*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.