How was John’s life from start to finish a broad view of the Church of the New Covenant? If you can and will recognize the part that you are to play (yes, you!), you will be excited to participate in carrying out your mission as part of the chosen, royal, peculiar, praise-offering, and holy end-of-days “team” that God has included you in for His end of the age work. Consider these things about John as establishing him and his mission as a “type” of the Church:

Consider these things about John     As establishing him and his mission as a “type” of the Church   1. He was conceived and born to a barren woman of some age († Lk 1:7)—the woman Elizabeth a type of barren Israel. Her name is from Hebrew origin Elisheba (el + shebal), the wife of Aaron the High Priest, which name means “God of the Oath”; (Gr. Elisabet); “God keeps His word.” Your life and mine were born out from a barren and useless worldly life. We are the evidence that indeed, “God keeps His Word” and sent a Savior. 2. John was filled with the Holy Ghost from the beginning of his life († Lk 1:15) just as the infant NT Church was filled at † Acts 2. As a person, John came before Jesus having been born about 6 months ahead of the Son of God. When we are born into God’s family, we are immediately indwelled by the living Spirit of God and then with a subsequent baptism in the Holy Spirit, when we seek it from the Lord. 3. John went into obscurity during his formative years until his showing to Israel at around age 30. Some believe that John spent many of his years with the Essenes who “separated” themselves from sinful Israel and to whom the Qumran Dead Sea scrolls were believed to have been studied and preserved by. John needed to be prepared, Jesus spent 30 years being readied, and all Christians need time to be trained in the Word and the ways of God. 4. Later John began declaring his pre-ordained message ahead of Jesus presenting Himself to be baptized and to then begin His ministry. John’s mission was to preach repentance, declare that the Messiah was soon to come, and to baptize those that would believe his message in preparation for the soon arrival of the Anointed One. In this end of the age we are the ones with the ministry and the message that Jesus is the way, truth, and life and that He is returning very soon. 5. John’s lifestyle was very basic as reflected by what he wore and what we ate. He boldly stood for the righteous and moral ways of God even to the degree that he condemned Herod’s marriage to his brother’s wife. John made himself separate from the ways of sinful Israel and we are to also from the sinful culture we live in. He wore camel’s hair and ate locusts and wild honey, we should do our best to live in humility by resisting luxuries, needless spending, and by rubbing elbows with no one else but those of the Christian community, except for the public witness about Jesus Christ. 6. For his stand, John was eventually arrested and imprisoned; while in bonds his humanity was revealed by the sending disciples to ask Jesus if He was the true One to come († Matt 11). All through history believers have been persecuted and many arrested and even executed. In those most extreme circumstances we are to maintain our testimony and resolutely stand on the Word of God and faith in Him no matter the threats. Will questions come or even a crisis of faith? Perhaps, but by reminding ourselves what the Bible says, what Jesus has already done for you and me, what others say to bolster our trust and peace, we can maintain our most certain walk with God no matter how it turns out. 7. Jesus said of John that he came in the spirit of Elijah—that prophet that would literally come at the end of the age with the same mission. The Bible says that Elijah will return with another witness when the antichrist rises, and he will. He will return in more power than he had while he walked the earth before and his message will be the same as ours should already be: “Jesus Christ is the very Son of Almighty God. Nothing you can do or do to me will stop Him from coming, and those that are not His own by repentance and the new birth will by death end up in Hell at their death and the eternal Lake of Fire 1,000 years later. Repent and believe the Gospel!” 8. John was beheaded by the command of the king († Matt. 14) just like Scriptures tells us in these last days will happen to many Christians. The Bible reveals that believers will die by beheading and in other ways during the Great Tribulation.

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† Revelation 6:9 And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: 10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? 11 And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.

† Revelation 20: [After Jesus returns to the earth for 1,000 years:] 4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. 5 But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. 6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.

† Hebrews 11:32 And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gedeon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae; oof David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets: 33 Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 34 Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. 35 Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection: 36 And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: 37 They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; 38 (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. 39 And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: 40 God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.