MEANING OF THE AUSTERE APPEARANCE OF JOHN THE BAPTIST

 

John was certainly not ordinary and neither was Jesus. While it was commonly known that Jesus was royalty and known as “the son of David,” He was also known as a worker, not necessarily a carpenter but a tradesman in general. He became known as a doctor of the physique, not by learning, but by knowing. Those who were healed trusted Jesus, not because of any education, but because He fixed things, and made those broken whole again.

It is well-known that John was a Nazarite, but just what is a “Nazarite?” God identifies the activities of a Nazarite: 

And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying, “Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, “When either man or woman shall separate themselves to vow a vow of a Nazarite, to separate themselves unto the Lord,  he shall separate himself from wine and strong drink, and shall drink no vinegar of wine, or vinegar of strong drink, neither shall he drink any liquor of grapes, nor eat moist grapes, or dried.’

‘All the days of his separation shall he eat nothing that is made of the vine tree, from the kernels even to the husk.; all the days of the vow of his separation there shall no razor come upon his head: until the days be fulfilled, in the which he separates himself unto the Lord, he shall be holy, and shall let the locks of the hair of his head grow.’

‘All the days that he separates himself unto the Lord, he shall come at no dead body. He shall not make himself unclean for his father, or for his mother, for his brother, or for his sister, when they die: because the consecration of his God is upon his head.’

‘All the days of his separation he is holy unto the Lord, and if any man die very suddenly by him, and he has defiled the head of his consecration; then he shall shave his head in the day of his cleansing, on the seventh day shall he shave it.’” (Num 6:1-9) 

John would have been the epitome of austerity (very strict in all things). He would not fit in with the crowd, yet the crowd came to him for spiritual needs. God knew that a flashy salesman would not be effective, so He sent a godly man. In this age, Christians prefer pomp and flashiness. That is the nature of the “Beast, “Lucifer (Isa 14:12-14).

John lived apart from others throughout his life. That was him living the life of a Nazarite.

He knew no sin. John was believed to be an Essene — a faction of Judaism that were austere and separate from the others and who lived in the Qumran community east of Jerusalem.

God picked a clean person to perform the vow of the Nazarite onto others. Baptism is very much like becoming a Nazarite. Baptism is a vow of separation from those of the world. If John could do it, anyone could if they trusted Jesus.

John and Jesus had an affinity for each other. Science would say that they were “entangled” from birth. According to Gabriel, the angel of God, both John and Jesus shared the Holy Spirit of God even before they were born.

To avoid King Archelaus, the family of Jesus removed themselves from Judea to Galilee for a reason, “He came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, ‘He shall be called a Nazarene.’ (Mat 2:23).

Although of the same root, some deny that there is a connection between the words Nazarite and Nazarene. Whereas a Nazarite is one who is separated from the things of the world, Jesus separated Himself from His people. Jesus was a Nazarene and indeed He was separated from the world all His life. In fact, Jesus was the ultimate Nazarite for He overcame the world (John 16:33).

Some call wine “Jesus Juice.” Nowhere in the New Testament is it written that Jesus drank wine. He was accused of doing so, but accusations are mere conjecture. (On many occasions because I was seen in wrong places, people thought I was a drinker of alcoholic beverages. Like Jesus, I am not.)

Like John, Jesus lived separated from the world, both in Egypt then in Galilee, and like John who came out to baptize, Jesus came out to be baptized.

John was a proxy for Jesus until Jesus would come out. The baptism of Jesus was not to show that John and Jesus were not the same, but that John and Jesus were very different persons; so, different that John baptized with water, and Jesus, “living water.” Whereas John prepared the way for Jesus, Jesus was the Way (John 14:16).

John followed the Nazarite ordination to a tee, never even touching a dead person. Jesus, never saw anyone as “dead’ and touched them to make them alive again. John could not do that; he could bring the dead to the water, but only Jesus could make them alive again.

The strength of a Nazarite was in the hair. John was much like Samson, but he was not shorn until he died. To rob John of his almighty power, his hair would require cutting.

Whereas Delilah cut the hair of Samson, Salome cut the hair of John, so short, that his strength could not return. Salome had learned the story of Samson and Delilah quite well and would not repeat her mistake as the Bible reveals: 

Whereupon he (Herod) promised with an oath to give her (Salome) whatsoever she would ask, and she, being before instructed of her mother, said, “Give me here John Baptist's head in a charger,” and the king was sorry: nevertheless for the oath's sake, and them which sat with him at meat, he commanded it to be given her. (Mat 14:7—9) 

The leaders went one step further with Jesus, decapitation would not end the worship of Him; so, they cut His Power into, dividing the Body from the Spirit of God within Him. That is the shortest Power haircut on record. By doing so, they seemed to have cut with more precision than either Delilah or Salome. They had become the “Tektons” in place of Jesus, or so they thought.

But they did not cut the hair of Jesus! However, they did cut His Power, but like Samson, the Power of Jesus returned in His “prison” — the tomb.

In all respects, both John and Jesus were Nazarites cut from the same pattern — the “pattern” that was God; and them in the images of God. Whereas John’s power was limited to washing the outward men and women, the Power of Jesus was washing them inwardly. John’s assignment was to wash them on the outside, and Jesus on the inside. Both were clean to do that because John would have washed Himself to remain a Nazarite, and Jesus was without sin.

John was born clean and remained clean because of the vow of the Nazarite, but Jesus made Himself dirty with all the sins of mankind to deliver them to Hell so that we need not do so themselves. Jesus broke the vow of the Nazarite for us by becoming unclean along with mankind. John refused to be the “cup” (or vessel) that Jesus must be.

Matthew wrote this about John the baptizer: 

In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, and saying, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand for this is He that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, ‘The Voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare you the way of the Lord, make His paths straight.’”

And the same John had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey.

Then went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judaea, and all the region round about Jordan, and were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins. (John 3:1-6) 

Baptism was essentially sinners confessing their sins. To be clean of sin inwardly, they had to be cleansed outwardly first because of the words of Jesus: 

Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runs out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved. (Mat 9:17) 

John was the “bottle washer” and the blood of Jesus the “New Wine.” The “Wine” of Jesus indeed had spirits within but not the kind you might think, to wit: “The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam (Jesus) was made a quickening Spirit” (1 Cor 15:45). In like manner, John was a living soul with the Spirit of God breathed unto him at birth, so he was a mere man. Jesus, however, was the “Bottle” for the new Wine — the quickening Spirit. Jesus was not just a man but a vessel for God to live in.  John was not.

John did not wear a garment of camel’s hair because he was poor or even shoddy. The Bactrian camel, shown in the photograph below, was not a normal camel in Judea; the Bactrian camel was not of that area; the Dromedary was the norm in Judea.

John wore the clothing made from the Bactrian camel; and that was doubly unordinary as he was an unordinary man.

 

 

Figure 1: Bactrian Camel

Camels in theology are symbolic. The Hebrew letter “gimmel” is the footprint of the camel. Implied is that the footprint of the camel could be seen but the camel itself not seen. In other words, the footprint, as any tracker knows, is the evidence of a camel. That fits scripture as well: 

The invisible things of Him (God) from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power. (Rom 1:20) 

Like the track of a camel proves that a camel exists, clothing made from camel’s hair proves that the camel was once inside that clothing. Just as the gimmel indicates that the camel (gamel) exists, the covering of the gamel indicates that the missing gamel existed.

John was not the camel nor the Holy Ghost but represented the coming Holy Ghost. In Hebrew, the camel’s track represents the Holy Ghost following both the aleph and the bet.

The aleph, or “el” represents the Power of God. The birth of both John and Jesus reflects that. When John leaped in the womb of his mother upon seeing Mary with Jesus within her womb, that was the Power of God that made John leap. He recognized from the womb that he was entangled with Jesus by the Power of God.

Next comes the Bet. John said that Jesus preceded himself although He came after (John 1:30). That has significance because the bet comes before the gimmel in the Hebrew aleph-bet and the bet points toward the gimmel.

Jesus is the Bet — the House of God; or the vessel, cup, or clean “bottle.” He came before John in Power (the Aleph) but after John in Body (Bet).

John was the character of the gamel but was not the true gamel. He was the footprint (gimmel) of the “gamel” to come that housed the Spirit of God. He wore gamel hair to characterize his place outside the Godhead; that he was not the gamel, but just the footprint, preparing the Way for the real gamel Himself.

The gamel is a living object. So is Jesus. In his absence, the gamel is not there, but leaves a footprint (gimmel) — “I AM the Way” (John 14:16) — and although Jesus is not with us, His footprints are. The Way leads to life, and the missing gamel knows the Way to eternal life. Follow its footprints in the sand, and we too can go the Way of Christ.

Jesus is no longer with us, but His footprint remains as the Holy Ghost — characterized by the letter “gimmel.”

Among other animals, the camel represents Jesus who carries us as His load and kneels to us (to “bless” means kneeling). With the Body of God no longer with us, He is with us in Spirit. The Holy Ghost is represented by the letter gimmel indicating that the gamel itself was once here with us.

The footprints of Jesus are all over the world. It is as if Jesus is here in quickening Spirit riding on the mountain atop the back of the gamel, leaving footprints here for us to follow.

So, John was not so ordinary. He was the footprint of the coming camel — Jesus himself.

Next, we shall investigate the strange food that John ate.