Baptism by the Holy Spirit and Fire

INTRO

In the first two chapters, Matthew recorded Jesus’ family tree, and the wise men who came looking for the King of the Jews. In this chapter, John the Baptist proclaimed that he came to prepare the way for the King of the Jews. The one who announced the coming of a King was also called a forerunner. John Walvoord says that the forerunner went before the king to announce that the king was coming to visit a town and to make sure that the town was in good condition to receive him. Sometimes, the forerunner would be asked to do minor work to smooth the road for the king to come,¹preparing for His arrival.

TEACHING

Matthew 3:1: The area John was in, is located to the west of the Dead Sea (or the Salt Sea). You have to wonder why someone who came to announce the coming of a King would be preaching in a wilderness area where no one was, but it shows that this was how God designed it (1 Corinthians 1:26). God put John the Baptist in the wilderness so everyone would know that it wasn’t about him but about God.

Matthew 3:2: In verse 2, John gave his message, “Repent, because the kingdom of heaven has come near!” To repent means to radically change your old way of doing things, to a radical change of mind about how you’ve been doing things, to turning your back on that sin, and radically run to the kingdom of heaven. The Jews do not like to say the name “God” because they want to honor and respect Him. So Matthew used the term “kingdom of heaven” instead of “kingdom of God.” MacArthur states that Matthew’s “kingdom of heaven” points to the” kingdom of Jesus” that resides “in the hearts of His people . . . and requires internal repentance, not just external submission.”²John the Baptist said to the people that they needed to begin to change their hearts.

Matthew 3:4-6: John had “a camel-hair garment with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey.” In Leviticus 11:22, these were allowed to be eaten: any kind of locust, katydid, cricket, and grasshopper.” In 2 Kings 1:8 is a description of the prophet Elijah, another forerunner of Christ: “A hairy man with a leather belt around his waist.” Both Elijah and John the Baptist seem to have the same image before the people. The people flocked to John (v. 5) and were “baptized by him in the Jordan River as they confessed their sins” (v. 6).

John the Baptist, as the forerunner, was to reflect what Jesus would later communicate. Nelson’s Commentary gives a comparison of John the Baptist and Jesus: (1) they were both agents of God sent by God; (2) they both had a message to proclaim; (3) they will both experience conflict with Israel; (4) they will both be delivered into and die from the hands of Israel; (5) they both die violently and in a shameful way.³All of these things are done to the forerunner, then to Jesus.

How was John the Baptist’s baptism different from Jesus’ baptism? It was a foreshadow of what was to come; it wasn’t the complete picture. In the Old Testament, the Israelites had purification rituals, so there’s a connection between baptism and the Old Testament. If a Jew was going to come before the presence of the Lord, he had to be cleansed and put on clean clothes first.

Matthew 3:7-12: The Pharisees and Sadducees joined the people who were coming to repent (v. 7). John said to them, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?” (v. 8). His language in this and the following verses sound very much like the words of Jesus (Matthew 12:34). John said that if there was true repentance that took place in the lives of these religious leaders, then they should have begun to see tangible fruit (change) in their lives (v. 8). First Thessalonians 1:9 gives a picture of true repentance. If the Pharisees and the Sadducees had repented, they would no longer be focused on themselves or their religious duties but on the Lord.

John then told the Pharisees and the Sadducees to stop thinking that they could depend upon being descendants of Abraham (v. 9). They could not depend upon their religious lineage to receive a special place in God’s plan, because God could raise up children to take their place. In verse 10, John the Baptist said that the axe could strike at the very root of the trees because they were not bearing fruit. As the forerunner, part of what John the Baptist had to do was to prepare the bumpy road, fix the potholes, and get rid of the religious junk so all would be ready for Jesus.

John told the Pharisees and the Sadducees that One was coming that he was unworthy to even remove His sandals (v.10), and that One was coming to baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. MacArthur explains that three types of baptism were listed here: (1) baptism “with water unto repentance”––John the Baptist’s baptism of repentance; (2) baptism “with the Holy Spirit”––which all believers receive; and (3) baptism “with fire”––as a measure of judgment and refinement⁴(Acts 1:5,8). Just as John the Baptist came as the forerunner of Jesus, we are empowered by the Holy Spirit to be the forerunners of Jesus’ coming again––His return. The way we get ready is be baptized by the Holy Spirit and by fire.

Leviticus 6:13 says: “Fire must be kept burning on the altar continually; it must not go out.” In the presence of God, the fire must not go out. The fire of God inside of you never goes out. The baptism of fire is to burn away the chaff that is inside of you so that you can express the Holy Spirit in your everyday life (v. 12). Why? So, you can be a forerunner for the return of the Messiah. The burning up of the chaff should always point us to Him and to others. I believe that if we never understand that the fire of God that is within us is burning away the chaff in our lives, then we’ll never address the issues in our lives, and we become religious again. We become those who say we’re going to repent but never bear fruit.

Matthew 3:13-17: In verses 13-14, Jesus came to John the Baptist for baptism. John didn’t think he was worthy to even untie Jesus’ sandals, nor to baptize Jesus. Jesus responded, “Allow it for now, because this is the way for us to fulfill all righteousness” (v. 15). John did as Jesus asked. Jesus actually was baptized in the water. He got all in––He got all wet. Nelson’s Commentary says there are four things we should see in Jesus’ baptism: (1) it pictures death and resurrection; (2) it prefigures the significance of Christians following Jesus in baptism; (3) it marked Jesus’ first public identification with those whose sins He came to bear; and (4) it affirmed Jesus’ Messiahship publicly by the testimony directly from heaven.⁵

CLOSING

Wiersbe points out that God spoke three times from heaven: “at Christ’s baptism, at the Transfiguration (Matthew 17:3), and as Jesus approached the cross (John 12:27-30).”⁶Wiersbe continues that in the past, God spoke to His Son, but that today, Jesus sits at the right hand of the Father and God speaks through His Son to us.⁷This is an incredible picture. If you want to get in tune with the Lord, it’s no longer about religious ritual. It’s about coming through the Son, who is sitting next to the Father. It all starts with obedience. Is the Lord asking you to turn to Him? If He is, just do it, because the Father speaks to us today through His Son.