What is the baptism of/by/with fire?

A. I understand it to be that unsparing divine judgment which the Lord at His appearing is to execute on all evil, from which the righteous are for ever separated. John the Baptist presented the work of Messiah as a whole. The cross severed the two baptisms: that which followed His first advent when He ascended on high, baptising in the power of the Spirit; and that which awaits His second advent, detailed in the verse that follows in both Gospels. The Gospels of Mark and John speak only of that power which in virtue of the cross severs the Christian from the evil condemned therein. So in the Acts, we hear nothing of baptism in fire: this is to be when the Lord comes.

Before developing, with the Lord's help, these two sides of the truth, I should like to say a few words about the baptism of the Holy Ghost, for, I am persuaded, that in the minds of many dear children of God, there is great confusion as to that which God would have us glean from this expression. If we turn to the first place in Scripture, where the statement comes in, I think we shall get light. I ask you therefore to turn back to the third chapter of Matthew, and there from the lips of John the Baptist we first hear about it. In the eleventh verse, addressing those who had come out to him, repentant, and to be baptized, he says, I indeed baptize you with water to repentance but he that comes after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire. Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." 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 Ghost, i.e. 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. You have the two sides of the Lord's ministry here. He was to baptize with the Holy Ghost, and that is the richest and deepest blessing possible. He was also to baptize with fire. That is in a future day, yet to come.

The Baptist explains his words as he goes on to say, "whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." The distinct thought, in Scripture, as to fire, is testing, and destroying that which cannot stand the fire. For instance, we get in the third chapter of the 1st Corinthians, "Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed in fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is" (1 Cor. 3:13). All is to be tried by fire, and the gold, and silver, and precious stones — doctrines as well as men, wrought in by God's grace — will stand it; while the wood, hay, and stubble — what is false, those who are, though professors of Christ, still only in the flesh — will be burnt up.

Here then was evidently a stern rebuke for the leading Jews. But, more than that, John adds, "And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees" — that is to say, judgment is just at hand (ver. 10) — "therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance" — he does not go beyond this. The remission of sins that he speaks of appears to have been rather a question of the government of God than of that complete putting away of sin which was the fruit of grace when the work of atonement was done. But even so, it was in view of Messiah's advent.

"I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but He that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire" (ver. 11). 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. The Old Testament Scriptures did present the first and second advent of the Messiah, but not in such a way as to convey the thought of two distinct epochs. Even after the Lord's death and resurrection, the disciples did not understand this. So John joins these two things — the baptizing with the Holy Ghost and with fire. We know that the baptizing with the Holy Ghost is the power of God's blessing in the kingdom of heaven as it now is. The baptism of fire is that which will accompany the kingdom of heaven as it will be when Christ comes again. There is no such thing in the word of God as the baptism of fire to designate what took place at Pentecost. Baptism with fire is the application of the judgment of God in dealing with men; whereas the day of Pentecost was the outpouring of the grace of God, and the giving of the Holy Ghost to dwell in the saints of God, which referred to the power of the Holy Ghost going forth so as to bear testimony in such sort as would not bear a single evil thing in the heart of men, even while it showed out the grace of God. This is Christianity — the perfect love of God shown to a man that has no claim upon it: all his evil condemned by the grace of God in the death of Christ! And thus it is that a man is made honest in the sight of God and men. He can afford to be guileless about himself, because he knows that God imputes nothing to him. When we read on the day of Pentecost of the tongues being divided, it was to show the going forth of the testimony of God to the Gentile as well as to the Jew. But when Matt. 3 speaks of our Lord's baptizing with fire, the allusion is not to these tongues of fire, but to the execution of righteous judgment when Christ comes again. This appears still more clearly from what follows: "Whose fan is in His hand; and He will thoroughly purge His floor, and gather His wheat into the garner; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire" (ver. 12). It is not at all what He does in saving a soul, but the very contrary. It refers to the time when, men having refused the gospel, nothing remains but the outpouring of vengeance upon them.

Baptism of the Spirit and of Fire. — The Baptist was but the forerunner. Great as he was thought, and great as he really was, he was nevertheless unworthy to stoop to the lowest office for the coming One — to loose even His shoe latchet. Nor was that all. He baptised with water; but the Christ would baptise with the Holy Ghost and with fire, i.e., He would bestow the fullest blessing, and execute judgment likewise — for fire is here emblematic of judgment, as the Baptist went on to explain — but the chaff He will burn with fire unquenchable. An outline we here get in a few words of that which the Christ would do. And addressing a mixed multitude John spoke to them of both, though the saints of God only share in the one, and the impenitent only in the other. For to baptise with the Holy Ghost is to bestow the fullest blessing that saints can enter into upon earth. There is nothing beyond the gift of the Holy Ghost, and the becoming members by the baptism of the Spirit of the Body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:13). Fire, on the other hand, as we have stated, is here emblematic of judgment. The reader may seize the full bearing of the Baptist's statement, if he compares Matt. 3:11 and Luke 3:16 with Mark 1:8 and Acts 1:5. In both the former gospels, judgment is a prominent thought, and in both is baptism with fire mentioned. But in Mark, where the theme of judgment is but sparingly touched on, and in Acts, where the faithful were alone for the moment in view, the fire is not mentioned. It would not be in place. The evangelists were evidently no copyists, but wrote with a design, that of the Spirit of God.

What we have said is confirmed by Peter's words to those of the circumcision in Jerusalem, subsequent to the outpouring of the Spirit on the Gentiles at Caesarea. He discerned that God had done for these last, what He had previously done for the others in the upper room at Jerusalem. "As I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning. Then remembered I the word of the Lord, how that He said, John indeed baptised with water, but ye shall be baptised with the Holy Ghost" (Acts 11:15-16). Not a hint does he give of the baptism of fire having taken place. He speaks of that of the Holy Ghost. He is wholly silent about the other, and rightly so. That yet awaits its fulfilment. But were there not cloven tongues like as of fire seen in the upper room? Unquestionably. Was not that the baptism of fire? We firmly believe not. The Lord in the Acts did not mention it; and Peter never alluded to it. The Baptist, as we have said, has explained his own words. Let us learn from. him.

Judgment was not the only work that belonged to Jesus. Two things are however attributed to Him in John's testimony He baptises with fire — this is the judgment proclaimed in verse 12, which consumes all that is evil. But He baptises also with the Holy Ghost — that Spirit which, given to, and acting in divine energy in man, quickened, redeemed, cleansed in the blood of Christ, brings him out from the influence of all that acts on the flesh, and sets him in connection and in communion with all that is revealed of God, with the glory into which He brings His creatures in the life which He imparts, destroying morally in us the power of all that is contrary to the enjoyment of these privileges.

Does John's language bear this out? The kingdom, thus established, was, according to Old Testament prophecies, to be preceded by repentance in a remnant of the people. Now John demands repentance, and that they should "bring forth fruits meet for repentance: And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father, for I say unto you that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees; therefore every tree which brings not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He that comes after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear; He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire; Whose fan is in His hand, and He will throughly purge his floor, and gather His wheat into the garner; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire" (Matt. 3:8-12). How exactly this agrees with what the prophets tell about the kingdom in its manifested power and glory. It is a message to Israel calling on them for the repentance which must precede the establishment of the kingdom, and declaring that when the kingdom is established, the terrible baptism of fire will consume the wicked, while the promised baptism of the Holy Ghost will come upon the faithful and repentant remnant. It is true that Israel refused the call, and that the kingdom in this form was therefore postponed; but are we, on this account, to suppose that the words mean something different from what they say? That the prophecy which, naturally interpreted, foretells the kingdom in outward display and manifested righteousness, really predicts something, not only different, but even antagonistic, in character. Surely it is wiser and more reverent to bow to God's Word, and to believe that though the delay is long, "as some men count slackness," His purpose is sure. We shall presently see how and why the delay was brought in. Meanwhile, it is of importance to observe that the testimony of John the Baptist, instead of toning down the language of the Old Testament prophets, to make it harmonise with God's present actings toward the world in grace, fully concurs with them in speaking of the kingdom as the theatre in which God's judgments and righteousness should be fully displayed, and in presenting Jesus as the Messiah by whom these judgments should be executed and this righteousness established.

John also announced the coming forth of the Mighty One, whose forerunner he was. There was no comparison between them, and he confessed his sense of it by saying he was not fit to carry even the sandals of His feet. He also contrasted his own baptism with water and the baptism with the Holy Spirit and fire. The great Coming One should exercise perfect discrimination, sifting the wheat from the chaff. These He will baptize with the Holy Ghost, and those with the fire of judgment; and the issues will be eternal for the fire will be unquenchable.

These words of John must have been tremendously searching, and they will be fulfilled when the millennial age is about to be introduced. Then the Spirit will be poured upon all flesh, and not the Jew only — that is, upon all that have been redeemed. On the other hand the wicked will be banished to everlasting fire, as the end of Matt. 25 of our Gospel will show us. Meanwhile there has been an anticipatory fulfilment of the baptism of the Spirit, in the establishment of the church, as Acts 2 shows. The context here decisively reveals that "fire" is an allusion to judgment, and not to the tongues of fire on the day of Pentecost, or any similar action of blessing.

Thus John prepared the way of the Lord, and not only so he also faithfully pointed to Him, and did not for one moment permit the people to think great things of himself. He proclaimed himself to be but the humblest servant of the great Person who was coming — so humble as to be unworthy to perform the very menial service of unlacing His sandal. The Coming One was so great that He would baptize men with the Holy Ghost 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.

Then he gave witness concerning Christ. The expectation among the people was great and some thought that John might be the Messiah. The answer he gives directs the people to the coming One. Verses 16 and 17 blend together the first and second Coming of Christ. The fire-baptism takes place when He comes again; it is the fire of judgment. His first coming has brought for all who believe in Him the baptism with the Holy Spirit.

In Matt. 3:11, Christ's coming is foretold. It is His coming to Israel as the King who will bless His willing people, and bring judgment upon the wicked. The baptism of fire refers to the judgment that He will bring upon the ungodly among them (verse 12).