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.