But as the people were in expectation, and all were reasoning in their hearts concerning John whether *he* might be the Christ,
Crowds came out to the Jordan to hear John preach. Then they began to ask whether John himself was the Christ, the promised Messiah. Their question shows how alive their hope was, and how little they understood it.
The mood at the Jordan did not rise from the crowd's own enthusiasm. One writer traces it back to God, and notes at the same time how much the people had already let slip from memory.
God Himself had awakened this mood of expectancy among the people. Yet they had clearly forgotten the birth of the Lord Jesus, which the shepherds had announced and the wise men from the east had confirmed. So they reasoned about whether John was the Messiah. John denied it without hesitation. He had already said that God had only sent him to prepare the way for the Lord.
Two things met at that moment. The Jews were counting a timetable given in Scripture. And here stood a man known for his righteousness.
John the Baptist's appearance in Israel struck them all the more, because they were waiting for the Messiah at that very time. Daniel's famous prophecy of the seventy weeks had told them so, and perhaps other Scriptures too. The whole East shared this expectation, no doubt through the Jews living scattered across it. So a man as marked out for righteousness as John raised the question: was he the Christ, or not?
Luke's word for what went on in their hearts turns up in other scenes too. Those scenes show what sort of activity it is. (The wording below follows an older English translation.)
These passages show how the word "thoughts" (dialogismoi) stands for inward thinking… The people "mused" in their hearts about whether John the Baptist was the Messiah or not (Luke 3:15). Jesus said to the disciples when He appeared among them, Why do thoughts arise in your hearts? (Luke 24:38)… The rich man whose crops were plentiful worked out his plans for future ease after he had "thought within himself" (Luke 12:17).
Nobody needed to guess. John belonged to a priestly family, and Scripture had already ruled such a man out. Thirty years had emptied his birth from public memory.
Ordinary people were wondering whether he was the Christ (Luke 3:15). But well-taught Jews, such as the priests and Levites, knew that the Christ would come from David's line and from the town of Bethlehem. So when they asked John whether he was the Christ… they showed plainly that his own tribe, and even his fellow priests of the house of Aaron, had forgotten the story of his birth thirty years before. No Levite, no priest of Aaron's line, could be the Messiah.
John did no miracle. Yet his preaching pulled so hard that people were ready to give him Israel's highest title. He refused it.
His work and witness came with no miraculous sign. Even so, they worked so strongly in people's hearts that many seemed ready to accept John himself as the Messiah (Luke 3:15). This was despite his flat refusal of any such claim, and his clear witness to Jesus: "He must increase, but I must decrease."
This danger meets anyone God uses. Attention drifts from the message to the messenger. The verse catches the moment that drift starts.
Even when a preacher preaches the truth of God… there is always a danger. The people can become more taken up with the man than with his message, and fix their attention on the servant instead of his Master. Every true servant of God will work and pray against that outcome… John the Baptist stands out here as a great example. He saw the crowd leaving him and going after the One he had testified to on the banks of the Jordan. His glad comment was, "This joy of mine is now complete. He must increase, but I must decrease."
- Awakened. John did not create the crowd's expectancy. God stirred it, using Daniel's prophecy of the seventy weeks and the Jews scattered across the East.
- Reasoning. Luke's word for what they did is the word for turning things over inside — the same activity as the rich man planning his barns. They had expectation, but not faith.
- Forgetting. Scripture had the answer already. The Messiah comes from David's line and from Bethlehem, so no priest of Aaron's family could be Him. They had forgotten the shepherds, the wise men, and John's own birth.
- Refusing. John's preaching moved people without a single miracle. When it made them ready to crown him, he refused: he must decrease.
- Transferring. Every servant faces the same danger: a crowd more taken with the man than the message. John shows the cure. He passed the attention on to Christ, and called that his joy.
John answered all, saying, *I* indeed baptise you with water, but the mightier than I is coming, the thong of whose sandals I am not fit to unloose; *he* shall baptise you with [the] Holy Spirit and fire;
The crowds at the Jordan had begun to wonder whether John himself was the promised Messiah. His answer turns every eye off himself and onto the One coming after him, and sets two baptisms side by side: his own with water, and Another's with the Holy Spirit and with fire.
The people were not guessing. Prophecy had set them watching, and John's reputation made him the obvious candidate.
John the Baptist's appearance in Israel at that moment struck the people all the more, because Daniel's famous prophecy of the seventy weeks, and perhaps other scriptures too, had them waiting for the Messiah at that very time… So a man as marked out for righteousness as John the Baptist raised the question whether he was the Christ or not. But his answer was always clear. He pointed to the fact that he himself baptized with water.
Untying a sandal was a real household task, and John names whose task it was.
He was the Forerunner of the Messiah, His Messenger, as Malachi calls him. He appeared in Judaea to announce the One all the prophets had spoken of. John says he was not worthy to stoop down and untie the strap of His sandal. This, we know, was the work of the lowest slave. Such was the reverence the Baptist paid to the Lord Jesus. Whatever grace is shown to us, we can never be too reverent.
John measures that greatness by what the Coming One would do, and by who He must be to do it.
Only a divine Person could baptize with the Holy Spirit. So John spoke not only of the might of Jesus, but of His deity. As he gave this bright testimony, the Baptist could not know all that lay ahead of Jesus before He would baptize men with His Spirit. The Lord would not do this on earth. He would do it from His place of exaltation at the Father's right hand, after He had finished the great work of redemption on the cross.
John speaks of the Messiah's work as a single whole. Later events pulled the two halves apart in time.
John the Baptist presented the work of Messiah as a whole. The cross split the two baptisms apart. One followed His first coming, when He went up on high and baptized in the power of the Spirit. The other waits for His second coming, and the next verse in both Gospels describes it… So in Acts we hear nothing of baptism in fire. That is to be when the Lord comes.
The other Gospel accounts confirm the split by what they leave out.
The Coming One was so great that He would baptize men with the Holy Spirit and with fire: the former for blessing, and the latter for judgment, as the next verse makes abundantly plain. Here again we may notice that the two Advents are not as yet quite plainly distinguished. There was a baptism of the Spirit, recorded in Acts 2, as the result of the First Advent, but the baptism with fire, according to verse 17, awaits the Second Advent.
John was preaching to a mixed crowd, and his sentence covers both kinds of hearer.
He baptized with water, but the Christ would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. That is, He would give the fullest blessing, and carry out judgment as well — for fire here stands for judgment… John was speaking to a mixed crowd, so he told them of both, though God's saints share only in the one, and those who will not repent only in the other. To baptize with the Holy Spirit is to give the fullest blessing that saints can enter into on earth. There is nothing beyond the gift of the Holy Spirit, and becoming members of the Body of Christ by the baptism of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:13).
The fire belongs to a day that has not yet come.
Mark 1:8 and John 1:33, in their record of this prophecy, leave out the words "and with fire." Those words look forward to the day of the Lord's judgment, when He will come to clear His threshing floor and burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.
- Water — John's own baptism went only so far. He pointed past it to One whose sandal he was not fit to untie — the work of the lowest slave.
- Mightier — only a divine Person could baptize with the Holy Spirit. Jesus would do it from His place of honour at the Father's right hand, after the cross.
- Spirit — that half of the promise has come. It followed His first coming, after He went up on high, and gives believers the fullest blessing on earth.
- Fire — the other half waits. Mark and John leave the words out, and Acts never mentions fire. It belongs to the Lord's return, when He burns the chaff.
- Two roads — John said both to one mixed crowd. The blessing is for those who repent; the judgment is for those who will not.
whose winnowing-fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his threshing-floor, and will gather the wheat into his garner, but the chaff he will burn with fire unquenchable.
John ends his preaching about the Coming One with a picture from the harvest field. A man stands on his threshing floor, tool in hand, ready to divide what he keeps from what he burns — which leaves two questions: whose floor is this, and which pile am I in?
(The ESV says "winnowing fork" and "barn." Older translations say "fan" and "garner." Some writers below use those older words.)
The image comes from ordinary farm work. It turns on wind and weight.
This was done in the open air, by throwing up the grain with a shovel or a fan (really a shallow basket). The wind carried away the chaff. Boaz winnowed his barley in the evening, when there would be more wind. It is now a day of grace, a sowing time, but the harvest will come, and the winnowing will surely follow.
The floor in the picture belongs to someone, and it has a history.
He proclaims One who was coming after him, not a present salvation. Whatever would not stand the fire was to be burnt up. God's floor was Israel; there He was getting His wheat, if any were to be found. But His fan is in His hand; He is going to make short work.
Earlier John spoke of an axe at the root of the trees. The fan is a different tool, and it does a different work.
There is a difference between the axe and the fan. "Already" the axe was at the root of the useless trees, but you might expect the good ones to be left standing. But when the Lord came, He would thoroughly clean His floor. He dealt with the floor, so to speak: the wheat gathered into a barn of His own, and the chaff burned with unquenchable fire. It cleared the floor, and disposed otherwise of its contents.
Verse 16 speaks of a baptism with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Verse 17 tells us which half of that promise is still future.
Of the baptism with fire, you will notice, the Lord does not speak one word. The reason is that it was not to happen then. When John looks ahead, he sees both. But after Christ suffered on the cross, He announces the one and not the other. Baptism with fire will take place when the Lord is revealed from heaven, "in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus."
The same hand that gathers also burns. John sets the two outcomes side by side.
John uses the symbol of the threshing floor. There the wheat (believers) is separated from the chaff (unbelievers). The wheat is gathered into the granary. The chaff is burned with fire that cannot be put out — an eternal, lasting judgment. How awesome a contrast to the greatness of blessing of those redeemed by the blood of Christ!
Nothing valuable is lost in the process. Commenting on the same words in Matthew, the same writer notes that the Lord's authority covers both sides of the harvest:
The figure of the threshing floor is used here to illustrate the sovereign work of the Lord Jesus in grace and in judgment. For not a grain of wheat will be lost, but gathered into His granary.
Chaff burns away to nothing. Some argue that the picture therefore teaches that the lost cease to exist. Darby weighs that idea against other passages.
Whether this figure means ceasing to exist is to be judged from other passages. Now we have seen that the Lord speaks of lasting torment in the lake of fire. And in Matthew 13 He speaks of the weeds being burned. He says the wicked will be thrown into a furnace of fire: "In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." They were not extinct then. They had not ceased to exist. So the word of God declares that it does not mean extinction.
Writers also see this separating at work now, in the lives of believers.
Many know the Lord in their own experience. They know Him not only as holding the fan in His hand, but as having used it in their case. It has cut them off from long-cherished feelings and from inherited and traditional ways. These have been blown away like chaff before the wind, while Christ Himself has been made clear to the soul as a solid reality. Old habits and prejudices have dropped off one by one before the power of truth.
- His floor. The floor, the wheat and the barn all belong to the Coming One. Israel was the ground God was clearing to find His grain.
- His fan. Winnowing threw the grain into the wind. The chaff was light, so it blew away, and only the solid grain stayed on the floor.
- His timing. The baptism with the Spirit came at Pentecost; the baptism with fire waits for the Lord's revelation from heaven. Today is still sowing time.
- His two piles. The wheat goes into His barn. The chaff burns with a fire no one puts out — and writers read that as lasting judgment, not the end of existence, testing the figure by Matthew 13.
- His work in you. The same hand that will clear the floor already uses the fan on His own. Old habits and prejudices drop away as Christ becomes real to the soul.
Exhorting then many other things also he announced [his] glad tidings to the people.
John's preaching by the Jordan sounded like anything but comfort: a brood of vipers, an axe at the tree roots, chaff burned with fire. Yet Luke calls it good news for the people — so how can a warning be good news, and why does Luke close John's story here?
Even the sternest call to repentance carried an offer inside it: forgiveness for anyone willing to admit they needed it.
How earnest, how personal, how solemn his preaching was. Yet there was good news connected with it (3:18), for he preached the baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Crowds flocked to him for baptism. That was a confession — outwardly at least — that each one had utterly failed under the law. Why come to a baptism for the forgiveness of sins, if they did not need that favour?
The word "exhortations" points back to the practical answers John gave the crowds, the tax collectors and the soldiers when they asked what to do. He aimed each answer at the person in front of him.
Only Luke records the specific tests John applied to the different groups who came before him. Everything in this Gospel speaks of its great moral purpose. Those tests are in principle just as solemn for us all. The question "What shall we do then?" is common and easy enough. John's reply proves how sincere it is. It strikes at the habitual self-indulgence of the crowds, the tax collectors and the soldiers — the particular form in which the will of the flesh works in each.
The good news was not about John himself. It was about the One coming after him.
It was a Person infinitely greater than himself. His dignity was such that John was not worthy to untie the strap of His sandal. He was not only mightier and more dignified. He would also be marked out by baptizing with the Holy Spirit and with fire. He would baptize with the Holy Spirit as the fruit of His first coming, and with fire as what goes with the second.
John's message stood between two eras. It refused every hope that people could put themselves right. Yet it did not reach the height of the ministry that came after the resurrection.
There was a mingling of grace and righteousness in his ministry. He came "in the way of righteousness." He stood apart from the world and refused contact with it, and so his light rebuked the darkness... But he came in the way of grace also. He was the forerunner of Jesus, and went before the face of the Lord to prepare the way of salvation and the kingdom... John's ministry assumed that every hope of man restoring himself was empty, and took man up as a convicted sinner. But in God's wise and holy order it was not as high a ministry as the one now brought in. The apostles, after the resurrection, called on man to take by faith the place of a pardoned sinner.
"Many other" points to much that Luke left out. He gives enough of John's preaching to show its character, then moves him off the page. The imprisonment recorded in the next verses did not happen then.
He shows that John had preached and exhorted moral truth, and then disposes of him, putting him, as it were, out of the scene, in order to bring Christ in. It was not that John was historically imprisoned at that point by Herod the tetrarch; it took place long after. But it is a sample of Luke's manner, who returns to the Lord's taking His place among the remnant of Israel.
Luke also signals that the record is deliberately partial — the writer of this Gospel
has indicated also that more might have been recorded of John's preaching had it been necessary (18).
- Warning — the axe, the fire and the vipers belong to the message Luke calls good news. Severity and gladness were one ministry, not two.
- Offer — the good news was forgiveness through a baptism of repentance. Only people who admit failure want it.
- Personal — John struck at the pet self-indulgence of each group. His answer tested whether the asker meant the question.
- Forward — his best news was about Another. He was not worthy to untie that One's sandal strap, and that One would baptize with the Holy Spirit.
- Closure — Luke records enough of John, then moves him aside so Christ can come in. More could have been told.