John 1:24-28 ESV
(Now they had been sent from the Pharisees.)
They asked him, “Then why are you baptizing, if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”
John answered them, “I baptize with water, but among you stands one you do not know,
even he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.”
These things took place in Bethany across the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
John baptized with water. Why? John represents the old covenant, the last and greatest prophet who would prepare the way for Jesus. That covenant was to reveal sin and the need for repentance. Baptism would signify that repentance, or a turning to God.
That was exactly John's mission, to prepare the way for Christ, to get a people ready and announce His arrival. Baptizing the people with the water of repentance would make them ready for the baptism of fire which would come with the giving of the Holy Spirit. God is referred to as an all consuming fire. He is the divine presence in our lives who refines us in the furnace of life into the image of God.
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