There was a third arrow in their quiver, since the other two had missed the mark: and amid the deepening attention of the listening multitudes, and in allusion to Moses' prediction that God would raise up a Prophet like to himself (Deut. xviii. 15; Acts iii. 22; vii. 37), they said, "Art thou the Prophet?" and he answered, "No."
The deputation was nonplussed. They had exhausted their repertory of questions. Their mission threatened to become abortive, unless they could extract some positive admission. They must put a leading question; and their spokesman, for the fourth time, challenged the strange being, whom they found it so hard to label and place on any shelf of their ecclesiastical museum. "They said therefore unto him, 'Who art thou?--that we may give an answer to them that sent us.' What sayest thou of thyself?" "He said, 'I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said Isaiah the prophet.'"
How infinitely noble! How characteristic of strength! A weak man would have launched himself on the flowing tide of enthusiasm, and allowed himself to be swept away by its impetuous rush. What a mingling of strength and humility! When men suggested that he was the Christ, he insisted that he was only a voice--the voice of the herald, whom men hardly notice, because they strain their eyes in the direction from which he has come, to behold the King Himself. When they complimented him on his teaching, he told them that He who would winnow the wheat from the chaff was yet to appear. And when they crowded to his baptism, he reiterated that it was only the baptism of negation, _of water_, but the Christ would baptize with the Holy Ghost and with fire.
Why was this? Ah, he knew his limitations! He was the greatest-born of woman, yet he knew that his bosom was not broad enough, nor his heart tender enough, to justify him in bidding all weary and heavy-laden ones to come to him for rest; he could not say that he and God were one, and include himself with the Deity, in the majestic pronoun, we; he never dared to ask men to believe in himself as they believed in the Father: but there came after him One who dared to say all these things; and this is the inevitable conclusion, that either Jesus was inferior to John in all that goes to make a strong and noble character, or that Jesus was all that John said He was, "The Son of God, and King of Israel." There is no third suggestion possible. We must either estimate Jesus as immeasurably inferior, or incomparably superior, to the strong, sane, Spirit-filled prophet, who never wearied in declaring the impassable chasm that yawned between them.
Such humility always accompanies a true vision of Christ. If we view it from the low ground, the mountain may appear to reach into the sky; but when we reach the mountain-top, we are immediately aware of the infinite distance between the highest snow-peak and the nearest star. To the crowds John may have seemed to fulfil all the essential conditions of the prophetic portraiture of the Messiah; but _he_ stood on the mountain, and knew how infinitely the Christ stood above him. This is apparent in his reply to the final inquiry of the Sanhedrim, "And they asked him, and said unto him, 'Why, then, baptizest thou, if thou art not the Christ, neither Elijah, neither the Prophet?'" And John said in effect, "I baptize because I was sent to baptize, and I know very well that my work in this respect is temporary and transient; but what matters that? In the midst of you standeth One whom ye know not, even He that cometh after me, the latchet of whose shoe I am not worthy to unloose. The Christ is come. Have not I seen Him, standing amid your crowds, yea, descending these very banks?"