And from Luke chapter 3:
(3) ―And he came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the
remission of sins;
(4) As it is written in the book of the words of Esaias the prophet, saying, The voice of one crying in the
wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.
(5) Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall
be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth;
(6) And all flesh shall see the salvation of God‖. (Luke 3:3-6)
In this segment we have the Synoptic Gospels coming together for the first time. They are called Synoptic
Gospels because they all tell basically the same story, though the wording of their story is based upon their
particular theme. The reason that they tell basically the same story is that Matthew, Mark and Luke (unlike
John) are far more interested in what Y‘shua did than what He said. John‘s Gospel does not fully parallel the
other three because he is more interested in what Y‘shua said and what the others left out. That is why in
this commentary all four Gospels are included, so the story is complete.
The sources concerning Yochanan the Immerser are the New Covenant and the writings of Josephus.
Josephus‘ interpretation of the significance of Yochanan‘s baptism is almost identical to the theology of
baptism in the Dead Sea Scrolls. It appears that there was indeed infinity between Yochanan the Immerser
and the Essenes; and scholars assume that Yochanan was once a member of the Essenes and had left for
ideological reasons.
Baptism, for both Yochanan the Immerser and for the Essenes, had the same significance as the Jewish
ritual immersion in a mikveh (a special pool of rainwater used for purification purposes). The Essenes and
also Yochanan adopted the idea that immersion purified the body. But, they believed that a person‘s body
was defiled not only through contact with objects which were ritually unclean, but also through sin. When
someone sinned, his body was defiled; and therefore, a man who had not repented before his immersion
would not become pure. While the immersion might purify the body, it would immediately become defiled
again because of the person‘s sins. Yochanan the Immerser adopted this approach. Numerous people
flocked to him, since he did not require them to abandon their usual way of life to give away their property to
a communal fund or form a separate sect. They simply hoped to redeem their souls through confession and
immersion. There were even some who mistakenly believed that immersion itself would purify them from
their sins. These people did not grasp the idea that repentance purified a man from sin, and water only
purified the body.
The Biblical concept of forgiveness presumes in its oldest strata that sin is a force adhering to the sinner; and
that forgiveness is the divine means for removing it. It is not enough to hope and pray for pardon. A man
must humble himself, acknowledge his wrong, and resolve to depart from sin. The many symptoms for
repentance testify to its primacy in the human effort to restore the desired relationship with YHWH: seek
YHWH (2 Sam 12:16; 21:1), search for Him (Amos 5:4), humble oneself before Him (Lev 26:41), to direct the
heart to Him (1 Sam. 7:3), and lay to heart (2 Kings 22:19).
At the same time, inner contrition must be followed by outward acts. Remorse must be translated into deeds.
Two substances are involved in this process. First, the negative one of ceasing to do evil, and then the
positive one of doing good. This doctrine implies that YHWH has endowed man with the power of ―turning‖.
He can turn from evil and to good, and the very act of turning will activate YHWH‘s concern and lead to
forgiveness.
Yochanan was preaching a baptism of repentance unto remission of sins. In essence, the word ―baptism‖
means ―to submerge‖ (to go under water), and it was to identify those who were baptised by Yochanan as
with the ―back to YHWH‖ movement. The baptism of Yochanan is not the same as the baptism of the
Messiah, although the mode was the same. That is why those who were baptised by Yochanan, and later
received Y‘shua as Messiah, had to be baptised all over again in Y‘shua‘s name (Acts 19:1-8).
Some were possibly familiar with the ritual immersion done by the priests in the Temple, but this was
different from Yochanan‘s teaching. What Yochanan was evidently patterning his teaching after was the
practice called ―tevilah‖. When a proselyte converted to Judaism, he was required to perform this ―tevilah‖ or
ritual immersion as part of his ―coming back to YHWH‖. It was required to be performed in a natural spring
(living water). Yochanan used the Jordan River. It was then said that the convert has experienced a ―new
birth‖.