A Voice, Not the Word Text: John 1:19-28
Introduction: The Interrogation of a Signpost
We live in an age obsessed with identity. The great question of our time, the question that fuels our politics, our art, and our anxieties, is "Who are you?" The modern answer is always found by looking inward. You are your desires, your feelings, your personal brand, your curated self. You are the hero of your own story. But the Christian faith begins with a radical reorientation. It teaches that true identity is not found by looking inward, but by looking upward, and then outward. Your identity is not who you are, but rather whose you are, and to whom you point.
In our text today, we encounter the first great witness of the New Testament, John the Baptist. And he is immediately confronted with this very question: "Who are you?" A high-powered delegation of religious experts has been dispatched from Jerusalem to the wilderness. They are not coming for a friendly chat. They are coming to investigate, to categorize, to demand credentials. A strange and powerful movement is stirring on the banks of the Jordan, and the establishment needs to get it under control. They need to put John in a box, label him, and file a report.
What follows is a master class in the grammar of witness. John's testimony is, in the first instance, a series of glorious negations. He understands something that our self-promoting generation has utterly forgotten: the first duty of a signpost is to not be the destination. The first duty of a voice is to not be the Word. John's entire ministry is an exercise in self-effacement for the sake of Christ-exaltation. He shows us that the foundation of all true ministry, and indeed all true Christian living, is to know, with granite certainty, who you are not.
The Text
And this is the witness of John, when the Jews sent to him priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” And he confessed and did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Christ.” And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” And he said, “I am not.” “Are you the Prophet?” And he answered, “No.” Therefore, they said to him, “Who are you, so that we may give an answer to those who sent us? What do you say about yourself?” He said, “I am A VOICE OF ONE CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS, ‘MAKE STRAIGHT THE WAY OF THE LORD,’ as Isaiah the prophet said.” Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. And they asked him, and said to him, “Why then are you baptizing, if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?” John answered them, saying, “I baptize with water, but among you stands One whom you do not know. This One is He who comes after me, of whom I am not worthy to untie the strap of His sandal.” These things took place in Bethany beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
(John 1:19-28 LSB)
The Great Negation (vv. 19-21)
The interrogation begins with the central question of identity.
"And this is the witness of John, when the Jews sent to him priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, 'Who are you?' And he confessed and did not deny, but confessed, 'I am not the Christ.'" (John 1:19-20)
Notice who is asking. This is an official delegation from the Sanhedrin, the religious ruling council in Jerusalem. These are the professionals, the gatekeepers of orthodoxy. They represent the established, institutionalized, and frankly, ossified religion of the day. And they are deeply troubled by this wild man in the desert who is drawing massive crowds and operating entirely outside their approved channels of authority.
Their question is direct: "Who are you?" And John's answer is a masterstroke of humility. The text emphasizes it with a threefold declaration: "he confessed and did not deny, but confessed." This is a solemn, formal testimony. And what is this great confession? It is a denial. "I am not the Christ." Before he says anything about who he is, he makes it absolutely clear who he is not. He is not the main character. He is not the Messiah. He is not the one everyone has been waiting for. This is the bedrock of all faithful witness. If you get this wrong, everything else you say will be warped. The temptation for any successful minister or movement is to begin to believe your own press, to start inhaling your own exhaust. John slams the door on that temptation from the very beginning.
The committee is not satisfied, so they offer him other options from their prophetic checklist.
"And they asked him, 'What then? Are you Elijah?' And he said, 'I am not.' 'Are you the Prophet?' And he answered, 'No.'" (John 1:21)
These were not random guesses. The prophet Malachi had promised that God would send Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord (Mal. 4:5). And Moses had promised a great Prophet who would come after him (Deut. 18:15). These were legitimate messianic expectations. And in a sense, John was fulfilling the role of Elijah. Jesus Himself later says that John came in the "spirit and power of Elijah" (Luke 1:17). But John refuses the title. Why? Because the title would draw attention to himself. He is not a reincarnation of Elijah. He is simply a man with a job to do. He refuses every label they try to pin on him because his identity is not located in a title, but in a task. He is not the celebrity; he is the stagehand.
The Functional Identity (vv. 22-23)
The delegation is getting exasperated. They are bureaucrats, and they need a form filled out.
"Therefore, they said to him, 'Who are you, so that we may give an answer to those who sent us? What do you say about yourself?' He said, 'I am A VOICE OF ONE CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS, 'MAKE STRAIGHT THE WAY OF THE LORD,' as Isaiah the prophet said.'" (John 1:22-23)
Their frustration is palpable. "Just give us something we can write down in our report!" And now, having cleared the ground with his denials, John gives his positive identity. And it is a marvel. "I am a voice." Not the Word, but a voice. Not the message, but the medium. His entire being is defined by its function, and that function is to carry the speech of another. His identity is entirely referential. It points away from himself.
And where is this voice? "In the wilderness." This is not just a geographical note. The wilderness in Scripture is a place of testing, of judgment, and of new beginnings. Israel, in its spiritual apostasy, had become a barren wilderness. The religious life in Jerusalem was a desert of dead ritual. John is crying out in that spiritual desolation, announcing that God is about to do something new. He is about to make a way in the wilderness.
His message, quoted from Isaiah 40, is a command: "Make straight the way of the Lord." This is the work of a herald preparing for the arrival of a great king. Roads had to be built. Mountains of pride had to be leveled. Valleys of despair and sin had to be filled in. Crooked paths of deceit had to be made straight. John's ministry, his baptism of repentance, was a spiritual construction project. It was a call for Israel to prepare itself for the coming of their King. Repentance is not just feeling sorry for your sins; it is the hard work of clearing the road so the King can have access to your heart, your home, and your nation.
The Question of Authority (vv. 24-27)
The interrogation now shifts from identity to authority. The Pharisees, the most meticulous and self-righteous of the Jewish sects, want to know where he gets his nerve.
"And they asked him, and said to him, 'Why then are you baptizing, if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?'" (John 1:25)
This is a sharp question. In their minds, baptism was for Gentiles who were converting to Judaism. It was a ritual for unclean outsiders to become clean insiders. For John to be baptizing Jews was a profound insult. It implied that they, the children of Abraham, the people of the covenant, were on the outside. It implied that their racial and religious pedigree was not enough. It was a declaration that the entire nation needed to be washed. So, if you are not one of the prophesied figures with the authority to do such a thing, who gave you permission?
John's answer is brilliant. He doesn't defend his own authority. He points to the authority of the one he serves.
"John answered them, saying, 'I baptize with water, but among you stands One whom you do not know. This One is He who comes after me, of whom I am not worthy to untie the strap of His sandal.'" (John 1:26-27)
First, he minimizes his own work: "I baptize with water." This is an external sign, a symbol. It is preparatory. It is not the main event. But then comes the thunderclap: "among you stands One whom you do not know." The very one they are looking for, the source of all authority, is right there in their midst, and they are completely blind to Him. Their obsession with credentials, with titles, with who's who in the zoo, has made them miss the King standing in the crowd. Their religious expertise has become a form of spiritual blindness.
And then John drives home the infinite distance between himself and this King. To untie the strap of a sandal was the task of the lowest household slave. John says he is not even worthy of that. This is not false modesty. This is a man who has accurately measured the distance between the creature and the Creator, between the sinner and the Savior. He understands his place, and his place is in the dust before the feet of Jesus Christ.
Conclusion: The Witness in the Wilderness
The Apostle John, a master storyteller, grounds this entire scene in a specific time and place: "These things took place in Bethany beyond the Jordan." This is not a fable. This is history. This is how God broke into the world.
And the pattern established by John the Baptist is the pattern for all Christians in all ages. We are voices, not the Word. We live in a spiritual wilderness, a culture that is barren and thirsty for the truth, even as it denies it. Our task is to cry out, to prepare the way of the Lord.
This means, first, that we must embrace the great negation. We are not the Christ. Our church is not the Christ. Our political party is not the Christ. Our wisdom is not the Christ. We are not the saviors of our culture. We are simply signposts, and a signpost that calls attention to itself is a worthless signpost. Our job is to decrease, so that He might increase.
Second, our message must be one of repentance. "Make straight the way." We must call our generation to level the mountains of its intellectual pride, to fill in the valleys of its moral despair, and to straighten the crooked paths of its sexual and ethical confusion. This is not a popular message, but it is the only message that prepares the way for the King.
And finally, we must point relentlessly to the Christ who is already among us. He is not a distant historical figure. He is the risen King who stands in our midst, often unrecognized. He is the one whose sandals we are not worthy to touch, and yet He is the one who stooped to wash our feet. Our job is to open the blind eyes of our neighbors, to say to them, "Look! There He is! The Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world." Let us be faithful voices, so that many in our wilderness might hear the Word and live.