Who Was John the Baptist?
Who was John the Baptist? And what was his relationship to Jesus?
His name was divinely given. It was to be “John” (Lk. 1:13), which derives from a Hebrew term signifying “Jehovah is gracious.”
He was known familiarly as “the Baptist” (bearing no relation to the modern sect), which simply means “an immerser, one who administers the rite of immersion” (see Mt. 3:1; 11:11; etc.). The Jewish historian Josephus even refers to John by this designation (Antiquities 18.5.2).
The importance of John in the divine scheme of things probably is summed up best in the testimony of Jesus himself. “Among them that are born of women there has not arisen a greater than John the Baptist” (Mt. 11:11).
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