“He will be great,” the angel Gabriel said of John the Baptist. True greatness, we have seen, is not reckoned as the world reckons it. True greatness is as it is identified “in the sight of God” (1:15), and found in the service of God. Previously we saw that John’s greatness is a result of God’s sovereign initiative (only God can make a great man) in blessing a devout couple, developed by placing him in a devout home, and will be expressed in taking a role subordinate to Christ, whom he will serve as a forerunner. The voice of true greatness says, “He must increase and I must decrease” (Jn 3:3).

Now we must move on to look at the specifics of John’s ministry that will make for its greatness. Ultimately, John is great because his ministry was a great ministry. What, then, was that ministry? We will look now at its distinguishing features that it might shape our own.

Self-denial

“For he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and he will drink no wine or liquor; and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, while yet in his mother's womb.” (Lk 1:15)

John’s ministry will be characterized by self-denial. Gabriel says, “He will drink no wine or liquor.” Like Samson’s mother and the Nazirites (Jn 13:4; Num 6:1-8), John was to abstain from “wine,” an alcoholic beverage made from grapes, and “liquor” or “strong drink” (ESV), an alcoholic beverage which is not made from grapes. John never actually is called a Nazirite though he sometimes has been thought to be one. “It is safest to conclude that John is simply described as an ascetic,” explains Marshall.[1] There is no inherent spiritual value in ascetic practices such as fasting or in abstinence from otherwise permitted practices. Asceticism for asceticism’s sake is condemned in the New Testament (Col 2:20-23). Asceticism for greater service, that is, to free up time and resources for service, is commended (e.g. 1 Cor 7:1ff on marriage; 1 Cor 8–10 on eating meat; Rom 14 on drink)). John, in other words, will practice self-denial in order to facilitate ministry.

The Bible encourages a view of alcoholic beverages that is nuanced. On the one hand, it regards wine and strong drink as among life’s pleasures to be enjoyed in moderation (e.g. Am 9:13,14; Jn 5:1-11; Mt 11:18). At the same time alcoholic beverages are not water or milk. The Bible strongly cautions the users of alcoholic beverages about its peculiar dangers, requires moderation, and condemns intoxication (Isa 5:22; Prov 23:29-35; Eph 5:18). Because their use is permitted, and because they are among life’s pleasures, to forego their use is a practice of self-discipline and self-denial. His ministry will require this, as does all ministry. John will minister in the wilderness (i.e. the desert), wear a garment of camel’s hair, fast regularly, abstain from alcohol, and limit his diet to locusts and wild honey (Lk 3:2, 7:33; Mt 3:4).

Effective service for Christ means learning to say no to ourselves. It requires not only foregoing the obvious, illicit pleasures, but also licit or permitted pleasures that might get in the way of opportunities to serve. John the Baptist’s “teetotalism” is emblematic of a life of sacrifice and service of others, of regarding others as more important than ourselves and looking out for the interests of others, of serving and obeying even unto death as Jesus did (Phil 2:1-5). Self-denial lies behind thorough preparation for teaching a Sunday School class or preaching a sermon. Self-denial lies behind standing firm for biblical truth in the public square. Self-denial lies behind loving the sick or destitute with the love of Christ by coming to their assistance and providing for their needs. Self-denial lies behind the sacrifice of comfort and convenience in order to bring the gospel to those who are lost.

My niece and her husband, Maggie and Jonathan Iverson, with their infant daughters Annie and Lilly, are heading for a very difficult part of India, itself a very difficult country, in order to serve as missionaries. One of our more internationally experienced members said after a month in India, “I’ve been to hell and back.” They will leave a familiar and comfortable culture to do so. They will leave the close support of family and friends. They will have to learn a new language. The list goes on. They don’t have to go. They could say, “That doesn’t have my name on it.” There is no Bible verse commanding them to go, particularly to that part of the world. They could serve Christ here in the comfortable West. For them and others to go, self-denial must be exercised. “I die daily,” says the Apostle Paul (1 Cor 15:31). Ministering the word of God requires “always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus.” “We who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake.” Constantly!, he says. Constantly we die. Why? “That the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh” (2 Cor 4:10,11). Ministry requires death to self. We die that Christ might be seen to live. “You must minister as a dead man,” William Still told British ministerial students almost 50 years ago.[2] For effective ministry to take place, a large measure of self-denial is necessary. Those who are great “in the sight of God,” are those who deny themselves in order to bring the gospel to a lost world.

William Carey (1761–1834), father of the Modern Missionary Movement, and Adoniram Judson (1788–1850), the first foreign missionary from North America, were both great men. Their sacrifices, says historian Ruth A. Tucker, were “immeasurable.”[3] Both blazed new trails for the church in South Central Asia, Carey in India, Judson in Burma. Both buried multiple wives. Both buried several of their small children. Both worked in difficult tropical climates, inundated with insects and disease, endured the hostility of the native peoples, as well as the opposition of their own countrymen. Both labored for years before they saw a single convert. Yet by the time Carey retired he had translated the New Testament into 36 languages, had established 26 churches, and founded a college at Serampore. By the end of Judson’s ministry he had translated the Bible in Burmese and had founded 63 churches with over 7000 members. This is self-denial, and it is greatness in the sight of God.

Holy Spirit

John will be “filled with the Holy Spirit.” He will have a great ministry because it will be a Spirit-empowered ministry. This is Luke’s first of many references to the Holy Spirit. He is underscoring the enabling of the Holy Spirit by contrasting His controlling presence with that of wine and strong drink, as the Apostle Paul does in Ephesians 5:18. To be “filled with the Spirit,” even “while yet in his mother’s womb” means that God’s hand was on him even before he was born, regenerating, sanctifying and preparing him for service. He will not minster in his own strength. He will not fulfill his calling because he is clever, talented, a gifted organizer, an efficiency expert, a motivational speaker, or an effective marketer. Behind the response of the multitudes who will come to him will be the power of the Holy Spirit who will fill him.

Our preaching is futile, our counseling is futile, our prayers are futile, all our labors are futile apart from the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit. “Of itself, and by itself,” says Calvin, “outward preaching can do nothing.” Only as preaching is “made efficacious through the Spirit” does it become “an instrument of divine power for our salvation.”[4] This was true of John, and it is true of us. This is why Jesus will say to His disciples just prior to His ascension and at the end of Luke’s gospel, wait in Jerusalem “until you are clothed with power from on high” (Lk 24:49). “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon You,” Jesus promised just prior to His ascension. Then, and only then, “you shall be my witnesses” (Acts 1:8). We must have that power or our labor is in vain.

Why is this so? Because it takes a miracle to make a Christian. People by nature are spiritually dead (Eph 2:1ff). Only God can bring them to life. Only He can open blind eyes, open deaf ears, and open closed hearts. Regeneration is a work of God. Sanctification is a work of God. He uses means. But the means, preaching and prayer and the administration of the sacraments, are useless and less than useless without the Spirit. They have no inherent power. They must be animated by the power of God. “It is the Spirit who gives life,” says Jesus, “the flesh profits nothing” (Jn 6:63). One must be “born again” to enter the kingdom of God, but to be born again is to be born of the Spirit (Jn 3:3-7). Jesus said,

“The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (Jn 3:8)

This is why we must be “devoted to prayer” (Rom 12:12), or “constant in prayer” (ESV), and persist in prayer (Lk 11:5-13; 18:1-8). The “means of grace,” as we call them, are not automatic. The Protestant church has been wrong to reject an ex opera operato understanding of how they work. At the same time, orthodox Protestants who make much of “ordinary means” ministry (which they are right to do) must not for a moment place their trust in them rather than in God the Spirit. Our trust is in God to work through means, but our trust is in God not the means. Consequently we must have the Spirit. How do we get the Spirit? Jesus asks us,

“If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?” (Lk 11:13)

He will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask. Ask then. He is the key to evangelism. He is the key to Christian living. He is the key to the whole life and ministry of the church.

Conversion

Finally, John’s ministry will aim at conversions. John will be great because he will be involved in a matchlessly great work, a work which he will not shortchange or truncate for the sake of success. Gabriel says,

And he will turn back many of the sons of Israel to the Lord their God. (Lk 1:16)

To “turn back” (epistréphō) became, according to Marshall, “a technical term for Christian conversion” (Acts 7:39; 9:35; 2 Cor 3:16; 1 Thess 1:9; 1 Pet 2:25).[5] It “conveys the idea of turning from idolatry and sin to love and serve God.”[6] This is the task of the true priest (Mal 2:6) and was ascribed to Elijah (Mal 2:7; 3:1; 4:5ff). John’s will be an Elijah-like ministry, aiming at the conversion of wayward Israel.

“And it is he who will go as a forerunner before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children, and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous; so as to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” (Lk 1:17)

Luke invokes Malachi, where the prophet told of a messenger who would “clear the way before . . . the Lord,” and of the sending of Elijah before the day of the Lord, who would “restore the hearts of the fathers to their children,” and so on (Mal 3:1; 4:5ff). John will come “in the spirit and power of Elijah.” Like Elijah, he will be a “forerunner” who will prepare the way for a Greater One. John will “go . . . before.” He is a forerunner preparing the way for the Lord (cf. 1:76; 7:27; Mt 11:10; Mk 1:2; Jn 3:28).

There is no little discussion about what is meant by fathers and sons.[7] Our view is that Gabriel is describing spiritual unity as a result of conversion. Fathers and children, as well as the “disobedient” and the “righteous,” will all “turn,” he says again, that is, repent, and the whole people “made ready” for the coming of the Lord. National repentance, national revival, national reformation is in view, cutting across the generations and the whole moral or ethical spectrum.

John, like Jesus, like the Apostles, and like us, will preach the whole gospel (3:18) to the whole people, not just “fire insurance” or a “get out of hell card.” He’ll preach an uncompromising message of repentance and faith (Lk 3:3). He will require signs of true repentance, not just words, but the “fruit” of repentance (Lk 3:8-14). His water baptism will represent spirit baptism and total transformation (Lk 3:16,17). The great need then and now is not the band-aids of religion and morality on the cancers of sin and death. Sinners must be buried through baptism with Christ and raised “to live a new life” (Rom 6:4, NIV). Those dead, not merely sick, not merely wounded, but those dead, must be “made alive” through the power of the gospel of Christ Jesus Eph 2:1ff). Why must this radical conversion be the aim? Again, we must grasp the nature of the human condition. The Holy Spirit’s work is necessary (our previous point) because the goal of the gospel of Jesus is to make hostile sinners into saints. This requires conversion. Dressing up a sinner in the clothes of morality and religion will not work. One becomes a “new creature” in Christ. The old things pass away and all things become new (2 Cor 5:17). When one becomes a Christian one doesn’t merely add Jesus to an otherwise full life. One doesn’t trust Jesus and remain otherwise unchanged. To become a Christian is to “turn,” to turn away from our idols and lusts, our false gods and the false prophets, and turn to God in Christ. To become a Christian is to abandon the direction one is heading and turn around and head in God’s direction. To become a Christian is to get off the broad path that leads to destruction and the many who walk on it, and to switch to the narrow path that leads to life and join the few that travel it (Mt 7:14).

To convert is to turn away from and turn to; to turn away from sin and to God; to turn away from self and to the Savior; to turn away from death and to the Deliverer, Jesus Christ. Nothing less is involved.

John the Baptist, we say again, will preach the whole gospel to the whole people: conversion, transformation, change, for the whole people by the whole gospel (see 3:18). The temptation is enormous not to preach this gospel of conversion; to either dress it up or water it down; to preach “cheap grace,” to use Bonhoeffer’s phrase, or easy believism. The greatness of John the Baptist will be seen in his uncompromising and personally costly gospel that calls for conversion, and yet also depends on the Holy Spirit, who makes that conversion possible. May we duplicate his greatness today. May his ministry shape our own. God wants to transform us as he transformed many through John. The gospel aims at this. May the Holy Spirit use us as He used John so many years ago.