Pharisees, and the merely material purism of the Essenes, he preached quite another
doctrine, of inward repentance and renewal of life.
2. This is insisted upon by Keim, in his beautiful sketch of the Baptist. Would that he had
known the Master in the glory of His Divinity, as he understood the Forerunner in the
beauty of his humanity! To show how the whole teaching of the Baptist was, so to speak,
saturated with Isaiah-language and thoughts, comp. not only Is. xl. 3, as the burden of his
mission, but as to his imagery (after Keim): Generation of vipers, Is. lix. 5; planting of the
Lord , Is. v. 7; trees, vi. 13; x. 15, 18, 33; xl. 24; fire, i. 31; ix. 18; x. 17; v. 24; xlvii. 14;
floor and fan, xxi. 10; xxvii. 27 &c.; xxx. 24; xl. 24; xli. 15 &c.; bread and coat to the
poor, lviii. 7; the garner, xxi. 10. Besides these, the Isaiah reference in his Baptism (Is.
lii. 15; i. 16), and that to the Lamb of God - indeed many others of a more indirect
character, will readily occur to the reader. Similarly, when our Lord would afterwards
instruct him in his hour of darkness (St. Matt. xi. 2), He points for the solution of his
doubts to the well -remembered prophecies of Isaiah (Is. xxxv. 5, 6; lxi. 1; viii. 14, 15).
One picture was most brightly reflected on those pages of Isaiah. It was that of the
Anointed, Messia h, Christ, the Representative Israelite, the Priest, King, and Prophet,3 in
Whom the institution and sacramental meaning of the Priesthood, and of Sacrifices,
found their fulfilment.4 In his announcement of the Kingdom, in his call to inward
repentance, even in his symbolic Baptism, that Great Personality always stood out before
the mind of John, as the One all-overtopping and overshadowing Figure in the
background. It was the Isaiah-picture of 'the King in His beauty,' the vision of 'the land of
far distances'5 6 - to him a reality, of which Sadducee and Essene had no conception, and
the Pharisee only the grossest misconception. This also explains how the greatest of those
born of women was also the most humble, the most retiring, and self- forgetful. In a
picture such as that which filled his whole vision, there was no room for self. By the side
of such a Figure all else appeared in its real littleness, and, indeed, seemed at best but as
shadows cast by its light. All the more would the bare suggestion on the part of the
Jerusalem deputation, that he might be the Christ, seem like a blasphemy, from which, in
utter self-abasement, he would seek shelter in the scarce-ventured claim to the meanest
office which a slave could discharge. He was not Elijah. Even the fact that Jesus
afterwards, in significant language, pointed to the possibility of his becoming such to
Israel (St. Matt. xi. 14), proves that he claimed it not;7 not 'that prophet;' not even a
prophet. He professed not visions, revelations, special messages. All else was absorbed in
the great fact: he was only the voice of one that cried, 'Prepare ye the way!' Viewed
especially in the light of those self- glorious times, this reads not like a fictitious account
of a fictitious mission; nor was such the pro fession of an impostor, an associate in a plot,
or an enthusiast. There was deep reality of all- engrossing conviction which underlay such
self-denial of mission.
3. Is. ix. 6 &c.; xi.; xlii.; lii. 13 &c. [iii.]; lxi.
4. Is. liii.
5. Is. xxxiii. 17.
6. I cannot agree with Mr. Cheyne (Prophecies of Is. vol. i. p. 183), that there is no
Messianic reference here. It may not be in the most literal sense 'personally Messianic;'
but surely this ideal presentation of Israel in the perfectness of its k ingdom, and the glory
of its happiness, is one of the fullest Messianic picture (comp. vv. 17 to end).
7. This is well pointed out by Keim.