John's Witness: The One Who Baptizes With The Holy Spirit

John also said Jesus was the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.

The word baptism comes from the Greek word “baptizo”, which means “immerse” or “wash.” The baptism of the Holy Spirit is an immersion in the Spirit, a total saturation in God that washes away all sin and changes you from mortal to immortal. A new life is created within you by the Holy Spirit, and that new life is eternal.

Are you wondering if you’ve been baptized by the Holy Spirit?
1) Scripture explains that the moment you put your faith in Jesus, then you have been baptized in the Holy Spirit.

2) If you know you believe in Jesus, and you know that you’ve put your faith in Him, then you know you have the Spirit

3) Your life will show it. With God’s Spirit comes all of Who God is, and His character will become visible in you

4) You also receive gifts from the Spirit, an empowering to serve others, especially other believers, in a variety ways. Your prayers are answered in powerful ways, you notice that God makes what you do and say effective in other people’s lives.

5) This is a one time event, scripture explains. But again and again you can be filled to the brim and overflowing with God’s life and power, His Spirit.

Being baptized with water is the visible way of illustrating this profound and powerful spiritual thing that has happened, God creating new life in you.

Jesus is the Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world and baptizes with the Holy Spirit

Have you put your hands on Jesus and confessed your sin?

Have you accepted the substitute that God has provided so that you can live forever, instead of suffering the corruption and death that sin brings?

Have you been baptized with the Holy Spirit?

This is the very heart of being a Christian.

When you tell people about Jesus, it’s not about God fixing all their problems, or making sure you have all the things you want, or that you will never suffer again, or that life will be smooth sailing. We think we want those things. But what we really long for is what we really need, to be forgiven, and to be made one with God and with each other through His Holy Spirit.

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John's Witness: The Lamb Who Takes Away The Sin Of the World

John declared Jesus as the Lamb of God Who takes away sin.

This relates back to Adam and Eve when God told Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, or they would die. Adam and Eve did eat the fruit of that tree, introducing sin and death into the world, something all people have had to live with up to today.

But God, in His mercy, had already prepared a way out. God provided a way for His people to experience and understand His forgiveness. They wouldn't be able to earn it. God forgave them out of His own love and mercy.

The way God provided, to illustrate the awfulness of sin and to point to Himself Who would one day absorb both sin and it's aftermath: corruption and death, was through the sacrificing of an animal that had no flaws.

Typically a person would bring a lamb to the altar and lay their hands on the lamb's head, symbolically transferring their sin to the lamb, before it was sacrificed. Its death represented their own; the result of sin is always death. There was nothing particularly sacred in the animal. The effectiveness of these sacrifices was based entirely on what Jesus, Who is both man and God, would do.

These sacrifices were based on substitution. In Greek this concept of substitution is found in the word huper, which means "on behalf of" or "in another's place." Huper is the chief Greek term for expressing the principle of substitution, and substitution is the chief salvation concept in the Bible.

The animal was sacrificed, killed, in place of the person who was confessing their sin before God. The ultimate expression of this concept was found in the Passover lamb, and this is what John the Baptist meant about Jesus.

The Passover Lamb died in the place of every first born Hebrew the night God judged all Egypt, during the tenth plague. The blood of the lamb saved the lives of every household which had literally painted the lamb's blood on their door posts. The Passover lamb pointed to the Lamb of God Who would one day save the lives of every person who painted the blood of His sacrifice on the doorposts of their hearts.

As the Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus had to be without any flaw – not born with the inherited sin nature and not ever having committed sin. Jesus obeyed whatever the Father gave Him, and even submitted to the whole of the Mosaic law though He Himself is God.

By His sinlessness Jesus was qualified to be the perfect sacrifice for our sins, the perfect substitute to absorb all the punishment and wrath for sin. Because He is God, infinite and eternal, Jesus' sacrifice was once and for all, enough for all sin past, present and future.

We are saved because God sent the Lord Jesus Christ to die huper ("on behalf of") us, or "in our place." He stood in our place, as a sinner, and took the full force of the wrath of God for our sins. As a result, we are able to stand before God "as Christ," and be seen in Jesus' righteousness.

To believe this takes faith because we don’t have a lamb to put our hands on, and we don’t have Jesus physically here, either, to put our hands on. So you and I need to figuratively put our hands on to Jesus as we confess our sins, and envision our sin transferring to Him, and believe that His death is in place of the death that your sin and mine brings us

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Blended Gospels, The Testimony of John the Baptist

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life,[a] and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.

The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John bore witness about him, and cried out, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.'" And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.

And this is the testimony of John, "I baptize with water, but among you stands one you do not know, even he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie."

These things took place in Bethany across the Jordan, where John was baptizing.

The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, 'After me comes a man who ranks before me, because he was before me.' I myself did not know him, but for this purpose I came baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel."

And John bore witness: "I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, 'He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.' And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God."

[ESV, John 1:1-18, 26-34]

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