6  The Fruits of  True Repentance (3:7-12)

But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bring forth fruit in keeping with repentance; and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you, that God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. And the axe is already laid at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. And His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” (3:7-12)

Matthew records but this one sample of the preaching of John the Baptist. The parallel account in Luke (3:1-18) gives more details, but the message is the same: a call to repentance and baptism, an inner change of mind and heart, along with an outward act that symbolized that change—and, even more importantly, a manner of living that demonstrated the change. The “many other exhortations” that John preached (Luke 3:18) possibly consisted primarily of more examples of the fruit in keeping with repentance (v. 8) that he gave in addition to those mentioned in verses 11-14.

John’s preaching was simple and his message was limited to that which was most essential, but he faithfully fulfilled his singular calling as the herald of God’s coming great King. He performed his ministry with a boldness, courage, power, and single-minded devotion that caused that King to say of him, “Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist” (Matt. 11:11).

In the narrative of 3:7-12 Matthew focuses on four elements: the congregation, the confrontation, the condemnation, and the consolation.

THE CONGREGATION

But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, (3:7a)

Among the great number of people who came out to see John in the wilderness (v. 5) were many of the Pharisees and Sadducees, whom the Baptist singled out for special warning and rebuke.

By New Testament times three groups, or sects, had developed that were quite distinct from the rest of Judaism. Besides the two mentioned here (and frequently in the gospels and Acts), were the Essenes. Most of the Essenes were unmarried, but they often adopted children from other Jewish families. These secretive and ascetic Jews lived for the most part in isolated, exclusive, and austere communities such as the now-famous Qumran, on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea. They spent much of their time copying the Scriptures, and it is to them that we owe the valuable and helpful Dead Sea Scrolls—discovered by accident in 1947 by an Arab shepherd boy. But the Essenes had little contact with or influence on the society of their own day and are nowhere mentioned in the New Testament.

THE PHARISEES

The Pharisees, however, were a great contrast to the Essenes. They were equally, if not more, exclusive, but were found for the most part in the larger cities such as Jerusalem. They were an association very much in the mainstream of Jewish life and made a point of being noticed and admired. Jesus exposed them as doing “all their deeds to be noticed by men… and they love the place of honor at banquets, and the chief seats in the synagogues, and respectful greetings in the market places, and being called by men, Rabbi” (Matt. 23:5-7; cf. 6:2, 5).

We have no specific documentation as to exactly how or when the Pharisee sect began, but it is likely that it developed out of a former group called the Hasidim, whose name means “pious ones” or “saints.” The Hasidim came into being in the second century B.C., during the intertestamental period. Palestine had been under the Hellenistic (Greek) rule of the Seleucid Syrian kings for many years. Jewish patriots, under the leadership of Judas Maccabaeus, revolted when Antiochus Epiphanes tried to force his pagan culture and religion on the Jews. That despicable tyrant even profaned the Temple by sacrificing a pig on the altar and forcing the sacrificed meat down the throats of the priests—a double abomination to Jews, because the law of Moses forbade them to eat pork (Lev. 11:4-8; Deut. 14:7-8). The Hasidim were among the strongest supporters of the revolt, until its leaders began to become worldly and politicized.

Many scholars believe that the Pharisees, and likely the Essenes also, descended from the Hasidim. The word Pharisee means “separated ones,” and members of the sect diligently tried to live up to their name. Admission to the group was strictly controlled by periods of probation lasting up to one year, during which the applicant had to prove his ability to follow ritual law. They separated themselves not only from Gentiles but from tax collectors and any others whom they considered to be base “sinners” (Luke 7:39). They even looked with disdain on the common Jewish people, whom a group of Pharisees in Jerusalem once referred to as “accursed” (John 7:49). After leaving the marketplace or any public gathering, they would as soon as possible perform ceremonial washings to purify themselves of possible contamination from touching some unclean person.

The Pharisees formed a self-righteous, “holy” community within the community; they were legalistic isolationists who had no regard or respect for those outside their sect. They believed strongly in God’s sovereignty and in divine destiny and that they alone were the true Israel. They considered themselves to be superspiritual, but their “spirituality” was entirely external, consisting of the pursuit of meticulous observance of a multitude of religious rituals and taboos, most of which they and various other religious leaders had devised over the previous several centuries as supplements to the law of Moses. These were known collectively as “the tradition of the elders,” concerning which Jesus gave the Pharisees one of His strongest rebukes, charging them with “teaching as doctrines the precepts of men” (Matt. 15:2-9).

By the time of Christ, the Pharisees had lost most of whatever nationalism they may earlier have had. Another sect, the Zealots, had become the association for those whose primary concern was Jewish independence. The Pharisees’ single loyalty was to themselves, to their traditions and to their own influence and prestige. By their strict adherence to those traditions they expected to reap great reward in heaven. But they were the epitome of religious emptiness and hypocrisy, as Jesus often pointed out (Matt. 15:7; 22:18; 23:13, 23, 25; etc.). The Pharisees “outwardly [appeared] righteous to men, but inwardly [were] full of hypocrisy and lawlessness” (Matt. 23:28).

THE SADDUCEES

The Sadducees were at the other end of the Jewish religious spectrum—the ultraliberals. The origin of their name is uncertain, but many modern scholars believe it is derived from Zadok (Sadok in the Septuagint, the Greek Old Testament), the name of a man who was priest under David (2 Sam. 8:17) and chief priest under Solomon (1 Kings 1:32). This sect also arose during the intertestamental period, but from among the priestly aristocracy. They were compromisers, both religiously and politically. They cared little for Greek culture, with its emphasis on philosophy and intellectualism, but were greatly attracted to the pragmatic, practical Romans.

The Sadducees claimed to accept the law of Moses as the supreme and only religious authority, and they scorned the legalistic traditions of their antagonists, the Pharisees. In New Testament times they were still closely associated with the priestly class (see Acts 5:17), to the extent that the terms chief priest and Sadducee were used almost synonymously (as were the terms scribe and Pharisee). But they cared little for religion, especially doctrine, and denied the existence of angels, the resurrection, and most things supernatural (Acts 23:6-8). Consequently they lived only for the present, getting everything they could from whomever they could—Gentiles and fellow Jews alike. They believed in extreme human autonomy and in the unlimited freedom of the will. They considered themselves masters of their own destinies.

The Sadducees were much fewer in number than the Pharisees and were extremely wealthy. Among other things, under the leadership of Annas they ran the Temple franchises—the money exchanging and the sale of sacrificial animals—and charged exorbitantly for those services. It was therefore the Sadducees’ business that Jesus damaged when he drove the moneychangers and sacrifice sellers out of the Temple (Matt. 21:12-13).

Because of their great wealth, Temple racketeering, and affiliation with the Romans, the Sadducees were much less popular with their fellow Jews than were the Pharisees, who were strongly religious and had some measure of national loyalty.

Religiously, politically, and socially the Pharisees and Sadducees had almost nothing in common. The Pharisees were ritualistic; the Sadducees were rationalistic. The Pharisees were strict separatists; the Sadducees comprising collaborators. The Pharisees were commoners (most of them had a trade), while the Sadducees were aristocrats. Both groups had members among the scribes and were represented in the priesthood and in the Jewish high council, the Sanhedrin; yet they were in almost constant opposition to each other. During New Testament times about the only common ground they exhibited was opposition to Christ and His followers (Matt. 22:15-16, 23, 34-35; Acts 4:1; 23:6).

They had one other common religious and spiritual ground. The Pharisees expected their reward in heaven, while the Sadducees expected theirs in this life, but the trust of both groups was in personal works and self-effort. Both emphasized the superficial and nonessential, and had no concern for the genuine inner spiritual life or for the welfare of their fellow man. That was “the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees,” the hypocritical, self-serving, dead externalism about which Jesus warned His disciples (Matt. 16:6).

Throughout most of its history the church has had its own brands of Pharisees and Sadducees, its ritualists and its rationalists. The one looks for salvation and blessing through prescribed ceremonies and legalistic practices; the other finds religious meaning and purpose in private, existential beliefs and standards. One is conservative and the other is liberal, but the hope and trust of both groups is in themselves, in what they can perform or accomplish by their own actions and wills.

It is probably because of that deeper spiritual commonness that Matthew speaks of them as one group, emphasized by the use of a single definite article (the) rather than two (“the Pharisees and the Sadducees”). It is clear from John’s response to them that he considered their basic problem and need to be exactly the same.

This group was coming for baptism, the Greek preposition epi (for) being used in a construction that clearly indicates purpose. In light of John’s unorthodox dress and style and his prophetic and authoritative exhortations, it is hard to imagine why the self-righteous and proud Pharisees and Sadducees would ask to be baptized by him. Some of them may simply have been curious. It seems more probable, however, that they suspected that John might indeed be a prophet, as many of the people believed (Matt. 14:5), and that they wanted to check him out as thoroughly as they could. If he were a genuine prophet perhaps they could gain his approval, parade the pretense of repentant spirituality, and capitalize on or even take over the movement—in the way religious opportunists still do today. Whatever their reasons were, they were wrong, wicked reasons. They were not seeking God’s truth or God’s working in their own lives. They were not repentant; they had not confessed their sins; they had not changed at all—as John well knew. They were not genuinely seeking the true righteousness that delivers from judgment. They were the same smug, self-righteous hypocrites they had been when they started out to find John.

THE CONFRONTATION

he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” (3:7b)

John’s awareness of the insincerity and lack of repentance of the Pharisees and Sadducees is evident in those strong words. They intended to carry their hypocrisy even to the extent of submitting to John’s baptism, out of whatever corrupt motives they may have had. Gennma (brood) may also be translated “offspring,” signifying descendants or children. Jesus used the same epithet (brood of vipers) to describe the Pharisees on several occasions (Matt. 12:34; 23:33). Vipers (echidna) were small but very poisonous desert snakes, which would have been quite familiar to John the Baptist. They were made even more dangerous by the fact that, when still, they looked like a dead branch and were often picked up unintentionally. That is exactly what Paul did on the island of Malta when he went to gather wood for a fire after the shipwreck. As indicated by the response of the natives who were befriending Paul and the others, the bite of the viper was often fatal, though Paul miraculously “suffered no harm” (Acts 28:3-5).

Calling the Pharisees and Sadducees a brood of vipers pointed up the danger of their religious hypocrisy—as well as the fact that their wicked work had been passed on to them by the original serpent (Gen. 3:1-13) through their spiritual forefathers, of whom they were the brood, or offspring. Like the desert viper, they often appeared to be harmless, but their brand of godliness (cf. 2 Tim. 3:5) was venomous and deadly. In His series of woes against the scribes and Pharisees, Jesus said, “You shut off the kingdom of heaven from men; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in” (Matt. 23:13). They were responsible for keeping countless Jews out of the kingdom, and therefore from salvation and spiritual life.

In Matthew 23:33 Jesus calls the scribes and Pharisees “serpents” as well as a “brood of vipers,” suggesting even more directly that their true spiritual father was Satan—as He specifically charges in John 8:44 (cf. Rev. 12:9; 20:2). These religious hypocrites were Satan’s children doing Satan’s deceitful work.

The question Who warned you to flee continues the viper figure. A brush fire or a farmer’s burning the stalks in his field after the harvest would cause vipers and other creatures to flee before the flames in order to escape. It was a common sight in many of the Mediterranean and Arab regions, and one that John the Baptist doubtlessly had seen many times. The implication is that the Pharisees and Sadducees were expecting John’s baptism to be a kind of spiritual fire insurance, giving protection from the flames of the wrath to come. True repentance and conversion do protect from God’s wrath and judgment, but superficial and insincere professions or acts of faith tend only to harden a person against genuine belief, giving a false sense of security. John would not be party to such hypocrisy and sham. It was the deceitfulness of their true master, Satan, and not genuine fear of God’s judgment, that led them out to hear John and to seek his baptism as a pretentious formality.

John’s indictment must have deeply stung those false religious leaders, who considered themselves to be far above the common man in their relationship to God and His kingdom. John, and Jesus after him, characterized them as deceivers rather than leaders, perpetuators of spiritual darkness rather than spiritual light, children of the devil rather than sons of God.

THE CONDEMNATION

Therefore bring forth fruit in keeping with repentance; and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you, that God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. And the axe is already laid at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. (3:8-10)

The marks of a truly repentant heart are fruit in keeping with repentance, or as Paul described them to King Agrippa, “deeds appropriate to repentance” (Acts 26:20). In his parallel account Luke mentions several examples of the kind of fruit John was talking about. To the general multitude he said, “Let the man who has two tunics share with him who has none; and let him who has food do likewise” (Luke 3:11). To the tax-gatherers he said, “Collect no more than what you have been ordered to” (v. 13), and to some soldiers he said, “Do not take money from anyone by force, or accuse anyone falsely, and be content with your wages” (v. 14).

As James points out, “Faith, if it has no works, is dead” (James 2:17). John says in his first epistle, “The one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous” (1 John 3:7); and that “if someone says, I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen” (4:20). Our actions toward our fellow men are indicators of our true attitude toward God.

Axios (in keeping with) has the root idea of having equal weight or worth, and therefore of being appropriate. True repentance not only should but will have correspondingly genuine works, demonstrated in both attitudes and actions. Right relationship to God brings right relationship to our fellow human beings, at least as far as our part is concerned (cf. Rom. 12:18). Those who claim to know Christ, who claim to be born again, will demonstrate a new way of living that corresponds to the new birth.

The Pharisees and Sadducees knew a great deal about repentance. That God fully and freely remits the sins of a penitent is a basic doctrine of Judaism. The ancient rabbis said, “Great is repentance, for it brings healing upon the world. Great is repentance, for it reaches to the throne of God,” and, “A man can shoot an arrow for a few furlongs, but repentance reaches to the throne of God.” Some rabbis maintained that the law was created two thousand years before the world, but that repentance was created even before the law. The clear meaning of repentance in Judaism has always been a change in man’s attitude toward God that results in a moral and religious reformation of the individual’s conduct. The great medieval Jewish scholar Maimonides said of the traditional Jewish concept of repentance: “What is repentance? Repentance is that the sinner forsakes his sin, puts it out of his thoughts, and fully resolves in his mind that he will never do it again.”

Such understanding of repentance is basically consistent with the teaching of the Old Testament. Repentance always involves a changed life, a renouncing of sin and doing righteousness. The Lord declared through Ezekiel, “When the righteous turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, then he shall die in it. But when the wicked turns from his wickedness and practices justice and righteousness, he will live by them” (Ezek. 33:18-19). Hosea pleaded, “Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity. Take words with you and return to the Lord. Say to Him, ‘Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously’” (Hos. 14:1-2). After Jonah’s reluctant but powerful warning to Nineveh, “God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, [and] then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it” (Jonah 3:10). Nineveh brought forth fruit in keeping with repentance.

The idea that repentance is evidenced by renunciation of sin and by righteous living did not originate with John the Baptist, but had long been an integral part of orthodox Judaism. Faithful rabbis had taught that one of the most important passages in Scripture was, “Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from My sight. Cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, reprove the ruthless; defend the orphan, plead for the widow” (Isa. 1:16-17).

Theologian Erich Sauer, in The Triumph of the Crucified (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1951, p. 67), speaks of repentance as “a threefold action. In the understanding it means knowledge of sin; in the feelings it means pain and grief; and in the will it means a change of mind.” True repentance first of all involves understanding and insight, intellectual awareness of the need for moral and spiritual cleansing and change. Second, it involves our emotions. We come to feel the need that our mind knows. Third, it involves appropriate actions that result from what our mind knows and our heart feels.

Recognition of personal sin is the important first step. But by itself it is useless, even dangerous, because it tends to make a person think that mere recognition is all that is necessary. A hardened pharaoh admitted his sin (Ex. 9:27), a double-minded Balaam admitted his (Num. 22:34), a greedy Achan acknowledged his (Josh. 7:20), and an insincere Saul confessed his (1 Sam. 15:24). The rich young ruler who asked Jesus how to have eternal life went away sorrowful but not repentant (Luke 18:23). Even Judas, despairing over his betrayal of Jesus, said to the chief priests and elders, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood” (Matt. 27:4). All of those men recognized their sin, yet none of them repented. They were experiencing what Paul called “the sorrow of the world” that “produces death” instead of the “godly sorrow” that “produces a repentance” (2 Cor. 7:10-11).

True repentance will include a deep feeling of wrongdoing and of sin against God. David begins his great penitential psalm by crying out, “Be gracious to me, O God, according to Thy lovingkindness; according to the greatness of Thy compassion blot out my transgressions” (Ps. 51:1). He not only clearly saw his sin but deeply felt his need to be rid of it. In another psalm he declared, “When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long” (Ps. 32:3).

The sorrow of true repentance is like David’s; it is sorrow for offense against a holy God, not simply regret over the personal consequences of our sin. Sorrow over being found out or over suffering hardship or discipline because of our sin is not godly sorrow, and has nothing to do with repentance. That sort of sorrow is but selfish regret, concern for self rather than for God. It merely adds to the original sin.

Even acknowledgement of sin and feeling of offense against God do not complete repentance. If it is genuine, it will result in a changed life that bears fruit in keeping with repentance. David, after confessing and expressing great remorse for his sin against God, determined that, with God’s help, he would forsake his sin and turn to righteousness. “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me,… Then I will teach transgressors Thy ways, and sinners will be converted to Thee” (Ps. 51:10, 13). Fruit is always seen in Scripture as manifested behavior (cf. Matt. 7:20).

The great Puritan Thomas Goodwin called for repentance with these striking words:

Another Puritan, William Perkins, wrote, “Godly sorrow causeth grief for sin, because it is sin. It makes any man in whom it is to be of this disposition and mind, that if there were no conscience to accuse, no devil to terrify, no Judge to arraign and condemn, no hell to torment, yet he would be humbled and brought on his knees for his sins, because he hath offended a loving, merciful, and long-suffering God.”

Ultimately, of course, repentance like that is a gift of God. Speaking to the Sanhedrin, the supreme Jewish council, Peter and some of the other apostles said, “He [Jesus] is the one whom God exalted to His right hand as a Prince and a Savior, to grant repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins” (Acts 5:31). Some while later, after he himself had finally been persuaded by God that the Gentiles were eligible for the kingdom (10:1-35), Peter managed to convince skeptical Jewish Christians in Jerusalem, who then “glorified God, saying, ‘Well then, God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life’” (11:18). Paul called Timothy to be a gentle bond-servant of the Lord in proclaiming the truth to the lost in the hope that “God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will” (2 Tim. 2:25-26).

It was clearly not God-given repentance that the Pharisees and Sadducees professed before John. Of all people they should have known the meaning of true repentance, but they did not. They were hypocrites and phonies, as John well knew. He had seen absolutely no evidence of true repentance, and he demanded to see such evidence before he would baptize them. As in the case of all baptisms since John, they are to be outward signs of inward transformation.

John’s words to those religious leaders was at once a rebuke and an invitation: Therefore bring forth fruit in keeping with repentance. “You have shown no evidence of it,” he was saying, “but now you have opportunity to truly repent if you mean it. Show me that you have turned from your wicked hypocrisy to genuine godliness, and I will be glad to baptize you.” The rabbis taught that the gates of repentance never close, that repentance is like the sea, because a person can bathe in it at any hour. Rabbi Eleezar said, “It is the way of the world, when a man has insulted his fellow in public, and after a time seeks to be reconciled to him, that the other says, ‘You insult me publicly, and now you would be reconciled to me between us two alone! Go bring the men in whose presence you insulted me, and I will be reconciled to you.’ But God is not so. A man may stand and rail and blaspheme in the market place and the Holy One says, ‘Repent between us two alone, and I will receive you.’” (cited in William Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1975], 1:56).

Some years ago a well-known man in public ministry openly and repeatedly ridiculed a fellow minister. After many months of criticism, the first man decided that he was wrong in what he had done and went to the other minister asking his forgiveness. It was reported that the one who had been criticized replied, “You attacked me publicly and you should apologize publicly. When you do I will forgive you.”

There is no reason to believe that John the Baptist intended to humiliate the Pharisees and Sadducees or demand some sort of public demonstration of their sincerity. But he insisted on seeing valid evidence of true repentance and would not be party to their using him to promote their own selfish and ungodly purposes.

Knowing what they were probably thinking, John continued, and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, “We have Abraham for our father.” They believed that simply being Abraham’s descendants, members of God’s chosen race, made them spiritually secure. Not so, John said, for I say to you, that God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Descent from Abraham was not a passport to heaven. It was a great advantage in knowing and understanding God’s will (Rom. 3:1-2; 9:4-5), but without faith in Him that advantage becomes a more severe condemnation. If Abraham himself was justified only by his personal faith (Gen. 15:6; Rom. 4:1-3), how could his descendants expect to be justified in any other way (Rom. 3:21-22)?

Many Jews of New Testament times believed, and many Orthodox Jews of our own day still believe, that simply their Jewishness assures them a place in God’s kingdom. The rabbis taught that “all Israelites have a portion in the world to come.” They spoke of the “delivering merits of the fathers,” who passed on spiritual merit to their descendants. Some even taught that Abraham stood guard at the gates of Gehenna, or hell, turning back any Israelite who happened that way. They claimed that it was Abraham’s merit that enabled Jewish ships to sail safely on the seas, that sent rain on their crops, that enabled Moses to receive the law and to enter heaven, and that caused David’s prayers to be heard.

That was the sort of presumption John the Baptist rebuked. No descent from Abraham, no matter how genetically pure, could make a person right with God. Jesus contradicted the similar claims of another group of Pharisees, except in even stronger terms than John’s. After they self-righteously asserted, “Abraham is our father, “Jesus said, “If you are Abraham’s children, do the deeds of Abraham. But as it is, you are seeking to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God; this Abraham did not do” (John 8:39-40). Our Lord went on to say that their deeds proved their father was actually Satan. In Jesus’ story of the rich man and Lazarus, it is overlooked that the rich man in hell addresses Abraham as “Father,” and Abraham, speaking from heaven, calls the rich man his “Child.” But the rich man was then told by Abraham, “Between us and you there is a great chasm fixed, in order that those who wish to come over from here to you may not be able, and that none may cross over from there to us” (Luke 16:25-26). A child of Abraham in hell was beyond their thinking.

The Jews generally considered Gentiles to be the occupants of hell, spiritually lifeless and hopeless, dead stones as far as a right relationship with God is concerned. It may be that John played on that figure in declaring that God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham, that is, true children of Abraham who come to the Lord as Abraham did, by faith. When the Roman centurion asked Jesus to heal his servant simply by saying the word, Jesus replied, “Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel. And I say to you, that many shall come from east and west, and recline at the table with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven; but the sons of the kingdom [i.e., Israelites] shall be cast out into the outer darkness; in that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 8:10-12).

In John’s preaching, as in the Old Testament prophets, judgment was closely connected with salvation in the coming of the Messiah. Those men of God saw no gap between His coming to save and His coming to judge. Isaiah wrote of the “shoot” that would “spring from the stem of Jesse, and a branch from his roots” who would “decide with fairness for the afflicted of the earth; and He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips He will slay the wicked” (Isa. 11:1,4). Speaking again of the Messiah, Isaiah wrote, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted;. . . to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God” (Isa. 61:1-2; cf. Joel 3). In his blessing of the infant Jesus in the Temple, Simeon said of Him, “Behold, this Child is appointed for the fall and rise of many in Israel” (Luke 2:34).

Israel experienced a foretaste of God’s judgment in the ravaging of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70, only about forty years after John the Baptist preached. Every unbeliever likewise faces a certain judgment when he dies, and even before death people may suffer foretaste judgments from God because of sin and rebellion. As the book of Proverbs repeatedly reminds us (1:32-33; 2:3-22; 3:33-35; etc.), God makes certain that ultimately, and even to a great extent in this life, the good will reap goodness and the evil will reap evil (cf. Rom. 2:5-11).

John apparently believed that God’s ultimate judgment was imminent. Because the Messiah had arrived, the axe is already laid at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

At the end of every harvest season the farmer would go through his vineyard or orchard looking for plants that had borne no good fruit. These would be cut down to make room for productive vines and trees and to keep them from taking nutrients from the soil that were needed by the good plants. A fruitless tree was a worthless and useless tree, fit only to be cut down and thrown into the fire. Jesus used a similar figure in describing false disciples. “If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch, and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned” (John 15:6). Fruitless repentance is worthless and useless; it means absolutely nothing to God.

Fire is a frequent biblical symbol of the torment of divine punishment and judgment. Because of their exceptional wickedness, Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by “brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven” (Gen. 19:24). After Korah, his men, and their households were swallowed up by the earth and “went down alive to Sheol . . . fire also came forth from the Lord and consumed the two hundred and fifty men who were offering the incense” (Num. 16:32-33,35). In His role as a righteous Judge, God is frequently called “a consuming fire” (Ex. 24:17; Deut. 4:24; 9:3; etc.). In the last chapter in the Old Testament, Malachi speaks of the coming day that will be “burning like a furnace; and all the arrogant and every evildoer will be chaff; and the day that is coming will set them ablaze” (Mal. 4:1). John’s preaching picked up where Malachi left off, and Jesus Himself often spoke of the fires of hell (Matt. 5:22, 29; Mark 9:43, 47; Luke 3:17; etc.).

John was speaking specifically to the unrepentant Pharisees and Sadducees, but his message of judgment was to every person, every tree … that does not bear good fruit, who refuses to turn to God for forgiveness and salvation and therefore has no evidence, no good fruit, of genuine repentance. Salvation is not verified by a past act, but by present fruitfulness.

THE CONSOLATION

As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. And His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. (3:11-12)

With the message of judgment John also gives a measure of hope and consolation. Here he speaks specifically of the Messiah, who had come in order that no one need face God’s judgment.

First, John explains how his baptism differed from that of the Messiah: I baptize you with water for repentance. John’s baptism reflected a ritual the Jews often used when a Gentile accepted the God of Israel. The ceremony was the mark of an outsider’s becoming a part of the chosen people. In John’s ministry it marked the outward profession of inward repentance, which prepared a person for the coming of the King. As the apostle Paul explained many years later, “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in Him who was coming after him, that is, in Jesus” (Acts 19:4).

The second baptism mentioned here is by the Messiah, a baptism by the One John says is coming after me and who is mightier than I, whose sandals John was not fit to remove. One of the lowliest tasks of a slave in that day was removing the sandals of his master and any guests and then washing their feet. It was the symbol Jesus Himself used in teaching His disciples to be servants (John 13:5-15). The humility of John, one mark of his spiritual stature, is evident in this description of the One he heralded and is consistent with his expression in John 3:30 that “He must increase, but I must decrease.”

Among the ways in which the Messiah would be mightier than John would be in His baptism with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was promised by Jesus to His disciples as “another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not behold Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you, and will be in you” (John 14:16-17). At Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4) and during the initial formation of the church (Acts 8:5-17; 10:44-48; 19:1-7), the promised Holy Spirit did come upon the disciples, baptizing them and establishing them in the body of Christ. Though without such dramatic attending signs, every believer since that time is baptized into the church by Christ with God’s Spirit. “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free” (1 Cor. 12:13).

John’s word about the Holy Spirit must have been comforting and thrilling to the faithful Jews among his hearers, those who hoped for the day when God would “pour out [His] Spirit on all mankind” (Joel 2:28), when He would “sprinkle clean water on [them],” and “give [them] a new heart and put a new spirit within [them]” (Ezek. 36:25-26). In that day they would at last be baptized in the very power and person of God Himself.

The third baptism mentioned here is that of fire. Many interpreters take this to be a part of the Holy Spirit baptism, which began at Pentecost and which in that instance was accompanied by “tongues of fire” (Acts 2:3). But the Acts account says that those tongues “appeared to them” (that is, the waiting disciples) “as of fire.” They were not fire, but looked like licks of fire. In his last promise of the soon-coming baptism with the Holy Spirit, Jesus said nothing about actual fire being a part of the experience (Acts 1:5). And when, a short time later, Cornelius and his household were baptized with the Holy Spirit, no fire was present (Acts 10:44; 11:16; cf. 8:17; 19:6).

Other interpreters take the fire to represent a spiritual cleansing, as described in the quotation above from Ezekiel. But nothing in Ezekiel’s text, in the context of John’s message here, or in the Pentecost reference to the tongues “as of fire” relates to such cleansing.

Consequently, it seems best to consider fire as representing God’s coming judgment, which, as we have seen, is so frequently in Scripture symbolized by fire. In both the preceding and following verses (10, 12) John clearly uses fire to represent judgment and punishment. It is impossible that the middle reference to fire would concern an entirely different subject. Both of the adjoining verses contrast the fates of believers and unbelievers, those who bear good fruit and those who do not (v. 10) and the valuable wheat and the worthless chaff (v. 12). It therefore seems logical and natural to take verse 11 also as a contrast between believers (those baptized with the Holy Spirit) and unbelievers (those baptized with the fire of God’s judgment).

As in the preceding two verses, John again gives consolation to believers but warning to unbelievers: And His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. The figure is changed to that of a farmer who has just harvested his grain crop.

In Palestine, as in many other parts of the ancient world, farmers made a threshing floor by picking out a slight depression in the ground, or digging one if necessary, usually on a hill where breezes could be caught. The soil would then be wetted and packed down until it was very hard. Around the perimeter of the floor, which was perhaps thirty or forty feet in diameter, rocks would be stacked to keep the grain in place. After the stalks of grain were placed onto the floor, an ox, or a team of oxen, would drag heavy pieces of wood around over the grain, separating the wheat kernels from the chaff, or straw. Then the farmer would take a winnowing fork and throw a pile of grain into the air. The wind would blow the chaff away, while the kernels, being heavier, would fall back to the floor. Eventually, nothing would be left but the good and useful wheat.

In a similar way the Messiah will separate out everyone who belongs to Him and, like a farmer, He will gather His wheat into the barn, where it will be forever safe and protected. Also in a similar way to the farmer’s, He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. The long-awaited Messiah would Himself perform both functions, though not in the time and sequence that John and the prophets before him may have thought. The final separation and the ultimate judgment will be only at Christ’s second coming, when the unsaved “will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Matt. 25:46). That scene is dramatically presented by our Lord in the parable of the tares (Matt. 13:36-43) and the parable of the dragnet (Matt. 13:47-50).

John’s introduction to the person and ministry of the Messiah prepared the people for the arrival of their King.