Matthew 3

Matthew 3:1-17

JOHN, THE BAPTIST, AND THREE FORMS OF BAPTISM Matthew, Chapter 3. THE opening sentence of this third chapter of Matthew illustrates the necessity of the four Gospels. One Gospel would have been inadequate to the presentation of truth. For instance, we read in the closing verse of chapter two, of Joseph that “He came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth; that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets (concerning Christ), He shall be called a Nazarene”. But that was Christ, the new-born Babe. And now in the third chapter we shall deal with Christ the mature Man, ready to be introduced to His great public ministry by the ordinance of baptism at the hands of John. But who is this John? Whence came he? By what right does he exercise this ministry? What relationship does he sustain to the story of the Christ? These questions are all adequately answered, but the answer is found in other than Matthew’s Gospel. Luke tells the whole story of John the Baptist in his Gospel (John 1:5 to John 3:23), and the last sentence of Luke concerning it is, “And Jesus Himself began to be about thirty years of age”. We know, then, the time that has elapsed between Matthew two and Matthew three; and we also know whence this man came, who this man is, and the occasion and meaning of his ministry. Luke’s Gospel has provided the information and the gap is filled. Having promised to study Matthew in the light of Mark and Luke, we call your attention to three great truths in the life history of JOHN THE BAPTIST (1) His conception was supernatural: (2) His mission was prophetically pre-determined: (3) His peculiar ceremony was Christ-approved. His Conception Was Supernatural According to Luke’s Gospel, Zacharias, his father, executed the priest’s office and was burning incense in the temple of the Lord,—a symbol of the rising of the prayers of the multitude without, when “There appeared unto him an angel of the Lord, standing on the right side of the altar of incense,” who said, “Fear not Zacharias, for thy prayer is heard and thy wife Elizabeth shall bear a son, and thou shalt call his name John. And thou shalt have joy and gladness; and many shall rejoice at his birth. For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother’s womb. And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God. And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord”. At this announcement Zacharias was astounded, for he was an old man and his wife was “well stricken in years”. But the angel, confessing his personality,—Gabriel,—assured him of the certainty of his speech, and gave him the sign of dumbness until the child should be brought forth. There is nothing in Luke’s Gospel to indicate that John was a product of an immaculate conception, but a clear affirmation of the fact that, though naturally generated, his conception itself was a supernatural event, accounted for only by the will and power of God. This is not the only instance of its sort recorded in the Bible. On the authority of the Old Testament, Isaac was exactly such a child. The God who can raise the dead to life again has not only the power to revive the dead womb, but when His pleasure and plans demand it, causes that womb to bring forth as naturally as in youth.

The miracles of grace are never wrought without occasion. God’s purpose in Abraham as revealed in the matchless blessing brought to the whole world through Israel, justified the miracle of Isaac’s birth and made possible the fulfillment of God’s covenant with Abraham, as recorded in Genesis 12:1-3; while the miracle wrought in the maternal experience of Elizabeth looked to the fulfillment of a number of prophecies. As a Nazarene he was to fulfil Numbers 6:3—“He shall separate himself from wine and strong drink;” as the fore-runner of Christ, Malachi 4:5—“Behold, I send you Elias the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord, and he shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to the fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse”. Men may rave against miracles as much as they like, but so long as God is the Ruler of the universe He will work His will in His own way, and His very greatness will lead Him to do what men regard as “the unusual”. The ministry of John the Baptist has been too great a blessing to the world for us to refuse its further benefits on the ground that his generation was not by the supernatural power of God. His Mission Was Prophetically Pre-determined. Matthew records this fact (Matthew 3:1-4). We have already seen that Malachi, the last prophet of the Old Testament, looked across the four to five hundred silent years and announced the coming of another “Elijah before the day of the Lord”. Isaiah, God’s greatest prophet, had also seen this personage afar and heard him across the centuries, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God”. His personal description had also been anticipated by the word concerning Elijah, “He was a hairy man, and girt about the loins with a girdle of leather”. His peculiar mission was to prepare the way of the Lord by calling the people to “repentance”. Such a mission was then, as it is now, paradoxical as it may sound, both unpopular and yet strangely popular. People do not like to be called to “repentance”; they prefer to be called to pleasure. The demand for “repentance” always suggests that everything is not right, and people will have no such insinuations. Resentment arises with the rise in social standing and to tell Scribes and Pharisees the plain truth, that they are a “generation of vipers” and need to “bring forth fruit meet for repentance”, is well nigh a non-permissible provocation, and the poorest conceivable politics. The Spirit-appointed minister is never a smooth minister and is seldom even an acceptable one; an indication that the age is set for judgment, and that “the axe is laid unto the root of the tree”. This is a ministry that is not “abreast, of the times”; but is commonly supposed to be “behind the times”. It does not unite with the world in its conceptions and conduct but demands “repentance” of the world. Such preachers are always chargeable with “lack of tact.”! Pharisees and Sadducees are chief church people; they have it in their power to promote you; they have it in their power to give you a good time. They have it in their power to bestow upon you their favors, social distinctions and even ecclesiastical honors.

Why then, affront them? Why not placate them, yea, even praise them? What use is there in creating rows, exciting controversy, effecting division of sentiment? The people of the world and some noble churchmen want their own peculiar way. What business is it of the preacher to oppose them, demand repentance and reformation? They want liquor served on their tables and at their social functions, and good intoxicating stuff at that.

Why continue the Prohibition agitation? Why not fall in with the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America and try to decide what the world, the flesh and the devil want, and then give to the nation a report on their desires, and gently suggest that the Volstead Act be modified, if not abrogated? John the Baptist would have made a poor member of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America. He was a Prophet of God, and not a Federal Council preacher only. Who is this Federal Council? Dr. Clarence True Wilson, General Secretary of the Board of Temperance, Prohibition and Public Morals of the Methodist Episcopal Church is absolutely correct when he says, “The Federal Council of the Church of Christ in America” is not what its name implies, but is a self-constituted body which received permission to take over certain work of the churches, such as chaplains, etc.”. It is also a body with which the World’s Christian Fundamentals Association has no fellowship in doctrine.

It is a body that has meddled in business affairs to the point of disgusting the labor unions on the one side and the owners of the operating plants on the other. It is a body that has meddled in international affairs until its unpopularity in Washington is a by-word if not a hissing. It is a body of denominational pretensions—not a hundred individual members of which have ever consented to join it, or even been consulted concerning their membership, save as national denominational officers approved the same; and while we would not say that it has sold itself out to the liquor interest, we are unequivocally ready to charge that its recent communication to the world, if it means anything, means a proposed compromise with evil and a granting to men what they want rather than an insistence upon what men ought to have. The truest minister can have no fellowship with such a Council, and John the Baptist, were he alive, would be as much disgusted with its compromise methods as he would be out of harmony with its new and unbiblical message. The time has not yet come when any Heaven-appointed minister makes common cause with the world, and successors to John the Baptist are as sadly needed to-day as they were two thousand years since, and for the same purpose, that they may “prepare the way of the Lord and make His paths straight”. But, as we said, paradoxical as it may sound, John was also a popular preacher, for “There went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judea and all the region round about Jordan, and were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins”, John’s popularity grew until ecclesiastical potentates themselves became interested. They always do when once a movement has reached a certain degree of success. The Pharisees and Sadducees of Christ’s day have their successors in our day—prominent church officials, denominational leaders, who always watch every new movement to the point of success before they join it, but who never fail to come in when the movement attains the popularity of majorities. They are “tactful men”, they “take no risks”; they are “politic”, they put “nothing in pawn”. They are “well balanced men”. They will tell you so themselves!

They never speak “out of turn”. To use their own language, they “never slop over!” They stay with the crowd. When Prohibition becomes popular they accept it; when it is unpopular they reject it. They are sometimes called “ecclesiastical statesmen”, but this rough, uncouth, wild woodsman, John the Baptist, had another name for them, an awful name—we just can’t pronounce it against such nice men, and he had even prophesied their fall “except they brought forth fruits meet for repentance”. What has the Christian to do with the word “popular”? Why should he wait until the crowds have turned to the truth before he sets the seal of his approval upon the prophet of the same? The crowd will turn to the truth! There are people who tell us that the church is failing to-day. But the church is not failing except where the “vision has failed” and where “the Prophet is false”. Preach a gospel that is no gospel and you empty any church. Preach the Gospel of repentance, the Gospel of faith, the Gospel of regeneration, the Gospel of salvation through the shed Blood of the Son of God— the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, and you call the people back to occupy again the very pews that were depopulated by “a gospel that was no gospel”. John then, may have been “very indiscreet in the judgment of “ecclesiastical upper-tens”; but John, and all his true successors, are in the line of favor from God and a fullness of success through faithfulness to the Gospel. So much for John the Baptist, I turn now to THE THREE Paul writes to the Ephesians, “There is one Lord, one faith and one baptism”. That chapter has long been the subject of discussion. Is it the baptism in water, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, or the baptism with fire, of which the Apostle speaks? Without attempting here and now to settle that question, we do call attention to the fact that in this third chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, we have a clear reference to the three baptisms possible to the experience of man,—the baptism in water, the baptism of the Holy Ghost, and the baptism with fire. The Baptism in Water This third chapter makes clear the form, the necessity and the significance of water baptism. “They were baptised of him in Jordan”. That determines the form. Every passage in the Bible referring to water baptism is in perfect harmony with that declaration. In John’s Gospel, we have another report,—baptisms at the hand of this same Baptist. “John was also baptizing in Enon near to Salim, because there was much water there; and they came and were baptized”. The baptism of Jesus was in the Jordan, according to Matthew 3:13 and Mark 1:9. It was not on the shore and it was not with water, but it was in the river and in water. That the later Apostles, who were no longer forerunners of Jesus, but instructed believers, kept the same ceremony, is made perfectly clear by the church history recorded in Acts, for when the Ethiopian believed, “he commanded the chariot to stand still, and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him. And when they were come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, that the eunuch saw him no more, and he went on his way rejoicing”. Then Paul and Silas, at midnight, prayed and sang praises unto God and “the prison doors were shaken” open by an earthquake, and “the keeper of the prison waking out of his sleep would have killed himself, supposing that the prisoners had fled; but Paul cried with a loud voice saying, ‘Do thyself no harm; for we are all here.’ Then he called for a light and sprang in and came trembling and fell down before Paul and Silas, and brought them out, and said, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved’? and they said, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.’ And they spake unto him the Word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, straightway” (Acts 16:27-33). The very word “baptized” here explains again the form of the ceremony. It was an immersion in water. But like John, it also suggests its significance. It symbolized the putting away of sin. Perhaps the very clearest teaching upon those essential points in baptism involving at one and the same time the physical form of it and its great spiritual significance, Paul wrote to the Romans: “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection” (Romans 6:3-5). There are those who inveigh against baptism, but Christ was not among them. He approved the ceremony. He set the seal of His favor forever upon it by submitting Himself to it. A well-known writer says, “I believe that a sound argument can be set up in favor of the suggestion that in Christian baptism, since the apostolic days, there is no water at all.” But we take note of the fact that he did not attempt the argument. That remained for modernism, for the Rockefeller-Fosdick new and anti-Biblical religion to affirm. It will not be easy to bring true believers to accept conclusions contrary to both Christ’s teaching and his conduct, and many of the prophets of the new faith fare poorly in comparison with John the Baptist, of whom Jesus said, “What went ye out into the wilderness to see? A reed-shaken with the wind?” —That is, a turncoat preacher, a middle-of-the-road theologian, a “tactful” minister who never takes a stand on any moral question. “But what went ye out for to see? A man clothed in soft raiment? Behold, they that wear soft clothing are in king’s houses.” They are in drawing-rooms; they love the easy lounge; they love the groaning table; they love the luxurious comfort, they love the latest sport; they are not “prophets of God”. “But what went ye out for to see? A prophet? yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet. For this is he, of whom it is written, ‘Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee’. Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath risen not a greater than John the Baptist.” Does anybody imagine that if John the Baptist had been living, his name would ever have gotten into “The Christian Century” as one of the twenty-five greatest preachers of his age? Would not that publication have anathematized him instead, and would not he have been charged with being a “trouble breeder”, “an irreconcilable”, “a reactionaire” and “a ministerial anachronism”. But “the baptism in water” abides, and not until the day when the final apostasy turns men from the “faith once for all delivered”, will it be either forgotten or neglected by men who are faithful to God and His Word. The Second Baptism Here Referred to Is That of The Holy Spirit John could administer the first. Only Jesus could perform the second. There is more perfect harmony in essential points between the physical baptism in water and the baptism of spirit than most men see, or even great ministers admit. We have said that the physical baptism was an immersion. So is the spiritual. “I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straightened until it be accomplished?” —A clear reference to the overwhelming sorrows and sufferings through which He must pass. On the day of Pentecost, the promised baptism of the Spirit came upon the disciples; “a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting”, They were certainly immersed in it, “and they were filled with the Holy Ghost”. As Scripture is properly interpreted, no passage is found to be out of harmony with another! It would seem from a study of the subject that this baptism of the Holy Ghost was once for all for the church of God. The phrase is never employed for any experience after Pentecost. On the day of Pentecost, they were baptized by the Holy Ghost. After that day, they were “sealed by the Spirit”; were “filled by the Spirit”, were “anointed by the Spirit”, as if God had set his Holy Spirit upon the Church once for all. And yet, as the sainted Gordon has put it, “It does not follow therefore that every believer has received this baptism. God’s gift is one thing; our appropriation of that gift is another thing”. Our relation to the second and to the third persons of the God-head is exactly parallel in this respect. “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son”, “but as many as received Him, to them gave He the right to become the children of God, even to them that believe on His Name”. Two thousand years ago, He gave His Son once for all, but the man who now wishes to profit by that gift must receive Him by an act of faith; and two thousand years ago, He gave the Holy Ghost, sending Him upon the disciples like a flood, but only as many as now receive Him, know what that baptism meant for Peter, James and John, and the holy company of pentecostal disciples, by experiencing what it means in their own souls. There are those who believe that to be baptized with the Spirit is to be baptized with fire; but there are others, and with these I sympathize, who think that there is “a baptism of the Spirit” and another baptism known as “the baptism of fire”, The purposes of this baptism with fire are made clear to the careful student of the Word. The Baptism with Fire Tests the Believer’s Profession. You will remember that Peter, in his first Epistle, in speaking of the keeping power of God says, “Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, ye have been put to grief in manifold trials that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold that perisheth, though it is proved by fire, may be found unto praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:6-7). It could hardly be known who was a true disciple of Jesus Christ until after the day of Pentecost. It was not the outpouring of the Spirit that determined it then, but it was the persecution that followed— the fire that tested. Thirty years ago, scoffers often spoke of Chinese converts as “rice Christians,” but the Boxer movement came and these professed followers of the Nazarene perished at the point of the sword, were surrounded by fagots, but they never recanted, and the evil charge passed from our lips for they had been tested by fire and found true. This Baptism of Fire Tries the Believer’s Works When Paul was writing to the Corinthians, he said, “If any man buildeth on the foundation gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, stubble; each man’s work shall declare it, because it is revealed in fire; and the fire itself shall prove each man’s work of what sort it is. If any man’s work shall abide which he built thereon, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire” (1 Corinthians 3:12-15). This text seems to refer to that judgment of awards for Christians which will attend the coming of the Son of Man; but there are forecasts of it in every Christian’s experience. We know so well that the works of selfishness are not acceptable to God, that we hardly hope to see them stand the test of time. In the fiery experiences of life, their worthlessness appears. The very temples that we erect to-day are found to be ashes to-morrow. I tell you, beloved, that we ought to sound our motives to the very depths, for they also must be tested by the fire of God and found either true or false. This Baptism of Fire Refines the Believer’s Character When Malachi speaks of the appearance of Jesus, he asks, “Who may abide the day of His coming? and who shall stand when He appeareth? for He is like a refiners’s fire, and like fuller’s soap; and He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and He shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness”. On one occasion, Jesus said, “Every one shall be salted with fire” (Mark 9:49). That is why Peter wrote in his Epistle, saying, “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial among you, which cometh upon you to prove you, as though a strange thing happened unto you.” The baptism of fire is not intended to destroy, but to refine,—not to destroy, but to prove. Yet, there is a baptism of fire for unbelievers! Strange it may seem, and yet truthful it is, that the very same thing may bring a blessing or a curse. The Gospel itself is “a savor of life unto life or of death unto death”. This baptism for unbelievers is a torment. Read the story of the rich man and Lazarus and listen to the anguished cry, “Father Abraham have mercy on me and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue. I am in anguish in this flame.” The Bible indicates that this baptism is an everlasting anguish. “Then shall He say unto them on the left hand, Depart from Me, ye cursed into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels * * And these shall go away into everlasting punishment”. Paul, in one of his Epistles, speaks of them that “obey not the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ” as destined to punishment, even “eternal destruction from the face of the Lord”. But even the baptism of flame shows no fault in the great Father, God. He never kindled it for man. We are distinctly told that it was prepared for the devil and his angels. Those who endure the flame will choose the flame. God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked; He yearns over the wicked that he may turn from his evil way and live. It is doubtful if there is a better type of the Divine compassion than David’s grief over his disloyal son.

And even as judgment was executed he cried, “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!” But David’s death for him would not have saved him. That which David longed to do for his disloyal child, God has done for every rebel on the earth, and if we continue rebellion until the day of death, the day of grace will have passed and the day of judgment will be on, and they which reject, cast into the lake of fire. And yet when the last great judgment has past, and the innumerable company of Satan’s servants are with him in torment, I believe the last sound of God’s voice they will hear will be the sentence of Scripture, “As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked”.