@Mt 3:1-12. PREACHING AND MINISTRY OF JOHN. ( = @Mr 1:1-8 Lu 3:1-18).
For the proper introduction to this section, we must go to @Lu 3:1,2. Here, as BENGEL well observes, the curtain of the New Testament is, as it were, drawn up, and the greatest of all epochs of the Church commences. Even our Lord's own age is determined by it (@Lu 3:23). No such elaborate chronological precision is to be found elsewhere in the New Testament, and it comes fitly from him who claims it as the peculiar recommendation of his Gospel, that "he had traced down all things with precision from the very first" (@Mt 1:3). Here evidently commences his proper narrative.
@Lu 3:1:
Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Cæsar--not the fifteenth from his full accession on the death of Augustus, but from the period when he was associated with him in the government of the empire, three years earlier, about the end of the year of Rome 779, or about four years before the usual reckoning.
Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea--His proper title was procurator, but with more than the usual powers of that office. After holding it for about ten years, he was summoned to Rome to answer to charges brought against him; but ere he arrived, Tiberius died (A.D. 35), and soon after miserable Pilate committed suicide.
And Herod being tetrarch of Galilee--(See on Mr 6:14).
and his brother Philip--a very different and very superior Philip to the one whose name was Herod Philip, and whose wife, Herodias, went to live with Herod Antipas (see on Mr 6:17).
tetrarch of Ituræa--lying to the northeast of Palestine, and so called from Itur or Jetur, Ishmael's son (@1Ch 1:31), and anciently belonging to the half-tribe of Manasseh.
and of the region of Trachonitis--lying farther to the northeast, between Iturea and Damascus; a rocky district infested by robbers, and committed by Augustus to Herod the Great to keep in order.
and Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene--still more to the northeast; so called, says ROBINSON, from Abila, eighteen miles from Damascus.@Lu 3:2:
Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests--The former, though deposed, retained much of his influence, and, probably, as sagan or deputy, exercised much of the power of the high priesthood along with Caiaphas, his son-in-law (@Joh 18:13 Ac 4:6). In David's time both Zadok and Abiathar acted as high priests (@2Sa 15:35), and it seems to have been the fixed practice to have two (@2Ki 25:18).
the word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness--Such a way of speaking is never once used when speaking of Jesus, because He was Himself The Living Word; whereas to all merely creature-messengers of God, the word they spoke was a foreign element. See on Joh 3:31. We are now prepared for the opening words of Matthew.
1. In those days--of Christ's secluded life at Nazareth, where the last
chapter left Him.
came John the Baptist, preaching--about six months before his Master.
in the wilderness of Judea--the desert valley of the Jordan, thinly
peopled and bare in pasture, a little north of Jerusalem.
2. And saying, Repent ye--Though the word strictly denotes a
change of mind, it has respect here (and wherever it is used in
connection with salvation) primarily to that sense of sin which
leads the sinner to flee from the wrath to come, to look for relief only
from above, and eagerly to fall in with the provided remedy.
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand--This sublime phrase, used in
none of the other Gospels, occurs in this peculiarly Jewish Gospel
nearly thirty times; and being suggested by Daniel's grand vision of the
Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven to the Ancient of days, to
receive His investiture in a world-wide kingdom (@Da 7:13,14), it
was fitted at once both to meet the national expectations and to turn
them into the right channel. A kingdom for which repentance was the
proper preparation behooved to be essentially spiritual. Deliverance
from sin, the great blessing of Christ's kingdom (@Mt 1:21), can be
valued by those only to whom sin is a burden (@Mt 9:12). John's
great work, accordingly, was to awaken this feeling and hold out the
hope of a speedy and precious remedy.
3. For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying--(@Mt 11:3).
The voice of one crying in the
wilderness--(See on Lu 3:2);
the scene of his ministry corresponding to its rough nature.
Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight--This
prediction is quoted in all the four Gospels, showing that it was
regarded as a great outstanding one, and the predicted forerunner as the
connecting link between the old and the new economies. Like the great
ones of the earth, the Prince of peace was to have His immediate
approach proclaimed and His way prepared; and the call here--taking it
generally--is a call to put out of the way whatever would obstruct His
progress and hinder His complete triumph, whether those hindrances were
public or personal, outward or inward. In Luke (@Lu 3:5,6) the
quotation is thus continued: "Every valley shall be filled, and every
mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made
straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth; and all flesh shall
see the salvation of God." Levelling and smoothing are here the obvious
figures whose sense is conveyed in the first words of the proclamation--"Prepare
ye the way of the Lord." The idea is that every obstruction
shall be so removed as to reveal to the whole world the salvation of God
in Him whose name is the "Saviour." (Compare
@Ps 98:3 Isa 11:10 49:6 52:10 Lu 2:31,32 Ac 13:47).
4. And the same John had his raiment of camel's hair--woven of it.
and a leathern girdle about his loins--the prophetic dress of Elijah
(@2Ki 1:8; and see @Zec 13:4).
and his meat was locusts--the great, well-known Eastern locust, a food
of the poor (@Le 11:22).
and wild honey--made by wild bees (@1Sa 14:25,26). This dress and
diet, with the shrill cry in the wilderness, would recall the stern days
of Elijah.
5. Then went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan--From the metropolitan center to the extremities of the Judean province the cry of this great preacher of repentance and herald of the approaching Messiah brought trooping penitents and eager expectants.
6. And were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins--probably confessing aloud. This baptism was at once a public seal of their felt need of deliverance from sin, of their expectation of the coming Deliverer, and of their readiness to welcome Him when He appeared. The baptism itself startled, and was intended to startle, them. They were familiar enough with the baptism of proselytes from heathenism; but this baptism of Jews themselves was quite new and strange to them.
7. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his
baptism, he said unto them--astonished at such a spectacle.
O generation of vipers--"Viper brood," expressing the deadly influence
of both sects alike upon the community. Mutually and entirely
antagonistic as were their religious principles and spirit, the stem
prophet charges both alike with being the poisoners of the nation's
religious principles. In @Mt 12:34 23:33, this strong language of
the Baptist is anew applied by the faithful and true Witness to the
Pharisees specifically--the only party that had zeal enough actively to
diffuse this poison.
who hath warned you--given you the hint, as the idea is.
to flee from the wrath to come?--"What can have brought you
hither?" John more than suspected it was not so much their own spiritual
anxieties as the popularity of his movement that had drawn them thither.
What an expression is this, "The wrath to come!" God's "wrath," in
Scripture, is His righteous displeasure against sin, and consequently
against all in whose skirts sin is found, arising out of the essential
and eternal opposition of His nature to all moral evil. This is called
"the coming wrath," not as being wholly future--for as a merited
sentence it lies on the sinner already, and its effects, both inward and
outward, are to some extent experienced even now--but because the
impenitent sinner will not, until "the judgment of the great day," be
concluded under it, will not have sentence publicly and irrevocably
passed upon him, will not have it discharged upon him and experience its
effects without mixture and without hope. In this view of it, it is a
wrath wholly to come, as is implied in the noticeably different form
of the expression employed by the apostle in @1Th 1:10. Not that
even true penitents came to John's baptism with all these views of "the
wrath to come." But what he says is that this was the
real import of the step itself. In this view of it, how striking is
the word he employs to express that step--fleeing from it--as of one
who, beholding a tide of fiery wrath rolling rapidly towards him, sees
in instant flight his only escape!
8. Bring forth therefore fruits--the true reading clearly is "fruit";
meet for repentance--that is, such fruit as befits a true penitent.
John now being gifted with a knowledge of the human heart, like a true
minister of righteousness and lover of souls here directs them how to
evidence and carry out their repentance, supposing it genuine; and in
the following verses warns them of their danger in case it were not.
9. And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our
father--that pillow on which the nation so fatally reposed, that
rock on which at length it spliterally
for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up
children unto Abraham--that is, "Flatter not yourselves with the
fond delusion that God stands in need of you, to make good His promise
of a seed to Abraham; for I tell you that, though you were all to
perish, God is as able to raise up a seed to Abraham out of those stones
as He was to take Abraham himself out of the rock whence he was hewn,
out of the hole of the pit whence he was digged" (@Isa 51:1). Though
the stem speaker may have pointed as he spoke to the pebbles of the bare
clay hills that lay around (so STANLEY'S
Sinai and Palestine), it
was clearly the calling of the Gentiles at that time stone-dead in
their sins, and quite as unconscious of it--into the room of unbelieving
and disinherited Israel that he meant thus to indicate (see
@Mt 21:43 Ro 11:20,30).
10. And now also--And even already.
the axe is laid unto--"lieth at."
the root of the trees--as it were ready to strike: an expressive
figure of impending judgment, only to be averted in the way next
described.
therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down,
and cast into the fire--Language so personal and individual as this
can scarcely be understood of any national judgment like the approaching
destruction of Jerusalem, with the breaking up of the Jewish polity and
the extrusion of the chosen people from their peculiar privileges which
followed it; though this would serve as the dark shadow, cast before, of
a more terrible retribution to come. The "fire," which in another verse
is called "unquenchable," can be no other than that future "torment" of
the impenitent whose "smoke ascendeth up for ever and ever," and which
by the Judge Himself is styled "everlasting punishment" (@Mt 25:46).
What a strength, too, of just indignation is in that word "cast" or
"flung into the fire!"
The third Gospel here adds the following important particulars in @Lu 3:10-16.
@Lu 3:10:
And the people--the multitudes.
asked him, saying, What shall we do then?--that is, to show the sincerity of our repentance.@Lu 3:11:
He answereth and saith unto them, He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat--provisions, victuals.
let him do likewise--This is directed against the reigning avarice and selfishness. (Compare the corresponding precepts of the Sermon on the Mount, @Mt 5:40-42).@Lu 3:12:
Then came also the publicans to be baptized, and said unto him, Master--Teacher.
what shall we do?--In what special way is the genuineness of our repentance to be manifested?@Lu 3:13:
And he said unto them, Exact no more than that which is appointed you--This is directed against that extortion which made the publicans a byword. (See on Mt 5:46; Lu 15:1).@Lu 3:14:
And the soldiers--rather, "And soldiers"--the word means "soldiers on active duty."
likewise demanded--asked.
of him, saying, And what shall we do? And he said unto them, Do violence to no man--Intimidate. The word signifies to "shake thoroughly," and refers probably to the extorting of money or other property.
neither accuse any falsely--by acting as informers vexatiously on frivolous or false pretexts.
and be content with your wages--or "rations." We may take this, say WEBSTER and WILKINSON, as a warning against mutiny, which the officers attempted to suppress by largesses and donations. And thus the "fruits" which would evidence their repentance were just resistance to the reigning sins--particularly of the class to which the penitent belonged--and the manifestation of an opposite spirit.@Lu 3:15:
And as the people were in expectation--in a state of excitement, looking for something new
and all men mused in their hearts of John, whether he were the Christ, or not--rather, "whether he himself might be the Christ." The structure of this clause implies that they could hardly think it, but yet could not help asking themselves whether it might not be; showing both how successful he had been in awakening the expectation of Messiah's immediate appearing, and the high estimation and even reverence, which his own character commanded.@Lu 3:16:
John answered--either to that deputation from Jerusalem, of which we read in @Joh 1:19, &c., or on some other occasion, to remove impressions derogatory to his blessed Master, which he knew to be taking hold of the popular mind.
saying unto them all--in solemn protestation.
(We now return to the first Gospel.)
11. I indeed baptize you with water unto
repentance--(See on Mt 3:6);
but he that cometh after me is mightier than I--In Mark and Luke
this is more emphatic--"But there cometh the Mightier than I"
(@Mr 1:7 Lu 3:16).
whose shoes--sandals.
I am not worthy to bear--The sandals were tied and untied, and borne
about by the meanest servants.
he shall baptize you--the emphatic "He": "He it is," to the exclusion
of all others, "that shall baptize you."
with the Holy Ghost--"So far from entertaining such a thought as laying
claim to the honors of Messiahship, the meanest services I can render to
that "Mightier than I that is coming after me" are too high an honor for
me; I am but the servant, but the Master is coming; I administer but the
outward symbol of purification; His it is, as His sole prerogative, to
dispense the inward reality. Beautiful spirit, distinguishing this
servant of Christ throughout!
and with fire--To take this as a distinct baptism from that of the
Spirit--a baptism of the impenitent with hell-fire--is exceedingly
unnatural. Yet this was the view of ORIGEN
among the Fathers; and among
moderns, of NEANDER,
MEYER,
DE
WETTE, and
LANGE. Nor is it much better
to refer it to the fire of the great day, by which the earth and the
works that are therein shall be burned up. Clearly, as we think, it is
but the fiery character of the Spirit's operations upon the
soul-searching, consuming, refining, sublimating--as nearly all good
interpreters understand the words. And thus, in two successive clauses,
the two most familiar emblems--water and fire--are employed to
set forth the same purifying operations of the Holy Ghost upon the soul.
12. Whose fan--winnowing fan.
is in his hand--ready for use. This is no other than the preaching
of the Gospel, even now beginning, the effect of which would be to
separate the solid from the spiritually worthless, as wheat, by the
winnowing fan, from the chaff. (Compare the similar representation in
@Mal 3:1-3).
and he will throughly purge his floor--threshing-floor; that is, the
visible Church.
and gather his wheat--His true-hearted saints; so called for their
solid worth (compare @Am 9:9 Lu 22:31).
into the garner--"the kingdom of their Father," as this "garner" or
"barn" is beautifully explained by our Lord in the parable of the wheat
and the tares (@Mt 13:30,43).
but he will burn up the chaff--empty, worthless professors of religion,
void of all solid religious principle and character (see @Ps 1:4).
with unquenchable fire--Singular is the strength of this apparent
contradiction of figures:--to be burnt up, but with a fire that is
unquenchable; the one expressing the utter destruction of all that
constitutes one's true life, the other the
continued consciousness of existence in that awful condition.
Luke adds the following important particulars (@Lu 3:18-20):
@Lu 3:18:
And many other things in his exhortation preached he unto the people--showing that we have here but an abstract of his teaching. Besides what we read in @Joh 1:29,33,34 3:27-36, the incidental allusion to his having taught his disciples to pray (@Lu 11:1)--of which not a word is said elsewhere--shows how varied his teaching was.@Lu 3:19:
But Herod the tetrarch, being reproved by him for Herodias his brother Philip's wife, and for all the evils which Herod had done--In this last clause we have an important fact, here only mentioned, showing how thoroughgoing was the fidelity of the Baptist to his royal hearer, and how strong must have been the workings of conscience in that slave of passion when, notwithstanding such plainness, he "did many things, and heard John gladly" (@Mr 6:20).@Lu 3:20:
Added yet this above all, that he shut up John in prison--This imprisonment of John, however, did not take place for some time after this; and it is here recorded merely because the Evangelist did not intend to recur to his history till he had occasion to relate the message which he sent to Christ from his prison at Machærus (@Lu 7:18, &c.).
@Mt 3:13-17. BAPTISM OF CHRIST AND DESCENT OF THE SPIRIT UPON HIM IMMEDIATELY THEREAFTER. ( = @Mr 1:9-11 Lu 3:21,22 Joh 1:31-34).
Baptism of Christ (@Mt 3:13-15).
13. Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him--Moses rashly anticipated the divine call to deliver his people, and for this was fain to flee the house of bondage, and wait in obscurity for forty years more (@Ex 2:11, &c.). Not so this greater than Moses. All but thirty years had He now spent in privacy at Nazareth, gradually ripening for His public work, and calmly awaiting the time appointed of the Father. Now it had arrived; and this movement from Galilee to Jordan is the step, doubtless, of deepest interest to all heaven since that first one which brought Him into the world. Luke (@Lu 3:21) has this important addition--"Now when all the people were baptized, it came to pass, that Jesus being baptized," &c.--implying that Jesus waited till all other applicants for baptism that day had been disposed of, ere He stepped forward, that He might not seem to be merely one of the crowd. Thus, as He rode into Jerusalem upon an ass "whereon yet never man sat" (@Lu 19:30), and lay in a sepulchre "wherein was never man yet laid" (@Joh 19:41), so in His baptism, too. He would be "separate from sinners."
14. But John forbade him--rather, "was (in the act of) hindering
him," or "attempting to hinder him."
saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me?--(How
John came to recognize Him, when he says he knew Him not, see
@Joh 1:31-34). The emphasis of this most remarkable speech lies all
in the pronouns: "What! Shall the Master come for baptism to the
servant--the sinless Saviour to a sinner?" That thus much is in the
Baptist's words will be clearly seen if it be observed that he evidently
regarded Jesus as Himself needing no purification but rather
qualified to impart it to those who did. And do not all his other
testimonies to Christ fully bear out this sense of the words? But it
were a pity if, in the glory of this testimony to Christ, we should miss
the beautiful spirit in which it was borne--"Lord, must I baptize
Thee? Can I bring myself to do such a thing?"--reminding us of Peter's
exclamation at the supper table, "Lord, dost Thou wash my feet?" while
it has nothing of the false humility and presumption which dictated
Peter's next speech. "Thou shall never wash my feet" (@Joh 13:6,8).
15. And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now--"Let
it pass for the present"; that is, "Thou recoilest, and no wonder, for
the seeming incongruity is startling; but in the present case do as thou
art bidden."
for thus it becometh us--"us," not in the sense of me and thee," or
"men in general," but as in @Joh 3:11.
to fulfil all righteousness--If this be rendered, with
SCRIVENER,
"every ordinance," or, with
CAMPBELL, "every institution," the meaning
is obvious enough; and the same sense is brought out by "all
righteousness," or compliance with everything enjoined, baptism
included. Indeed, if this be the meaning, our version perhaps best
brings out the force of the opening word "Thus." But we incline to think
that our Lord meant more than this. The import of circumcision and of
baptism seems to be radically the same. And if our remarks on the
circumcision of our Lord
(see on Lu 2:21-24)
are well founded, He
would seem to have said, "Thus do I impledge Myself to the whole
righteousness of the Law--thus symbolically do enter on and engage to
fulfil it all." Let the thoughtful reader weigh this.
Then he suffered him--with true humility, yielding to higher authority
than his own impressions of propriety.
Descent of the Spirit upon the Baptized Redeemer (@Mt 3:16,17).
16. And Jesus when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the
water--rather, "from the water." Mark has "out of the water"
(@Mr 1:10). "and"--adds Luke (@Lu 3:21), "while He was praying";
a grand piece of information. Can there be a doubt about the burden of
that prayer; a prayer sent up, probably, while yet in the water--His
blessed head suffused with the baptismal element; a prayer continued
likely as He stepped out of the stream, and again stood upon the dry
ground; the work before Him, the needed and expected Spirit to rest upon
Him for it, and the glory He would then put upon the Father that sent
Him--would not these fill His breast, and find silent vent in such form
as this?--"Lo, I come; I delight to do Thy will, O God. Father, glorify
Thy name. Show Me a token for good. Let the Spirit of the Lord God come
upon Me, and I will preach the Gospel to the poor, and heal the
broken-hearted, and send forth judgment unto victory." While He was yet
speaking--
lo, the heavens were opened--Mark says, sublimely, "He saw the heavens
cleaving" (@Mr 1:10).
and he saw the Spirit of God descending--that is, He only, with the
exception of His honored servant, as he tells us himself
(@Joh 1:32-34); the by-standers apparently seeing nothing.
like a dove, and lighting upon him--Luke says, "in a bodily shape"
(@Lu 3:22); that is, the blessed Spirit, assuming the corporeal form
of a dove, descended thus upon His sacred head. But why in this form?
The Scripture use of this emblem will be our best guide here. "My dove,
my undefiled is one," says the Song of Solomon (@So 6:9). This
is chaste purity. Again, "Be ye harmless as doves," says Christ
Himself (@Mt 10:16). This is the same thing, in the form of
inoffensiveness towards men. "A conscience void of offense toward God
and toward men" (@Ac 24:16) expresses both. Further, when we read
in the Song of Solomon (@So 2:14), "O my dove, that art in the
clefts of the rocks, in the secret places of the stairs (see
@Isa 60:8), let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for
sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely"--it is shrinking
modesty, meekness, gentleness, that is thus charmingly depicted. In a
word--not to allude to the historical emblem of the dove that flew back
to the ark, bearing in its mouth the olive leaf of peace
(@Ge 8:11)--when we read (@Ps 68:13), "Ye
shall be as the wings
of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold," it is
beauteousness that is thus held forth. And was not such that "holy,
harmless, undefiled One," the "separate from sinners?" "Thou art fairer
than the children of men; grace is poured into Thy lips; therefore God
hath blessed Thee for ever!" But the fourth Gospel gives us one more
piece of information here, on the authority of one who saw and testified
of it: "John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from
heaven like a dove, and IT ABODE UPON
HIM." And lest we should think
that this was an accidental thing, he adds that this last particular was
expressly given him as part of the sign by which he was to recognize and
identify Him as the Son of God: "And I knew Him not: but He that sent me
to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see
the Spirit descending AND REMAINING ON
HIM, the same is He which
baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. And I saw and bare record that this is
the Son of God" (@Joh 1:32-34). And when with this we compare the
predicted descent of the Spirit upon Messiah (@Isa 11:2), "And
the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him," we cannot doubt that it
was this permanent and perfect resting of the Holy Ghost upon the Son of
God--now and henceforward in His official capacity--that was here
visibly manifested.
17. And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is--Mark and Luke give
it in the direct form, "Thou art." (@Mr 1:11 Lu 3:22).
my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased--The verb is put in the
aorist to express absolute complacency, once and for ever felt towards
Him. The English here, at least to modern ears, is scarcely strong
enough. "I delight" comes the nearest, perhaps, to that ineffable
complacency which is manifestly intended; and this is the rather to
be preferred, as it would immediately carry the thoughts back to that
august Messianic prophecy to which the voice from heaven plainly alluded
(@Isa 42:1), "Behold My Servant, whom I uphold; Mine Elect,
IN WHOM
MY SOUL DELIGHTETH." Nor are the words which follow to be overlooked, "I
have put My Spirit upon Him; He shall bring forth judgment to the
Gentiles." (The Septuagint perverts this, as it does most of the
Messianic predictions, interpolating the word "Jacob," and applying it
to the Jews). Was this voice heard by the by-standers? From Matthew's
form of it, one might suppose it so designed; but it would appear that
it was not, and probably John only heard and saw anything peculiar about
that great baptism. Accordingly, the words, "Hear ye Him," are not
added, as at the Transfiguration.