Now in those days comes John the baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea,
Matthew's account jumps from a child in Nazareth to a grown man crying out in a desert, with nothing in between. The chapter raises two questions at once. How much time has passed? And why does God's messenger appear in a desert instead of Jerusalem?
"In those days" is a loose phrase. It does not tie John's appearing to Archelaus, the ruler named at the end of chapter 2. Forcing it to do so creates a false clash with Luke's dating.
This supposed contradiction comes from twisting Matthew 3:1 so that it clashes with Luke 3:2-3. The plain answer is that Matthew does not place the baptism of Jesus under Archelaus... "In those days" does not mean the days of Archelaus. It means the years while the family was living in Nazareth. Luke gives the exact date of our Lord's baptism. Matthew never claims to do so.
The silence covers more than family history. Matthew tells us nothing of John's birth, and nothing of Jesus' boyhood. This Gospel follows official position, not private life.
The Gospel says nothing about the birth or youth of John the Baptist either, though Luke's Gospel makes much of it in chapter 1. So about 28 years pass before we meet John preaching in the wilderness of Judea.
Behind the personal gap lies a national one. Israel had lived for centuries with no prophet at all, and one brief national revival had not stopped its decay.
As everyone knows, the New Testament was not given as a quiet continuation of the Old. Inspiration had long since stopped. After Malachi no prophet had risen in Israel for over 400 years. Then the "Messenger" who goes before Jehovah, the one Malachi had spoken of, suddenly broke the long silence, preaching in the wilderness of Judea. Much stirring history had happened in that time. Israel herself seemed for a while to come back to life in the kingdom of the Maccabees. But for the nation this was only like passing a current through a corpse. It does not keep the body from rotting further.
John is not the story. He came to make room for Someone else. And by sending a herald, God left no excuse for those who refused the One he announced.
The coming of the Messiah was deeply important, and huge issues depended on it. So God in His great mercy appointed a forerunner to prepare the way for His welcome. This gracious arrangement left those who refused Him without any excuse... It is true that he attracted much attention himself, and the whole country was full of talk about him. But with everyone who asked, he sought to turn attention away from himself and on to his greater Master and Lord. "I am not the Christ." "Behold, the Lamb of God." This is, after all, the proper work of every true servant of God in every age.
The place itself is a verdict. John came from a priestly family, yet God did not station him at the temple. He sent him out to empty country.
For a priest to preach in the wilderness is completely out of character. Nothing but the sovereign power of the Spirit of God can explain his large audience. They came from Jerusalem and all Judea, out into the wilderness, to hear this unusual messenger of God. The formal religion of the Jews had been set up by God, but it had decayed so far that God's testimony now had to stand completely apart from it. It had to bear solemn witness against the sin of elders, priests, scribes and people, for their state was as desolate as the wilderness.
The desert also shaped the repentance John asked for. Earlier prophets could still call the nation back to God. John's call rests on a ruin with no remedy.
This is why John the Baptist does not appeal to the whole nation, as the prophets before him did. He says, "The voice of one crying in the wilderness." Israel was a wilderness to God. From now on the prophet's appeal rests on a ruin that cannot be undone, while the appeal of the older prophets always assumed the nation could still return to Jehovah... The sinner did not stop at confessing his sins. He admitted that from now on the only answer to his state was death, and that there was no remedy.
The man matched the message. His clothing, food and distance from public life were all part of the preaching.
He had come as a man separating himself from all alike, and altogether. Preaching in the wilderness of Judea, never seen in their cities, never taking part in their religious ceremonies, although of a priestly family, with his strange unfashionable garment of camel's hair, and his food of locusts and wild honey, he stood off from men, calling a whole nation to repentance and to flee from coming wrath.
- Silence. Four hundred years without a prophet stand behind the vague words "in those days." Matthew gives no date. Luke is the one who does that.
- Voice. God breaks that silence with one man who calls himself only a voice. His whole business is to point away from himself and on to Christ.
- Wilderness. A priest preaching in a desert is a public verdict. Israel's religion had decayed so far that God's testimony had to stand outside it.
- Ruin. Israel itself had become the wilderness. So John's call is not an offer to improve man, but an admission that there is no remedy in him.
- Reach. Crowds still came out from Jerusalem and all Judea. When God speaks after long silence, people leave the city and go out to Him.
and saying, Repent, for the kingdom of the heavens has drawn nigh.
John the Baptist sums up his whole message in one short sentence. Everything turns on two words: what "repent" asks of a person, and what the "kingdom of heaven" is.
Many people reduce the word to regret, or to a promise to do better. The commentators mean something sharper, and they trace it back to God's kindness:
Repentance has been described as a change of mind toward God that leads a person to judge himself and his own acts. This would not be possible without the thought of mercy in God. It is the goodness of God that leads to repentance. Romans 2:4.
One writer takes the definition further, warning that the common answers fall short:
Some say it is sorrow for sin. Some say it is a change of mind, resting on the literal meaning of the word. Others say it includes a decision to give up sin and to do the will of God from now on. In truth it is none of these… Repentance in Scripture is nothing less than agreeing with God in His judgment of our sins. It is taking His side against ourselves, and so bowing in the dust before Him in true self-judgment.
This phrase turns up only in Matthew's Gospel. The reason for that lies in the Old Testament:
The expression comes from the Old Testament, and that is why it appears in Matthew only. As we have already seen, Matthew writes with Israel in view. So he takes up a phrase drawn from the prophecy of Daniel, who speaks of days coming when the heavens would rule. Before that, in Daniel 2, we hear that the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed — the kingdom of heaven.
Two common guesses about the phrase miss it completely:
Many people take this phrase to mean heaven, or the church. Both are wrong. The kingdom of the heavens is an Old Testament term. It is to be on the earth and not in heaven. It is a kingdom in which the heavens rule (Daniel 4:26). Its setting up is spoken of in Daniel 2:44 and Daniel 7:14. It is in the hands of One who is the Son of Man, the Messiah, the Son of David, who is to rule in righteousness.
John announced the kingdom as near, not as arrived. There was a reason for that gap:
Notice that God announces here, not that the kingdom has come, but that the kingdom is at hand. That is, God was ready to bring in the kingdom, but a change had to take place in the minds of the people before they could have it. He cannot have a kingdom of thieves and murderers, of drunkards and idolaters. No, He could not acknowledge a kingdom of that sort. There must be a thorough change of mind — true repentance — and then He would set up the kingdom.
Commentators differ on how near "at hand" is. Snell reads the kingdom as still future, waiting on repentance. Another writer says the King's presence had already brought it:
The Messiah he announces is a coming Messiah, already present among His people. The kingdom of heaven was there. It was not near at hand; it had come in the person of Christ. (Matt. 3:2.) If the people had received Him, the Lord was about to take up the government of the earth at once… He cries, "Prepare the way." This way, by which the Lord could enter, was repentant hearts, convicted of sin, confessing their guilt.
John's clothes and food fitted the message he carried:
John's clothing of camel's hair, his leather belt, and his food of locusts and wild honey all suited this call to repentance. Grace is not yet brought in… So John does not bring out the fullness of divine grace, but the moral call to repentance.
The Lord Jesus later preached the same sentence (Matthew 4:17). One writer hears a different note in it:
Seen this way, the mission of Christ on the earth — His ministry — completed the mission of John the Baptist. Compare Matthew 4:17 with Matthew 3:2. John sang the mournful funeral song of judgment; the Lord sang the joyful song of hope and of grace.
- Kingdom — Not the church, and not heaven above. It is the rule of the heavens over the earth, promised in Daniel.
- Near — Near enough to demand an answer. Commentators differ: some read it as still future, waiting on the nation; others as already present, because the King Himself had arrived.
- Repent — The one door in. Not regret, not resolve, but taking God's side against yourself and bowing before Him.
- Mercy — The demand rests on kindness. Self-judgment only becomes possible because there is mercy in God to make it safe.
- Grace — John's stern call prepared the way; the same words on the Lord's lips carried hope. Repentance was never the destination, only the road cleared for the King.
For this is he who has been spoken of through Esaias the prophet, saying, Voice of him that crieth in the wilderness prepare ye the way of [the] Lord, make straight his paths.
Four hundred years of silence end. God's next word comes not from a palace but from a lone preacher in open country. Matthew explains him with a prophecy from Isaiah, which raises two questions: who is this man, and whose way is he clearing?
Matthew does not introduce John by his family or his training. He identifies him with words written centuries earlier. Those words came after a long gap in which God said nothing.
The prophet Malachi has the solemn duty of delivering God's last message to His earthly people before the coming of Christ. Once Malachi delivers that message, God speaks no more for four hundred years. Then at last a voice breaks the silence — the voice of one crying in the wilderness, "Prepare the way of the Lord, make His paths straight."
In the prophecy Matthew quotes, the name behind "the Lord" is Jehovah — the personal name of Israel's God. So the One coming was God Himself.
So John the Baptist's ministry was preparing the way of Jehovah. Matthew 3:3 quotes Isaiah 40, and Malachi 3:1 says, "I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me, and Jehovah, whom you seek, shall come." If the judgment to come on the earth is what is meant, a difference of interpretation about that does not affect the question of the Person who comes. Neither does the move from Christ's first coming to His second. He who came first will come again.
A voice has no face and leaves no monument. That is the point of the title John took for himself.
He replies that he is only a "voice." He is not Elijah, foretold by Malachi; he is not the prophet promised by Moses; he is only the voice Isaiah spoke of. He refuses to take a place as a gathering centre for the people of God; he refuses to take a name, to make himself great among the people of God. He is simply a voice to speak of Jesus in obedience to the Word of God.
The wilderness was more than a location. It described what Israel had become in God's sight, and it shaped the repentance John preached.
This is why John the Baptist does not appeal to the people as a whole, like the prophets before him. He says, "The voice of one crying in the wilderness." Israel was a wilderness for God. The prophet's appeal now rests on their ruin beyond recovery. The appeal of the older prophets always assumed that a national return to Jehovah was still possible… Like them, John the Baptist had certainly preached repentance, but a repentance founded on ruin without remedy.
The command was not roadwork. It asked the nation to change how it walked, ready for the King's arrival.
For the One whose way John was to prepare was Jehovah Himself, the Lord. What then was John compared with such a glorious Person? He was only a voice… In preparation for receiving Jehovah their King they were to make His paths straight. As His people they were to walk in His paths and not paths of their own choosing. Reality and the evidence of it was what was required, not natural claim and empty profession… Once they rejected the forerunner and his message, they were certain to refuse the King too.
One writer finds a difference between the two commands themselves.
It seems plain to me that the paths are left for continuous or repeated action in detail, while the way of Jehovah is spoken of as made ready at once.
John cried, and the people would not believe. Their unbelief limited what his ministry achieved, but it did not defeat God.
There was therefore only a partial application. The people's unbelief cut across and broke off the thread of God's ways. Yet His purposes stand unbroken, and their very unbelief carried them out in the cross as nothing else could have done. The way of Jehovah was not yet prepared, nor was there a straight highway in the desert for God. God put man to the test of responsibility, and man heard the cry only to sin the more; but in time to come God will make everything good in grace by His own power.
- Voice. A prophecy defines John, not a résumé — he takes no title, gathers no following, and lives to announce Someone else.
- Way. The way he prepares is Jehovah's own; the One walking behind the herald is Israel's God arriving in person.
- Wilderness. He cries in the wilderness because the nation itself had become a wilderness before God. His call was repentance with no hope left in self.
- Paths. "Make His paths straight" asked the people to walk His way, not their own. It asked for reality, not empty religious claim.
- Glory. His first coming fulfilled the prophecy only in part. Unbelief broke the thread. God will yet make it all good by His own power.
And John himself had his garment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins, and his nourishment was locusts and wild honey.
John's clothing and food would have looked strange to anyone in Jerusalem. Commentators treat both as part of his message, not as background detail.
One writer traces these two marks back to an earlier prophet:
Zechariah 13:4-5 shows that a rough or hairy garment was the mark of a prophet. King Ahaziah was sick, and he asked what kind of man had met his messengers. They replied that "he was a hairy man [that is, he wore a garment of hair], and wore a leather belt around his waist" (2 Kings 1:8). The king at once recognised the description as that of Elijah the prophet.
Another writer notes who else copied this dress, and what living off the desert saved John from:
We know from Zechariah 13:4 that clothing of camel's hair was so usual among prophets that deceivers wore it. "A hairy man" was Elijah's description, and he also wore a leather belt (or "of skin," as the same word is translated in Mark). Nature supplied John's clothing, and nature supplied his food. He stayed separate from the people because of their state, and he came in the way of righteousness. Such simple clothing and food did not involve taking anything from men. It left him more in the isolation of his mission.
John did not just preach separation from the world; he wore it. One writer describes how the world looked to a man who lived in the desert:
John the Baptist found nothing there to attract him. He was in the desert, separated from the world wholly and visibly. So God sends him across the edge of the desert to prophesy among the world and its noisy activity. There his heart meets emptiness and silence — "the voice of one crying in the wilderness," he says, for the world was a wilderness to him. He asks nothing of it. He does not go to it looking for "soft clothing." He brings into it the customs of the country of his choice.
The same separation shows in what John did not do:
Although he was the son of a priest, he performs no priestly duties. We never even find him at Jerusalem. Even his clothing speaks of the desert, and his food is locusts and wild honey. He acts in complete consistency with the word to Jeremiah, "Let them turn to you, but you must not turn to them" (Jer. 15:19).
Locusts were not a desperate last resort. The law counted them clean food:
They were classed among the clean things that might be eaten by the Israelites (Lev. 11:22); they were the food of John the Baptist (Matt. 3:4); and they are eaten at the present time. They are boiled, roasted, and fried, or salted, or pounded into cakes with salt.
Some commentators go further and read each item as a picture:
Camel means "a bearer." It pictures John bearing the burden of Israel's sad condition of guilt. The leather belt speaks of the self-discipline that leaves no loose ends. His diet of locusts (which appear in times of drought) reminds us of Israel's desolate spiritual condition. The wild honey speaks of the sweetness of truth gathered apart from men's institutions.
One writer notes what his dress fitted — and where his message stopped:
His clothing and food were perfectly suited to this call to repentance. As yet grace is not introduced... So it fits that John does not bring out the fullness of divine grace, but the moral call to repentance.
The same people found fault with John's strict life and with Christ's freedom:
John came in the way of righteousness. He lived in the desert apart from all men, and ate locusts and wild honey, and they said, "He has a demon." Christ came in grace, eating and drinking with men, and they said He was a glutton and a drunkard. But God's wisdom was in Christ and in John, and wisdom is justified by her children.
- Dressed. Camel's hair and a leather belt were the known marks of a prophet — Elijah's own description in 2 Kings 1:8.
- Separated. John lived apart from the world "wholly and visibly" — the desert was his home, not a short retreat.
- Independent. Nature supplied his clothing and food, so he took nothing from the people he called back to God (Jeremiah 15:19).
- Suited. Everything about him fitted a call to repentance; the fullness of grace waited for Christ.
- Misjudged. Men called his strict life demonic and called Christ's grace gluttony — yet wisdom is justified by her children.
Then went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judaea, and all the country round the Jordan,
A whole region empties itself into the desert to hear one man preach. Commentators ask two questions here: why did the crowds have to meet God's messenger outside the city, and how deep did the movement go?
People did not just come; they had to leave the religious centre to do it. One writer sees the place itself as a message:
John the Baptist appears in the wilderness. He is not in the temple among the learned and the great. There was no room for him there. He is outside the camp, and the people too have to leave Jerusalem and go out to him. This is once more significant. It shows what the end will be.
The reason lies in the state of the system they left behind:
For a priest to preach in the wilderness is completely out of character. Nothing but the sovereign power of the Spirit of God can account for his large audience. They came from Jerusalem and all Judea out into the wilderness to hear this unusual messenger of God. God Himself had established the formal religion of the Jews. But it had decayed so badly that His testimony must now stand in complete separation from it. That testimony had to bear solemn witness against the sin of elders, priests, scribes and people, for their state was as desolate as the wilderness.
John had no fame to trade on and no wonders to display:
The Baptist's mission had stirred very many. Jerusalem, all Judea, and all the region around the Jordan flocked to that remarkable man. His ministry was clearly of God. Neither eloquence, that we read of, nor displays of miraculous power made him famous. It was not how he preached so much as what he preached that gripped people and gathered crowds around him. He preached, but he preached repentance.
The crowd was not one type of person. It mixed religious leaders with tax collectors and soldiers. One writer takes that breadth as a sign of who was behind it:
It was a wonderful and stirring moment of God's activity: "Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him." Pharisees and Sadducees, tax collectors and soldiers, the real and the unreal, the "brood of vipers" and those who boasted, "We have Abraham as our father" — all were moved, because God was moving among His people. And who could resist Him?
One writer reads the Jordan as a picture of death. Stepping into it admitted something about themselves:
He preaches in the wilderness. He tells the people not to say within themselves that they have Abraham for their father, because God was able to raise up children to Abraham out of the very stones. So the crowds came to his baptism, confessing their sins. He baptized them in Jordan, the river of death. They owned that all was over with them as to natural claim, and that divine mercy in a Saviour alone could meet their need.
One writer measures the crowd carefully. He grants a wide reach and a touched conscience, but stops short of claiming more:
The effect was great. I do not mean that it saved them, but it was widespread, and it did touch the conscience.
Another writer reaches the same caution. He compares this verse with what the Gospels later say about who believed John:
Verse 5 shows a fairly general movement at first to hear him. But we know from Matthew 21:31-32 that it was only the disreputable and vile who believed him. And Luke 7 shows a marked separation: all the people and the tax collectors were baptised, while the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves. So John's testimony, where it reached, brought to light a remnant who took their only true place — the place of any man — of confessing sins.
- Out. The meeting place was the wilderness, not the temple. To hear God's messenger, people had to leave the religious centre.
- Why out. Israel's religion had decayed so far. God's witness now had to stand completely apart from it.
- The draw. No eloquence and no miracles pulled the crowds — the message of repentance did.
- The water. Jordan pictures death. Going into it admitted that descent from Abraham secured nothing, and that mercy alone could meet their need.
- The measure. Commentators are careful here. The movement was of God and wide in reach. But reach is not the same as saving effect: what it left was a remnant willing to confess their sins.
and were baptised by him in the Jordan, confessing their sins.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
But seeing many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, Offspring of vipers, who has forewarned you to flee from the coming wrath?
Crowds are coming to John at the Jordan and confessing their sins. Then the two leading religious parties arrive, and he meets them with a hard name and a harder question.
The Pharisees and Sadducees were not allies. They stood at opposite ends of Jewish religious life, yet John speaks to them as a single group.
They were the religious leaders of the people, though they were far apart from one another. They stand for the two directions in which men turn away from God. The Pharisee was the legalist and formalist. The Sadducee was the rationalist, close to an unbeliever of his day. They were far apart, yet they could still show their basic oneness by joining together against the followers of the Lord. And John treats them as one.
The Greek word behind "brood" points to offspring — children who carry the family likeness. John is not throwing an insult; he is naming a parentage, and writers extend the charge beyond first-century Judaism.
"Offspring of vipers!" That is how the Holy Spirit, through John the forerunner, declared their true character. What a strong and cutting word it is! It applies not only to the Pharisees and Sadducees, but to all ritual religion and unbelieving criticism. They are the offspring not of God but of vipers. Yet they still boasted proudly of being descendants of Abraham, and so entitled to the promised blessing. They believed that they would be saved from the wrath of God connected with the setting up of the kingdom, and that the wrath would fall entirely on the Gentile nations.
Worth noting: the label is not reserved for leaders alone. In Luke's account the same words fall on the crowd, "for all must flee from the wrath to come."
Their presence at the Jordan looks like interest in God's work. One writer reads it as something else.
When there is a genuine and powerful work of God, men do not like to be left out of it. This is especially true of religious leaders. So we find both Pharisees and Sadducees coming to John's baptism. He met them, however, with prophetic insight. He unmasked them: they had the marks of the serpent. And he warned them that wrath lay before them.
"Who warned you?" is not information-gathering. It asks whether the wish to escape punishment is the same thing as repentance.
He maintains that the day of ceremonialism, or of birthrights, was completely past. The Pharisee might rest on his religion; the Sadducee on being a child of Abraham. The desire to escape wrath and to have a part in the kingdom might be no more than nature. Humbled souls suit the kingdom.
Commentators differ on how much hope the words hold out. Some read John's question as an invitation these men could still accept. Others take it as a sentence already passed: a brood of vipers "can only be destined to 'the wrath to come'; such cannot be taught to flee from it."
The language is severe enough that readers ask whether John lost his temper. One writer takes the question head-on and answers it by looking at what the anger was aimed at.
These were scathing words; but if anger dictated a word, it was unselfish and holy. It was indignation at men who sought a religious form to cover their unbelief and wickedness... It was not enmity to tell a wrongdoer the truth, so that he might repent. Human nature hates faithfulness.
The phrase "the wrath to come" is not a figure of speech for present trouble. It points forward, and the warning is read as an act of love rather than cruelty.
There is wrath to come. A man may grow rich and enjoy his pleasures, but there is still "wrath to come." Years of God's patience, years of mercy despised, years of warnings ignored, are storing up wrath for the day of wrath... Daily we meet men who are going on to the wrath to come, and we are going on to the good things to come.
- Parentage. "Brood of vipers" names a family line, not a mood. They are offspring "not of God but of vipers." The charge reaches ritual religion and unbelieving criticism alike.
- Pedigree. John treats two opposite parties, the formalist and the rationalist, as one. Descent from Abraham gives neither of them standing.
- Presence. Turning up where God is working proves nothing — leaders come because "men do not like to be left out of it."
- Panic. Wanting to escape punishment "might be no more than nature"; what fits the kingdom is a humbled soul.
- Plainness. Severe words can be "unselfish and holy." Telling a wrongdoer the truth is not enmity, and there really is wrath to come.
Produce therefore fruit worthy of repentance.
John speaks these words to Pharisees and Sadducees who had come out to the Jordan with the crowds. His demand is blunt: prove the repentance you claim. Two questions decide the verse. What is repentance, and what fruit counts as proof?
Two groups had come out to John. One commentator says the ground both stood on was gone.
He insists that the day of religious ceremony, or of claims by birth, was completely past. The Pharisee might rest on his religion; the Sadducee on being a child of Abraham. The wish to escape wrath and to share in the kingdom might be no more than nature. Humbled souls suit the kingdom.
So what is repentance? One writer clears away three wrong answers before he gives his own.
It is not simply a conviction of having done wrong... It is not sorrow for sin... Nor is it the same as conversion... But it is a change of mind, a judgment of self, ways, and sins, which shows itself in a change of life. It is God's gift, bestowed by the risen and ascended Christ. It is fruitful; for there are works worthy of repentance.
So what fruit could these men bring? One writer says John recognised only one.
Notice here that the only good fruit John recognises as the way of escape is honest confession of sin, made through grace. Only those who make this confession escape the axe. There were really no good trees except the ones that confessed they were bad.
Another writer reads the fruit here as something plain and everyday:
In Matthew 3:8 we read of fruit in keeping with repentance. This no doubt referred to the general walk and behaviour.
One writer asks what a loaded fruit tree proves, and what it does not.
Anyone can tell that the tree is alive and healthy, because of the crop it is bearing. Its life comes out in fruit. If there were no fruit the tree had better be cut down as something taking up space. But there is fruit. It is the necessary evidence of the life. The fruit does not produce the life, but the life the fruit. You might decorate the tree with fruit, but that would not give it life.
Reverse that order, and the command becomes impossible. One writer answers that mistake with a picture from a garden.
You might as well say to the crab-apple tree: "Stop growing crab apples. Never grow another one. From now on grow good apples. Do that, and the gardener will come and make you an apple tree." Any gardener who does not know this is a poor gardener: before that tree can bear anything but crab apples, someone must graft a new nature into it — apple nature... No, there must be repentance before there can be the fruits of repentance.
These men had an answer ready: Abraham was their father. One commentator shows what John did with that, and points to a matching test in James's letter.
He knew they would boast of being in the proper line of descent from Abraham. So he knocked that prop out from under them, and showed that it would not count with God. Nothing would do but repentance. His baptism pointed to that. But it had to be genuine, and it had to show itself in fruit that was suitable. James, in his letter, insists that faith, if it is real and living, must express itself in suitable works. Here John calls for exactly the same thing in regard to repentance.
The demand is not a recipe for salvation. One writer marks the difference.
He is not explaining here how a sinner is to be saved, or how God forgives sins. He is saying that if people take the stand of having to do with God, there must be what suits His presence.
- Root: Repentance is a change of mind, a judgment of self, ways and sins. It is not just regret, and it is not the same as conversion.
- Gift: No one grows that root in himself. It is God's gift, given by the risen and ascended Christ.
- Fruit: The first fruit John accepts is honest confession of sin. There were no good trees except those that admitted they were bad.
- Order: Fruit is evidence of life, never its cause — decorating a tree with fruit gives it nothing.
- Urgency: Descent from Abraham propped up nobody. Only those who confessed their sin escaped the axe.
And do not think to say within yourselves, We have Abraham for [our] father; for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham.
John's hearers had a defence ready before he even spoke: their descent from Abraham. This verse takes that defence away. It raises a sharper question: who does God count as belonging to His people?
Two rival parties in the nation came out to John's baptism. He refused to treat either as safe.
The Pharisees were, religiously, the most influential in Israel. The Sadducees were the loose, worldly, self-indulgent class. The Pharisees stood very firm for what they considered the truth. Yet when John sees them both coming to his baptism, he says, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit in keeping with repentance" — fruits of the same kind. He maintains that the day of religious ceremony, or of birthrights, was completely past. The Pharisee might rest on his religion; the Sadducee on his being a child of Abraham. The desire to escape wrath and to have a part in the kingdom might be no more than nature. Humbled souls suit the kingdom. Descent from the fathers, the law, even the promises, may be turned into a right against God. He will not allow that, and He can raise up children to Abraham out of the stones.
Their claim was true. They really were Abraham's descendants. John denies that this gives them any standing with God.
Man's self-righteousness and his pride lead him to hide his own state from himself. He does this in order to take advantage of a religion handed down from his ancestors… It is God who works as He pleases, and in His own power, to create children for Himself. God takes no account of all your claims as Jews and descendants of Abraham. He works in that supreme power in which He is able to raise up children for Abraham, even out of stones. That is why He takes no account of your righteousness: He must first have sinners.
This confidence was not one man's mistake. The whole nation rested on it.
The religious trust of the Jews was in their pedigree. They boasted that they were direct descendants of Abraham (John 8:33, 39) — an idol that John the Baptist set out to smash… Here the Lord declared what shows a living relationship with the King in the kingdom of God. It is not nationality. It is personal obedience and individual loyalty.
Commentators differ on what John pointed at. Some take the stones as a picture of what every believer once was.
These stones are what we were: stones without life, lifeless. But now we are children of Abraham, children of promise, counted as a seed. In Romans 4 Abraham is the father of all those who believe, even though they are not circumcised.
Others read it as a gesture toward the very people standing in the water, the ones the leaders despised.
God could, and would, do without those who were only related to Abraham by nature. He could raise up children to Abraham "from these stones." Does he not mean the people John was baptizing? They confessed themselves dead in sins, as lifeless as stones. God could give life on the simple principle of faith: only those who are of faith are true children of Abraham (Gal. 3:29; Rom. 4:16).
John names something God is able to do. God has since done it among the nations outside Israel.
To boast in the privileges of their nation, or of their fathers, was worth nothing before God. He required what His very nature, His truth, demanded. What is more, He was sovereign; He was able out of those stones to raise up children to Abraham. This is what His sovereign grace has done, through Christ, for the Gentiles.
John's warning does not stop with the men standing in front of him.
"Offspring of vipers!" — this is how the Holy Spirit declared their true character through John, the forerunner. What a strong and cutting word it is! It applies not only to the Pharisees and Sadducees, but to all religion of ritual and all unbelieving criticism… When they came, they were far from taking that true place of repentance and death. And so John demands of them that they bring forth fruit worthy of repentance. He uncovers their false claims. No natural birth and no religious attainment would deliver them in the day of wrath.
- Pedigree. The Pharisee leaned on his religion. The Sadducee leaned on his ancestry. John told both that the day of birthrights was past.
- Pretension. God takes no account of inherited claims or of self-righteousness. Before He can save, "He must first have sinners."
- Power. What descent cannot supply, God creates. He raises children for Abraham out of stones, giving life on the principle of faith.
- People. That sovereign grace has since gone out through Christ to the Gentiles, who had no ancestral claim at all.
- Proof. God accepts one proof: fruit worthy of repentance. No natural birth and no religious achievement will shelter anyone in the day of wrath.
And already the axe is applied to the root of the trees; every tree therefore not producing good fruit is cut down and cast into the fire.
John the Baptist says these words to the leading Jews of his day. The axe is not on its way, he tells them. It is already at the root. Two questions come out of the picture. Why the root and not the branches? And what fruit can stop the blow?
Everything hangs on the words "even now." John is not warning about something far off.
Here then was a stern rebuke for the leading Jews. But John adds more than that: "Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees" — that is to say, judgment is just at hand.
Another writer names what has ended, and who stands under the axe.
The axe was laid to the root of the trees. It was not warning and forbearance — the time of divine dealing had come. Judgment was there at the door. If a tree did not bear good fruit, it was to be cut down and thrown into the fire. This was individual.
Trimming a tree leaves it standing. Striking the root ends it. That is the difference John draws. One writer fills out the picture from the forest.
In a forest, the trees to be cut down are marked with a hatchet. In the same way, the objects of judgment had already been marked out. But it was no longer a question of cutting off branches, or even the trunk — the root was bad.
So reform will not help. Improving the outside of a bad tree does not change what its fruit shows.
The axe was laid to the root of the trees (v. 9): no amount of self-improvement on Israel's part would be recognised by God. If the tree was bad, as its fruit showed, the tree would be cut down — not only some of its branches — and thrown into the fire.
These men had every religious advantage, including descent from Abraham. John turns each advantage against them.
John the Baptist addresses the Jews, demanding repentance and righteousness as its fruit. He shows them that if they were nearer to God outwardly as Jews, they must expect judgment all the sooner. If the Lord was coming, He must have what suited the Lord. … Repentance or wrath — which? The Lord would allow no plea of descent from Abraham if their ways contradicted Abraham. He must have righteousness.
Everything then depends on what "good fruit" means. For John it is not a list of achievements. It is one honest admission.
Notice here that the only good fruit John recognises, as the way of escape, is the sincere confession of sin through grace. Only those who make this confession escape the axe. There really were no good trees except those that confessed they were bad.
An axe at the root does two things. It brings the tree down, and it shows what is inside.
If an axe is laid to the root of a tree, down it must go. So in a way John foretold the ruin of the nation. And if the axe were laid to the root of the tree, it would also show what was inside — it might be rotten to the core. When the axe of God's Word lays open the heart of man, as it does, it shows it to be rotten to the very core.
The picture is not left in the past.
All this applies to the day in which we live. Once more the axe is laid at the roots, to cut off and throw into the fire whatever has not borne fruit.
- Already — "Even now" means the blow is not far off. Warning time has ended, and judgment stands at the door.
- Root — the axe goes past the branches to the root. Pruning and self-improvement cannot save a bad tree.
- Fruit — descent from Abraham counts for nothing. Being nearer to God only brings the reckoning sooner.
- Confession — one fruit turns the axe away — honest confession of sin. The only good trees were those that admitted they were bad.
- Today — the same axe still lays the heart open, and the same test falls on whatever bears no fruit today.
*I* indeed baptise you with water to repentance, but he that comes after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not fit to bear; *he* shall baptise you with [the] Holy Spirit and fire;
John the Baptist stands at the Jordan and draws a line between his own work and the work of the One coming after him. He names two baptisms — one with the Holy Spirit, one with fire — and the verse turns on whether they are one gift or two opposite ends.
John's baptism was real, but it was only preparation.
John's baptism was a baptism of repentance to prepare people for the coming Lord. So it was a purification — a "baptism of repentance". It marked out and separated a remnant from the rest of the people, so that they would escape the coming judgment... The crowds came to his baptism, confessing their sins. He baptized them in the Jordan, the river of death. In this they owned that all was over with them as to any natural claim, and that only divine mercy in a Saviour could meet their need. So they are baptized unto the forgiveness of sins, waiting for it in hope, though they have not received it yet.
Matthew, Mark and Luke each report John's words about the sandals a little differently.
He said, as we read in Matthew 3:11, "He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry." In Luke 3:16 it is, "whose sandals I am not worthy to untie." In Mark 1:7 it is, "the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie." What a completely self-effacing appreciation of his Master! And what rare humility!
Both halves come from the same Christ, but not to the same people.
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, as John went on to explain: the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire... He was addressing a mixed crowd, and he spoke to them of both. But the saints of God share only in the one, and those who do not repent share only in the other. For 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 Spirit given to a person also works in him.
He baptizes also with the Holy Spirit. That Spirit is given to a man who has been made alive, redeemed and cleansed in the blood of Christ, and He acts in divine energy in him. He brings him out from the influence of everything that works on the flesh, and sets him in connection and communion with all that is revealed of God.
Does the fire in this verse mean power?
Many people think the fire means power. Not so! A fire has no power except to destroy... Fire is always the symbol in Scripture of judgment.
So what is the fire, and when does it fall?
I understand it to be the unsparing divine judgment which the Lord will carry out on all evil when He appears. The righteous are for ever separated from it. John the Baptist presented the work of Messiah as a whole. The cross separated the two baptisms. One followed His first coming, when He went up on high and baptized in the power of the Spirit. The other awaits His second coming... So in Acts we hear nothing of baptism in fire: this is to be when the Lord comes.
Commentators differ over Pentecost. Some see the tongues of fire there as a partial form of the fire baptism.
The baptism with fire certainly points forward, as the context shows, to the final judgment of sinners. Yet even now the Spirit of God brings the truth of judgment home to the soul. So, anticipating judgment, the soul bows to the sentence of God and accepts His salvation. There is in this way a modified baptism of fire at Pentecost, indicated by the tongues of fire.
Others hold that the fire baptism did not occur at all that day.
But were there not divided tongues as of fire seen in the upper room? Unquestionably. Was that the baptism of fire? We firmly believe not. The Lord in Acts did not mention it; and Peter never referred to it.
- Water — John's baptism separated a remnant who owned death as their due and waited in hope for a forgiveness not yet given.
- Worth — John measured himself against the Coming One by the sandals he felt unfit to carry.
- Spirit — the higher baptism gives the fullest blessing available on earth. It brings a person into the Body of Christ and out from the pull of the flesh.
- Fire — the same sentence carries judgment. John explained it himself: the chaff burned with unquenchable fire. Fire destroys; it is not power.
- Divided — the cross split what John announced as one. The Spirit's baptism has come; the fire waits for the Lord's appearing. Commentators differ on whether Pentecost was a partial form of it.
whose winnowing fan [is] in his hand, and he shall thoroughly purge his threshing-floor, and shall gather his wheat into the garner, but the chaff he will burn with fire unquenchable.
John the Baptist ends his preaching with a scene every farmer in Israel knew: grain tossed into the wind, the good seed kept, the husks burned. It raises three questions: whose floor is this, when does He clear it, and how final is that fire?
The "winnowing fork" was a tool for sorting grain, not for destroying it. Older translations call it a fan. Farmers depended on the weather to make it work.
This was done in the open air, by throwing up the grain with a shovel or a fan (really a kind of 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.
John calls the floor His. It belongs to the One who was coming, and commentators ask which people that floor stood for.
Whatever could not stand the fire would be burned 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.
Two verses earlier John spoke of an axe at the root of the trees. The new picture shows a more thorough dealing.
There is a difference between the axe and the fan. "Already" the axe was at the root of the useless trees, but you might suppose the good ones would be left standing. But when the Lord came, He would clear His floor completely. He dealt with the floor, so to speak: He gathered the wheat into a barn of His own, and burned the chaff with unquenchable fire.
Verse 12 explains the "fire" John named a verse earlier. Readers have long disagreed over what that fire stands for.
The Baptist predicts of the coming One — the Lord Jesus — that He would have a ministry of a double character. He would baptize with the Holy Spirit, that is, blessing, and with fire — judgment. Now, many people think the fire means power. Not so! A fire has no power except to destroy, and that is not what you want. You do not want destructive energy. Fire is always the symbol in Scripture of judgment.
John names the Spirit and the fire in one breath. One writer explains that the gap between them was hidden from him.
There he brings together the two grand features of the first and second comings of Christ. He did not know but that both would go on together. All that might lie between the two was hidden from his eyes... We know that the baptizing with the Holy Spirit is the power of God's blessing in the kingdom of heaven as it now is. The baptism of fire is what will accompany the kingdom of heaven as it will be when Christ comes again. Nowhere does the word of God call what happened at Pentecost a baptism of fire. Baptism with fire is God's judgment applied to men; the day of Pentecost was the outpouring of His grace and the giving of the Holy Spirit to live in His people.
The same hand that burns the chaff carries the wheat home. The verse is as much a promise as a warning.
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; while the chaff, all unbelievers, will be burned with unquenchable fire. This blessed, holy One will have total authority in these matters of enormous importance.
Chaff burns away to nothing. Some argue that the verse therefore teaches that the lost stop existing. One writer answers that a picture and the thing it pictures are never the same.
It is a figure of judgment that leaves no hope for those condemned as "chaff." People who say the lost are wiped out of existence would naturally claim it as a figure of utter destruction, and so it is. But a figure and the thing it stands for are as different as the "chaff" here is from the men it pictures. This is what these writers keep ignoring. Material destruction is not a figure of material destruction. It must stand for something else.
- Floor. The threshing floor is His own. Commentators read it first of God's dealing with Israel, the nation standing in front of John.
- Fan. The axe of verse 10 cut down fruitless trees one by one; the fan clears the whole floor at once, sorting everything on it.
- Wheat. Nothing that belongs to Him is lost. Every grain goes into His barn, so this verse is a promise before it is a threat.
- Fire. Fire in Scripture stands for judgment, not power. The baptism with the Spirit belongs to His first coming. The baptism with fire belongs to His return.
- Now. Today is still the sowing season. The winnowing is coming, and only the wheat goes into the barn.
Then comes Jesus from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptised of him;
Crowds had been coming to the Jordan to confess their sins under John's preaching, and then Jesus walks the long road from Galilee to join them. Why would a man with no sin come to a baptism for people admitting they had done wrong?
The verse marks a turning point. Until now He had lived a private life in Nazareth. Here He steps into public view.
In the thirty years of His private life at Nazareth He had fulfilled His own responsibility as Man before God. He has now come forth from that retirement to take His public place as Mediator for others. The Father has accepted Him as perfectly pleasing: the unblemished Lamb of sacrifice, and also the Priest who can offer for the sins of men.
He did not happen to be passing. He set out for this.
His baptism is indeed the pledge in which He devotes Himself to the path of service that lies before Him. It is His "Behold, I have come," and the Jordan pictures in advance the death "written of Him in the scroll of the book," in its law of sacrifice.
John's baptism was for people confessing sin. Jesus had nothing to confess. That is what makes His arrival so startling.
What a cluster of wonders! Jesus coming to be baptized by John, who was openly preaching repentance and forgiveness of sins. What could bring the Lord Jesus there? For He never confessed sins, and had none to confess. He challenges even His enemies to convict Him of sin. Here was a man without sin, without the smallest particle of self in any form or degree. He was the lowliest and most blessed of men, the One who judged everything according to God. And yet He comes to be baptized! ... What is the clue to this? It is grace — the source and the channel of everything in Jesus. It was not the judgment of God that put Him there; it was not any need in Himself that brought Him there; nothing that He had to acknowledge or confess; but it was grace. For on whom in Israel did God's eye look down with compassion? Upon those who were confessing their sins.
Coming to the Jordan meant standing with someone. The question is with whom.
The gracious Lord could not let His people take one step alone. He goes to be baptized by John. He, I need not say, needed no such baptism... The Lord does not identify Himself with rebellious and perverse Israel. He identifies Himself with the path of God, and with those who were walking in it. He makes Himself one of them once they had taken it.
What moved Him to it? Another writer traces it to the Father's will.
The will of the Father was always what moved Jesus. He was the perfect model of man as man should be according to God's thoughts, and for God on the earth. He could always say, in the words of Psalm 16, "I have set the LORD always before me." So He would identify Himself in grace with those in whom the Spirit of God was working... The world despised them. But God in grace had His eye on them. The Lord Jesus openly took His place with them, and so began His ministry.
Standing with sinners carried a cost. One word in Jesus' reply to John shows how far it went.
His use of the word "us" is significant. In being baptized He was identifying Himself with the many who were repenting of their sins. He was in effect accepting the sentence of death for them, for He was not under that sentence Himself. He had joined Himself with sinners. The claims of righteousness could only be met if He took on Himself the full responsibility for their sins. So by His baptism He was pledging Himself to go to the cross. There He would meet the claims of righteousness in full on their behalf.
Some read this scene as the model for Christian baptism. One writer answers that firmly.
It is a strange thing for anyone with the least understanding of Scripture to claim that the Lord was here a pattern of "believer's baptism." Was He baptized as a repentant believer, who was Himself faith's object — not a Christian, but the Christian's Christ? And was it for Him to "fulfill all righteousness," to take a place that was not His? Surely the Father's witness to His own beloved Son should check this strange and unworthy thought.
- Purpose. The hidden years at Nazareth end. He set out from Galilee for this.
- Grace. Nothing in Him needed this baptism. Grace alone brought Him where confession of sin had brought everyone else.
- Company. He joined the few already walking God's path, not the nation at large. The world despised them; He stood with them.
- Pledge. Standing with sinners bound Him to carry their responsibility to the cross.
- Uniqueness. The act was His alone. It is not a pattern for our baptism: He is faith's object, not a repentant believer.
but John urgently forbad him, saying, *I* have need to be baptised of thee; and comest *thou* to me?
Crowds were coming to the Jordan to confess their sins, and then the One John had announced walked down to the water like the rest of them. His protest raises the question every reader faces: why would the sinless One ask for a baptism meant for sinners?
John was preaching repentance to people who came confessing their sins. Then Jesus came to him for baptism.
What a cluster of wonders! Jesus came to be baptized by John, who preached repentance and forgiveness of sins for all to hear. What could bring the Lord Jesus there? For He never confessed sins, and had none to confess. He challenges even His enemies to prove Him guilty of sin. He was a man without sin, without the smallest trace of self in any form or degree. He was the lowliest and most blessed of men. He judged everything according to God. And yet He comes to be baptized! John felt it at once. Jesus was coming to be baptized by him — by the man whose baptism was one of repentance! What is the key to this? It is grace — the source and the channel of everything in Jesus. It was not the judgment of God that put Him there; it was not any need in Himself that brought Him there.
John's words say something about Jesus. They also say something about John himself.
The Lord baptizes with the Holy Spirit and with fire. He is greater than John, and the Baptist bowed before Him in humility and worship. He is the creator of all things. Now He comes to the preacher of repentance and presents Himself for baptism. What a scene! John stood amazed. "He tried to prevent Him, saying, 'I need to be baptized by You, and do You come to me?'" In other words: I am the sinner. I need repentance. I deserve to go into that river of death. But You are holy — no evil in You, nothing worthy of death.
The people at the water were humbling themselves before God, and the Spirit had begun that work in them.
Now Jesus presents Himself among the people who were doing this. He is truly the Lord, Jehovah, the righteous Judge of His people. He is the One who was to clear His threshing floor. Yet He takes His place among the faithful remnant who humble themselves before this judgment. He takes the place of the lowest of His people before God… What a perfect testimony of grace! The Saviour identifies Himself, in this grace, with the first movement of the Spirit in the hearts of His own people. He humbles Himself not only by stooping in grace towards them, but by taking His place as one of them, in their true position before God.
John knew Jesus at sight. No one had to point Him out.
On the Lord's approaching John to be baptized, John at once acknowledged Him — acknowledged Him without any introduction. There seems to have been in his soul some sense that this was He. Matt. 3:14. He had, in fact, acknowledged Him even before He was born. Luke 1:44. The world did not know Him, but John knows Him, and so condemns the world.
Knowing who Jesus was is not the same as knowing why He came.
The Baptist could not tell anyone who came to him that their sins were forgiven. Nor could he understand at all why Jesus should take a place with those who had confessed their sins at the Jordan (Matt. 3:14). His mission was only to set God's seal by baptism on those who, by their confession, took their place before God as sinners.
Jesus answered the objection. His answer also gave John a share in the work.
How admirable at this moment is the great prophet, John the Baptist!… By humbling himself in this way, he exalts the personal dignity of his Lord. At the same time, faced with such perfection, he owns his own condition as a sinner. But how much more admirable still is the Saviour Himself! He, the most high, humbles Himself still lower than John, who stooped to the sandals of His feet… He is not content with lowering Himself. Then He adds, "It is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness." He raises John to a level with Himself, and makes him a companion in carrying out the will of God.
Some read this scene as a model for a believer's baptism. That reading does not hold.
Was He baptized as a penitent believer, when He Himself was faith's object — not a Christian, but the Christian's Christ? And was it "to fulfill all righteousness" for Him to take a place that was not His own? Surely the Father's witness to His own beloved Son should check this strange and unworthy thought.
- Shock — John's baptism was for people repenting and confessing sins. Then the sinless One asked for it.
- Confession — John's protest lifts up Christ's dignity and owns his own state as a sinner.
- Grace — No need in Himself brought Jesus there. Grace did, and it set Him among the lowest of His people.
- Limits — John knew who Jesus was, but not why He stood with those confessing sins.
- Lifted — The answer both overruled John's objection and made him a partner in doing God's will.
But Jesus answering said to him, Suffer [it] now; for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffers him.
John protests that the roles are backwards: he is the one who needs baptizing. So why does a sinless Man step into a baptism meant for people confessing their sins, and what does He mean by "righteousness"?
Nothing in Jesus needed what John's baptism was for. One writer asks what could possibly bring Him there:
What could bring the Lord Jesus there? For He never confessed sins, and had none to confess... He was a Man without sin, without the smallest trace of self in any form or degree. He was the lowliest and most blessed of men, the One who judged everything according to God. And yet He comes to be baptized!... What is the clue to this? It is grace — the source and the channel of everything in Jesus. It was not the judgment of God that put Him there. It was not any need in Himself, nothing He had to acknowledge or confess. It was grace. For on whom in Israel did God's eye look down with compassion? Upon those that were confessing their sins.
The word is easy to skip. Jesus does not say "it is fitting for Me" — He draws John in and gives him a part to play:
The Lord answers, "Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness." Then he consented. In Him it was fulfilling righteousness. Still He takes the lowly place. You, John, have your part to do, I mine. "Us" is not, I believe, a royal "we" — though that is not very important. It refers to John as much as to Jesus.
Another writer reads the reply as firm and gentle at once:
This was indeed a gracious reply, and in it the Lord at once maintained His authority and showed His grace. There was the gentle insistence that His will must be done. At the same time, with special grace, He joined John with Himself in that submission which godly service always involves.
The verse turns on the word "righteousness". One writer defines it by contrast with what the crowd came for:
The people had come to be baptized by John, confessing their sins. He had come fulfilling righteousness — that is, carrying out the will of God.
One writer notes that this righteousness reaches wider than the law:
It is all righteousness that is now to be fulfilled, and not merely the doing of the law. Now it was the righteousness of acknowledging the true state that even the best part of Israel was in.
Jesus took His place with those who were already confessing their sins. One writer draws the line exactly:
The Lord does not identify Himself with rebellious and perverse Israel. He identifies with the path of God, and with those who were walking in it. Yet He makes Himself one of them once they had taken it... He has now taken His place among the godly and upright though feeble sons of men.
Another writer states what that identification did not include:
He identified Himself with them, not in their sin, but in their place before God as righteous.
For the people confessing their sins, the river itself carried a meaning:
A baptism in Jordan, the river of death, and so a "baptism to death"... Death was the righteous penalty of sin, which by grace they were permitted to anticipate... His own fulfilment of righteousness is in going into death for them as their Saviour and their sacrifice. He is moving from His former position as One fulfilling righteousness for Himself. He now takes the position of One fulfilling it for others.
Standing with sinners carried a bill, and He accepted it:
By joining Himself with sinners, He could meet the claims of righteousness in only one way: by taking upon Himself the full responsibility for their sins. So by His baptism He was pledging Himself to go to the cross. There He would perfectly meet the claims of righteousness on their behalf.
The moment He took that place, heaven answered. One writer traces the same pattern into the believer's life:
The moment He had taken this place with His poor people, the heavens were opened. He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming upon Him — just what has been done to us since the veil was torn. He was anointed with the Holy Spirit and sealed; so are we. He was the Beloved Son; we are sons, and know it. Of course, He had it in His own blessed Person, and we are brought in by redemption.
- Grace, not need — He had no sin to confess; what put Him in the Jordan was grace toward those who were confessing theirs.
- Grace joins — "Us" includes John. Christ takes the lowly place and gives His servant a part in it.
- Grace stands with — He stands not with rebellious Israel but with the few on God's path. He shares their place before God, never their sin.
- Grace pays — the Jordan is the river of death. Stepping into it, He moves from fulfilling righteousness for Himself to fulfilling it for others, and pledges Himself to the cross.
- Grace opens heaven — the place He took is the place redemption brings us into: sealed with the Spirit, owned as sons.
And Jesus, having been baptised, went up straightway from the water, and lo, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming upon him
Jesus steps out of the Jordan, heaven opens, and the Spirit comes down like a dove to rest on Him. The moment raises big questions: why does heaven open here and not before, why a dove, and why does the sinless One receive the Spirit at all?
This had never happened before. Jesus had just gone down into the water beside people confessing their sins. There heaven singled Him out:
He takes His place among us; and note, He was always the same Person all along His path… Heaven opened! Never before had there been a person on whom heaven could open. Never before could a voice — the Father's voice — say, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased." There was nothing in Him but what heaven could delight in.
Another writer gives the reason. Heaven opened because of who was standing in the water:
There lies the explanation. The heavens could now open. At last there was a man on earth who had the good pleasure of God and who, so to speak, drew it down upon Himself. "Heaven" could not remain silent. Christ was the One above all. He stood out from the crowd. Outwardly He was one of many who were baptised, but He had nothing to confess.
The Spirit took a visible shape, and writers read that shape as a portrait of the Person He came upon.
Notice the words, "the Spirit like a dove descending upon Him" — that is the form the descending Spirit took, no doubt expressing what He was in His own Person. The dove, as you know, was the bird of sorrow and the bird of love. So it was a fitting picture of what our Lord Jesus Christ was in His own holy, precious, glorious Person.
The dove also recalls the bird Noah sent out over the flood, which found nowhere to land:
Noah's dove found no rest for the sole of its foot except on the ark. In the same way, the Holy Spirit found One on whom He could rest, where all around was waste and ruin.
Everyone else at the Jordan came confessing sin. Jesus had nothing to confess. One writer sets two pictures from the law side by side — the priests and the grain offering:
In lowly grace He submitted to the baptism of repentance, but with no need for repentance. He publicly joined those who had confessed their sins, having no sins Himself to confess. Will unbelieving hearts think otherwise of Him, and misread this act of grace? To check such a hateful charge, the heavens were torn open the moment He came out of the water. The Father, jealous for the glory of the Son, gave the Holy Spirit to rest upon Him… He was the fulfilment of the grain offering of fine flour mingled, and anointed, with oil, apart from the cleansing and atoning blood. So He stood in contrast with the priests of Aaron's line, who received the anointing oil after blood had been applied.
If He needed nothing, why did the Spirit come down on Him? One writer ties it to the work He was starting:
I need not say to you that the Holy Spirit's coming down on the Lord Jesus did not in any sense add to His perfection. He was as perfect before as afterwards; but it was in connection with His service on earth. It was God, as it were, setting His mark upon Him, and sealing Him for His work.
Anointing was also how Israel marked out its leaders:
Kings, priests and prophets entered their office by anointing with oil. Prophecy and picture alike pointed to the promised One being marked out in the same way. So when Andrew heard John the Baptist say that the Holy Spirit had come down on Jesus, he took the news straight to his brother Simon: "We have found the Messiah" (that is, the Christ).
Father, Son and Spirit all act in this one moment. One writer links that scene to the place believers are given:
The veil torn, the heavens opened to us, sealed and anointed by the Father, owned by Him as His sons. When He was here as Man, the heavens opened at His baptism. He was sealed and anointed, and the Father owned Him as His Son. This is the first time that the Trinity was fully revealed. Then He goes to be tempted.
Heaven opened for Him by right. But He did not keep it to Himself:
The heavens were opened to Him. This is a significant word that is often overlooked. For Him alone the heavens are open… In Him the heavens are opened for us, and He has taken all of us who believe into heaven, bringing many sons to glory.
- Opened — heaven had never opened on a man before. It opened here because there was nothing in Him but what heaven could delight in.
- Rested — like Noah's dove over the flood, the Spirit found in Him the one resting place in a ruined world.
- Anointed — the oil came with no blood first, as with the grain offering, showing He had nothing to be cleansed from; that same anointing named Him Messiah, the Christ.
- Sealed — the Spirit's coming added nothing to His perfection. It marked Him out for the service He was starting.
- Shared — what was His by right becomes ours in Him: the heavens opened, sealed and anointed, owned as sons.
and behold, a voice out of the heavens saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight.
The voice at the Jordan comes as Jesus steps out of the water. He had just taken His place with the people being baptized. It raises three questions: why speak now, what is God approving, and who was meant to hear?
The Father's words answer what Jesus had just done in the water. That act could have looked like an admission of guilt.
Does it not seem that this wonderful testimony of God the Father followed from Christ fulfilling all righteousness in the waters of the Jordan? It was the answer of God to the place that Christ, in His grace, had taken. It was God, jealous for the glory of His Son, who would not allow any suspicion to rest on this loveliest and lowliest of acts... Do not think He has sin. But if you are there, He is with you: if the sheep are in the waters, the shepherd must enter them too.
Kelly draws attention to the tense of the Father's approval.
Jesus was clearly the delight of God as man — not merely because of a work that was going to be done. It was the Person Himself whom God acknowledged, and His Person even after He had identified Himself with the people who were baptized... "You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased" — not only "I am," but "I have been well pleased," "have found my delight." It looks back; it is not only about the present.
Darby pictures God's eye searching the earth the way Noah's dove searched for a resting place.
God's eye passed over this earth like Noah's dove, over a world swept by the flood of sin. Until He saw Jesus here, His eye could find nowhere to rest in peace and satisfaction. On Him it could rest. As for showing its satisfaction, whatever its purposes, heaven stayed closed until Jesus... was on earth. The moment He presented Himself in public service, heaven opened, the Holy Spirit came down to dwell in Him, His one resting-place here. And the Father's voice could no longer be held back. From heaven He declares, "This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased."
God had already given a verdict on the first man. This one is different.
When God saw the first man, Adam, fresh from creation, He called him "very good" (Gen. 1). But in the Second Man, the last Adam, the Father found His "delight." This delight in the One He sent is no surprise to us. We cannot even imagine the Father having His only Son close to His heart and not delighting in Him.
Three Persons act at once here — the Son in the water, the Spirit descending, the Father speaking. Kelly sees this as the moment God made Himself known as He never had before.
He lived in the thick darkness... and a veil hid whatever showed of God's presence... Only Jesus made Him truly known. We see it where we would least expect it: in that act of incomparable grace when He was fulfilling all righteousness, baptized by John in the Jordan (Matt. 3:13-17). There, as the Holy Spirit descended on Him, the Father from heaven proclaimed Him to be His beloved Son. The Trinity stood revealed.
The voice reached the people standing by — but not them alone.
So we see that the voice spoke for His own ear as well as for the ears of others. The acknowledgment was personal as well as public. And so He was anointed with the Holy Spirit and with power for the ministry of His life here below.
The devil goes after this very title in the next chapter.
The devil always sows doubts of the Divine Word. Compare Matt. 3:17 with Matt. 4:3 and 6, and see how clearly this comes out. No sooner has God said, "This is My beloved Son," than the devil says twice over, "If you are the Son of God." The little word "if" is a great favourite with the devil!
The scene does not stay private between Father and Son.
God has brought us to know Christ: "This is my beloved Son," that is what I delight in. The more we look at Him, the more we see there is the place God has brought us. If heaven opens on Him, it opens on us; if God owns Him as Son, He owns us as sons.
- Silence — heaven had no resting place on a ruined earth until Jesus stood on it.
- Voice — the words are God's answer to the lowliest act of Jesus's life, guarding Him from any suspicion of sin.
- Verdict — "well pleased" looks back over all that went before, and falls on the Person, not on work still to come.
- Revelation — Son in the water, Spirit descending, Father speaking: God makes Himself known as Father, Son and Spirit.
- Sharing — the heaven that opened on Him opens on us, and the God who owns Him as Son owns us as sons.