9. Who were first convinced that Jesus was the Messiah, and how was this shown?

⁹ The disciples of John the Baptist, on being introduced to Jesus, quickly recognized him as the Messiah.

It showed itself from the commencement of John the Baptist’s ministry.

In advance of him, his forerunner John the Baptist had got “ready for Jehovah a prepared people.” (Luke 1:17)

John the Baptist baptized by immersion in the Jordan and Jesus’ disciples did the same.

He left his carpenter shop at Nazareth and went to see his forerunner John the Baptist.

² This commonly known fact was used by John the Baptist as an illustration.

In some respects he might be likened to King Ahab, and his wife certainly was another Jezebel, for she hated John the Baptist every bit as much as Jezebel hated John’s prototype, Elijah.—Matt. 17:10-13.

 6. Describe the line of the prophets

⁶ The second order, the line of the prophets, begins with Samuel and runs all the way down to John the Baptist. (1 Sam. 3:20; Luke 1:76; Acts 3:24)

Another point of interest in John’s Gospel and which throws light on his personality is the fact that he never refers to himself by the name “John”.

 2. (a) Who is Jehovah’s greatest Witness? (b) Who replaced the nation of Israel as Jehovah’s witness? How do we know?

² The last and greatest pre-Christian witness was John the Baptist. (Matthew 11:11)

John the Baptist gives his testimony and then a voice from heaven acknowledges Jesus as God’s Son.

In the first century the call went out by John the Baptist and then by Jesus Christ and by his apostles: “Repent, for the kingdom of the heavens has drawn near.”

These include Esau and Jacob, the Pharaoh of the Exodus, Samson, Solomon, Jeremiah, John the Baptist, Judas Iscariot, and God’s own Son, Jesus.

As proof he stated that in one place the Bible shows that Jesus and John the Baptist are two distinct persons, but in another place it tells that Jesus was John the Baptist raised from the dead.

John the Baptist, who baptized Jesus in water, bore witness to this fact.

I remember on one occasion I went up to my Baptist Sunday-school teacher and asked him to explain Matthew 11:11: “Truly I say to you people, Among those born of women there has not been raised up a greater than John the Baptist; but a person that is a lesser one in the kingdom of the heavens is greater than he is.”

13. Did John the Baptist’s diet indicate any fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy, but what happened after that event on the day of Pentecost?

¹³ During the four years that John the Baptist and Jesus Christ preached, no literal locust plague had laid the land barren like a wilderness.

John the Baptist was the last of this line of faithful men, and Jesus explicitly said he would not be in heaven and that from his time only was the heavenly way opened up: “Among those born of women there has not been raised up a greater than John the Baptist; but a person that is a lesser one in the kingdom of the heavens is greater than he is.

True, John the Baptist baptized Jesus, but that does not mean that John ordained Jesus.

When John, the son of priest Zechariah, baptized Jesus in the Jordan River, he did not ordain Jesus to be either priest or king.

John did not know why he was baptizing Jesus.