and with Nicodemus.

The text says that “Jesus and His disciples came into the land of Judea.”

Now, that might be confusing since they were already in that region.

Other translations, though, render this “countryside” (HCSB; NIV).

One textual commentary notes that this means into “the country districts outside of Jerusalem.”

The MacArthur Study Bible calls this “the rural areas of that region.”

Other commentaries say this is “north from Jerusalem” or “northeastern direction toward the Jordan river” or “somewhere in the Jordan plain not far from Jericho.”

So, the exact location isn’t clear, but “countryside” might be the best understanding.

He was “spending time with” His disciples there.

As another commentary notes, this term implies “a considerable period of time … probably several months.”

We’re not told specifically if He’s teaching them during this time, but the simple noun “disciples” implies that they are always learning from Him, as we should all be.

The word “baptizing,” though, implies more discipleship.

In John 4:1, we read that Jesus was “making and baptizing more disciples than John,” so this is part of the discipleship process.

In the next verse of that chapter, we read that Jesus wasn’t personally baptizing, but directing His disciples to baptize.

That’s why, incidentally, we encourage those who repent and trust in the Lord to come and be baptized with water.

It’s an outward sign that associates you with the Lord you claim, and we as fellow disciples of the Lord baptize those who come to Him.

If there’s any question as to the kind of baptism Jesus was conducting here through His disciples, note the next verse.

We read that “John also was baptizing.”

This means that Jesus’s baptisms were largely like John the Baptist’s.

John was baptizing “in Aenon near Salim.”

We’re not exactly sure where this is.

The word “Aenon” is Hebrew, and it means “springs.”

Of course, this verse also says “there was much water there.”

A location that seemed to spring up in the commentaries — pun intended — was that this was six or so miles south of Beth-Shan, east of Samaria.

This was an area considered to be part of Judah in the first century.

People obviously knew where this was, because they were coming to John, repenting of their sins, and being baptized there.

We then have an interesting comment in v. 24: “for John had not yet been thrown into prison.”

We see here a comment that evidences just what the author of this Gospel is trying to accomplish.

If one were only to read the other Gospel accounts, the impression there would be that John the Baptist disappears into Herod’s dungeon at the beginning of Jesus’s ministry.

That’s not what the other Gospels say, but one could come away with that impression.

For instance, in Mark 1, we read about John baptizing Jesus and then the temptation, and in the very next verses, vv.

14–15, we read, “Now after John had been taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

That doesn’t preclude that there was ministry in Judea before John got arrested, so it’s not a contradiction; it’s just limited to Jesus’s northern ministry.

So, the Apostle John here fills in more information.

He writes that there was a Judean ministry for Jesus, and it coincided with that period of time between the Lord’s baptism and John the Baptist’s arrest.

It happened to take place in roughly the same area as John the Baptist’s ministry, and it may have even been a few months in length.

Now, some saw conflict between what Jesus was doing and what John the Baptist was doing, so the next verse says, “Therefore there arose a discussion,” or, more accurately, a dispute.

Of course, this is life in ministry!

An unnamed Jewish person even confronts John’s disciples on purification.

By the way, some of your Bibles might read the plural there, particularly the KJV and the NKJV, but it seems the singular “Jew” is better.

So, this unnamed Jewish person wants to know what’s special about John’s baptism, why he (or she) should get it in addition to or instead of Jesus’s baptism.

Incidentally, this is a moment that evidences the Jewish authorship of this Gospel.

A Gentile writer coming along later, trying to imitate the Apostle John, wouldn’t necessarily think to include strife concerning the intricacies of Hebrew theology.

This was a question about purification and baptism.

Now, before we get into that conflict, we must back up and consider the context that God is laying out for us, both historically and in this letter.

Back in John 2:1–11, we read about the wedding feast at Cana and the miracle that the Lord performed there — taking water filling ceremonial cleansing jars and transforming it to wine.

We noted that this was a sign of the coming Messianic kingdom, where the Lord would fill His people with joy, pictured by free-flowing wine.

Jesus is replacing the old.

We continued to see that theme.

In 2:12–25, we saw Jesus challenging the present temple system.

Part of it was that the system was being twisted with the sales going on there, but there was more to it than that.

Jesus wanted to restore the temple because of how it pointed to His coming work as the ultimate sacrifice and the reason why men could be brought close to God the Father.

He would be creating a new temple through His body, one not made with hands — one comprised of living stones.

Jesus is replacing the old.

Then, we get to this chapter, and we saw Jesus calling Nicodemus to be born again.

In 3:1–21, Jesus said this rebirth would come through water and spirit.

We saw that was a clear reference to the New Covenant promises.

With that being the case, that means that Jesus is saying the Old Covenant is coming to an end.

More to the point, by comparing Himself to the serpent Moses lifted up in the wilderness, He is saying that He will specifically be the one who inaugurates the New Covenant.

As we read in Hebrews 8:13, “When He said, ‘A new covenant,’ He has made the first obsolete.

But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear.”

Again, Jesus is replacing the old.

With that said, Jesus is bringing in something greater than John the Baptist.

The baptism that Jesus is about to bring — the baptism of the Holy Spirit — is what the water baptism symbolizes.

John was pointing people toward repentance before the Messiah, while the Messiah is receiving the repentant and promising them new life.

There’s Jewish purification, but Jesus is replacing the old, and that includes the baptism that John the Baptist is providing.

For this divinely-appointed moment, the ministries of John the Baptist and the Messiah overlap.

Now, when any overlap occurs in ministry, some men, limited by their perspective, view it as a threat to their own ministries, as the disciples here clearly do.

The question here seems to have troubled them, and they see this as a moment of tension rather than blessing.

So, they come to John, as we see next.

Second, we see his ministry decreasing (vv.

26–28)

And they came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, He who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you have testified, behold, He is baptizing and all are coming to Him.” John answered and said, “A man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven.

“You yourselves are my witnesses that I said, ‘I am not the Christ,’ but, ‘I have been sent ahead of Him.’.

Because of this dispute, they — John’s disciples — come to John the Baptist.

They greet him respectfully, as Rabbi.

This is as Nicodemus greeted Jesus (John 3:2), though Jesus did warn against enjoying such titles (Matt.

23:7).

Such flattery can, in fact, be the prelude to confrontation.