What is the unquenchable fire in Matthew 3:12?

"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.

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.

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 maters of stupendous import .

There is a difference between the axe and the fan. "Already" (ede) the axe was at the root of the useless trees, but the good ones, it might be supposed, would be left there. But when the Lord came, He would thoroughly purge His floor. The floor was dealt with, so to speak, the wheat gathered into a garner of His own, and the chaff burned with unquenchable fire. It cleared the floor, and disposed otherwise of its contents.

In verses 10-14 moral testimony is given, and that in detail. John deals with the practical iniquity of each set of people. So even when the question of the Christ is raised (v. 15-18), "one mightier than I cometh," says he. It is of His power specially he thinks - His power morally as outwardly. "He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire." It is the power of the Holy Ghost and His consuming judgment. He could not speak of the grace of the gospel which we know now. He proclaims One who was coming after him, not a present salvation. Whatever would not stand the fire was to be burnt up. For His fan "is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and will gather the wheat into his garner, but the chaff he will burn with fire unquenchable." (Compare Isa. 21:10, etc.) 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. Titus finally set aside God's floor upon the earth; Israel's sin had lost it morally when they rejected Christ, but at the destruction of Jerusalem it was done with thoroughly for the present.

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.

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.

Baptizing with fire is the solemn alternative of this, as verse 17 shows. It is virtually burial by fire, the devastating judgment of God upon unbelievers. John uses the symbol of the threshing-floor where the wheat (believers) is separated from the chaff (unbelievers), the wheat gathered into the granary, the chaff burned with fire not to be quenched, an eternal, abiding judgment. How awesome a contrast to the greatness of blessing of those redeemed by the blood of Christ! Here Luke ends the ministry of John with the observation that he had more than this to say in exhorting the people.

It may be asked: Why should John speak so much of judgment? The answer lies in the fact that so many were listening to him whom he could only call a "generation of vipers" (verse 7). For them, unless they repented, there was only the baptism of fire, a baptism of "judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries" (Heb. 10:27).

This was accomplished in the open air, by throwing up the grain with a shovel, or a fan (λίκνος, 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. Ruth 3:2; Isa. 30:24. John the Baptist said of the Lord that His fan was in His hand, and He would thoroughly purge His floor; gather His wheat into the garner; and burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. Matt. 3:12; Luke 3:17. It is now a day of grace, a sowing time, but the harvest will come, and the winnowing will surely follow.