"They knew him not"
Matthew 17:12

Jesus said that the religious leaders of His time did not understand or recognize John the Baptist. The same can be said about every century since that time, including the twentieth.

John the Baptist came to Israel in the spirit and power of Elijah, according to the angel Gabriel (Luke 1:17) and the Lord Jesus Christ (Matthew 17:12). "But I say unto you, That Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the Son of man suffer of them." The religious leaders were jealous of John and likely were plotting ,how to do away with him, until Herod did it for them. Even so, those envious chief priests and elders (Matthew 27:,18) finally put Christ to a shameful death.

The Pharisees, as we have seen, rejected John, his message and his baptism (Luke 7:30). They had accumulated a surprisingly large number of man-made rules which they tried to impose on their people. Neither John nor Christ followed their picayunish practices or rigid regulations. The Pharisees once asked Christ’s disciples, "Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?" (Matthew 9:11). Even so, some Christians are now criticized by the "rightists" for working with the "leftists," and vice versa. Jesus replied, "They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick . . . for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance" (Matthew 9:12, 13). John did that too, and "the publicans and harlots believed him" (Matthew 21:32).

The critics of John were the more condemned because they failed to repent after seeing many sinners converted to God and to the life of righteousness. Jesus told them, "when ye had seen it, (ye) repented not afterward, that ye might believe him" (Matthew 21:32). Just so, all the converts of some revival preachers are not enough to overcome the prejudices of their critics.

The Sadducees were too haughty, proud and aristocratic to follow this "unauthorized" desert preacher in his unconventional clothing. John did not have their credentials. He lacked their ordination and accreditation. Poor John! How could he ever succeed without all these?

The lawyers, scribes, elders and chief priests were unwilling to bury in baptism their pride and reputations as leaders. Jesus said of them, "But all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries . . . and love the uppermost rooms at feasts . . . and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi" (Matthew 23:5-7). They preferred pomp and vanity to John’s Christianity.

Herod and Herodias, more immoral than the harlots who repented at John’s preaching, killed the Baptist. For immorality opens the floodgates to all kinds of evils, including rationalization regarding sexual sins.

All these unhappy people failed to believe John, even though heaven itself had endorsed him in a spectacular way (Matthew 3:13-17).

In addition, there were certain unstable souls among the Jews who "were willing for a season to rejoice in his light" (John 5:35). They were like the seed which fell on stony ground, and because it had no root, it withered away (Mark 4:5, 6). Shallow, thoughtless curiosity-seekers want to be entertained; they do not want to think. They are reeds bending with the wind. They are soon gone with the wind.

Jesus said, "neither tell I you by what authority I do these things" to those critics who refused to acknowledge John’s baptism as coming from heaven. Robertson wrote (John the Loyal; p. 438): "The principle involved in His refusal is the same as when He refused a sign from heaven (Matthew 16:4), viz., that no man has a right to demand a superfluity of evidence on any question of belief or duty, and that as the call for such accumulated proof is a virtual rejection of that previously given; it is the law of that divine administration to refuse it even as a favor."

The eleven disciples, in their business meeting, did not ignore John the Baptist (Acts 1:12-26). The early church was making progress carefully, making sure that their foundations were laid upon twelve competent witnesses. And Peter, in his first sermon to Gentiles, recognized John and his baptism as the beginning of the Gospel of Christ (Acts 10:37).

The Apostle Paul did not ignore John and his baptism in his preaching on his first missionary journey (Acts 13:24).

But corruption of doctrine crept into the thinking of undiscriminating people early, even in New Testament times. Someone had blundered badly in teaching and in "baptizing" those few "disciples" mentioned in Acts 19:1-7. When Paul met them (about 25 years after the resurrection of Christ), he knew. that something was wrong with them. They did not even know about the Holy Spirit whom John had preached so consistently.

Within one hundred years after Christ’s resurrection, according to The Didache (The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles), pouring was accepted as a substitute for immersion-baptism. This was allowed on the mistaken assumption that baptism was necessary for salvation. Then some unknown, misguided teachers reasoned that if baptism were required for salvation, then babies must be "baptized" also. No one knows when infant sprinkling began, but it may have been as early as the beginning of the third century. It is not found in the New Testament. Why it began is more important.

Mark 1:4 and Luke 3:3 have the phrase, "baptism of repentance for the remission of sins" (Greek, eis aphesin hamartion). The word "for" seems to mean "in order to receive" as it sometimes does in English usage. But it does not always mean that; it may mean "because one has received." It has this meaning, for example, in Mark 1:44. Jesus told the leper who had been healed, "show thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing those things Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them." The leper was to offer a gift because he had been healed, not in order to be healed. The gift was a testimony of his healing, even as baptism is an evidence or testimony of one’s salvation.

But the mistake started, and it spread. People were taught that baptism procured salvation. This heresy is called "Baptismal Regeneration," the idea that in baptism, such as in infant sprinkling, a person is regenerated. It is directly contrary to the dozens of verses in the Bible which say plainly that salvation comes by sincere faith alone, apart from works or sacraments (See John 1:12; 3:16, 36; 5:24; 6:36; 20:31; Acts 16:31; Eph. 2:8-10). This sacramentalism was not only contrary to John’s message; it also contradicted and largely nullified the words of Christ. For if baptism saves, why did Christ need to die on the cross? If baptism saves, is it another idol? If baptism saves, then "Christ is become of no effect unto you . . . ye are fallen from grace" (Gal. 5:4).

So the Baptist’s clear gospel was too soon ignored or distorted. Kraeling says (John the Baptist; p. 183), "It is interesting to note that during the whole of the second and third centuries . . . Christian legend and the Christian Church Fathers have very little to say about John . . . But when in the fourth century the Gnostic crisis had passed, John suddenly became again for the Church a very important person. Festival days celebrated in his honor find a place in the Church’s liturgical calendar. Churches and martyria are erected in commemoration of him particularly in Samaria, Alexandria and Constantinople, but also in widely separated other parts of the Byzantine Orient." But by the fourth century the evil doctrine of baptismal regeneration had become stronger, and the emerging Roman Catholic Church fastened it firmly on all its adherents.

Augustine (354-430), bishop of Hippo in North Africa, threw his considerable weight in support of the heresy of baptismal regeneration. He also was largely instrumental in popularizing the idea of the "universal" or "invisible" church theory. While he had in mind the Roman Catholic system, many protestants have unwittingly taken it over into their own thinking.

The Eastern (Greek) Orthodox Church practices infant baptism also; however they hold to immersion for they know well the meaning of baptizo.

But in every century there were dissenters from the Catholic churches. They went under various names and most of them rejected infant baptism. Almost invariably they were persecuted by the "established churches" and yet they persisted. Thus when Luther appeared with his famous ninety-five theses in 1517, Anabaptist churches were fairly numerous throughout central Europe. They could not have sprung up overnight; they had existed quietly all along.

John Wycliffe had been martyred for his faith which was closer to the New Testament than it was to Rome’s errors, in England in 1384. John Huss (1369-1415) had tried to reform the Roman Church but was burned at the stake for his efforts. Balthasar Hubmeier also tried and suffered a similar fate on March 10, 1528. When Luther (1483-1546) and Calvin (1509-1564) came into prominence with increasing influence, it would seem that all reformers could be safer. But the Anabaptists were severely persecuted by Catholics and Protestants alike.

A. L. E. Verheyden, in his Anabaptism in Flanders, 1530-1650, cites evidences of the constant persecution, including tortures, of the Anabaptists during those years. The flyleaf of this book says: "The picture it (this book) presents is a new one in its evidence of the surprising extent of the spread of the Anabaptist movement geographically, as well as its depth and tenacity in the face of the severest persecution. That Anabaptism persisted in Flanders almost a half century beyond 1600 was not clearly known before. That, apart from certain aberrations from the very beginning, Flemish Anabaptism was completely peaceful, nonresistant, and evangelical, largely after the pattern of Menno Simons, is fully demonstrated. A major gap in our knowledge and understanding of continental Anabaptism has now been closed in an exceptionally competent fashion by a master in the field."

These Anabaptists were, technically and historically, neither Protestants nor Reformers. They flourished in considerable numbers before Luther appeared, and they did not establish a "Reformed" church. Rather, they strove to maintain the original New Testament faith and order, not without success. True, some Anabaptists did not practice immersion for a time, but later Baptists did universally.

Most church historians ignore too much of Anabaptist history. They are much like the Encyclopedia Britannica (1961) which gives 1521 as the date of "their first rising!" Worse, the Encyclopedia (EB) identifies the Anabaptists with the "mad men of Munster" who were not really Anabaptists at all. Protestants and Catholics blamed all Anabaptists for the fanatical actions of those supposed Anabaptists. Even the name Anabaptist was proscribed. New names were confusing. Some were called Mennonites who repudiated the Munster fanatics as did all Baptists, yet the historians and theologians magnified the few deviates at Munster while ignoring the masses of peaceful, wholesome, persecuted Anabaptists. In England, John of Leyden gave a bad name to the Baptists of whom, says the EB, the vast majority were good quiet people who practiced the Christian ideals of which their persecutors prated.

George P. Fisher in his History of the Christian Church wrote (341) regarding the reformation in the Netherlands: "Anabaptists and other licentious and fanatical sectaries were numerous, and their excesses afforded a plausible pretext for punishing with severity all who departed from the ancient faith." But on page 425 Fisher seems to be more reasonable toward the Anabaptists. "It is a gross injustice to impute to all of them the wild and destructive fanaticism with which a portion of them are chargeable." The fanatical Munsterites were few in number compared to the large body of Anabaptists, much smaller in proportion than the one Judas among twelve disciples!

William Stevenson, in his The Story of the Reformation wrote (p. 51, used by permission of the John Knox Press, Richmond, Virginia): "History has witnessed many injustices, but surely none more flagrant than the disrepute of a generally pious and godly sect. For centuries their virtues were thrust into the shadows while the spotlight was focused on the disgraceful episode . . . at Munster, where a band of irresponsible fanatics plunged into a sorry experiment of communism, polygamy, and other antisocial vices. For those excesses of the guilty few, the innocent majority has been condemned . . . It cannot be too strongly emphasized that the Munster episode was exceptional and not typical . . . The Anabaptists, far from being evil-doers, ruled their lives by the highest standards, as even their bitterest enemies admitted."

As a rule, European historians and theologians, professors and preachers, for four hundred years have spread the libelous fiction that these few "bad men" were representative of the Anabaptists. These biased historians have infected seminary professors in Europe and in America, if not all over the world, with this grave error of church history. The baneful effects of this fallacy is seen in much of the Baptist ministry, hence the need for real Baptist schools to teach the whole truth of Baptist history. Meanwhile, biased professors continue indoctrinating their students in countless schools with injustice toward Anabaptists.

Has all this affected the history of Baptists? Indeed it has. Continental Baptists were practically exterminated for two hundred years. Not until the 1840s did they get a fresh start in Germany, although they had grown slowly in the British Isles. They grew rapidly in Russia, under various names, and in the Scandinavian countries, during the past hundred years. They are still very weak numerically in Greece, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, France, Belgium and Holland.

Largely because Baptists have been severely persecuted, physically during Reformation days and scholastically thereafter, the false doctrine of baptismal regeneration prevails throughout 90-95% of Christendom. Over seven hundred millions of people in Christian churches are taught the deadening doctrine that baptism brings salvation to an infant. In this "faith" they live and die, depending on false hopes taught to them by priests, pastors and professors who were themselves taught this same heresy since the second or third century of our era. These false guides have ignored the plain teachings of John the Baptist, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul and countless Christians who were loyal to the Word of God in contrast to earthly ecclesiastical hierarchies.

Baptists, however, have had a remarkable influence upon many Christian churches during the past century. They have strengthened the Protestant stand against tradition by placing the Scriptures as supreme, and the sole guide for faith and practice in the Christian life. Their firmness against infant baptism, with supporting reasons from Scripture and history, have influenced many Pedobaptists to give their "infant baptism" a status more like dedication than sacramental baptism. Baptists have made headway in teaching the priesthood of all believers, democratic church polity, emphasis upon a regenerate church membership, the autonomy of each local church, and the separation of church and state. May their good influence continue.

On the other hand, some Baptists are apparently becoming more liberal and ecumenical, and therefore less interested in promoting their distinctive New Testament doctrines. They do not seem to dare claim any kinship with the heaven-sent man who was the first to be called Baptist. No claim is ‘here made for "apostolic succession" or denominational identity with John the Baptist; our purpose is rather to discover anew how all Baptists and other Christians may profit from a study of his short life. Yet no Baptist holds John as their final authority. There is a progression of authority, says D. F. Ackland, in the New Testament which must be reckoned with; otherwise, one runs a danger of the kind of schismatic heresy so plainly rebuked in First Corinthians 1 . . . This suggests another question.

The sacramentalists seem to ignore him, for they place saving value on their "sacrament" of baptism. Nowhere in the New Testament is baptism called a sacrament; a better word for it is "ordinance" (1 Cor. 11:2). The word "sacrament" has taken on extra-biblical meanings which seem to give magical powers of regeneration to baptism. Neither John the Baptist, nor anyone else in the New Testament, ever taught that heresy.

A certain leftist pastor-editor who took the name "Baptist" from his church, substituting the name "Woodside," wrote in the October, 1961, issue of Baptist Freedom regarding baptism, "Perhaps the biggest decision to be made is that which the church itself must make—are we interested in winning men to Christ and leading them into His Kingdom or is our objective that of immersing them in some relic ritual (sic) of the last century centering in the mourner’s bench and resplendent with emotional excess?" But can we not lead men into Christ’s kingdom best by means of inviting them to confess Christ as Saviour and Lord in baptism?

These liberals, so allergic to baptism and so infatuated with scholarship, seem to equate skepticism with wisdom. A thorough study of the Bible, however exhaustive it may be, is not considered "scholarly" by those who give priority to the opinions of big-name liberals.

The influence of Julius Wellhausen (1844-1918), a German critic of the Bible, lingers on in spite of numerous archaeological discoveries which have proven him wrong. A new generation of critics now are wielding disproportionate influence against everything supernatural in the Bible. Naive students think it is a sign of smartness to quote them. A favorite game is to "demythologize" that which ought never to have been mythologized in the first place! For example, Kraeling seems to have fallen into this error (18, 19): "The existence in Jewish religious literature and folklore of analogies to virtually all the important elements of John’s birth story shows that the narrative is fundamentally legendary (?) and that its episodes cannot be used directly for historical purposes."

This mania for finding "parallels" in non-Biblical literature for many of the unusual incidents related in the Bible, e. g., the Virgin Birth, is quite widespread. Fosdick used this trick. By means of this dubious device, critics attempt to eviscerate Scripture of many supernatural elements. But this method of attack has gone too far, according to Rabbi Samuel Sandmel whom this writer heard lecture on "Parallelomania" at the meeting of The Society of Biblical Literature and Exegesis at St. Louis, Missouri, December 27, 1961. The learned Rabbi seemed to ridicule those who ‘sought to trace Paul’s teaching of non-retaliation in Romans 12:17-20 to the Qumran documents and the Manual of Discipline. Are not those who seek to find precedents or parallels to the baptism of John also victims of parallelomania?

The names of those who wrongly ignore John the Baptist are legion. The cultists seem to do that. Those who question or deny the deity of Christ would profit from John’s unequivocal statement that He is the Son of God (John 1:29-36). Those who refuse to observe baptism at all should read again our Lord’s hearty endorsement of John’s baptism as comparable to "the counsel of God," and they should heed Christ’s Great Commission which is to be observed until the end of this age. Those who trust in modern "prophets," be they prolific dreamers, or hat-peepers, or miracle-wheat sellers, or reincarnationists, and all devotees of extra-biblical revelations—these should follow the example of John the Baptist who held to Christ as the Son of God.

When the Spirit-filled Baptist spoke of the coming of the Holy Spirit, he implied that every Christian should be yielded to Him, not to the many false spirits "which are gone out into the world" (1 John 4:1-3).

One hesitates to rebuke the many faithful Christians who are serving the Lord as best they know how in non-immersionist churches. That many of them are winning converts to Christ is beyond question. They are also missionary minded and generous and clean-living and prayerful Bible readers. Some extreme dispensationalists have a belief that John belongs in the Old Testament, and not with New Testament believers. To all such we respectfully urge a new study of John in the light of all that the New Testament really says about him and about his baptism. They will find an unbroken chain of continuity of doctrine from John the Baptist to Paul the Apostle, and. throughout the first century of Christendom. It is our purpose to make more clear our need of a doctrinal connection with John. If that is done, Christ will mean more to us, for all that John said of Him will then be an integral part of our religious beliefs.

John Calvin supports the above view (Institutes IV, xv, 7): "It is very certain that the ministry of John was precisely the same as that which afterwards was committed to the apostles . . . The sameness of their doctrine shows their baptism to have been the same . . . If any difference be sought for in the Word of God, the only difference that will be found is, that John baptized in the name of Him who was to come, the apostles in the name of Him who had already manifested Himself."

Baptists, of all people, ignore John the Baptist. Not all, but the majority of them do. Ask anyone how many sermons he has heard on John. One Baptist pastor did a rare thing: he gave a series of six sermons on the Baptist. But his sermon titles did not once mention or name his subject!

Why do Baptists seem so timid about the first Baptist? They seem to fear any attitude of boasting about their name. To claim John as their founder, humanly speaking, may seem like fanaticism or egotism. They fear distinctiveness in an age when ecumenicity is popular. They dislike controversy which might arise if they suggest John as their first hero. But no other denomination claims him; why should not Baptists have that privilege? (The French wine-cask makers claim John the Baptist as their patron saint; they dedicated a new window in the Rheims Cathedral to him!).

"They knew him not," said Christ about John the Baptist. That is also true of the present generation concerning John. Books about him, especially by Baptists, are inordinately scarce, none apparently having appeared for over fifty years. Books about him by non-Baptists, while more in number, are often lacking in insight. Sermons about the Baptist by Baptists are infrequent and apologetic as far as any connection with Baptists is concerned. Seminary instruction follows the European pattern. For in downgrading the many Anabaptists of four and five hundred years ago, the name Baptist has likewise been devalued. The concern here is not to exalt contemporary Baptists; it is rather to instruct them regarding their namesake, their rich heritage, and their very name.

They knew him not. But Christ knew him, and approved him, and honored him by carrying on the ministry which John had started so well. The Christian faith grew robust under the preaching of Christ and His faithful apostles. It bore much fruit in its pristine first-century form.

One source of strength was the Spirit-filled tap root named John the Baptist. But when the tap root is cut off, the tree suffers; it remains a dwarf tree. How can the tap root be grafted in again, to make Christ more effective, and the entire New Testament restored to its rightful authority?