Text -- Matthew 3:1-12 (NET)

The Ministry of John the Baptist

3:1 In those days John the Baptist came into the wilderness of Judea proclaiming, 3:2 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” 3:3 For he is the one about whom Isaiah the prophet had spoken: “The voice of one shouting in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make his paths straight.’” 3:4 Now John wore clothing made from camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his diet consisted of locusts and wild honey. 3:5 Then people from Jerusalem, as well as all Judea and all the region around the Jordan, were going out to him, 3:6 and he was baptizing them in the Jordan River as they confessed their sins. 3:7 But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You offspring of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 3:8 Therefore produce fruit that proves your repentance, 3:9 and don’t think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that God can raise up children for Abraham from these stones! 3:10 Even now the ax is laid at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. 3:11 “I baptize you with water, for repentance, but the one coming after me is more powerful than I am– I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 3:12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clean out his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the storehouse, but the chaff he will burn up with inextinguishable fire.”

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per phrase)

Robertson: Mat 3:1

And in those days cometh John the Baptist ( en de tais hēmerais paraginetai Iōanēs ho Baptistēs ).

Here the synoptic narrative begins with the baptism of John (Mat 3:1; Mar 1:2; Luk 3:1) as given by Peter in Act 1:22, "from the baptism of John, unto the day that he was received up from us"(cf. also Act 10:37-43, Peter’ s summary to Cornelius very much like the outline of Mark’ s Gospel). Matthew does not indicate the date when John appeared as Luke does in ch. 3 (the fifteenth year of Tiberius’ s reign). It was some thirty years after the birth of John, precisely how long after the return of Joseph and Mary to Nazareth we do not know. Moffatt translates the verb (paraginetai ) "came on the scene,"but it is the historical present and calls for a vivid imagination on the part of the reader. There he is as he comes forward, makes his appearance. His name John means "Gift of Jehovah"(cf. German Gotthold ) and is a shortened form of Johanan. He is described as "the Baptist,""the Baptizer"for that is the rite that distinguishes him. The Jews probably had proselyte baptism as I. Abrahams shows ( Studies in Pharisaism and the Gospels , p. 37). But this rite was meant for the Gentiles who accepted Judaism. John is treating the Jews as Gentiles in demanding baptism at their hands on the basis of repentance.

Robertson: Mat 3:1

Preaching in the wilderness of Judea ( Kērussōn en tēi erēmōi tēs Ioudaias ).

It was the rough region in the hills toward the Jordan and the Dead Sea. There were some people scattered over the barren cliffs. Here John came in close touch with the rocks, the trees, the goats, the sheep, and the shepherds, the snakes that slipped before the burning grass over the rocks. He was the Baptizer, but he was also the Preacher, heralding his message out in the barren hills at first where few people were, but soon his startling message drew crowds from far and near. Some preachers start with crowds and drive them away.

Robertson: Mat 3:2

Repent ( metanoeite ).

Broadus used to say that this is the worst translation in the New Testament. The trouble is that the English word "repent"means "to be sorry again"from the Latin repoenitet (impersonal). John did not call on the people to be sorry, but to change (think afterwards) their mental attitudes (metanoeite ) and conduct. The Vulgate has it "do penance"and Wycliff has followed that. The Old Syriac has it better: "Turn ye."The French (Geneva) has it "Amendez vous."This is John’ s great word (Bruce) and it has been hopelessly mistranslated. The tragedy of it is that we have no one English word that reproduces exactly the meaning and atmosphere of the Greek word. The Greek has a word meaning to be sorry (metamelomai ) which is exactly our English word repent and it is used of Judas (Mat 27:3). John was a new prophet with the call of the old prophets: "Turn ye"(Joe 2:12; Isa 55:7; Eze 33:11, Eze 33:15).

Robertson: Mat 3:2

For the kingdom of heaven is at hand ( ēggiken gar hē Basileia tōn ouranōn ).

Note the position of the verb and the present perfect tense. It was a startling word that John thundered over the hills and it re-echoed throughout the land. The Old Testament prophets had said that it would come some day in God’ s own time. John proclaims as the herald of the new day that it has come, has drawn near. How near he does not say, but he evidently means very near, so near that one could see the signs and the proof. The words "the kingdom of heaven"he does not explain. The other Gospels use "the kingdom of God"as Matthew does a few times, but he has "the kingdom of heaven"over thirty times. He means "the reign of God,"not the political or ecclesiastical organization which the Pharisees expected. His words would be understood differently by different groups as is always true of popular preachers. The current Jewish apocalypses had numerous eschatological ideas connected with the kingdom of heaven. It is not clear what sympathy John had with these eschatological features. He employs vivid language at times, but we do not have to confine John’ s intellectual and theological horizon to that of the rabbis of his day. He has been an original student of the Old Testament in his wilderness environment without any necessary contact with the Essenes who dwelt there. His voice is a new one that strikes terror to the perfunctory theologians of the temple and of the synagogue. It is the fashion of some critics to deny to John any conception of the spiritual content of his words, a wholly gratuitous criticism.

Robertson: Mat 3:2

For this is he that was spoken of by Isaiah the prophet ( houtos gar estin ho rhētheis dia Esaiou tou prophētou ).

This is Matthew’ s way of interpreting the mission and message of the Baptist. He quotes Isa 40:3 where "the prophet refers to the return of Israel from the exile, accompanied by their God"(McNeile). He applies it to the work of John as "a voice crying in the wilderness"for the people to make ready the way of the Lord who is now near. He was only a voice, but what a voice he was. He can be heard yet across the centuries.

Robertson: Mat 3:4

Now John himself ( autos de ho Iōanēs ).

Matthew thus introduces the man himself and draws a vivid sketch of his dress (note eichen , imperfect tense), his habit, and his food. Would such an uncouth figure be welcome today in any pulpit in our cities? In the wilderness it did not matter. It was probably a matter of necessity with him, not an affectation, though it was the garb of the original Elijah (2Ki 1:8), rough sackcloth woven from the hair of camels. Plummer holds that "John consciously took Elijah as a model."

Robertson: Mat 3:6

And they were baptized ( kai ebaptizonto ).

It is the imperfect tense to show the repetition of the act as the crowds from Judea and the surrounding country kept going out to him (exeporeueto ), imperfect again, a regular stream of folks going forth. Moffatt takes it as causative middle, "got baptized,"which is possible. "The movement of course was gradual. It began on a small scale and steadily grew till it reached colossal proportions"(Bruce). It is a pity that baptism is now such a matter of controversy. Let Plummer, the great Church of England commentator on Matthew, speak here of John’ s baptising these people who came in throngs: "It is his office to bind them to a new life, symbolized by immersion in water."That is correct, symbolized, not caused or obtained. The word "river"is in the correct text, "river Jordan."They came "confessing their sins"(exomologoumenoi ), probably each one confessing just before he was baptized, "making open confession"(Weymouth). Note ex . It was a never to be forgotten scene here in the Jordan. John was calling a nation to a new life. They came from all over Judea and even from the other side of El Ghor (the Jordan Gorge), Perea. Mark adds that finally all Jerusalem came.

Robertson: Mat 3:7

The Pharisees and Sadducees ( tōn Pharisaiōn kai Saddoukaiōn ).

These two rival parties do not often unite in common action, but do again in Mat 16:1. "Here a strong attraction, there a strong repulsion, made them for the moment forget their differences"(McNeile). John saw these rival ecclesiastics "coming for baptism"(erchomenous epi to baptisma ). Alford speaks of "the Pharisees representing hypocritical superstition; the Sadducees carnal unbelief."One cannot properly understand the theological atmosphere of Palestine at this time without an adequate knowledge of both Pharisees and Sadducees. The books are numerous besides articles in the Bible dictionaries. I have pictured the Pharisees in my first (1916) Stone Lectures, The Pharisees and Jesus. John clearly grasped the significance of this movement on the part of the Pharisees and Sadducees who had followed the crowds to the Jordan. He had welcomed the multitudes, but right in the presence of the crowds he exposes the hypocrisy of the ecclesiastics.

Robertson: Mat 3:7

Ye offspring of vipers ( gennēmata echidnōn ).

Jesus (Mat 12:34; Mat 23:33) will use the same language to the Pharisees. Broods of snakes were often seen by John in the rocks and when a fire broke out they would scurry (phugein ) to their holes for safety. "The coming wrath"was not just for Gentiles as the Jews supposed, but for all who were not prepared for the kingdom of heaven (1Th 1:10). No doubt the Pharisees and Sadducees winced under the sting of this powerful indictment.

Robertson: Mat 3:8

Fruit worthy of repentance ( Karpon axion tēs metanoias ).

John demands proof from these men of the new life before he administers baptism to them. "The fruit is not the change of heart, but the acts which result from it"(McNeile). It was a bold deed for John thus to challenge as unworthy the very ones who posed as lights and leaders of the Jewish people. "Any one can do (poiēsate ,vide Gen 1:11) acts externally good but only a good man can grow a crop of right acts and habits"(Bruce).

Robertson: Mat 3:9

And think not to say within yourselves ( kai mē doxēte legein en heautois ).

John touched the tender spot, their ecclesiastical pride. They felt that the "merits of the fathers,"especially of Abraham, were enough for all Israelites. At once John made clear that, reformer as he was, a breach existed between him and the religious leaders of the time.

Robertson: Mat 3:9

Of these stones ( ek tōn lithōn toutōn ).

"Pointing, as he spoke to the pebbles on the beach of the Jordan"(Vincent).

Robertson: Mat 3:10

Is the axe laid ( hē axinē keitai ).

This verb keitai is used as the perfect passive of tithēmi . But the idea really is, "the axe lies at (pros , before) the root of the trees."It is there ready for business. The prophetic present occurs also with "is hewn down"and "cast."

Robertson: Mat 3:11

Mightier than I ( ischuroteros mou ).

Ablative after the comparative adjective. His baptism is water baptism, but the Coming One "will baptize in the Holy Spirit and fire.""Life in the coming age is in the sphere of the Spirit. Spirit and fire are coupled with one preposition as a double baptism"(McNeile). Broadus takes "fire"in the sense of separation like the use of the fan. As the humblest of servants John felt unworthy to take off the sandals of the Coming One. About bastazō see Mat 8:17.

Robertson: Mat 3:12

Will burn up with unquenchable fire ( katakausei puri asbestōi ).

Note perfective use of kata . The threshing floor, the fan, the wheat, the garner, the chaff (achuron , chaff, straw, stubble), the fire furnish a life-like picture. The "fire"here is probably judgment by and at the coming of the Messiah just as in Mat 3:11. The Messiah "will thoroughly cleanse"(diakathariei , Attic future of ̇izō and note diȧ ). He will sweep from side to side to make it clean.

Vincent: Mat 3:1

In those days

The phrase is indefinite, but always points back to a preceding date; in this case to the date of the settlement of the family at Nazareth. " In those days," i.e., some time during the nearly thirty years since that settlement.

Vincent: Mat 3:1

John

Hebrew, meaning God has dealt graciously. Compare the German Gotthold.

Vincent: Mat 3:1

Came ( παραγίνεται )

Rev., cometh. The verb is used in what is called the historical present, giving vividness to the narrative, as Carlyle (" French Revolution" ). " But now also the National Deputies from all ends of France are in Paris with their commissions." " In those days appears John the Baptist."

Vincent: Mat 3:1

Preaching ( κηρύσσων )

See on 2Pe 2:5.

Vincent: Mat 3:1

Wilderness ( τῇ ἐήμω )

Not suggesting absolute barrenness but unappropriated territory affording free range for shepherds and their flocks. Hepworth Dixon (" The Holy Land" ) says, " Even in the wilderness nature is not so stern as man. Here and there, in clefts and basins, and on the hillsides, grade on grade, you observe a patch of corn, a clump of olives, a single palm."

Vincent: Mat 3:2

Repent ( μετανοεῖτε )

A word compounded of the preposition μετά , after, with; and the verb νοέω , to perceive, and to think, as the result of perceiving or observing. In this compound the preposition combines the two meanings of time and change, which may be denoted by after and different; so that the whole compound means to think differently after. Μετάνοια ( repentance ) is therefore, primarily, an after-thought, different from the former thought; then, a change of mind which issues in regret and in change of conduct. These latter ideas, however, have been imported into the word by scriptural usage, and do not lie in it etymologically nor by primary usage. Repentance, then, has been rightly defined as " Such a virtuous alteration of the mind and purpose as begets a like virtuous change in the life and practice." Sorrow is not, as is popularly conceived, the primary nor the prominent notion of the word. Paul distinguishes between sorrow ( λύπη ) and repentance (μετάνοια ) , and puts the one as the outcome of the other. " Godly sorrow worketh repentance " (2Co 7:10).

Vincent: Mat 3:2

The kingdom of heaven

Lit., the kingdom of the heavens (ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν ) . An expression peculiar to Matthew. The more usual one is the kingdom of God. It is a kingdom of heaven because its origin, its end, its king, the character and destiny of its subjects, its laws, institutions, and privileges - all are heavenly. In the teaching of Christ and in the apostolic writings the kingdom of the Messiah is the actual consummation of the prophetic idea of the rule of God, without any national limitation, so that participation therein rests only on faith in Jesus Christ, and on the moral renewal which is conditioned by the same. It is the combination of all rights of Christian citizenship in this world, and eternal blessedness in the next. All its senses are only different sides of the same great idea - the subjection of all things to God in Christ.

Vincent: Mat 3:2

Voice

John's personality is thrown into shadow behind Christ. " What would be the duty of a merely human teacher of the highest moral aim, entrusted with a great spiritual mission and lesson for the benefit of mankind? The example of St. John Baptist is an answer to this iniquity. Such a teacher would represent himself as a mere 'voice,' crying aloud in the moral wilderness around him, and anxious, beyond aught else, to shroud his own insignificant person beneath the majesty of his message" (Liddoll, " Our Lord's Divinity" ).

Vincent: Mat 3:6

Were baptized ( ἐβαπτίζοντο )

See on Mar 7:4.

Vincent: Mat 3:6

Confessing their sins ( ἐξομολογούμενοι τὰς ἁμαρτίας αὐτῶν )

The words imply: 1. That confession was connected with baptism. They were baptized while in the act of confessing. 2. An open confession, not a private one to John (ἐξ , compare Act 19:18; Jam 5:16). 3. An individual confession; possibly a specific one. (See Luk 3:10-15.)

Vincent: Mat 3:9

These stones

Pointing, as he spoke, to the pebbles on the beach of the Jordan.

Vincent: Mat 3:10

Is laid ( καῖται )

Not, is applied, as " She layeth her hands to the spindle" (Pro 31:19), but is lying.

Vincent: Mat 3:10

Is hewn down and east

The present tense is graphic, denoting what is to happen at once and certainly.

Vincent: Mat 3:11

To bear

Compare to unloose, Mar 1:7. John puts himself in the position of the meanest of servants. To bear the sandals of their masters, that is, to bring and take them away, as well as to fasten or to take them off, was, among the Jews, Greeks, and Romans, the business of slaves of the lowest rank.

Vincent: Mat 3:12

Fan, floor (Wyc. has corn-floor )

The picture is of a farmer at his threshing-floor, the area of hard-beaten earth on which the sheaves are spread and the grain trodden out by animals. His fan, that is his winnowing-shovel or fork, is in his hand, and with it he throws up the mingled wheat and chaff against the wind in order to separate the grain.

Vincent: Mat 3:12

Throughly cleanse ( διακαθαριεῖ )

Throughly (retained by Rev.) obsolete form of thoroughly, is the force of the preposition διά ( through ) . In that preposition lies the picture of the farmer beginning at one side of the floor, and working through to the other, cleansing as he goes.

The whole metaphor represents the Messiah as separating the evil from the good, according to the tests of his kingdom and Gospel, receiving the worthy into his kingdom and consigning the unworthy to destruction (compare Mat 13:30, Mat 13:39-43, Mat 13:48-50).

Wesley: Mat 3:1

that is, while Jesus dwelt there.

Wesley: Mat 3:1

This was a wilderness properly so called, a wild, barren, desolate place as was that also where our Lord was tempted. But, generally speaking, a wilderness in the New Testament means only a common, or less cultivated place, in opposition to pasture and arable land. Mar 1:1; Luk 3:1.

Wesley: Mat 3:2

The kingdom of heaven, and the kingdom of God, are but two phrases for the same thing. They mean, not barely a future happy state, in heaven, but a state to be enjoyed on earth: the proper disposition for the glory of heaven, rather than the possession of it.

Wesley: Mat 3:2

As if he had said, God is about to erect that kingdom, spoken of by Daniel Dan 2:44; Dan 7:13-14; the kingdom of the God of heaven. It properly signifies here, the Gospel dispensation, in which subjects were to be gathered to God by his Son, and a society to be formed, which was to subsist first on earth, and afterward with God in glory. In some places of Scripture, the phrase more particularly denotes the state of it on earth: in ,others, it signifies only the state of glory: but it generally includes both. The Jews understood it of a temporal kingdom, the seat of which they supposed would be Jerusalem; and the expected sovereign of this kingdom they learned from Daniel to call the Son of man. Both John the Baptist and Christ took up that phrase, the kingdom of heaven, as they found it, and gradually taught the Jews (though greatly unwilling to learn) to understand it right. The very demand of repentance, as previous to it, showed it was a spiritual kingdom, and that no wicked man, how politic, brave, or learned soever, could possibly be a subject of it.

Wesley: Mat 3:3

Of Christ.

Wesley: Mat 3:3

By removing every thing which might prove a hinderance to his gracious appearance. Isa 40:3.

Wesley: Mat 3:4

Coarse and rough, suiting his character and doctrine.

Wesley: Mat 3:4

Like Elijah, in whose spirit and power he came.

Wesley: Mat 3:4

Locusts are ranked among clean meats, Lev 11:22. But these were not always to be had. So in default of those, he fed on wild honey.

Wesley: Mat 3:6

Of their own accord; freely and openly. Such prodigious numbers could hardly be baptized by immerging their whole bodies under water: nor can we think they were provided with change of raiment for it, which was scarcely practicable for such vast multitudes. And yet they could not be immerged naked with modesty, nor in their wearing apparel with safety. It seems, therefore, that they stood in ranks on the edge of the river, and that John, passing along before them, cast water on their heads or faces, by which means he might baptize many thousands in a day. And this way most naturally signified Christ's baptizing them with the Holy Ghost and with fire, which John spoke of, as prefigured by his baptizing with water, and which was eminently fulfilled, when the Holy Ghost sat upon the disciples in the appearance of tongues, or flames of fire.

Wesley: Mat 3:7

The Pharisees were a very ancient sect among the Jews. They took their name from a Hebrew word, which signifies to separate, because they separated themselves from all other men. They were outwardly strict observers of the law, fasted often, made long prayers, rigorously kept the Sabbath, and paid all tithe, even of mint, anise, and cummin. Hence they were in high esteem among the people. But inwardly, they were full of pride and hypocrisy. The Sadducees were another sect among the Jews, only not so considerable as the Pharisees. They denied the existence of angels, and the immortality of the soul, and by consequence the resurrection of the dead.

Wesley: Mat 3:7

In like manner, the crafty Herod is styled a fox, and persons of insidious, ravenous, profane, or sensual dispositions, are named respectively by him who saw their hearts, serpents, dogs, wolves, and swine; terms which are not the random language of passion, but a judicious designation of the persons meant by them. For it was fitting such men should be marked out, either for a caution to others, or a warning to themselves.

Wesley: Mat 3:8

Repentance is of two sorts; that which is termed legal, and that which is styled evangelical repentance. The former (which is the same that is spoken of here) is a thorough conviction of sin. The latter is a change of heart (and consequently of life) from all sin to all holiness.

Wesley: Mat 3:9

The word in the original, vulgarly rendered, Think not, seems here, and in many places, not to diminish, but rather add to the force of the word with which it is joined.

Wesley: Mat 3:9

It is almost incredible, how great the presumption of the Jews was on this their relation to Abraham. One of their famous sayings was, "Abraham sits near the gates of hell, and suffers no Israelite to go down into it." I say unto you - This preface always denotes the importance of what follows.

Wesley: Mat 3:9

Probably pointing to those which lay before them.

Wesley: Mat 3:10

That is, there is no room for such idle pretences. Speedy execution is determined against all that do not repent. The comparison seems to be taken from a woodman that has laid down his axe to put off his coat, and then immediately goes to work to cut down the tree. This refers to the wrath to come in Mat 3:7.

Wesley: Mat 3:10

Instantly, without farther delay.

Wesley: Mat 3:11

He shall fill you with the Holy Ghost, inflaming your hearts with that fire of love, which many waters cannot quench. And this was done, even with a visible appearance as of fire, on the day of pentecost.

Wesley: Mat 3:12

That is, the word of the Gospel.

Wesley: Mat 3:12

That is, his Church, which is now covered with a mixture of wheat and chaff.

Wesley: Mat 3:12

Will lay up those who are truly good in heaven.

JFB: Mat 3:1

Of Christ's secluded life at Nazareth, where the last chapter left Him.

JFB: Mat 3:1

About six months before his Master.

JFB: Mat 3:1

The desert valley of the Jordan, thinly peopled and bare in pasture, a little north of Jerusalem.

JFB: Mat 3:2

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.

JFB: Mat 3:2

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 (Dan 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 (Mat 1:21), can be valued by those only to whom sin is a burden (Mat 9:12). John's great work, accordingly, was to awaken this feeling and hold out the hope of a speedy and precious remedy.

JFB: Mat 3:3

(Mat 11:3).

JFB: Mat 3:3

(See on Luk 3:2); the scene of his ministry corresponding to its rough nature.

JFB: Mat 3:3

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 (Luk 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 Psa 98:3; Isa 11:10; Isa 49:6; Isa 52:10; Luk 2:31-32; Act 13:47).

JFB: Mat 3:4

Woven of it.

JFB: Mat 3:4

The prophetic dress of Elijah (2Ki 1:8; and see Zec 13:4).

JFB: Mat 3:4

The great, well-known Eastern locust, a food of the poor (Lev 11:22).

JFB: Mat 3:4

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.

JFB: Mat 3:5

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.

JFB: Mat 3:6

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.

JFB: Mat 3:7

Astonished at such a spectacle.

JFB: Mat 3:7

"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 Mat 12:34; Mat 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.

JFB: Mat 3:7

Given you the hint, as the idea is.

JFB: Mat 3:7

"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!

JFB: Mat 3:8

The true reading clearly is "fruit";

JFB: Mat 3:8

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.

JFB: Mat 3:9

That pillow on which the nation so fatally reposed, that rock on which at length it split.

JFB: Mat 3:9

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 Mat 21:43; Rom 11:20, Rom 11:30).

JFB: Mat 3:10

And even already.

JFB: Mat 3:10

"lieth at."

JFB: Mat 3:10

As it were ready to strike: an expressive figure of impending judgment, only to be averted in the way next described.

JFB: Mat 3:10

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" (Mat 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 Luk 3:10-16.

Luk 3:10 :

JFB: Mat 3:10

The multitudes.

JFB: Mat 3:10

That is, to show the sincerity of our repentance.

Luk 3:11 :

JFB: Mat 3:10

Provisions, victuals.

JFB: Mat 3:10

This is directed against the reigning avarice and selfishness. (Compare the corresponding precepts of the Sermon on the Mount, Mat 5:40-42).

Luk 3:12 :

JFB: Mat 3:10

Teacher.

JFB: Mat 3:10

In what special way is the genuineness of our repentance to be manifested?

Luk 3:13 :

JFB: Mat 3:10

This is directed against that extortion which made the publicans a byword. (See on Mat 5:46; Luk 15:1).

Luk 3:14 :

JFB: Mat 3:10

Rather, "And soldiers"--the word means "soldiers on active duty."

JFB: Mat 3:10

Asked.

JFB: Mat 3:10

Intimidate. The word signifies to "shake thoroughly," and refers probably to the extorting of money or other property.

JFB: Mat 3:10

By acting as informers vexatiously on frivolous or false pretexts.

JFB: Mat 3:10

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.

Luk 3:15 :

JFB: Mat 3:10

In a state of excitement, looking for something new

JFB: Mat 3:10

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.

Luk 3:16 :

JFB: Mat 3:10

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.

JFB: Mat 3:10

In solemn protestation.

(We now return to the first Gospel.)

JFB: Mat 3:11

(See on Mat 3:6);

JFB: Mat 3:11

In Mark and Luke this is more emphatic--"But there cometh the Mightier than I" (Mar 1:7; Luk 3:16).

JFB: Mat 3:11

Sandals.

JFB: Mat 3:11

The sandals were tied and untied, and borne about by the meanest servants.

JFB: Mat 3:11

The emphatic "He": "He it is," to the exclusion of all others, "that shall baptize you."

JFB: Mat 3:11

"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!

JFB: Mat 3:11

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.

JFB: Mat 3:12

Winnowing fan.

JFB: Mat 3:12

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).

JFB: Mat 3:12

Threshing-floor; that is, the visible Church.

JFB: Mat 3:12

His true-hearted saints; so called for their solid worth (compare Amo 9:9; Luk 22:31).

JFB: Mat 3:12

"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 (Mat 13:30, Mat 13:43).

JFB: Mat 3:12

Empty, worthless professors of religion, void of all solid religious principle and character (see Psa 1:4).

JFB: Mat 3:12

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 (Luk 3:18-20) :

Luk 3:18 :

JFB: Mat 3:12

Showing that we have here but an abstract of his teaching. Besides what we read in Joh 1:29, Joh 1:33-34; Joh 3:27-36, the incidental allusion to his having taught his disciples to pray (Luk 11:1) --of which not a word is said elsewhere--shows how varied his teaching was.

Luk 3:19 :

JFB: Mat 3:12

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" (Mar 6:20).

Luk 3:20 :

JFB: Mat 3:12

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 (Luk 7:18, &c.).

Clarke: Mat 3:1

John the Baptist - John, surnamed The Baptist, because he required those to be baptized who professed to be contrite because of their sins, was the son of a priest named Zacharias, and his wife Elisabeth, and was born about A. M. 3999, and about six months before our blessed Lord. Of his almost miraculous conception and birth, we have a circumstantial account in the Gospel of Luke, chap. 1: to which, and the notes there, the reader is requested to refer. For his fidelity in reproving Herod for his incest with his brother Philip’ s wife, he was cast into prison, no doubt at the suggestion of Herodias, the profligate woman in question. He was at last beheaded at her instigation, and his head given as a present to Salome, her daughter, who, by her elegant dancing, had highly gratified Herod, the paramour of her incestuous mother. His ministry was short; for he appears to have been put to death in the 27th or 28th year of the Christian era

Clarke: Mat 3:1

Came - preaching - Κηρυσσων, proclaiming, as a herald, a matter of great and solemn importance to men; the subject not his own, nor of himself, but from that God from whom alone he had received his commission. See on the nature and importance of the herald’ s office, at the end of this chapter. Κηρυσσειν, says Rosenmuller, de iis dicitur, qui in Plateis, in Campis, in Aere aperto, ut a multis audiantur, vocem tollunt , etc. "The verb κηρυσσειν is applied to those who, in the streets, fields, and open air, lift up their voice, that they may be heard by many, and proclaim what has been committed to them by regal or public authority; as the Kerukes among the Greeks, and the Precones among the Romans.

Clarke: Mat 3:1

The wilderness of Judea - That is, the country parts, as distinguished from the city; for in this sense the word wilderness, מדבר midbar or מדבריות midbarioth , is used among the rabbins. John’ s manner of life gives no countenance to the eremite or hermit’ s life, so strongly recommended and applauded by the Roman Church.

Clarke: Mat 3:2

Repent - Μετανοειτε . This was the matter of the preaching. The verb μετανοεω is either compounded of μετα, after, and νοειν to understand, which signifies that, after hearing such preaching, the sinner is led to understand, that the way he has walked in was the way of misery, death, and hell. Or the word may be derived from μετα after, and ανοια, madness, which intimates that the whole life of a sinner is no other than a continued course of madness and folly: and if to live in a constant opposition to all the dictates of true wisdom; to wage war with his own best interests in time and eternity; to provoke and insult the living God; and, by habitual sin, to prepare himself only for a state of misery, be evidences of insanity, every sinner exhibits them plentifully. It was from this notion of the word, that the Latins termed repentance resipiscentia , a growing wise again, from re and sapere ; or, according to Tertullian, Resipiscentia, quasi receptio mentis ad se , restoring the mind to itself: Contra Marcion, lib. ii. Repentance, then, implies that a measure of Divine wisdom is communicated to the sinner, and that he thereby becomes wise to salvation. That his mind, purposes, opinions, and inclinations, are changed; and that, in consequence, there is a total change in his conduct. It need scarcely be remarked, that, in this state, a man feels deep anguish of soul, because he has sinned against God, unfitted himself for heaven, and exposed his soul to hell. Hence, a true penitent has that sorrow, whereby he forsakes sin, not only because it has been ruinous to his own soul, but because it has been offensive to God

Clarke: Mat 3:2

The kingdom of heaven is at hand - Referring to the prophecy of Daniel, Dan 7:13,Dan 7:14, where the reign of Christ among men is expressly foretold. This phrase, and the kingdom of God, mean the same thing, viz. the dispensation of infinite mercy, and manifestation of eternal truth, by Christ Jesus, producing the true knowledge of God, accompanied with that worship which is pure and holy, worthy of that God who is its institutor and its object. But why is this called a kingdom? Because it has its laws, all the moral precepts of the Gospel: its subjects, all who believe in Christ Jesus: and its king, the Sovereign of heaven and earth. N. B. Jesus Christ never saved a soul which he did not govern; nor is this Christ precious or estimable to any man who does not feel a spirit of subjection to the Divine will

But why is it called the kingdom of Heaven? Because God designed that his kingdom of grace here should resemble the kingdom of glory above. And hence our Lord teaches us to pray, Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. The kingdom of heaven is not meat and drink, says St. Paul, Rom 14:17; does not consist in the gratification of sensual passions, or worldly ambition; but is righteousness, peace, and joy, in the Holy Ghost. Now what can there be more than this in glory? Righteousness, without mixture of sin; peace, without strife or contention; joy, in the Holy Ghost, spiritual joy, without mixture of misery! And all this, it is possible, by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, to enjoy here below. How then does heaven itself differ from this state? Answer. It makes the righteousness eternal, the peace eternal, and the joy eternal. This is the heaven of heavens! The phrase, kingdom of heaven, מלכות שמים malcuth shamayim , is frequently used by the rabbinical writers, and always means, the purity of the Divine worship, and the blessedness which a righteous man feels when employed in it

It is farther added, This kingdom is at hand. The dispensation of the glorious Gospel was now about to be fully opened, and the Jews were to have the first offers of salvation. This kingdom is also at hand to us; and wherever Christ crucified is preached, there is salvation to be found. Jesus is proclaimed to thee, O man! as infinitely able and willing to save. Believe in his name - cast thy soul upon his atonement, and enter into rest!

Clarke: Mat 3:3

The voice of one crying in the wilderness - Or, A voice of a crier in the wilderness. This is quoted from Isa 40:3, which clearly proves that John the Baptist was the person of whom the prophet spoke

The idea is taken from the practice of eastern monarchs, who, whenever they entered upon an expedition, or took a journey through a desert country, sent harbingers before them, to prepare all things for their passage; and pioneers to open the passes, to level the ways, and to remove all impediments. The officers appointed to superintend such preparations were called by the Latins, stratores

Diodorus’ s account of the march of Semiramis into Media and Persia, will give us a clear notion of the preparation of the way for a royal expedition

"In her march to Ecbatane, she came to the Zarcean mountain, which, extending many furlongs, and being full of craggy precipices and deep hollows, could not be passed without making a great compass about. Being therefore desirous of leaving an everlasting memorial of herself, as well as shortening the way, she ordered the precipices to be digged down, and the hollows to be filled up; and, at a great expense, she made a shorter and more expeditious road, which, to this day, is called from her, The road of Semiramis. Afterwards she went into Persia, and all the other countries of Asia, subject to her dominion; and, wherever she went, she ordered the mountains and precipices to be leveled, raised causeways in the plain country, and, at a great expense, made the ways passable."Diod. Sic. lib. ii. and Bp. Lowth

The Jewish Church was that desert country, to which John was sent, to announce the coming of the Messiah. It was destitute at that time of all religious cultivation, and of the spirit and practice of piety; and John was sent to prepare the way of the Lord, by preaching the doctrine of repentance. The desert is therefore to be considered as affording a proper emblem of the rude state of the Jewish Church, which is the true wilderness meant by the prophet, and in which John was to prepare the way of the promised Messiah. The awful importance of the matter, and the vehemence of the manner of the Baptist’ s preaching, probably acquired him the character of the crier, Βοων . For the meaning of the word John, see the note on Mar 1:4.

Clarke: Mat 3:4

His raiment of camel’ s hair - A sort of coarse or rough covering, which, it appears, was common to the prophets, Zec 13:4. In such a garment we find Elijah clothed, 2Ki 1:8. And as John had been designed under the name of this prophet, Mal 4:5, whose spirit and qualifications he was to possess, Luk 1:17, he took the same habit and lived in the same state of self-denial

Clarke: Mat 3:4

His meat was locusts - Ακριδες . Ακρις may either signify the insect called the locust, which still makes a part of the food in the land of Judea; or the top of a plant. Many eminent commentators are of the latter opinion; but the first is the most likely. The Saxon translator has grasshoppers

Clarke: Mat 3:4

Wild honey - Such as he got in the rocks and hollows of trees, and which abounded in Judea: see 1Sa 14:26. It is most likely that the dried locusts, which are an article of food in Asiatic countries to the present day, were fried in the honey, or compounded in some manner with it. The Gospel according to the Hebrews, as quoted by Epiphanius, seems to have taken a similar view of the subject, as it adds here to the text, Ου η γευσις ην του μαννα, ως εγκρις εν ελαιω . And its taste was like manna, as a sweet cake baked in oil.

Clarke: Mat 3:5

Jordan - Many of the best MSS. and versions, with Mar 1:5, add ποταμω, the river Jordan; but the definitive article, with which the word is generally accompanied, both in the Hebrew and the Greek, is, sufficient; and our article the, which should ever be used in the translation, expresses the force of the other.

Clarke: Mat 3:6

Were baptized - In what form baptism was originally administered, has been deemed a subject worthy of serious dispute. Were the people dipped or sprinkled? for it is certain βαπτω and βαπτιζω mean both. They were all dipped, say some. Can any man suppose that it was possible for John to dip all the inhabitants of Jerusalem and Judea, and of all the country round about the Jordan? Were both men and women dipped, for certainly both came to his baptism? This could never have comported either with safety or with decency. Were they dipped in their clothes? This would have endangered their lives, if they had not with them change of raiment: and as such a baptism as John’ s (however administered) was, in several respects, a new thing in Judea, it is not at all likely that the people would come thus provided. But suppose these were dipped, which I think it would be impossible to prove, does it follow that, in all regions of the world, men and women must be dipped, in order to be evangelically baptized? In the eastern countries, bathings were frequent, because of the heat of the climate, it being there so necessary to cleanliness and health; but could our climate, or a more northerly one, admit of this with safety, for at least three-fourths of the year? We may rest assured that it could not. And may we not presume, that if John had opened his commission in the north of Great Britain, for many months of the year, he would have dipped neither man nor woman, unless he could have procured a tepid bath? Those who are dipped or immersed in water, in the name of the Holy Trinity, I believe to be evangelically baptized - those who are washed or sprinkled with water in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, I believe to be equally so; and the repetition of such a baptism I believe to be profane. Others have a right to believe the contrary, if they see good. After all, it is the thing signified, and not the mode, which is the essential part of the sacrament. See the note on Mar 10:16

Clarke: Mat 3:6

Confessing their sins - Εξομολογουμενοι, earnestly acknowledging that their sins were their own. And thus taking the whole blame upon themselves, and laying nothing to the charge of God or man. This is essential to true repentance; and, till a man take the whole blame on himself, he cannot feel the absolute need he has of casting his soul on the mercy of God, that he may be saved.

Clarke: Mat 3:7

Pharisees - A very numerous sect among the Jews, who, in their origin, were, very probably, a pure and holy people. It is likely that they got the name of Pharisees, i.e. Separatists, (from פרש pharash , to separate), from their separating themselves from the pollution of the Jewish national worship; and hence, the word in the Anglo-saxon version is, holy persons who stand apart, or by themselves: but, in process of time, like all religious sects and parties, they degenerated: they lost the spirit of their institution, they ceased to recur to first principles, and had only the form of godliness, when Jesus Christ preached in Judea; for he bore witness, that they did make the outside of the cup and platter clean - they observed the rules of their institution, but the spirit was gone

Clarke: Mat 3:7

Sadducees - A sect who denied the existence of angels and spirits, consequently all Divine influence and inspiration, and also the resurrection of the dead. The Sadducees of that time were the Materialists and Deists of the Jewish nation. When the sect of the Pharisees arose cannot be distinctly ascertained; but it is supposed to have been some time after the Babylonish captivity. The sect of the Sadducees were the followers of one Sadok, a disciple of Antigonus Sochaeus, who flourished about three centuries before Christ. There was a third sect among the Jews, called the Essenes or Essenians, of whom I shall have occasion to speak on Mat 19:12

Clarke: Mat 3:7

Come to his baptism - The Ethiopic version adds the word privately here, the translator probably having read λαθρα in his copy, which gives a very remarkable turn to the passage. The multitudes, who had no worldly interest to support, no character to maintain by living in their usual way, came publicly, and openly acknowledged that they were Sinners; and stood in need of mercy. The others, who endeavored to secure their worldly interests by making a fair show in the flesh, are supposed to have come privately, that they might not be exposed to reproach; and that they might not lose their reputation for wisdom and sanctity, which their consciences, under the preaching of the Baptist, told them they had no right to. See below

Clarke: Mat 3:7

O generation of vipers - Γεννηματα εχιδνων . A terribly expressive speech. A serpentine brood, from a serpentine stock. As their fathers were, so were they, children of the wicked one. This is God’ s estimate of a Sinner, whether he wade in wealth, or soar in fame. The Jews were the seed of the serpent, who should bruise the heel of the woman’ s seed, and whose head should be bruised by him

Clarke: Mat 3:7

Who hath warned you - Or, privately shown you. Τις υπεδιξεν - from υπο, under, and δεικνυμαι, to show. Does not this seem to allude to the reading of the Ethiopic noticed above? They came privately: and John may be supposed to address them thus: "Did any person give you a private warning? No, you received your convictions under the public ministry of the word. The multitudes of the poor and wretched, who have been convinced of sin, have publicly acknowledged their crimes, and sought mercy - God will unmask you - you have deceived the people - you have deceived yourselves - you must appear just what you are; and, if you expect mercy from God, act like the penitent multitude, and bring forth Fruit worthy of repentance. Do not begin to trifle with your convictions, by thinking, that because you are descendants of Abraham, therefore you are entitled to God’ s favor; God can, out of these stones (pointing probably to those scattered about in the desert, which he appears to have considered as an emblem of the Gentiles) raise up a faithful seed, who, though not natural descendants of your excellent patriarch, yet shall be his worthy children, as being partakers of his faith, and friends of his God."It should be added, that the Greek word also signifies plain or ample information. See on Luk 6:47 (note)

Clarke: Mat 3:7

The wrath to come? - The desolation which was about to fall on the Jewish nation for their wickedness, and threatened in the last words of their own Scriptures. See Mal 4:6. Lest I come and smite the earth את הארץ (et ha -arets , this very land) with a curse. This wrath or curse was coming: they did not prevent it by turning to God, and receiving the Messiah, and therefore the wrath of God came upon them to the uttermost. Let him that readeth understand.

Clarke: Mat 3:10

And now also the axe is laid - Or, Even now the axe lieth. As if he had said, There is not a moment to spare - God is about to cut off every impenitent soul - you must therefore either turn to God immediately, or be utterly and finally ruined. It was customary with the prophets to represent the kingdoms, nations, and individuals, whose ruin they predicted, under the notion of forests and trees, doomed to be cut down. See Jer 46:22, Jer 46:23; Eze 31:3, Eze 31:11, Eze 31:12. The Baptist follows the same metaphor: the Jewish nation is the tree, and the Romans the axe, which, by the just judgment of God, was speedily to cut it down. It has been well observed, that there is an allusion here to a woodman, who, having marked a tree for excision, lays his axe at its root, and strips off his outer garment, that he may wield his blows more powerfully, and that his work may be quickly performed. For about sixty years before the coming of Christ, this axe had been lying at the root of the Jewish tree, Judea having been made a province to the Roman empire, from the time that Pompey took the city of Jerusalem, during the contentions of the two brothers Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, which was about sixty-three years before the coming of Christ. See Joseph. Antiq. l. xiv. c. 1-5. But as the country might be still considered as in the hands of the Jews, though subject to the Romans, and God had waited on them now nearly ninety years from the above time, expecting them to bring forth fruit, and none was yet produced; he kept the Romans as an axe, lying at the root of this tree, who were ready to cut it down the moment God gave them the commission.

Clarke: Mat 3:11

But he that cometh after me - Or, I coming after me, who is now on his way, and will shortly make his appearance. Jesus Christ began his ministry when he was thirty years of age, Luk 3:23, which was the age appointed by the law, Num 4:3. John the Baptist was born about six months before Christ; and, as he began his public ministry when thirty years of age, then this coming after refers to six months after the commencement of John’ s public preaching, at which time Christ entered upon his

Clarke: Mat 3:11

Whose shoes I am not worthy to bear - This saying is expressive of the most profound humility and reverence. To put on, take off, and carry the shoes of their masters, was, not only among the Jews, but also among the Greeks and Romans, the work of the vilest slaves. This is amply proved by Kypke, from Arrian, Plutarch, and the Babylonian Talmud

Clarke: Mat 3:11

With the Holy Ghost, and with fire - That the influences of the Spirit of God are here designed, needs but little proof. Christ’ s religion was to be a spiritual religion, and was to have its seat in the heart. Outward precepts, however well they might describe, could not produce inward spirituality. This was the province of the Spirit of God, and of it alone; therefore he is represented here under the similitude of fire, because he was to illuminate and invigorate the soul, penetrate every part, and assimilate the whole to the image of the God of glory. See on Joh 3:5 (note)

Clarke: Mat 3:11

With fire - Και πυρι . This is wanting in E. S. (two MSS. one of the ninth, the other of the tenth century) eight others, and many Evangelistaria, and in some versions and printed editions; but it is found in the parallel place, Luk 3:16, and in the most authentic MSS. and versions. It was probably the different interpretations given of it by the fathers that caused some transcribers to leave it out of their copies

The baptism of fire has been differently understood among the primitive fathers. Some say, it means the tribulations, crosses, and afflictions, which believers in Christ are called to pass through. Hence the author of the Opus Imperfectum, on Matthew, says, that there are three sorts of baptism

1.    that of water

2.    that of the Holy Ghost; and

3.    that of tribulations and afflictions, represented under the notion of fire

He observes farther, that our blessed Lord went through these three baptisms

1.    That of water, he received from the hands of John

2.    That of the Holy Spirit he received from the Father. And

3.    That of fire, he had in his contest with Satan in the desert

St. Chrysostom says; it means the superabundant graces of the Spirit. Basil and Theophilus explain it of the fire of hell. Cyril, Jerome, and others, understand by it the descent of the Holy Spirit, on the day of pentecost

Hilary says, it means a fire that the righteous must pass through in the day of judgment, to purify them from such defilements as necessarily cleaved to them here, and with which they could not be admitted into glory

Ambrose says, this baptism shall be administered at the gate of paradise, by John Baptist; and he thinks that this is what is meant by the flaming sword, Gen 3:24

Origen and Lactantius conceive it to be a river of fire, at the gate of heaven, something similar to the Phlegethon of the heathens; but they observe, that when the righteous come to pass over, the liquid flames shall divide, and give them a free passage: that Christ shall stand on the brink of it, and receive through the flames all those, and none but those, who have received in this world the baptism of water in his name: and that this baptism is for those who, having received the faith of Christ, have not, in every respect, lived conformably to it; for, though they laid the good foundation, yet they built hay, straw, and stubble upon it, and this work of theirs must be tried, and destroyed by this fire. This, they think, is St. Paul’ s meaning, 1Co 3:13-15. If any man build on this foundation (viz. Jesus Christ) gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; every man’ s work shall be made manifest: and the fire shall try every man’ s work, of what sort it is. - If any man’ s work be burnt, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as By Fire. From this fire, understood in this way, the fathers of the following ages, and the schoolmen, formed the famous and lucrative doctrine of Purgatory. Some in the primitive Church thought that fire should be, in some way or other, joined to the water in baptism; and it is supposed that they administered it by causing the person to pass between two fires, or to leap through the flame; or by having a torch, or lighted candle, present. Thus have those called Doctors of the Church trifled. The exposition which I have given, I believe to be the only genuine one.

Clarke: Mat 3:12

Whose fan is in his hand - The Romans are here termed God’ s fan, as, in Mat 3:10, they were called his axe, and, in Mat 22:7, they are termed his troops or armies

The winnowing fan of the Hindoos is square, made of split bamboo; and the corn is winnowed by waving the fan backwards with both hands - "Whose fan is in his hand.

Clarke: Mat 3:12

His floor - Does not this mean the land of Judea, which had been long, as it were, the threshing-floor of the Lord? God says, he will now, by the winnowing fan (viz. the Romans) thoroughly cleanse this floor - the wheat, those who believe in the Lord Jesus, he will gather into his garner, either take to heaven from the evil to come, or put in a place of safety, as he did the Christians, by sending them to Pella, in Coelosyria, previously to the destruction of Jerusalem. But he will burn up the chaff - the disobedient and rebellions Jews, who would not come unto Christ, that they might have life

Clarke: Mat 3:12

Unquenchable fire - That cannot be extinguished by man.

Calvin: Mat 3:1

Mat 3:1Now in those days Luk 3:1. And in the fifteenth year It could not be gathered from Matthew and Mark in what year of his age John began to preach: but Luke shows sufficiently, that he was about thirty years of age. The ancient writers of the Church are almost unanimously agreed, that he was born fifteen years before the death of Augustus. His successor Tiberius had held the government of the Roman Empire for fifteen years, when the same John began to preach. In this way are made up the thirty years which I have mentioned. Hence it follows, that he did not long discharge the office of teacher, but, in a short time, gave way to Christ; for we shall soon find, that Christ also was baptized in the thirtieth year of his age, when he was immediately installed into the discharge of his public office. Now as John, the morning-star, or dawn, was immediately followed by Christ, “the Sun of Righteousness,” (Mal 4:2,) there is no reason to wonder, that John disappeared, in order that Christ might shine alone in greater brightness.

Calvin: Mat 3:2

Mat 3:2.Repent ye Matthew differs from the other two Evangelists in this respect, that he relates the substance of John’s doctrine, as uttered by John himself, while they relate it in their own words; though Mark has one word more than Luke: for he says, he came Baptizing, and preaching the baptism of repentance But in substance there is the most perfect agreement: for they all connect repentance with the forgiveness of sins. The kingdom of God among men is nothing else than a restoration to a happy life; or, in other words, it is true and everlasting happiness. When John says, that the kingdom of God is at hand, his meaning is, that men, who were alienated from the righteousness of God, and banished from the kingdom of heaven, must be again gathered to God, and live under his guidance. This is accomplished by a free adoption and the forgiveness of sins, by which he reconciles to himself those who were unworthy. In a word, the kingdom of heaven is nothing else than “newness of life,” (Rom 6:4,) by which God restores us to the hope of a blessed immortality. Having rescued us from the bondage of sin and death, he claims us as his own; that, even while our pilgrimage on earth continues, we may enjoy the heavenly life by faith: for he

“hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ,”
(Eph 1:3.)

Though we are like dead men, yet we know that our life is secure; for it “is hid with Christ in God,” (Col 3:3.)

From this doctrine, as its source, is drawn the exhortation to repentance. For John does not say, “Repent ye, and in this way the kingdom of heaven will afterwards be at hand;” but first brings forward the grace of God, and then exhorts men to repent Hence it is evident, that the foundation of repentance is the mercy of God, by which he restores the lost. In no other sense is it stated by Mark and Luke, that he preached repentance for the forgiveness of sins Repentance is not placed first, as some ignorantly suppose, as if it were the ground of the forgiveness of sins, or as if it induced God to begin to be gracious to us; but men are commanded to repent, that they may receive the reconciliation which is offered to them. Now, as the undeserved love of God — by which he receives into his favor wretched men, “not imputing their trespasses unto them,” (2Co 5:19) — is first in order; so it must be observed, that pardon of sins is bestowed upon us in Christ, not that God may treat them with indulgence, but that he may heal us from our sins. And, indeed, without hatred of sin and remorse for transgressions, no man will taste the grace of God. But a definition of repentance and faith may explain more fully the manner in which both are connected; which leads me to handle this doctrine more sparingly.

With regard to the meaning of the present passage, it is proper to observe, that the whole Gospel consists of two parts, — forgiveness of sins, and repentance Now, as Matthew denominates the first of these the kingdom of heaven, we may conclude, that men are in a state of deadly enmity with God, and altogether shut out from the heavenly kingdom, till God receives them into favor. Though John, when he introduces the mention of the grace of God, exhorts men to repentance, yet it must not be forgotten that repentance, not less than the inheritance of the heavenly kingdom, is the gift of God. As he freely pardons our sins, and delivers us, by his mercy, from the condemnation of eternal death, so also does he form us anew to his image, that we may live unto righteousness. As he freely adopts us for his sons, so he regenerates us by his Spirit, that our life may testify, that we do not falsely, ²⁴⁵ address him as our Father. In like manner, Christ washes away our sins by his blood, and reconciles our Heavenly Father to us by the sacrifice of his death; but, at the same time, in consequence of

“our old man being crucified with him, and the body of sin destroyed,”
(Rom 6:6)

he makes us “alive” unto righteousness. The sum of the Gospel is, that God, through his Son, takes away our sins, and admits us to fellowship with him, that we, “denying ourselves ” and our own nature, may “live soberly, righteously, and godly,” and thus may exercise ourselves on earth in meditating on the heavenly life.

Calvin: Mat 3:3

Mat 3:3.The yoke of one crying in the wilderness Though this passage of the prophet Isaiah (40:3) ought not to be limited exclusively to John, yet he is one of the number of those to whom it certainly refers. After having spoken of the destruction of the city, and of the awful calamities that would befall the people, he promises a restoration that would follow. His words are,

“Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God,”
(Isa 40:1.)

When the temple had been thrown down, and sacrifices abolished, and the people led away into captivity, their affairs seemed to be desperate. And as their ears had been deaf to the uninterrupted voice of the prophets, the Lord kept silence for a time. ²⁴⁷ That pious minds may not be cast down during this melancholy silence, the prophet announces, that other preachers of grace will yet arise, to awaken in the people a hope of salvation. Such were Zechariah, Haggai, Malachi, and the like. ²⁴⁸ But as the restoration promised is perpetual, and not for a time only, and as Isaiah refers chiefly to the redemption, which was to be expressed at the coming of Christ, John the Baptist is justly considered the chief minister of consolation.

Next follows in the words of the prophet, The voice of one crying That voice is contrasted with the temporary silence, ²⁴⁹ which I have just mentioned: for the Jews were to be deprived, for a time, of the instruction, which they had wickedly despised. The word wilderness is here used metaphorically for desolation, or the frightful ruin of the nation, such as existed in the time of the captivity. It was so dismally shattered, that it might well be compared to a wilderness The prophet magnifies the grace of God. “Though the people,” says he, “have been driven far from their country, and even excluded from the society of men, yet the voice of God will yet be heard in the wilderness, to revive the dead with joyful consolation.” When John began to preach, Jerusalem was in this sense a wilderness: for all had been reduced to wild and frightful confusion. But the very sight of a visible wilderness must have had a powerful effect on stupid and hardened men, leading them to perceive that they were in a state of death, and to accept the promise of salvation, which had been held out to them. We now see, that this prediction actually relates to John, and is most properly applied to him.

Prepare the way of the Lord The prophet undoubtedly addresses Cyrus and the Persians, whose agency the Lord employed in this matter. The meaning is: by his wonderful power, God will open a way to his people through impassable forests, through broken rocks, through a sandy desert; for he will have at hand the ministers of his grace, to remove all hindrances out of the way. But that was a shadowy anticipation of redemption. When the spiritual truth is about to appear, John is sent to remove obstacles. And even now the same voice sounds in our ears, that we may prepare the way of the Lord: that is, that we may take out of the way those sins which obstruct the kingdom of Christ, and thus may give access to his grace. To the same purpose are the following words of the prophet: the crooked shall be made straight, (Isa 40:4.) All that they mean is: there are intricate and crooked windings in the world, but through such appalling difficulties the Lord makes a way for himself, and breaks through, by incredible means, to accomplish our salvation.

Calvin: Mat 3:4

Mat 3:4.And the same John had his raiment of camel’s hair The Evangelist does not desire us to reckon it as one of John’s chief excellencies, that he followed a rough and austere way of living, or even that he avoided a moderate and ordinary degree of elegance: but, having already stated that he was an inhabitant of the mountains, he now adds, that his food and clothing were adapted to his residence. And he mentions this, not only to inform us, that John was satisfied with the food and dress of the peasants, and partook of no delicacies; but that, under a mean and contemptible garb, he was held in high estimation by men of rank and splendor. Superstitious persons look upon righteousness as consisting almost entirely of outward appearances, and have commonly thought, that abstinence of this kind was the perfection of holiness. Nearly akin to this is the error, of supposing him to be a man who lived in solitude, and who disdained the ordinary way of living; as the only superiority of hermits and monks is, that they differ from other people. Nay, gross ignorance has gone so far that, out of camel’s hair they have made an entire skin.

Now, there can be no doubt, that the Evangelist here describes a man of the mountains, ²⁵² widely distant from all the refinement and delicacies of towns,—not only satisfied with such food as could be procured, but eating only what was fit to be used in its natural state, such as wild honey, which is supplied by that region in great abundance, and locusts, with which it also abounds. Or he may have intended to point out that, when a man of mean aspect, and without any polite accomplishments, appeared in public life, it was attended by this advantage, that the majesty of God shone alone in him, and yet struck all with admiration. For we must observe what is added, that there was a great concourse of people from all directions; from which we infer, that his fame was very widely spread. ²⁵³ Or the Evangelist may have signified the design of God, to present, in the person of John, a singular instance of frugality, and, in this manner, to fill the Jews with reverence for his doctrine, or at least to convince them of ingratitude, according to that saying of our Lord, John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, (Luk 7:33.)

Calvin: Mat 3:6

Mat 3:6; Mar 1:5. And were baptized, confessing their sins This confession was a testimony of repentance: for, as the Lord, in the sacraments, brings himself under obligation to us, as if he had given his own hand-writing, so it is our duty, on the other hand, to reply to him. In Baptism, he declares that our sins are forgiven, and calls us to repentance. That men may come forward, in a right manner, to be baptized, confession of sins is demanded from them: otherwise the whole performance would be nothing but an idle mockery ²⁵⁴ Let it be observed, that we are here speaking of adults, who ought not, we. are aware, to be admitted indiscriminately into the Church, or introduced by Baptism into the body of Christ, ²⁵⁵ till an examination has been previously made. ²⁵⁶

Hence it is obvious, how absurdly this passage has been tortured by the Papists, to support auricular confession. There were no priests at hand, in whose ears each individual might privately mutter ²⁵⁷ his sins; nor is it said that they enumerated all their sins; nor are we told that John left in charge to his disciples an ordinary rule for confession. Even granting to Papists all that they ask, confession will belong to Catechumens alone, ²⁵⁸ and will have no place after Baptism. At all events, the law which they lay down for confession after Baptism, derives no countenance from John’s example. ²⁵⁹

Calvin: Mat 3:7

Mat 3:7.And when he saw many of the Pharisees It is here related by Matthew and Luke, that John did not merely preach repentance in a general manner, but that he also applied his discourse to individuals. And the manner of teaching will, in point of fact, be very unprofitable, if instructors do not judiciously inquire what the season demands, and what belongs to individuals. Nothing can be more unequal, in this respect, than a constant equality. ²⁶¹ For this reason John, we are told, addressed the Pharisees and Sadducees with greater severity: because he saw that their hypocrisy, and swelling pride, rendered them liable to be more severely censured than the common people. To comprehend more fully his design, we must understand, that none are more stupid than hypocrites, who deceive themselves and others by the outward mask of holiness. While God thunders, on all sides, against the whole world, they construct a refuge for themselves in their own deceitful fancy; for they are convinced that they have nothing to do with the judgment of God. Does any one suppose, that John acted improperly, in treating them with so much harshness at the first interview? I reply: They were not unknown to him, ²⁶² and the knowledge he had of them was derived, not from acquaintance or experience, but, on the contrary, from a secret revelation of the Spirit. It was therefore necessary that he should not spare them, lest they might return home more inflated with pride. Is it again objected, that they ought not to have been terrified by such severity of reproof, because they made a profession, in baptism, that they would afterwards be different persons from what they had formerly been? The reply is still easy. Those whose habits of uttering falsehood to God, and of deceiving themselves, lead them to hold out hypocrisy and pretension, instead of the reality, ought to be urged, with greater sharpness than other men, to true repentance. There is an astonishing pertinacity, as I have said, in hypocrites; and, until they have been flayed by violence, they obstinately keep their skin.

Calvin: Mat 3:8

Mat 3:8; Luk 3:8. Yield therefore fruits worthy of repentance He confirms what I have already said, that the repentance, which is attested by words, is of no value, unless it be proved by the conduct: for it is too important a matter to be estimated lightly, or at random. And so John affirms, that the solemn declaration, which they made, is not enough, but that, in process of time, their works will make it evident, whether or not they have seriously repented. ²⁶⁶ It ought to be observed, that good works ( Titus 3:8) are here called fruits of repentance: for repentance is an inward matter, which has its seat in the heart and soul, but afterwards yields its fruits in a change of life. ²⁶⁷ But as the whole of this part of doctrine has been grievously corrupted by Popery, we must attend to this distinction, that repentance is an inward renewal of the man, which manifests itself in the outward life, as a tree produces its fruit.

Calvin: Mat 3:9

Mat 3:9.And think not to say within yourselves Luk 3:8. And begin not to say within yourselves. As the import of both phrases is undoubtedly the same, it is easy to ascertain what John meant. Till hypocrites are hard pressed, they either sleep in their sins, or indulge in licentious mirth. ²⁶⁸ But when they are summoned to the tribunal of God, they eagerly seek for some subterfuge or concealment, or some covering to interpose between God and them. John’s address to the Pharisees and Sadducees amounts to this: “ Now that I have sharply upbraided you, do not, as persons of your stamp are wont to do endeavor to find a remedy in an empty and deceitful title.”

He thus tears from them the wicked confidence, by which they had been bewitched. The covenant, which God had made with Abraham, was employed by them as a shield to defend a bad conscience: not that they rested their salvation on the person of one man, but that God had adopted all the posterity of Abraham. Meanwhile, they did not consider, that none are entitled to be regarded as belonging to “the seed of Abraham,” (Joh 8:33,) but those who follow his faith, and that without faith the covenant of God has no influence whatever in procuring salvation. And even the little word, in yourselves, is not without meaning: for though they did not boast in words, that they were Abraham’s children, yet they were inwardly delighted with this title, as hypocrites are not ashamed to practice grosser impositions on God than on men.

God is able The Jews flattered themselves with nearly the same pretenses, as are now brought forward insolently by the Papists. “There must be some Church in the world; because it is the will of God that he be acknowledged, and his name invoked, in the world. But the Church can be nowhere else than among us, to whom God has entrusted his covenant.” ²⁶⁹ This arrogance was chiefly displayed by the high priests, and by others who had any share of government or authority. The common people were treated by them as profane and “ accursed, ” (Joh 7:49,) and they looked upon themselves as the holy first-fruits; just as, in our own day, mitred Bishops, Abbots, Canons, Monks, Sorbonnists, and every description of Priests, glorying in the proud title of Clergy, regard the Laity with contempt. This error, of relying too much on the promise of God, John exposes and refutes, by saying that, though God passes by them, he will not want a Church.

The meaning of the words, therefore, is: “God has made an everlasting covenant with Abraham and his seed. In one point you are mistaken. While you are worse than bastards, ²⁷⁰ you imagine that you are the only children of Abraham. But God will raise up elsewhere a new seed of Abraham, which does not now appear.” He says in the dative case, children To ABRAHAM, (τῶ ᾿Αβραὰμ,) to inform us, that the promise of God will not fail, and that Abraham, who relied on it, was not deceived, though his seed be not found in you. Thus from the beginning of the world the Lord has been faithful to his servants, and has never failed to fulfill the promise which he made to them, that he would extend mercy to their children, though he rejected hypocrites. Some imagine, that John spoke of the calling of the Gentiles. This appears to me to be without foundation: but as proud men did not believe it to be possible that the Church should be removed to another place, he reminds them, that God has in his power ways of preserving his Church, which they did not think of, any more than they believed that he could create children out of stones.

Calvin: Mat 3:10

Mat 3:10; Luk 3:9. And now also the axe After having stripped hypocrites of the covering of a vain confidence, John announces the approaching judgment of God. He had formerly said that, though they were rejected, God would not want a people: and he now adds, that God is just about to drive out unworthy persons from the Church, as barren trees are wont to be cut down. His statement amounts to this, that God has already displayed his power for purifying the Church. The grace of God is never manifested for the salvation of the godly, till his judgment first appears for the destruction of the world: and for two reasons; because God then separates his own people from the reprobate, and because his wrath is kindled anew by the ingratitude of the world. So that we have no reason to wonder, if the preaching of the gospel and the coming of Christ laid the axe for cutting down barren trees, or if the same causes ²⁷¹ daily advance the wrath of God against the wicked.

Calvin: Mat 3:11

The three Evangelists relate the Baptist’s discourse in the same words. In one respect, Luke’s account is more full: for he opens it by explaining the occasion on which this discourse was delivered. It arose from the people being in danger of being led, by a false opinion, to convey to him the honor which was due to Christ. To remove, as soon as possible, every occasion of such a mistake, he expressly declares, that he is not the Christ, and draws such a distinction between Christ and himself as to maintain Christ’s prerogative. He would have done this of his own accord, by handing them over, to use a common expression, as disciples to Christ: but he takes up the matter at an earlier stage, lest, by remaining silent any longer, he should confirm the people in an error.

He who cometh after me is stronger than I Christ is thus declared to be so far superior in power and rank, that, with respect to him, John must occupy a private station. ²⁸² He uses ordinary forms of speech to magnify the glory of Christ, in comparison of whom he declares that he himself is nothing. The chief part of his statement is, that he represents Christ as the author of spiritual baptism, and himself as only the minister of outward baptism. He appears to anticipate an objection, which might be brought forward. What was the design of the Baptism which he had taken upon himself? For it was no light matter to introduce any innovation whatever into the Church of God, and particularly to bring forward a new way of introducing persons into the Church, which was more perfect than the law of God. He replies, that he did not proceed to do this without authority; but that his office, as minister of an outward symbol, takes nothing away from the power and glory of Christ.

Hence we infer, that his intention was not at all to distinguish between his own baptism, and that which Christ taught his disciples, and which he intended should remain in perpetual obligation in his Church. He does not contrast one visible sign with another visible sign, but compares the characters of master and servant with each other, and shows what is due to the master, and what is due to the servant. It ought not to have any weight with us, that an opinion has long and extensively prevailed, that John’s baptism differs from ours. We must learn to form our judgment from the matter as it stands, and not from the mistaken opinions of men. And certainly the comparison, which they imagine to have been made, would involve great absurdities. It would follow from it, that the Holy Spirit is given, in the present day, by ministers. Again, it would follow that John’s baptism was a dead sign, and had no efficacy whatever. Thirdly, it would follow, that we have not the same baptism with Christ: for it is sufficiently evident, that the fellowship, which he condescends to maintain with us, was ratified by this pledge, ²⁸³ when he consecrated baptism in his own body.

We must therefore hold by what I have already said, that John merely distinguishes, in this passage, between himself and the other ministers of baptism, on the one hand, and the power of Christ, on the other, and maintains the superiority of the master over the servants. And hence we deduce the general doctrine, as to what is done in baptism by men, and what is accomplished in it by the Son of God. To men has been committed nothing more than the administration of an outward and visible sign: the reality dwells with Christ alone. ²⁸⁴

Scripture does sometimes, though not in a literal sense, ²⁸⁵ ascribe to men what John here declares not to belong to men, but claims exclusively for Christ. In such cases, however, the design is not to inquire, what man has separately and by himself, but merely to show, what is the effect and advantage of signs, and in what manner God makes use of them, as instruments, by his Spirit. Here also is laid down a distinction between Christ and his ministers, that the world may not fall into the mistake, of giving to them what is justly due to him alone: for there is nothing to which they are more prone, than to adorn creatures with what has been taken from God by robbery. A careful attention to this observation will rid us of many difficulties. We know what disputes have arisen, in our own age, about the advantage and efficacy of signs, all of which may be disposed of in a single word. The ordinance of our Lord, viewed as a whole, includes himself as its Author, and the power of the Spirit, together with the figure and the minister: but where a comparison is made between our Lord and the minister, the former must have all the honor, and the latter must be reduced to nothing.

Mat 3:11. He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire It is asked, why did not John equally say, that it is Christ alone who washes souls with his blood? The reason is, that this very washing is performed by the power of the Spirit, and John reckoned it enough to express the whole effect of baptism by the single word Spirit The meaning is clear, that Christ alone bestows all the grace which is figuratively represented by outward baptism, because it is he who “sprinkles the conscience” with his blood. It is he also who mortifies the old man, and bestows the Spirit of regeneration. The word fire is added as an epithet, and is applied to the Spirit, because he takes away our pollutions, as fire purifies gold. In the same manner, he is metaphorically called water in another passage, (Joh 3:5.)

Calvin: Mat 3:12

12.Whose winnowing-fan is in his hand In the former verse, John preached concerning the grace of Christ, that the Jews might yield themselves to him to be renewed: now he discourses of judgment, that he may strike despisers with terror. As there are always many hypocrites who proudly reject the grace of Christ offered to them, it is also necessary to denounce the judgment that awaits them. For this reason John here describes Christ as a severe judge against unbelievers. And this is an order which must be observed by us in teaching, that hypocrites may know, that their rejection of Christ will not go unpunished. They will thus be roused from their lethargy, and begin to dread him as an avenger, whom they despised as the author of salvation.

I have no doubt, that John intended also to show, what Christ accomplishes by means of his Gospel. The preaching of the Gospel, then, is the winnowing-fan Before the Lord sifts us, the whole world is involved in confusion, every one flatters himself, and the good are mixed with the bad in short, it is only necessary that the chaff be blown. But when Christ comes forward with his Gospels, — when he reproves the consciences and summons them to the tribunal of God, the chaff is sifted out, ²⁸⁶ which formerly occupied a great part of the thrashing-floor It is true that, in the case of individuals, the Gospel effects a separation from the chaff: but in this passage, John compares the reprobate to chaff, and believers to wheat The thrashing floor accordingly denotes — not the world, (as some people imagine,) but the Church: for we must attend to the class of persons whom John addresses. The mere title filled the Jews with pride, ²⁸⁷ but John tells them that it is foolish in them to be proud of it, because they hold but a temporary place in the Church of God, from which they are soon to be thrown out, like chaff from the thrashing-floor. In this way, he gives a rapid glance at the corrupt state in which the Church then was: for it was covered with husks, and straws, and other rubbish, but would soon be cleansed by the strong breeze of the Gospel. But how is Christ said to separate the chaff from the wheat, when he can find nothing in men but mere chaff? The answer is easy. The elect are formed into wheat, ²⁸⁸ and are then separated from the chaff, and collected into the granary

He will thoroughly cleanse his thrashing-floor This work was begun by Christ, and is daily going forward: but the full accomplishment of it will not be seen till the last day. This is the reason why John draws our attention to the subject. But let us remember, that believers even now enter, by hope, into the granary of God, in which they will actually have their everlasting abode; while the reprobate experience, in their convictions of guilt, the heat of that fire, the actual burning of which they will feel at the last day.

Many persons, I am aware, have entered into ingenious debates about the eternal fire, by which the wicked will be tormented after the judgment. But we may conclude from many passages of Scripture, that it is a metaphorical expression. For, if we must believe that it is real, or what they call material fire, we must also believe that the brimstone and the fan are material, both of them being mentioned by Isaiah.

“For Tophet is ordained of old; the pile thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it,” (Isa 30:33.)

We must explain the fire in the same manner as the worm, (Mar 9:44.) and if it is universally agreed that the worm is a metaphorical term, we must form the same opinion as to the fire. Let us lay aside the speculations, by which foolish men weary themselves to no purpose, and satisfy ourselves with believing, that these forms of speech denote, in a manner suited to our feeble capacity, a dreadful torment, which no man can now comprehend, and no language can express.

Defender: Mat 3:1

Jesus said John the Baptist was the greatest man ever born up to His day (Mat 11:11). Yet, for some strange reason, John is almost ignored by modern believers. In a very real sense, he was the first Christian, the first Christian witness, the first Christian preacher, the first Christian prophet, and, finally, the first Christian martyr. He was the first to baptize converts and could have even started the first local church since the disciples of Christ were already largely organized and ministering together under John before they were instructed to follow Christ (Joh 1:35-37; Act 1:15-26)."

Defender: Mat 3:2

This is the first of thirty-two occurrences of the phrase "the kingdom of heaven," all found only in Matthew. The same statement is found in Mar 1:15, except that "the kingdom of heaven" is there called "the kingdom of God." The two phrases are often used synonymously (Mat 13:33; Luk 13:20, Luk 13:21), so there seems no adequate reason to try to distinguish between them. Often it is called "the kingdom of the Father" or simply "the kingdom." It has a spiritual aspect, a present physical aspect, and a future eternal aspect, depending on context, but always refers to God's reign over His created and redeemed world and its believing inhabitants."

Defender: Mat 3:3

Prophets Isaiah and Malachi predicted the coming of John, just as they did that of Christ (Isa 40:3-5; Mal 3:1). The angel announced John's imminent coming, as He did that of Jesus (Luk 1:13, Luk 1:30, Luk 1:31)."

Defender: Mat 3:6

The Greek word is baptizo, which means "dip" or "immerse," although all English translations, old or new, seem to prefer to transliterate it rather than to translate its actual meaning. Even though its full symbolic meaning (death, burial and resurrection as in Rom 6:5) could not yet be fully understood since Christ had not yet died and risen, it should be considered genuine Christian baptism. The disciples of John, baptized by him in Jordan, were not re-baptized, either when John told them to follow Christ, or when they later received the promised baptism of the Holy Spirit (Mat 3:11). Instead they themselves baptized those who came to Christ, whether before or after Pentecost (Joh 3:22-30; Joh 4:1, Joh 4:2; Act 2:37-41). (See note on Act 19:1-7 for an apparent exception.)"

Defender: Mat 3:7

This exceptionally harsh language was later used by Christ Himself (Mat 12:34; Mat 23:33). The sect of the Pharisees had become, in many cases, legalistic hypocrites. The Sadducees were rationalists, denying the supernatural, especially the resurrection. Yet many of the priests were Sadducees. Presumably, both John and Christ would regard modern legalistic and rationalistic religionists with similar severity."

Defender: Mat 3:8

John's baptism was conditioned on repentance - that is, a genuine change of mind and attitude toward God. It symbolized a washing away of fleshly sins, as well as a new life following death to the old life. Peter's exhortation after Pentecost was very similar (Act 2:38). In both cases, true repentance, as well as faith in God and His promises, are assumed as conditions for forgiveness of sins. Without these, baptism is meaningless."

Defender: Mat 3:11

This is the first promise of the Holy Spirit and His baptism. Thus, John did preach this doctrine, although John's professed disciples in Ephesus (Act 19:1-5) somehow had not heard it."

TSK: Mat 3:1

those : Luk 3:1, Luk 3:2

John : Mat 11:11, Mat 14:2-14, Mat 16:14, Mat 17:12, Mat 17:13, Mat 21:25-27, Mat 21:32; Mar 1:4, Mar 1:15, Mar 6:16-29; Luk 1:13-17, Luk 1:76, 3:2-20; Joh 1:6-8, 15-36, Joh 3:27-36; Act 1:22, Act 13:24, Act 13:25; Act 19:3, Act 19:4

preaching : Isa 40:3-6; Mar 1:7; Luk 1:17

the wilderness : Mat 11:7; Jos 14:10, Jos 15:61, Jos 15:62; Luk 7:24

TSK: Mat 3:2

Repent : Mat 4:17, Mat 11:20, Mat 12:41, Mat 21:29-32; 1Ki 8:47; Job 42:6; Eze 18:30-32; Eze 33:11; Mar 1:4, Mar 1:15, Mar 6:12; Luk 13:3, Luk 13:5, Luk 15:7, Luk 15:10, Luk 16:30, Luk 24:47; Act 2:38, Act 3:19, Act 11:18, Act 17:30, Act 20:21, Act 26:20; 2Co 7:10; 2Ti 2:25; Heb 6:1; 2Pe 3:9; Rev 2:5, Rev 2:21

for : Mat 5:3, Mat 5:10,Mat 5:19, Mat 5:20, Mat 6:10,Mat 6:33, Mat 10:7, Mat 11:11, Mat 11:12, Mat 13:11, Mat 13:24, Mat 13:31, Mat 13:33, Mat 13:44, Mat 13:45, Mat 13:47; Mat 13:52, Mat 18:1-4, Mat 18:23, Mat 20:1, Mat 22:2, Mat 23:13, Mat 25:1, Mat 25:14; Dan 2:44; Luk 6:20, Luk 9:2; Luk 10:9-11; Joh 3:3-5; Col 1:13

TSK: Mat 3:3

by : Isa 40:3; Mar 1:3; Luk 3:3-6; Joh 1:23

Prepare : Isa 57:14, Isa 57:15; Mal 3:1; Luk 1:17, Luk 1:76

TSK: Mat 3:4

his raiment : Mat 11:8; 2Ki 1:8; Zec 13:4; Mal 4:5; Mar 1:6; Luk 1:17; Rev 11:3

and his : Mat 11:18; Lev 11:22

wild : Deu 32:13; 1Sa 14:25-27

TSK: Mat 3:5

Mat 4:25, Mat 11:7-12; Mar 1:5; Luk 3:7, Luk 16:16; Joh 3:23, Joh 5:35

TSK: Mat 3:6

were : Mat 3:11, Mat 3:13-16; Eze 36:25; Mar 1:8, Mar 1:9; Luk 3:16; Joh 1:25-28, Joh 1:31-33, Joh 3:23-25; Act 1:5, Act 2:38-41, Act 10:36-38, Act 11:16, Act 19:4, Act 19:5, Act 19:18; 1Co 10:2; Col 2:12; Tit 3:5, Tit 3:6; Heb 6:2, Heb 9:10 *Gr: 1Pe 3:21

confessing : Lev 16:21, Lev 26:40; Num 5:7; Jos 7:19; Job 33:27, Job 33:28; Psa 32:5; Pro 28:13; Dan 9:4; Mar 1:5; Luk 15:18-21; Act 2:38, Act 19:18, Act 22:16; Jam 5:16; 1Jo 1:9

TSK: Mat 3:7

the Pharisees : Mat 5:20, Mat 12:24, Mat 15:12, Mat 16:6, Mat 16:11, Mat 16:12, Mat 22:15, Mat 22:23, Mat 22:34, 23:13-28; Mar 7:3-5, Mar 8:15, Mar 12:13, Mar 12:18; Luk 7:30, Luk 11:39-44, Luk 16:14, Luk 18:11; Joh 1:24; Joh 7:45-49, Joh 9:40; Act 4:1, Act 4:2, Act 5:17, Act 15:5, Act 23:6-9, Act 26:5

O generation : Mat 12:34, Mat 23:33; Gen 3:15; Psa 58:3-6; Isa 57:3, Isa 57:4, Isa 59:5; Luk 3:7-9; Joh 8:44; 1Jo 3:10; Rev 12:9, Rev 12:10

who : Jer 6:10, Jer 51:6; Eze 3:18-21, Eze 33:3-7; Act 20:31; Rom 1:18; Heb 11:7

flee : Rom 5:9; 1Th 1:10; 2Th 1:9, 2Th 1:10; Heb 6:18; Rev 6:16, Rev 6:17

TSK: Mat 3:8

forth : Mat 21:28-30,Mat 21:32; Isa 1:16, Isa 1:17; Luk 3:8, Luk 3:10-14; Act 26:20; Rom 2:4-7; 2Co 7:10,2Co 7:11; 2Pe 1:4-8

fruits : Gal 5:22, Gal 5:23; Eph 5:9; Phi 1:11

meet : etc. or, answerable to amendment of life, Jer 7:3-7, Jer 26:13, Jer 36:3

TSK: Mat 3:9

think : Mar 7:21; Luk 3:8, Luk 5:22, Luk 7:39, Luk 12:17

We : Eze 33:24; Luk 16:24; Joh 8:33, Joh 8:39, Joh 8:40,Joh 8:53; Act 13:26; Rom 4:1, Rom 4:11-16; Rom 9:7, Rom 9:8; Gal 4:22-31

God : Mat 8:11, Mat 8:12; Luk 19:40; Act 15:14; Rom 4:17; 1Co 1:27, 1Co 1:28; Gal 3:27-29; Eph 2:12, Eph 2:13

TSK: Mat 3:10

now : Mal 3:1-3, Mal 4:1; Heb 3:1-3, Heb 10:28-31, Heb 12:25

the ax : Luk 3:9, Luk 23:31

therefore : Psa 1:3, Psa 92:13, Psa 92:14; Isa 61:3; Jer 17:8; Joh 15:2

is hewn : Mat 7:19, Mat 21:19; Psa 80:15, Psa 80:16; Isa 5:2-7, Isa 27:11; Eze 15:2-7; Luk 13:6-9; Joh 15:6; Heb 6:8; 1Pe 4:17, 1Pe 4:18

TSK: Mat 3:11

baptize : Mat 3:6; Mar 1:4, Mar 1:8; Luk 3:3, Luk 3:16; Joh 1:26, Joh 1:33; Act 1:5, Act 11:16, Act 13:24, Act 19:4

but : Luk 1:17; Joh 1:15, Joh 1:26, Joh 1:27, Joh 1:30,Joh 1:34, Joh 3:23-36

whose : Mar 1:7; Luk 7:6, Luk 7:7; Act 13:25; Eph 3:8; 1Pe 5:5

he shall : Isa 4:4, Isa 44:3, Isa 59:20,Isa 59:21; Zec 13:9; Mal 3:2-4; Mar 1:8; Luk 3:16; Joh 1:33; Act 1:5, Act 2:2-4, Act 11:15, Act 11:16; 1Co 12:13; Gal 3:27, Gal 3:28

TSK: Mat 3:12

fan : Isa 30:24, Isa 41:16; Jer 4:11, Jer 15:7, Jer 51:2; Luk 3:17

he will thoroughly : Mat 13:41, Mat 13:49, Mat 13:50; Mal 3:2, Mal 3:3, Mal 4:1; Joh 15:2

and gather : Mat 13:30,Mat 13:43; Amo 9:9

but : Job 21:18; Psa 1:4, Psa 35:5; Isa 5:24, Isa 17:13; Hos 13:3; Mal 4:1; Luk 3:17

with : Isa 1:31, Isa 66:24; Jer 7:20, Jer 17:27; Eze 20:47, Eze 20:48; Mar 9:43-48

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per Verse)

Barnes: Mat 3:1

In those days - The days here referred to cannot be those mentioned in the preceding chapter, for John was but six months older than Christ. Perhaps Matthew intended to embrace in his narrative the whole time that Jesus lived at Nazareth; and the meaning is, "in those days while Jesus still dwelt at Nazareth,"John began to preach. It is not probable that John began to baptize or preach long before the Saviour entered on his ministry; and, consequently, from the time that is mentioned in the close of the second chapter to that mentioned in the beginning of the third, an interval of twenty-five years or more elapsed.

John the Baptist - Or John the baptizer - so called from his principal office, that of baptizing. Baptism, or the application of water, was a rite well known to the Jews, and practiced when they admitted proselytes to their religion from paganism. - Lightfoot.

Preaching - The word rendered "preach"means to proclaim in the manner of a public crier; to make proclamation. The discourses recorded in the New Testament are mostly brief, sometimes consisting only of a single sentence. They were public proclamations of some great truth. Such appear to have been the discourses of John, calling people to repentance.

In the wilderness of Judea - This country was situated along the Jordan and the Dead Sea, to the east of Jerusalem. The word translated "wilderness"does not denote, as with us, a place of boundless forests, entirely destitute of inhabitants; but a mountainous, rough, and thinly settled country, covered to some considerable extent with forests and rocks, and better suited for pasture than for tilling. There were inhabitants in those places, and even villages, but they were the comparatively unsettled portions of the country, 1Sa 25:1-2. In the time of Joshua there were six cities in what was then called a wilderness, Jos 15:61-62.

Barnes: Mat 3:2

Repent ye - Repentance implies sorrow for past offences 2Co 7:10; a deep sense of the evil of sin as committed against God Psa 51:4; and a full purpose to turn from transgression and to lead a holy life. A true penitent has sorrow for sin, not only because it is ruinous to his soul, but chiefly because it is an offence against God, and is that abominable thing which he hates, Jer 44:4. It is produced by seeing the great danger and misery to which it exposes us; by seeing the justice and holiness of God Job 42:6; and by seeing that our sins have been committed against Christ, and were the cause of his death, Zec 12:10; Luk 22:61-62. There are two words in the New Testament translated "repentance,"one of which denotes a change of mind, or a reformation of life; and the other, sorrow or regret that sin has been committed. The word used here is the former, calling the Jews to a change of life, or a reformation of conduct. In the time of John, the nation had become extremely wicked and corrupt, perhaps more so than at any preceding period. Hence, both he and Christ began their ministry by calling the nation to repentance.

The kingdom of heaven is at hand - The phrases kingdom of heaven, kingdom of Christ, kingdom of God, are of frequent occurrence in the Bible. They all refer to the same thing. The expectation of such a kingdom was taken from the Old Testament, and especially from Daniel, Dan 7:13-14. The prophets had told of a successor to David that should sit on his throne 1Ki 2:4; 1Ki 8:25; Jer 33:17. The Jews expected a great national deliverer. They supposed that when the Messiah should appear, all the dead would be raised; that the judgment would take place; and that the enemies of the Jews would be destroyed, and that they themselves would be advanced to great national dignity and honor.

The language in which they were accustomed to describe this event was retained by our Saviour and his apostles. Yet they early attempted to correct the common notions respecting his reign. This was one design, doubtless, of John in preaching repentance. Instead of summoning them to military exercises, and collecting an army, which would have been in accordance with the expectations of the nation, he called them to a change of life; to the doctrine of repentance - a state of things far more accordant with the approach of a kingdom of purity.

The phrases "kingdom of God"and "kingdom of heaven"have been supposed to have a considerable variety of meaning. Some have supposed that they refer to the state of things in heaven; others, to the personal reign of Christ on earth; others, that they mean the church, or the reign of Christ in the hearts of his people. There can be no doubt that there is reference in the words to the condition of things in heaven after this life. But the church of God is a preparatory state to that beyond the grave - a state in which Christ pre-eminently rules and reigns and there is no doubt that the phrases sometimes refer to the state of things in the church; and that they may refer, therefore, to the state of things which the Messiah was to set up his spiritual reign begun in the church on earth and completed in heaven.

The expression "the kingdom of heaven is at hand"would be best translated, "the reign of God draws near."We do not say commonly of a kingdom that it is movable, or that it approaches. A reign may be said to be at hand; and it may be said with propriety that the time when Christ would reign was at hand. In this sense it is meant that the time when Christ should reign, or set up his kingdom, or begin his dominion on earth, under the Christian economy, was about to commence. The phrase, then, should not be confined to any period of that reign, but includes his whole dominion over his people on earth and in heaven.

In the passage here it clearly means that the coming of the Messiah was near, or that the time of the reign of God which the Jews had expected was coming.

The word "heaven,"or "heavens,"as it is in the original, means sometimes the place so called; and sometimes it is, by a figure of speech, put for the Great Being whose residence is there, as in Dan 4:26; "the Heavens do rule."See also Mar 11:30; Luk 15:18. As that kingdom was one of purity, it was proper that the people should prepare themselves for it by turning from their sins, and by bringing their hearts into a state suitable to his reign.

Barnes: Mat 3:3

The prophet Esaias - The prophet Isaiah. Esaias is the Greek mode of writing the name. This passage is taken from Isa 40:3. It is here said to have been spoken in reference to John, the forerunner of Christ. The language is such as was familiar to the Jews. and such as they would understand. It was spoken at first with reference to the return from the captivity at Babylon. In ancient times, it was customary in the march of armies to send messengers, or pioneers, before them to proclaim their approach; to provide for them; to remove obstructions; to make roads, level hills, fill up valleys, etc. Isaiah, describing the return from Babylon, uses language taken from that custom. A crier, or herald, is introduced. In the vast deserts that lay between Babylon and Judea he is represented as lifting up his voice, and, with authority, commanding a public road to be made for the return of the captive Jews, with the Lord as their deliverer. "Prepare his ways, make them straight,"says he. The meaning in Isaiah is, "Let the valleys be exalted, or filled up, and the hills be levelled, and a straight, level highway be prepared, that they may march with ease and safety."See the notes at Isa 40:3-4. The custom here referred to is continued in the East at the present time. "When Ibrahim Pasha proposed to visit certain places on Lebanon, the emeers and sheiks sent forth a general proclamation, somewhat in the style of Isaiah’ s exhortation, to all the inhabitants, to assemble along the proposed route and prepare the way before him. The same was done in 1845, on a grand scale, when the present sultan visited Brousa. The stones were gathered out, the crooked places straightened, and the rough ones made level and smooth."- The Land and the Book , Vol i. pp. 105, 106.

As applied to John, the passage means that he was sent to remove obstructions, and to prepare the people for the coming of the Messiah, like a herald going before an army on the march, to make preparations for its coming.

Barnes: Mat 3:4

His raiment of camel’ s hair - His clothing. This is not the fine hair of the camel from which our elegant cloth is made called camlet, nor the more elegant stuff brought from the East Indies under the name of "camel’ s hair,"but the long shaggy hair of the camel, from which a coarse cheap cloth is made, still worn by the poorer classes in the East, and by monks. This dress of the camel’ s hair, and a leather belt, it seems, was the common dress of the prophets, 2Ki 1:8; Zec 13:4.

His meat was locusts - His food. These constituted the food of the common people. Among the Greeks the vilest of the people used to eat them; and the fact that John made his food of them is significant of his great poverty and humble life. The Jews were allowed to eat them, Lev 11:22. Locusts are flying insects, and are of various kinds. The green locusts are about 2 inches in length and about the thickness of a man’ s finger. The common brown locust is about 3 inches long. The general form and appearance of the locust is not unlike the grasshopper. They were one of the plagues of Egypt Exo. 10. In Eastern countries they are very numerous. They appear in such quantities as to darken the sky, and devour in a short time every green thing. The whole earth is sometimes covered with them for many leagues, Joe 1:4; Isa 33:4-5. "Some species of the locust are eaten until this day in Eastern countries, and are even esteemed as a delicacy when properly cooked. After tearing off the legs and wings, and taking out the entrails, they stick them in long rows upon wooden spits, roast them at the fire, and then proceed to devour them with great zest. There are also other ways of preparing them. For example: they cook them and dress them in oil; or, having dried them, they pulverize them, and, when other food is scarce, make bread of the meal. The Bedouins pack them with salt in close masses, which they carry in their leather sacks. From these they cut slices as they may need them. It is singular that even learned men have suffered themselves to hesitate about understanding these passages of the literal locust, when the fact that these are eaten by the Orientals is so abundantly proved by the concurrent testimony of travelers.

One of them says they are brought to market on strings in all the cities of Arabia, and that he saw an Arab on Mount Sumara who had collected a sackful of them. They are prepared in different ways. An Arab in Egypt, of whom he requested that he would immediately eat locusts in his presence, threw them upon the glowing coals; and after he supposed they were roasted enough, he took them by the legs and head, and devoured the remainder at one mouthful. When the Arabs have them in quantities they roast or dry them in an oven, or boil them and eat them with salt. The Arabs in the kingdom of Morocco boil the locusts; and the Bedouins eat locusts, which are collected in great quantities in the beginning of April, when they are easily caught. After having been roasted a little upon the iron plate on which bread is baked, they are dried in the sun, and then put into large sacks, with the mixture of a little salt.

They are never served up as a dish, but every one takes a handful of them when hungry"( Un. Bib. Dic. ). Burckhardt, one of the most trustworthy of travelers, says: "All the Bedouins of Arabia and the inhabitants of towns in Nejd and Hedjaz are accustomed to eat locusts.""I have seen at Medina and Tayf locust-shops, where these animals were sold by measure. In Egypt and Nubia they are only eaten by the poorest beggars The Land and the Book , ii. 107). "Locusts,"says Dr. Thomson ( The Land and the Book , ii. 108), "are not eaten in Syria by any but the Bedouin on the extreme frontiers, and it is always spoken of as an inferior article of food, and regarded by most with disgust and loathing tolerated only by the very poorest people. John the Baptist, however, was of this class either from necessity or election."It is remarkable that not only in respect to his food, but also in other respects, the peculiarities in John’ s mode of life have their counterparts in the present habits of the same class of persons. "The coat or mantle of camel’ s hair is seen still on the shoulders of the Arab who escorts the traveler through the desert, or of the shepherd who tends his flocks on the hills of Judea or in the valley of the Jordan. It is made of the thin, coarse hair of the camel, and not of the fine hair, which is manufactured into a species of rich cloth. I was told that both kinds of raiment are made on a large scale at Nablus, the ancient Shechem. The ‘ leathern girdle’ may be seen around the body of the common laborer, when fully dressed, almost anywhere; whereas men of wealth take special pride in displaying a rich sash of silk or some other costly fabric"(Hackett’ s Illustrations of Scripture , p. 104).

Wild honey - This was probably the honey that he found in the rocks of the wilderness. Palestine was often called the land flowing with milk and honey, Exo 3:8, Exo 3:17; Exo 13:5. Bees were kept with great care, and great numbers of them abounded in the fissures of trees and the clefts of rocks. "Bees abound there still, not only wild, but hived, as with us. I saw a great number of hives in the old castle near the Pools of Solomon; several, also, at Deburieh, at the foot of Tabor: and again at Mejdel, the Magdala of the New Testament, on the Lake of Tiberias. Maundrell says that he saw ‘ bees very industrious about the blossoms’ between Jericho and the Dead Sea, which must have been within the limits of the very ‘ desert’ in which John ‘ did eat locusts and wild honey’ "(Hackett’ s Illustrations of Scripture , p. 104). There is also a species of honey called wild honey, or wood honey (1Sa 14:27, margin), or honeydew, produced by certain little insects, and deposited on the leaves of trees, and flowing from them in great quantities to the ground. See 1Sa 14:24-27. This is said to be produced still in Arabia, and perhaps it was this which John lived upon.

Barnes: Mat 3:5

Jerusalem - The people of Jerusalem.

All Judea - Many people from Judea. It does not mean that literally all the people went, but that great multitudes went. It was general. Jerusalem was in the part of the country called Judea. Judea was situated on the west side of the Jordan. See the notes at Mat 2:22.

Region about Jordan - On the east and west side of the river. Near to Jordan.

Barnes: Mat 3:6

Were baptized - The word "baptize" βαπτίζω baptizo signifies originally to tinge, to dye, to stain, as those who dye clothes. It here means to cleanse or wash anything by the application of water. See the notes at Mar 7:4. Washing, or ablution, was much in use among the Jews, as one of the rites of their religion, Num 19:7; Heb 9:10. It was not customary, however, among them to baptize those who were converted to the Jewish religion until after the Babylonian captivity. At the time of John, and for some time previous, they had been accustomed to administer a rite of baptism, or washing, to those who became proselytes to their religion; that is, to those who were converted from being Gentiles. This was done to signify that they renounced the errors and worship of the pagans, and as significant of their becoming pure by embracing a new religion.

It was a solemn rite of washing, significant of cleansing from their former sins, and purifying them for the special service of Yahweh. John found this custom in use; and as he was calling the Jews to a new dispensation - to a change in their form of religion - he administered this rite of baptism (washing), to signify the cleansing from sin, the adopting of the new dispensation, or the fitness for the pure reign of the Messiah. He applied an old ordinance to a new purpose. As it was used by him it was a significant rite, or ceremony, intended to denote the putting away of impurity, and a purpose to be pure in heart and life. The Hebrew word טבל Tabal which is rendered by the word "baptize,"occurs in the Old Testament in the following places, namely: Lev 4:6; Lev 14:6, Lev 14:51; Num 19:18; Rth 2:14; Exo 12:22; Deu 33:24; Jos 3:15; Job 9:31; Lev 9:9; 1Sa 14:27 (twice); 2Ki 5:14; 2Ki 8:15; Gen 37:31; Jos 3:15.

It occurs in no other places; and from a careful examination of these passages its meaning among the Jews is to be derived. From these passages it will be seen that its radical meaning is neither to sprinkle nor to immerse. It is to dip, commonly for the purpose of sprinkling, or for some other purpose.

Thus, to dip the finger, i. e., a part of the finger, in blood enough to sprinkle with, Lev 4:6. To dip a living bird, and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop, in the blood of the bird that was killed, for the purpose of sprinkling; where it could not be that all these would be immersed the blood of a single bird, Lev 14:6. To dip hyssop in the water, to sprinkle with, Num 19:18. To dip a portion of bread in vinegar, Rth 2:14. To dip the feet in oil - an emblem of plenty, Deu 33:24. To dye, or stain, Eze 23:15. To plunge into a ditch, so as to defile the clothes, Job 9:31. To dip the end of a staff in honey, 1Sa 14:27. To dip in Jordan - a declaration respecting Naaman the Syrian, 2Ki 5:14. The direction of the prophet was to wash himself 2Ki 5:10, and this shows that he understood washing and baptizing to mean the same thing. To dip a towel, or quilt, so as to spread it on the face of a man to smother him, 2Ki 8:15.

In none of these cases can it be shown that the meaning of the word is to immerse entirely But in nearly all the cases the notion of applying the water to a part only of the person or object, though it was by dipping, is necessarily to be supposed.

In the New Testament the word βαπτίζω baptizo , in various forms, occurs 80 times; 57 with reference to persons. Of these 57 times, it is followed by "in" ἐν en 18 times, as in water, in the desert, in Jordan; 9 times by "into" εἰς eis , as into the name, etc., into Christ; once it is followed by ἐπί epi Act 2:38, and twice by "for" ὑπέρ huper , 1Co 15:29.

The following remarks may be made in view of the investigation of the meaning of this word:

1.    That in baptism it is possible, perhaps probable, that the notion of dipping would be the one that would occur to a Jew.

2.    It would not occur to him that the word meant of necessity to dip entirely, or to immerse completely.

3.    The notion of washing would be the one which would most readily occur, as connected with a religious rite. See the cases of Naaman, and Mar 7:4 (Greek).

4.    It cannot be proved from an examination of the passages in the Old and New Testaments that the idea of a complete immersion was ever connected with the word, or that it ever occurred in any case. If those who were baptized went into the water, it is still not proved by that, that the only mode of baptism was by immersion, since it might have been by pouring, though they were in the water.

5.    It is not positively enjoined anywhere in the New Testament that the only mode of baptism shall be by an entire submersion of the body under water. Without such a precept it cannot be made obligatory on people of all ages, nations, and climes, even if it were probable that in the mild climate of Judea it was the usual mode.

In Jordan - The River Jordan is the eastern boundary of Palestine or Judea. It rises in Mount Lebanon, on the north of Palestine, and runs in a southerly direction, underground, for 13 miles, and then bursts forth with a great noise at Cesarea Philippi. It then unites with two small streams, and runs some miles farther, and empties into the Lake Merom. From this small lake it flows 13 miles, and then falls into the Lake Gennesareth, otherwise called the Sea of Tiberias or the Sea of Galilee. Through the middle of this lake, which is 15 miles long and from 6 miles to 9 miles wide, it flows undisturbed, and preserves a southerly direction for about 70 miles, and then falls into the Dead Sea. The Jordan, at its entrance into the Dead Sea, is about 90 feet wide. It flows in many places with great rapidity, and when swollen by rains pours like an impetuous torrent. It formerly regularly overflowed its banks in time of harvest, that is, in March, in some places 600 paces, Jos 3:15; 1Ch 12:15. These banks are covered with small trees and shrubs, and afford a convenient dwelling for wild beasts. Allusion is often made to these thickets in the sacred Scriptures, Jer 49:19; Jer 50:44. On the reason why a river, or a place abounding in water, was selected for administering baptism, see the notes at Joh 3:23.

Barnes: Mat 3:7

Pharisees and Sadducees - The Jews were divided into three great sects - the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes. In addition to these, some smaller sects are mentioned in the New Testament and by Josephus: the Herodians, probably political friends of Herod; the Galileans, a branch of the Pharisees; and the Therapeutae, a branch of the Essenes, but converts from the Greeks. The three principal sects are supposed to have originated about 150 years before Christ, as they are mentioned by Josephus at that time in his history. Of course nothing is said of them in the Old Testament, as that was finished about 400 years before the Christian era.

I. The Pharisees were the most numerous and wealthy sect of the Jews. They derived their name from the Hebrew word Pharash, which signifies to set apart, or to separate, because they separated themselves from the rest of their countrymen, and professedly devoted themselves to special strictness in religion. Their leading tenets were the following: that the world was governed by fate, or by a fixed decree of God; that the souls of men were immortal, and were either eternally happy or miserable beyond the grave; that the dead would be raised; that there were angels, good and bad; that God was under obligation to bestow special favor on the Jews; and that they were justified by their own conformity to the law. They were proud, haughty, self-righteous, and held the common people in great disrespect, Joh 7:49. They sought the offices of the state, and affected great dignity. They were ostentatious in their religious worship, praying in the corners of the streets, and seeking publicity in the bestowment of alms. They sought principally external cleanliness, and dealt much in ceremonial ablutions and washing.

They maintained some of the laws of Moses very strictly. In addition to the written laws, they held to a multitude which they maintained had come down from Moses by tradition. These they felt themselves as much bound to observe as the written Law. Under the influence of these laws they washed themselves before meals with great scrupulousness; they fasted twice a week - on Thursday, when they supposed that Moses ascended Mount Sinai, and on Monday, when he descended; they wore broad phylacteries, and enlarged the fringe or borders of their garments; they loved the chief rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues. In general, they were a corrupt, hypocritical, office-seeking, haughty class of men. There are, however, some honorable exceptions recorded, Act 5:34; perhaps, also, Mar 15:43; Luk 2:25; Luk 23:51; Joh 19:38-42; Joh 3:1; Joh 7:50.

II. The Sadducees are supposed to have taken their name from Sadok, who flourished about 260 years before the Christian era. He was a pupil of Antigonus Sochaeus, president of the sanhedrin, or great council of the nation. He had taught the duty of serving God disinterestedly, without the hope of reward or the fear of punishment. Sadok, not properly understanding the doctrine of his master, drew the inference that there was no future state of rewards or punishments, and on this belief he founded the sect. The other notions which they held, all to be traced to this leading doctrine, were:

1.    That there is no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit Mat 22:23; Act 23:8; and that the soul of man perishes with the body.

2.    They rejected the doctrine of fate or decrees.

3.    They rejected all traditions, and professed to receive only the books of the Old Testament. They were far less numerous than the Pharisees, but their want of numbers was compensated, in some degree, by their wealth and standing in society. Though they did not generally seek office, yet several of them were advanced to the high priesthood.

III. The Essenes, a third sect of the Jews, are not mentioned in the New Testament. They differed from both the Pharisees and the Sadducees. They were Jewish monks or hermits, passing their time little in society, but mostly in places of obscurity and retirement. It is not probable, therefore, that our Saviour often, if ever, encountered them; and this, it is supposed, is the reason why they are not mentioned in the New Testament. They were a contemplative sect, having little to do with the common business of life. The property which they possessed they held in common. They denied themselves, in a great measure, the usual comforts of life, and were exceedingly strict in the observance of the duties of religion. They were generally more pure than the rest of the Jews, and appear to have been an unambitious, a modest, and retiring sort of people. The two sexes were not in company except on the Sabbath, when they partook of their coarse fare (only bread and salt) together. They practiced dancing in their worship. Few of them were married; they were opposed to oaths, and they asserted that slavery was repugnant to nature. In regard to doctrine, they did not differ materially from the Pharisees, except that they objected to the sacrifices of slain animals, and of course did not visit the temple, and were not, therefore, likely to come into public contact with the Saviour. They perpetuated their sect by proselytes, and by taking orphan children to train up.

The other sects of the Jews were too insignificant to demand any particular notice here. It may be said of the Jews generally that they possessed little of the spirit of religion; that they had corrupted some of the most important doctrines of the Bible; and that they were an ignorant, proud, ambitious, and sensual people. There as great propriety, therefore, in John’ s proclaiming to them the necessity of repentance.

Generation of vipers - Vipers are a species of serpents, from 2 to 5 feet in length and about an inch thick, with a flat head. They are of an ash or yellowish color, speckled with long brown spots. There is no serpent that is more poisonous. The person bitten by them swells up almost immediately, and falls down dead. See Act 28:6. The word "serpent,"or "viper,"is used to denote both cunning and malignancy. In the phrase "be ye wise as serpents"Mat 10:16 it means be prudent, or wise, referring to the account in Gen 3:1-6. Among the Jews the serpent was regarded as the symbol of cunning, circumspection, and prudence. It was so regarded in the Egyptian hieroglyphics. In the phrase "generation of vipers"Mat 12:34, the viper is the symbol of wickedness, of envenomed malice - a symbol drawn from the venom of the serpent. It is not quite certain in which of these senses the phrase is used in this place. Probably it is used to denote their malignancy and wickedness.

Wrath to come - John expresses his astonishment that sinners so hardened and so hypocritical as they were should have been induced to flee from coming wrath. The wrath to come means the divine indignation, or the punishment that will come on the guilty. See 1Th 1:10; 2Th 1:8-9.

Barnes: Mat 3:8

Bring forth therefore fruits ... - That is, the proper fruits of reformation; the proper evidence that you are sincere. Do not bring your cunning and dissimulation to this work; do not carry your hypocrisy into your professed repentance, but evince your sincerity by forsaking sin, and thus give evidence that this coming to Jordan to be baptized is not an act of dissimulation. No discourse could have been more appropriate or more cutting.

Fruits - Conduct. See Mat 7:16-19.

Meet for repentance - Fit for repentance; appropriate to it the proper expression of repentance.

Barnes: Mat 3:9

And think not to say ... - They regarded it as sufficient righteousness that they were descended from so holy a man as Abraham. Compare Joh 8:33-37, Joh 8:53. John assured them that this was a matter of small consequence in the sight of God. Of the very stones of the Jordan he could raise up children to Abraham. The meaning seems to be this: God, from these stones, could more easily raise up those who should be worthy children of Abraham, or be like him, than simply, because you are descendants of Abraham, make you, who are proud and hypocritical, subjects of the Messiah’ s kingdom. Or, in other words, mere nativity, or the privileges of birth, avail nothing where there is not righteousness of life. Some have supposed, however, that by these stones he meant the Roman soldiers, or the pagan, who might also have attended on his ministry; and that God could "of them"raise up children to Abraham.

Barnes: Mat 3:10

The axe is laid at the root of the tree - Laying the axe at the root of a tree is intended to denote that the tree is to be cut down. It was not merely to be trimmed, or to be cut about the limbs, but the very tree itself was to be struck. That is, a searching, trying kind of preaching has been commenced. A kingdom of justice is to be set up. Principles and conduct are to be investigated. No art, no dissimulation, will be successful: People are to be tried by their lives, not by birth or profession. They who are not found to bear this test are to be rejected. The very root shall feel the blow, and the fruitless tree shall fall. This is a beautiful and very striking figure of speech, and a very direct threatening of future wrath. John regarded them as making a fair and promising profession, as trees in blossom do. But he told them, also, that they should bear fruit as well as flowers. Their professions of repentance were not enough. They should show, by a holy life, that their profession was genuine.

Barnes: Mat 3:11

Whose shoes I am not worthy to bear - The word translated here as "shoes"has a signification different from what it has in our language. At first, in order to keep the feet from the sharp stones or the burning sand, small pieces of wood were fastened to the soles of the feet, called "sandals."Leather, or skins of beasts dressed, afterward were used. The foot was not covered at all, but the sandal, or piece of leather or wood, was bound by thongs. The people put off these when they enter a house, and put them on when they leave it. To unloose and bind on sandals, on such occasions, was formerly the business of the lowest servants. The expression in this place, therefore, denotes great humility, and John says that he was nor worthy to be the servant of him who should come after him.

Shall baptize you - Shall send upon you the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God is frequently represented as being poured out upon his people, Pro 1:23; Isa 44:3; Joe 2:28-29; Act 2:17-18. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is the same, therefore, as the sending of his influences to convert, purify, and guide the soul.

The Holy Ghost - The third person of the adorable Trinity, whose office it is to enlighten, renew, sanctify, and comfort the soul He was promised by the Saviour to convince of sin, Joh 16:8; to enlighten or teach the disciples, Joh 14:26; Joh 16:13; to comfort them in the absence of the Savior, Joh 14:18; Joh 16:7; to change the heart. Tit 3:5. To be baptized with the Holy Spirit means that the Messiah would send upon the world a far more powerful and mighty influence than had attended the preaching of John. Many more would be converted. A mighty change would take place. His ministry would not affect the external life only, but the heart. the motives, the soul; and would produce rapid and permanent changes in the lives of people. See Act 2:17-18.

With fire - This expression has been variously understood. Some have supposed that John refers to the afflictions and persecutions with which men would be tried under the Gospel; others, that the word "fire"means judgment or wrath. According to this latter interpretation, the meaning is that he would baptize a portion of mankind - those who were willing to be his followers - with the Holy Spirit, but the rest of mankind - the wicked - with fire; that is, with judgment and wrath. Fire is a symbol of vengeance. See Isa 5:24; Isa 61:2; Isa 66:24. If this is the meaning, as seems to be probable, then John says that the ministry of the Messiah would be far more powerful than his was. It would be more searching and testing; and they who were not suited to abide the test would be cast into eternal fire. Others have supposed, however, that by fire, here, John intends to express the idea that the preaching of the Messiah would be refining, powerful, purifying, as fire is sometimes an emblem of purity, Mal 3:2. It is difficult to ascertain the precise meaning further than that his ministry would be very trying, purifying, searching. Multitudes would be converted; and those who were not true penitents would not be able to abide the trial, and would be driven away.

Barnes: Mat 3:12

His fan - The word used here and rendered "fan"means a winnowing shovel instead. It was used for throwing the grain, after it was threshed, into the air, so that the chaff might be driven away by the wind. This mode of separating the grain from the chaff is still practiced in the East. It is not probable that the fan, as the term is now used, was known to the Orientals as an instrument for cleaning grain. See the notes at Isa 30:24.

His floor - The threshing-floor was an open space, or area, in the field, usually on an elevated part of the land, Gen 50:10. It had no covering or walls. It was a space of ground 30 or 40 paces in diameter, and made smooth by rolling it or treading it hard. A high place was selected for the purpose of keeping it dry, and for the convenience of winnowing the grain by the wind. The grain was usually trodden out by oxen. Sometimes it was beaten with flails, as with us; and sometimes with a sharp threshing instrument, made to roll over the grain and to cut the straw at the same time. See the notes at Isa 41:15.

Shall purge - Shall cleanse or purify. Shall remove the chaff, etc.

The garner - The granary, or place to deposit the wheat.

Unquenchable fire - Fire that shall not be extinguished, that will utterly consume it. By the floor, here, is represented the Jewish people. By the wheat, the righteous, or the people of God. By the chaff, the wicked. They are often represented as being driven away like chaff before the wind, Job 21:18; Psa 1:4; Isa 17:13; Hos 13:13. They are also represented as chaff which the fire consumes, Isa 5:24. This image is often used to express judgments, Isa 41:15; "Thou shall thresh the mountains and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff."By the unquenchable fire is meant the eternal suffering of the wicked in hell, 2Th 1:8-9; Mar 9:48; Mat 25:41.

Poole: Mat 3:1

Mat 3:1-4 The preaching of John the Baptist; his office, and

manner of living.

Mat 3:5,6 He baptizeth in Jordan,

Mat 3:7-12 and rebuketh the Pharisees.

Mat 3:13-17 Christ is baptized, and receiveth a witness from heaven.

That is, in the 15th year of Tiberius Caesar, (as Luke expounds it, Luk 3:1 ) when John the Baptist and Christ also were about thirty years of age, Luk 3:23 , for there was no great difference betwixt the age of Christ and John, as may be learned from Luk 1:31,41,57 .

In those days while Joseph and Mary, and our blessed Lord, dwelt in Nazareth. See Exo 2:11 . This phrase in those days is the same with in those years. It is an ordinary thing in the Hebrew to confound the words signifying a day and a year, and the Greeks did the same, as appears by the seventy interpreters, 1Sa 1:3,7 . The evangelists pass over with a great deal of silence our Saviour’ s minority, only mentioning his disputing with the doctors in the temple, Luk 2:46 .

Came John the Baptist John the son of Zacharias, Luk 3:2 , called the Baptist, either because he baptized Christ, or because by him God instituted the ordinance of baptism, which before that time the Jews used in the admission of their proselytes.

Preaching according to his commission, Luk 3:2 , where it is said the word of the Lord came to him.

In the wilderness of Judea some parts of Judea, where houses and inhabitants were very few. None must think that the history of the second chapter is continued in this, there was a distance of twenty-eight or twenty-nine years; the evangelist designing not to satisfy men’ s curiosity, but only to give us that part of Christ’ s story which might be profitable to us to know.

Poole: Mat 3:2

The evangelist only gives us the sum and scope of the Baptist’ s doctrine, the other evangelists give us a more full account of his pressing also faith in Christ, Joh 1:29 3:29,36 so Act 19:4 . Repentance, faith, and new obedience ought to be the substance and scope of all our sermons. Repentance signifieth the change of the heart and reformation of the life, a turning from sin unto God.

For the kingdom of heaven is at hand that blessed state of the church (foretold by the prophets) under the Messias, wherein God will exhibit his Son as the King in Zion, and exert his power and kingdom, both extensively, subduing all nations to the obedience of his gospel, and intensively, in all the administrations of his government; for the kingdom of heaven is not to be understood here of the kingdom of glory, but of the kingdom of grace, in all the administrations of it. This passage containeth the argument upon which the Baptist in his sermons pressed, repentance and faith, and obedience to the will of God revealed.

Poole: Mat 3:3

It is not much material whether we understand these words as the words of the evangelist concerning John, as it should seem by Mar 1:3 Luk 3:4 , or the words of John himself, for he thus spake, Joh 1:23 . As the words of the prophet they are found Isa 40:3 . The words are judged literally, but typically, to concern Cyrus and Darius, and either these princes, who were instrumental in the restoring of the Jews to their liberty from the captivity of Babylon, or those prophets who encouraged them to their return, or upon their return to build the temple and city. But they are confirmed by all the four evangelists, Mar 1:3 Luk 3:4 Joh 1:23 , to have a special relation also to John the Baptist, who was to come more immediately before Christ, and with the fervency and in the spirit of Elias, Luk 1:17 , crying,

Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight As the harbingers of great princes are sent before them to call to persons to remove things out of the way which may hinder their free passage, so John was sent before this great King in Zion, now coming forth to show himself, and to set up his kingdom in the world; to cry fervently to all people, by a true and timely repentance, to cast off those sinful courses, and to reject those false opinions, of which they were possessed, the holding of and to which might hinder the progress of this spiritual kingdom.

Poole: Mat 3:4

There are great and insignificant disputes about the habit and the diet of John the Baptist. The evangelists doubtless designed no more than to let us know, that John Baptist’ s habit was not of soft raiment, like those who are in princes’ houses, but a plain country habit, suited to the place in which he lived; and his diet plain, such as the country afforded. In vain therefore do some contend that John wore watered stuff, fine and splendid, as art in our days hath improved camel’ s hair; and others as vainly contend that he went in a camel’ s skin raw and undressed: but he was habited in a plain suit of camel’ s hair, such as ordinary persons of that country used, or else such a rough garment as is mentioned Zec 13:4 , used by the prophets. Elijah had much such a habit, 2Ki 1:8 . There is likewise a variety of opinions about these locusts which John did eat; the most probable is, that they were true locusts, for locusts might be eaten, Lev 11:22 . Nor is it to be thought that John did eat nothing else; all that is intended is, to let us know that John was a man not at all curious as to his meat or clothes, but was habited plainly, and fared ordinarily, as the men of that country fared; if there were any difference in his habit, it was to proportion himself to Elijah and the habit of prophets. In this the evangelist teacheth us what the ministers of the gospel should be and do. They should be men contemning the gaudery and delicacies of the world, and by their habit and diet, as well as other things, set an example of severity and gravity to others.

Poole: Mat 3:5

The preacher being described, the evangelist proceedeth to tell us what auditors he had. The term all here twice repeated, is enough to let us know, that it is often in Scripture significative no further then many, for it cannot be imagined that every individual person in Jerusalem and the region about Jordan went to hear John the Baptist, but a great many did. It is not to be wondered that there went out such a concourse of people to hear John the Baptist,

1. If it be true, that from Ezra’ s time till now no prophet had appeared. Our Saviour speaking of John, What went ye out for to see? A prophet? Seems to hint that a prophet was a great rarity amongst them.

2. If we consider the severity of his life. Our Saviour saith he came neither eating nor drinking, that is, as other men.

3. If we consider the new doctrine he brought, and his fervency in the pressing it: he came to preach the Messias, whom the Jews had long expected; to tell them his kingdom was at hand.

4. Especially if we consider the new rite of baptizing, which he brought in. For admit their washing of proselytes in use before, yet he baptized Jews. He was sent to baptize with water, Joh 1:33 . So as from this time the institution of the sacrament of baptism must be dated, and he did baptize many.

Poole: Mat 3:6

A great part of those who went out to hear John were baptized that is dipped, in Jordan; but from hence it will not follow that dipping is essential to baptism, the washing of the soul with the blood of Christ (the thing signified by baptism) being expressed by sprinkling or pouring water, as well as by dipping or being buried in water, Isa 44:3 Eze 36:25 Col 2:12 . Whether they confessed their sins, man by man, by word of mouth, or by submitting to the doctrine of the gospel declared their renunciation of the righteousness of the law, and their engagement to a holy life, is not expressed; but it is most certain, that a profession of faith and repentance was ordinarily required before the baptism of adult persons. It may be wondered that this new practice of John (if it were wholly new) made no more stir amongst the Jews. Either (as some think) baptism was in use before that time, as an appendix to circumcision, (though circumcision only be mentioned), or they had some notion that Christ, Elias, and that prophet, when they came, should baptize; for, Joh 1:25 , they asked John, Why baptizest thou then, if thou be not that Christ, nor Elias, neither that prophet. That which seemeth to me most probable is, that before that time there was a baptism in ordinary use amongst them after circumcising the child, beside the baptizing of proselytes. And as in the other sacrament Christ left out the typical part, and blessed the bread, used at last in that administration, and made use of that for the institution of the sacrament of the supper; so as to the ordinance of circumcision, he in the institution of that gospel ordinance left out circumcision, (which was typical also), and retained only the washing of the person with water, and so instituted the other sacrament of the New Testament. But yet there was so much new in the Baptist’ s practice, (for he did not baptize proselytes only, but Jews, nor did he use it as an appendix to circumcision preceding, but baptized adult Jews), that if the state of the Jewish church had not been declining, and their power of discipline very little, (if any), they would more than have sent to John to know by whose authority he baptized: but they were under the Roman power, and their ecclesiastical officers were more pragmatical than mischievous, God in the wisdom of his providence having so ordered it, that the change of worship should be at such a time brought in when it should be least potently opposed.

Poole: Mat 3:7

We shall often meet with the mention of these Pharisees and Sadducees; we will therefore inquire here a little more largely concerning them. There were three more eminent religious sects among the Jews. The Essenes, of whom we read nothing in Holy writ: their main doctrine was fate, they ascribed all things to it. The two others are here mentioned, and often in other parts of the New Testament we read of the Pharisees and Sadducees: the latter were most acceptable to the great men amongst the Jews; the former were more popular, and acceptable to the people. The Sadducees were directly opposite to the Essenes; they ascribed nothing to fate, but maintained the liberty and power of man’ s will in the most extravagant height: they denied the immortality of the soul, the resurrection, angels, &c., all which the Pharisees owned: this we may learn from Act 23:8 where Paul wrought his own escape by setting these two factions on quarrelling about these points. In short, these were no better than atheists, for what must they be less that deny spirits and the resurrection? The Pharisees, as to their doctrine, were much more sober; they owned spirits and the resurrection; and though they held much of the freedom of, and a power in, man’ s will, yet they also ascribed much to the providence and grace of God. They were the interpreters of the law, and, as Mr. Calvin thinks, had their name from thence, not from their dividing and separating themselves from others, as some think. They spent much of their time in fasting and prayer; but,

1. They held a righteousness by the works of the law to be our righteousness for which we are accepted of God.

2. They made a very jejune interpretation of the law, as may appear from our Saviour’ s correcting it, Mat 5:17-48 .

3. They held many unwritten traditions of equal force with the law of God.

4. They were very hypocrites in their practice, neglecting the weighty things of the law, making long prayers for a pretence for their wickedness, and doing all they did but to be seen of men.

Some of these Sadducees and Pharisees came to John’ s baptism, and no wonder, for, Mar 6:20 : Herod observed him, heard him, did many things, and heard him gladly; but, Luk 7:30 , it is said the Pharisees were not baptized of him. It is like they came out of curiosity.

He said unto them, O generation of vipers the very language which Christ used to them, Mat 12:34 23:33 . The viper, to which he compares them, is the worst and most dangerous of serpents. We need give no account of the Baptist’ s treating them so roughly, because our Saviour justifieth the term by applying it to them. Corrupt teachers are the worst of men, and of all orders of sinners, fewest of them repent and have their hearts changed.

Who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? What comes in your mind, who think there is no resurrection, no hell, or who think you are so righteous that you need fear none, to do any thing that might testify you are afraid of wrath to come?

Poole: Mat 3:8

You come here and thrust yourselves into a crowd of penitents, but this is not enough, true repentance is not a barren thing; neither are your leaves of external profession a sufficient indication of it, you must bring forth the fruits of holiness, fruits that may answer the nature of true repentance. The proper products of habits are called their fruits; thus we read of the fruit of sin, and the fruit of righteousness .

Fruits meet (answerable to amendment of life)

for repentance are works that are the proper product of repentance, or justly answering an external profession of repentance. As faith, so repentance, without works is dead.

Poole: Mat 3:9

All hypocrites bear up themselves upon something, upon which they promise good to themselves, and a freedom from the judgments of God. The Jews rested much upon their descent from Abraham, as appeareth also from Joh 8:39 , by which means they entitled themselves to the covenant, Gen 8:10 , extended to his seed as well as to himself, as also to the name of the church, Abraham’ s posterity by Isaac being all the visible church which God had upon the earth at that time. It is the great work of ministers to drive hypocrites from their vain confidences. This John doth here; as if he should say, I know what you trust to, you think with yourselves that, because you are the only church of God upon the earth, judgment shall not come upon you, God would then have no seed of Abraham to show mercy to, and to keep his covenant with; but mistake not, God, of stones, if he please, can raise up Abraham a seed. To keep covenant with papists and formalists have much the same presumption, though with this difference, the Jews were the true, the only church of God, these do but arrogate the name to themselves.

Poole: Mat 3:10

A prediction, as some think, of that dreadful destruction which within a few years came by the Romans upon the whole Jewish nation. The sense is, The vengeance of God is very near to be revealed, men must repent now or never, for

every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit shall be hewn down, and cast into the fire judgment now is as nigh unto men, as the tree is to falling, to the root of which the axe is already applied: whether it be to be understood of the judgment common to all unbelievers, all that know not God, and obey not the gospel of Christ, as 2Th 1:8,9 , or the particular destruction of this nation of the Jews. I shall not determine, though I rather judge the latter probable. The latter part of the text is made use of by our Saviour, Mat 7:19 , in the latter part of his sermon upon the mount. It letteth us know, that it is not improper, nor dissonant to the style of John Baptist, and Christ, and others the most eminent first gospel preachers, to press repentance, faith, and holiness of life, from arguments of terror.

Poole: Mat 3:11

I am not the Christ, Mar 1:8 Luk 3:15,16 Joh 1:15,26 , I am but the messenger and forerunner of Christ, sent before him to baptize men with the baptism of water, in testimony of their repentance; but there is one immediately coming after me, who is infinitely to be preferred before me, so much, that I am not worthy to carry his shoes, or unloose his shoe latchet. He shall baptize men with another kind of baptism, the baptism of the Holy Ghost and fire.

With the Holy Ghost inwardly washing away their sins with his blood, and sanctifying their hearts: the Holy Ghost working in their hearts like fire, purging out their lusts and corruptions, warming and inflaming their hearts with the sense of his love, and kindling in them all spiritual habits. Or, with the Holy Ghost, as in the days of Pentecost, there appearing to them cloven tongues like as of fire, as Act 2:3 : thus the term fire is made exegetical of the term the Holy Ghost. Or, with the Holy Ghost, and with fire; changing and renewing the hearts of those that believe in him, by the operation of the Holy Ghost, and consuming and destroying others, that will not believe, as with fire.

Poole: Mat 3:12

Judea is at present God’ s floor, the only church he hath upon the earth; but there is chaff upon this floor, as well as wheat. Now he is come who will make a separation between the chaff and the wheat; who by his preaching the gospel will distinguish between Israel and those that are of Israel, Rom 9:6 ; between those who, living in the true expectation of the Messias, shall receive him now he is come, and those who, by their not owning and receiving him, shall declare that they never had any true expectation of him: shall separate them into distinct heaps, raising up a gospel church, and shall at the last day make yet a stricter discrimination, and

thoroughly purge his floor taking true believers into heaven, and burning unbelievers

with unquenchable fire casting them into torments like unquenchable fire.

Lightfoot: Mat 3:1

In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea,   

[John The Baptist preaching in the wilderness of Judea.] That John was born in Hebron, one may not unfitly conjecture by comparing Luk 1:39 with Jos 21:11; and that he was born about the feast of the Passover, namely, half a year before the nativity of our Saviour, Luk 1:36. So the conceptions and births of the Baptist and our Saviour ennobled the four famous tekuphas [revolutions] of the year: one being conceived at the summer solstice, the other at the winter; one born at the vernal equinox, the other at the autumnal.   

"John lived in the deserts, until he made himself known unto Israel," Luk 1:80. That is, if the pope's school may be interpreter, he led the life of a hermit. But,   

I. Be ashamed, O papist, to be so ignorant of the sense of the word wilderness; or desert; which in the common dialect sounds all one as if it had been said, "He lived in the country, not in the city; his education was more coarse and plain in the country, without the breeding of the university, or court at Jerusalem." An oblation for thanksgiving consists of five Jerusalem seahs, which were in value six seahs of the wilderness; that is, six country seahs.   

"A Jerusalem seah exceeds a seah of the wilderness by a sixth part."   

" The trees of the wilderness are those which are common, and not appropriate to one master": that is, trees in groves and common meadows.   

So 2Co 11:26; "in perils in the city, and in perils in the country."   

II. The wildernesses of the land of Canaan were not without towns and cities; nor was he presently to be called an Eremite who dwelt in the wilderness. The hill-country of Judea, John's native soil, is called by the Talmudists, The royal mountain; or hill; and by the Psalmist, The desert hill-country; Psa 75:6; and yet "in the royal mountain were a myriad of cities."   

III. David passed much of his youth in the wilderness, 1Sa 17:28; but yet, who will call him an eremite? In the like sense I conceive John living in the deserts, not only spending his time in leisure and contemplation, but employing himself in some work, or studies. For when I read, that the youth of our Saviour was taken up in the carpenter's trade, I scarcely believe his forerunner employed his youth in no calling at all.   

Beginning now the thirtieth year of his age, when, according to the custom of the priests, he ought to have come to the chief Sanhedrim to undergo their examination, and to be entered into the priesthood by them, "the word of God coming unto him," Luk 3:2; as it had done before to the prophets, he is diverted to another ministry.

Lightfoot: Mat 3:2

And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.   

[Repent ye.] A doctrine most fit for the gospel, and most suitable to the time, and the word or the phrase as agreeable to the doctrine.   

I. A nation leavened with the error of the Pharisees, concerning justification by the works of the law, was necessarily to be called off to the contrary doctrine of repentance. No receiving of the gospel was otherwise to be expected.   

II. However the schools of the Pharisees had illy defined repentance, which we observe presently, yet they asserted that repentance itself was necessary to the reception of the Messias. Concerning this matter the Babylonian Gemarists do dispute: whom Kimchi also upon Isa 54:19 [This Scriptural Reference is in all versions online] cites, and determines the question: "From the words of our Rabbins (saith he) it is plain there arose a doubt among them concerning this matter, namely, whether Israel were to be redeemed with repentance or without repentance. And it sprang from this occasion, that some texts of Scripture seemed to go against them: such as those; 'He saw, and there was no man, and he wondered, that there was none to intercede; therefore, his own arm brought salvation.' And also, 'Not for your sake, O Israel, do I this.' And again, 'I will remember for them my old covenant,' etc. And these places, on the other hand, make for repentance: 'Thou shalt return to the Lord thy God, and shalt hearken to his voice.' And again; 'And thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, and shalt find him, if thou seekest him with all thy heart,' etc. But these may be reconciled after this manner; namely, that many of Israel shall repent, when they shall see the signs of redemption. And hence is that which is said, 'And he saw that there was no man,' because they will not repent until they see the beginning of redemption."   

"If Israel shall repent but one day, forthwith the Redeemer cometh" (Taanith).   

Therefore, it is very fitly argued by the Baptist, and by our Saviour after him, Mat 4:17; from the approach of the kingdom of heaven to repentance, since they themselves to whom this is preached do acknowledge that thus the kingdom of heaven, or the manifestation of the Messias, is to be brought in. For however the Gemarists who dispute of this were of a later age, yet for the most part they do but speak the sense of their fathers.   

III. The word repentance as it does very well express the sense of true repentance, so among the Jews it was necessary that it should be so expressed, among whom repentance, for the most part, was thought to consist in the confession of the mouth only.   

"Whosoever, out of error or presumption, shall transgress the precepts of the law, whether they be those that command or those that forbid, when he repents and returns from his sins, he is bound to make confession. Whosoever brings an offering for a sin, committed either out of ignorance or presumption, his sin is not expiated by the offering, until he makes an oral confession. Or whosoever is guilty of death, or of scourging by the Sanhedrim, his sin is not taken away by his death, or by his scourging, if he do not repent and make confession. And because the scape-goat is the expiation for all Israel, therefore the high priest makes confession over him for all Israel."   

It is worthy observing, that, when John urgeth those that came to his baptism to repent, it is said, that they were baptized, "confessing their sins": which was a sign of repentance highly requisite among the Jews, and necessary for those that were then brought in to the profession of the Gospel; that hereby they might openly profess that they renounced the doctrine of justification by the works of the law.   

It is worthy of observing also, that John said not, "Repent, and believe the gospel," which our Saviour did, Mat 4:17; (and yet John preached the gospel, Mar 1:1-2; Joh 1:7); for his office, chiefly, was to make Christ known, who when he should come was to be the great preacher of the gospel.   

Therefore the Baptist doth very properly urge repentance upon those that looked for the Messias; and the text of the Gospel used a very proper word to express true and lively repentance.   

[For the kingdom of heaven is at hand.] I. The kingdom of heaven; in Matthew, is the kingdom of God; for the most part, in the other evangelists. Compare these places:   

" The kingdom of heaven is at hand," Mat 4:17.

"The poor in spirit, theirs is the kingdom of heaven;" Mat 5:3.

"The least in the kingdom of heaven;" Mat 11:11.

"The mysteries of the kingdom of heaven;" Mat 13:11.

"Little children, of such is the kingdom of heaven;" Mat 19:14.

" The kingdom of God is at hand," Mar 1:15.

"Blessed are the poor, for yours is the kingdom of God;" Luk 6:20.

"The least in the kingdom of God;" Luk 7:28.

"The mysteries of the kingdom of God;" Luk 8:10.

"Little children, of such is the kingdom of God;" Mar 10:14.

And so we have it elsewhere very often, For Heaven is very usually, in the Jewish dialect, taken for God; Dan 4:23; Mat 21:25; Luk 15:21; Joh 3:27. And, in these and such-like speeches, scattered in the Talmudists: Death by the hand of heaven: The name of heaven is profaned: The worship of heaven: by the help of heaven; etc. "For they called God by the name of Heaven; because his habitation is in heaven" (Tishbi).   

The story of the Jews is related, groaning out under their persecution these words, O Heavens! that is, as the Gloss renders it, Ah! Jehovah!   

II. This manner of speech, the kingdom of heaven; is taken from Daniel, Dan 7:13-14; where, after the description of the four earthly and tyrannical monarchies, that is, the Babylonian, Mede-Persian, Grecian, and Syro-Grecian, and the destruction of them at last; the entrance and nature of the reign of Christ is described, as it is universal over the whole world, and eternal throughout all ages: "under whom the rule, and dominion, and authority of kingdoms under the whole heaven is given to the people of the saints of the Most High," Mat 3:27; that is, "Whereas, before, the rule had been in the hands of heathen kings, under the reign of Christ there should be Christian kings." Unto which that of the apostle hath respect, 1Co 6:2; "know ye not that the saints shall judge the world?"   

Truly I admire that the fulfilling of that vision and prophecy in Daniel should be lengthened out still into I know not what long and late expectation, not to receive its completion before Rome and antichrist shall fall; since the books of the Gospel afford us a commentary clearer than the sun, that that kingdom of heaven took its beginning immediately upon the preaching of the Gospel. When both the Baptist and Christ published the approach of the kingdom of heaven from their very first preaching; certainly, for any to think that the fulfilling of those things in Daniel did not then begin, for my part, I think it is to grope in the dark, either through wilfulness or ignorance.   

III. The kingdom of heaven implies, 1. The exhibition and manifestation of the Messias, Mat 12:28; "But if I, by the finger of God, cast out devils, the kingdom of God is come upon you": that is, 'Hence is the manifestation of the Messias.' See Joh 3:3; Joh 12:13; etc. 2. The resurrection of Christ; death, hell, Satan, being conquered: whence is a most evident manifestation that he is that 'eternal King,' etc.: see Mat 26:29; Rom 1:4. 3. His vengeance upon the Jewish nation, his most implacable enemies: this is another, and most eminent manifestation of him: see Mat 16:28; Mat 19:28. 4. His dominion by the sceptre of the gospel among the Gentiles, Mat 21:43. In this place which is before us it points out the exhibition and revelation of the Messias.   

IV. The phrase the kingdom of heaven very frequently occurs in the Jewish writers. We will produce some places; let the reader gather the sense of them:   

"R. Joshua Ben Korcha saith, In reciting the phylacteries, why is Hear, O Israel; [ul Deu_6:4; etc.] recited before that passage And it shall come to pass, if you shall hearken [ul Deu_11:13], etc. To wit, that a man first take upon himself the kingdom of heaven; and then the yoke of the precept." So the Jerusalem Misna hath it; but the Babylonian thus: "That a man first take upon himself the yoke of the kingdom of heaven; and then the yoke of the precept."   

"Rabh said to Rabbi Chaijah, We never saw Rabbi [Judah] taking upon himself the kingdom of heaven. Bar Pahti answered, At that time when he put his hands to his face, he took upon himself the kingdom of heaven." Where the Gloss speaks thus: "We saw not that he took upon himself the kingdom of heaven; for until the time came of reciting the phylacteries, he instructed his scholars; and when that time was come, I saw him not interposing any space."   

"Doth any ease nature? Let him wash his hands, put on his phylacteries, repeat them, and pray, and this is the kingdom of heaven fulfilled." "If thou shalt have explained Shaddai, and divided the letters of the kingdom of heaven; thou shalt make the shadow of death to be cool to thee"; that is, "If, in the repeating of that passage of the phylacteries [ul Deu_6:4], 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord,' etc., you shall pronounce the letters distinctly and deliberately, so that you shall have sounded out the names of God rightly, 'thou shalt make cool the shades of death.' " For the same Gloss had said, The repeating of that passage; 'Hear, O Israel,' etc., is the taking of the kingdom of heaven upon thee. But the repeating of that place, 'And it shall be, if thou shalt hearken,' etc. [ul Deu_19:13] is the taking of the yoke of the precept upon thee.   

"Rabban Gamaliel recited his phylacterical prayers on the very night of his nuptials. And when his scholars said unto him, 'Hast thou not taught us, O our master, that a bridegroom is freed from the reciting of his phylacteries the first night?' he answered, 'I will not hearken to you, nor will I lay aside the kingdom of heaven from me, no, not for an hour.' "   

"What is the yoke of the kingdom of heaven?" In like manner as they lay the yoke upon an ox, that he may be serviceable; and if he bear not the yoke, he becomes unprofitable: so it becomes a man first to take the yoke upon himself, and to serve in all things with it: but if he casts it off, he is unprofitable: as it is said, 'Serve the Lord in fear.' What means, 'in fear?' the same that is written, 'The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.' And this is the kingdom of heaven."   

"The scholars of Jochanan Ben Zaccai asked, Why a servant was to be bored through the ear, rather than through some other part of the body? He answered, When he heard with the ear those words from mount Sinai, 'Thou shalt have no other Lord before my face,' he broke the yoke of the kingdom of heaven from him, and took upon himself the yoke of flesh and blood."   

If by the kingdom of heaven; in these and other such-like places, which it would be too much to heap together, they mean the inward love and fear of God, which indeed they seem to do; so far they agree with our gospel sense, which asserts the inward and spiritual kingdom of Christ especially. And if the words of our Saviour, "Behold, the kingdom of God is within you," Luk 17:21; be suited to this sense of the nation concerning the kingdom of heaven; there is nothing sounds hard or rough in them: for it is as much as if he had said "Do you think the kingdom of heaven shall come with some remarkable observation, or with much show? Your very schools teach that the kingdom of God is within a man."   

But, however they most ordinarily applied this manner of speech hither, yet they used it also for the exhibition and revelation of the Messiah in the like manner as the evangelical history doth. Hence are these expressions, and the like to them, in sacred writers: "The Pharisees asked Jesus when the kingdom of God should come." "They thought that the kingdom of God should presently be manifested." "Josephus of Arimathea waited for the kingdom of God."   

And these words in the Chaldee paraphrast, "Say ye to the cities of Judah, The kingdom of your God is revealed," Isa 40:9; "They shall see the kingdom of their Messiah," Isa 53:11.   

The Baptist, therefore, by his preaching, stirs up the minds of his hearers to meet the coming of the Messiah, now presently to be manifested, with that repentance and preparation as is meet.

Lightfoot: Mat 3:4

And the same John had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey.   

[His food was locusts.] He that by vow tieth himself from flesh, is forbidden the flesh of fish and of locusts. See the Babylonian Talmud ( Cholin) concerning locusts fit for food.

Lightfoot: Mat 3:5

Then went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judaea, and all the region round about Jordan.   

[The region round about Jordan.] The word the region round about; is used by the Jerusalem Gemara: "From Beth-horon to the sea is one region round about;" or, one circumjacent region. Perhaps, both in the Talmudist and in the evangelist, is one and the same thing with a coast; or a country along a coast; in Pliny: "The country (saith he) along the coast is Samaria": that is, the sea-coast, and the country further, lying along by that coast: which may be said also concerning the region round about Jordan. Strabo, concerning the plain bordering on Jordan, hath these words; "It is a place of a hundred furlongs, all well watered and full of dwellings."

Lightfoot: Mat 3:6

iA few things concerning Baptism.   

And were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins.   

[And were baptized.] It is no unfit or unprofitable question, whence it came to pass that there was so great a conflux of men to the Baptist, and so ready a reception of his baptism?   

I. The first reason is, Because the manifestation of the Messias was then expected, the weeks of Daniel being now spent to the last four years. Let us consult a little his text: --   

Dan 9:24. "Seventy weeks [of years] are decreed concerning thy people," etc. That is, four hundred and ninety years, from the first of Cyrus to the death of Christ. These years are divided into three parts, and they very unequal.   

1. Into seven weeks, or forty-nine years, from the giving of Cyrus' patent for the rebuilding Jerusalem, to the finishing the rebuilding of it by Nehemiah.   

2. Into sixty-two weeks, or four hundred thirty-four years, -- namely, from the finishing the building of the city to the beginning of the last week of the seventy. In which space of time, the times of the Persian empire (which remained after Nehemiah, if indeed there was any time now remaining), and the times of the Grecian empire, and of the Syro-Grecian, were all run out, and those times also, wherein the Romans ruled over the Jews.   

3. The holy text divides the last week, or the last seven years, into two equal parts, Mat 3:27; which I thus render; "And he shall strengthen, or confirm; the covenant with many in that one week: and the half of that week shall make the sacrifice and oblation to cease: or; in the half of that week he shall make to cease," etc. Not in the middle of that week, but in the latter half, that is, the latter three years and a half of the seven.   

First, seven weeks having been reckoned up before, and then sixty-two weeks, Mat 3:25; -- now there remained one only of the seventy; and in reference to that, in the middle of it the Messias shall begin his ministry; which being finished in three years and a half (the latter halved part of that week), "he shall make the sacrifice and oblation to cease," etc.   

The nation could not but know, could not but take great notice of, the times so exactly set out by the angel Gabriel. Since, therefore, the coming of the Messias was the great wish and desire of all, -- and since the time of his appearing was so clearly decreed by the angel that nothing could be more, -- and when the latter half of the last seven years, chiefly to be observed, was now, within a very little, come: -- it is no wonder if the people, hearing from this venerable preacher that the kingdom of heaven was now come, should be stirred up beyond measure to meet him, and should flock to him. For, as we observed before, "They thought that the kingdom of God would immediately be manifested," Luk 19:11.   

II. Another reason of it was this, -- the institution of baptism, for an evangelical sacrament, was first in the hand of the Baptist, who, "the word of the Lord coming to him," (Luk 3:2) went forth, backed with the same authority as the chiefest prophets had in times past. But yet the first use of baptism was not exhibited at that time. For baptism, very many centuries of years backwards, had been both known and received in most frequent use among the Jews, -- and for the very same end as it now obtains among Christians, -- namely, that by it proselytes might be admitted into the church; and hence it was called Baptism for proselytism; and was distinct from Baptism [or washing] from uncleanness. See the Babylonian Talmud in Jevamoth.   

I. I ascribe the first use of it, for this end, to the patriarch Jacob, when he chose into his family and church the young women of Sychem, and other heathens who then lived with him. "Jacob said to his family, and to all who were with him, Put away from you the strange gods, and be ye clean, and change your garments," etc. Gen 35:2. What that words means, and be ye clean; Aben Ezra does very well interpret to be the washing of the body; or baptism; which reason itself also persuades us to believe.   

II. All the nation of Israel do assert, as it were with one mouth, that all the nation of Israel were brought into the covenant, among other things, by baptism. "Israel (saith Maimonides, the great interpreter of the Jewish law) was admitted into the covenant by three things, -- namely, by circumcision, baptism, and sacrifice. Circumcision was in Egypt; as it is said, 'None uncircumcised shall eat of the passover.' Baptism was in the wilderness before the giving of the law; as it is said, 'Thou shalt sanctify them to-day and to-morrow, and let them wash their garments.' "   

III. They assert, that that infinite number of proselytes in the day of David and Solomon were admitted by baptism: "The Sanhedrims received not proselytes in the days of David and Solomon: not in the days of David, lest they should betake themselves to proselytism out of a fear of the kingdom of Israel: not in the days of Solomon, lest they might do the same by reason of the glory of the kingdom. And yet abundance of proselytes were made in the days of David and Solomon before private men; and the great Sanhedrim was full of care about this business: for they would not cast them out of the church, because they were baptized," etc.   

IV. "Whensoever any heathen will betake himself, and be joined to the covenant of Israel, and place himself under the wings of the divine Majesty, and take the yoke of the law upon him, voluntary circumcision, baptism, and oblation, are required: but if it be a woman, baptism and oblation."   

That was a common axiom No man is a proselyte until he be circumcised and baptized. It is disputed by the Babylonian Gemara, "A proselyte, that is circumcised and not baptized, what of him? R. Eliezer saith Behold, he is a proselyte: for so we find concerning our fathers, that they were circumcised, but not baptized. One is baptized, but not circumcised; what of him? R. Joshua saith, Behold, he is a proselyte: for so we find concerning the maidservants, who were baptized, but not circumcised. But the wise men say, Is he baptized, and not circumcised? Or, Is he circumcised, and not baptized? He is not a proselyte, until he be circumcised and baptized."   

But baptism was sufficient for women so far forth as this held good, " One baptizeth a heathen woman in the name of a woman, we can assert that for a deed rightly done." Where the Gloss is this; "To be baptized in the name of a woman, was to be baptized with the washing of a woman polluted; and not with the baptism to proselytism. But we may, nevertheless, assert her, who is so baptized, for a complete proselytess; because that baptism of washing for uncleanness serves for proselytism to her; for a heathen woman is not baptized [or washed] for uncleanness."   

V. They baptized also young children (for the most part with their parents). They baptize a little proselyte according to the judgment of the Sanhedrim; that is, as the Gloss renders it, "If he be deprived of his father, and his mother brings him to be made a proselyte, they baptize him [because none becomes a proselyte without circumcision and baptism] according to the judgment [or right] of the Sanhedrim; that is, that three men be present at the baptism, who are now instead of a father to him."   

And the Gemara a little after; If with a proselyte his sons and his daughters are made proselytes also, that which is done by their father redounds to their good. R. Joseph saith, When they grow into years, they may retract. Where the Gloss writes thus; "This is to be understood of little children, who are made proselytes together with their father."   

"A heathen woman, if she is made a proselytess, when she is now big with child, -- the child needs not baptism: for the baptism of his mother serves him for baptism." Otherwise, he were to be baptized.   

" If an Israelite take a Gentile child, or find a Gentile infant; and baptizeth him in the name of a proselyte, -- behold, he is a proselyte."   

We cannot also pass over that, which indeed is worthy to be remembered: "Any one's servant is to be circumcised, though he be unwilling; but any one's son is not to be circumcised, if he be unwilling. R. Jochanan inquired, Behold a little son; do you circumcise him by force? Yea, although he be as the son of Urcan. R. Hezekiah saith, Behold, a man finds an infant cast out, and he baptizeth him in the name of a servant: in the name of a freeman, do you also circumcise him in the name of a freeman."   

We have therefore alleged these things the more largely, not only that you may receive satisfaction concerning the people flocked, in so universal a concourse, to John's baptism (because baptism was no strange thing to the Jews); but that some other things may be observed hence, which afford some light to certain places of Scripture, and will help to clear some knotty questions about baptism.   

First, You see baptism inseparably joined to the circumcision of proselytes. There was, indeed, some little distance of time; for "they were not baptized till the pain of circumcision was healed, because water might be injurious to the wound." But certainly baptism ever followed. We acknowledge, indeed, that circumcision was plainly of divine institution; but by whom baptism, that was inseparable from it, was instituted, is doubtful. And yet it is worthy of observation, our Saviour rejected circumcision, and retained the appendix to it: and when all the Gentiles were now to be introduced into the true religion, he preferred this 'proselytical introductory' (pardon the expression) unto the sacrament of entrance into the gospel.   

One might observe the same almost in the eucharist. The lamb in the Passover was of divine institution, and so indeed was the bread. But whence was the wine? But yet, rejecting the lamb, Christ instituted the sacrament in the bread and wine.   

Secondly, Observing from these things which have been spoken, how very known and frequent the use of baptism was among the Jews, the reason appears very easy why the Sanhedrim, by their messengers, inquired not of John concerning the reason of baptism, but concerning the authority of the baptizer; not what baptism meant, but whence he had a license so to baptize, Joh 1:25.   

Thirdly, Hence also the reason appears why the New Testament doth not prescribe, by some more accurate rule, who the persons are to be baptized. The Anabaptists object, 'It is not commanded to baptize infants, -- therefore they are not to be baptized.' To whom I answer, 'It is not forbidden to baptize infants, -- therefore they are to be baptized.' And the reason is plain. For when Paedobaptism in the Jewish church was so known, usual, and frequent, in the admission of proselytes, that nothing almost was more known, usual, and frequent, --   

1. There was no need to strengthen it with any precept, when baptism was now passed into an evangelical sacrament. For Christ took baptism into his hands, and into evangelical use, as he found it; this only added, that he might promote it to a worthier end and a larger use. The whole nation knew well enough that little children used to be baptized: there was no need of a precept for that which had ever, by common use, prevailed. If a royal proclamation should now issue forth in these words, "Let every one resort, on the Lord's day, to the public assembly in the church"; certainly he would be mad, who, in times to come, should argue hence that prayers, sermons, singing of psalms, were not to be celebrated on the Lord's day in the public assemblies, because there is no mention of them in the proclamation. For the proclamation provided for the celebration of the Lord's day in the public assemblies in general: but there was no need to make mention of the particular kinds of the divine worship to be celebrated there, when they were always, and every where, well known and in daily use before the publishing of the proclamation, and when it was published. The case is the very same in baptism. Christ instituted it for an evangelical sacrament, whereby all should be admitted into the possession of the gospel, as heretofore it was used for admission into proselytism to the Jewish religion. The particulars belonging to it, -- as, the manner of baptizing, the age, the sex to be baptized, etc. -- had no need of a rule and definition; because these were, by the common use of them, sufficiently known even to mechanics and the most ignorant men.   

2. On the other hand, therefore, there was need of a plain and open prohibition that infants and little children should not be baptized, if our Saviour would not have had them baptized. For, since it was most common, in all ages foregoing, that little children should be baptized, if Christ had been minded to have that custom abolished, he would have openly forbidden it. Therefore his silence, and the silence of the Scripture in this matter, confirms Paedobaptism, and continueth it unto all ages.   

Fourthly, It is clear enough, by what hath been already said, in what sense that is to be taken in the New Testament which we sometimes meet with, -- namely, that the master of the family was baptized with his whole family, Act 16:15; uk Act_16:33; etc. Nor is it of any strength which the Anti-paedobaptists contend for, that it cannot be proved there were infants in those families; for the inquiry is not so proper, whether there were infants in those families, as it is concluded truly and deservedly, -- if there were, they had all been to be baptized. Nor do I believe this people, that flocked to John's baptism, were so forgetful of the manner and custom of the nation, that they brought not their little children also with them to be baptized.   

Some things are now to be spoken of the manner and form which John used.   

First, In some things he seems to have followed the manner whereby proselytes were baptized; in other things, not to have followed them. Concerning it the Talmudic Canons have these sayings: --   

I. They do not baptize a proselyte by night. Nor, indeed, "were the unclean to be washed but in the day-time." Maimonides adds, "They baptized not a proselyte on the sabbath, nor on a holy-day, nor by night."   

II. A proselyte hath need of three; that is, it is required, that three men, who are scholars of the wise men, be present at the baptism of a proselyte; who may take care that the business be rightly performed, and may briefly instruct the catechumen [the person to be baptized], and may judge of the matter itself. For the admission of a proselyte was reckoned no light matter; Proselytes are dangerous to Israel, like the itch; was an axiom. For they, either tenacious of their former customs, or ignorant of the law of Israel, have corrupted others with their example; or, being mingled with Israel, were the cause that the divine glory did rest the less upon them; because it resteth not on any but upon families of a nobler pedigree. These reasons the Glossers give. When, therefore, the admission of proselytes was of so great moment, they were not to be admitted but by the judicial consistory of three.   

III. They baptize a proselyte in such a confluence of waters as was fit for the washing of a menstruous woman. Of such a confluence of waters the lawyers have these words: "A man that hath the gonorrhea is cleansed nowhere but in a fountain: but a menstruous woman, as also all other unclean persons, were washed in some confluence of waters; in which so much water ought to be as may serve to wash the whole body at one dipping. Our wise men have esteemed this proportion to be a cubit square, and three cubits depth: and this measure contains forty seahs of water."   

When it is said, that "he that hath the gonorrhea is to wash in a spring [or a stream]; but a menstruous woman, and all other unclean persons, in some confluence of waters," -- it forbids not a menstruous woman, and other unclean persons, to wash in streams, where they might: but it permits, where they might not, to wash in some confluence of water; which was not lawful for a man that had the gonorrhea to do. The same is to be understood concerning the baptism of a proselyte, who was allowed to wash himself in streams: and was allowed also, where there were no streams, to wash in a confluence of waters.   

IV. When a proselyte was to be circumcised, they first asked him concerning the sincerity of his conversion to Judaism: whether he offered not himself to proselytism for the obtaining riches, for fear, or for love to some Israelite woman, etc. And when they saw that he came out of love of the law, they instructed him concerning the various articles of the law, of one God, of the evil of idolatry, of the reward of obedience, of the world to come, of the privileges of Israel, etc. All which, if he professed that he embraced them he is forthwith circumcised.   

"As soon as he grows whole of the wound of circumcision, they bring him to baptism; and being placed in the water, they again instruct him in some weightier and in some lighter commands of the law. Which being heard, he plunges himself, and comes up, and behold, he is as an Israelite in all things. The women place a woman in the waters up to the neck; and two disciples of the wise men, standing without, instruct her about some lighter precepts of the law and some weightier, while she, in the meantime, stands in the waters. And then she plungeth herself; and they, turning away their faces, go out, while she comes up out of the water."   

In the baptizing of a proselyte, this is not to be passed over, but let it be observed, namely, that others baptized him; and that he baptized himself; or dipped, or plunged himself in the waters. Now, what that plunging was, you may understand from those things which Maimonides speaks in Mikvaoth in the place before cited. " Every person baptized" [or dipped; whether he were washed from pollution, or baptized into proselytism], "must dip his whole body, now stripped and made naked, at one dipping. And wheresoever in the law washing of the body or garments is mentioned, it means nothing else than the washing of the whole body. For if any wash himself all over, except the very top of his little finger, he is still in his uncleanness. And if any hath much hair, he must wash all the hair of his head, for that also was reckoned for the body. But if any should enter into the water with their clothes on, yet their washing holds good; because the water would pass through their clothes, and their garments would not hinder it."   

And now, a little to compare the baptism of John with that proselytical baptism, and ours with both, these things are to be considered: --   

I. If you compare the washing of polluted persons, prescribed by the law, with the baptism of proselytes, -- both that and this imply uncleanness, however something different, that implies legal uncleanness, -- this, heathen, -- but both polluting. But a proselyte was baptized not only into the washing-off of that Gentile pollution, nor only thereby to be transplanted into the religion of the Jews; but that by the most accurate rite of translation that could possibly be, he might so pass into an Israelite, that, being married to an Israelite woman, he might produce a free and legitimate seed, and an undefiled offspring. Hence, servants that were taken into a family were baptized, -- and servants also that were to be made free: not so much because they were defiled with heathen uncleanness, as that, by that rite becoming Israelites in all respects; they might be more fit to match with Israelites, and their children be accounted as Israelites. And hence the sons of proselytes, in following generations, were circumcised indeed, but not baptized. They were circumcised, that they might take upon themselves the obligation of the law; but they needed not baptism, because they were already Israelites. From these things it is plain that there was some difference as to the end, between the Mosaical washings of unclean persons, and the baptism of proselytes; and some between the baptism of proselytes and John's baptism: not as though they concurred not in some parallel end; but because other ends were added over and above to this or that, or some ends were withdrawn.   

II. The baptism of proselytes was the bringing over of Gentiles into the Jewish religion; the baptism of John was the bringing over of Jews into another religion. And hence it is the more to be wondered at, that the people so readily flocked to him, when he introduced a baptism so different from the known proselytical baptism. The reason of which is to be fetched from hence, -- that at the coming of the Messias they thought, not without cause, that the state of things was plainly to be changed; and that, from the oracles of the prophets, who, with one mouth, described the times of the Messias for a new world. Hence was that received opinion, That God, at that time, would renew the world for a thousand years...And that also, that they used the world to come by a form of speech very common among them, for the times of the Messias; which we observe more largely elsewhere.   

III. The baptism of proselytes was an obligation to perform the law; that of John was an obligation to repentance. For although proselytical baptism admitted of some ends, -- and circumcision of others, -- yet a traditional and erroneous doctrine at that time had joined this to both, that the proselytes covenanted in both, and obliged himself to perform the law; to which that of the apostle relates, Gal 5:3; "I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law."   

But the baptism of John was a 'baptism of repentance'; Mar 1:4; which being undertaken, they who were baptized professed to renounce their own legal righteousness; and, on the contrary, acknowledged themselves to be obliged to repentance and faith in the Messias to come. How much the Pharisaical doctrine of justification differed from the evangelical, so much the obligation undertaken in the baptism of proselytes differed from the obligation undertaken in the baptism of John: which obligation also holds amongst Christians to the end of the world.   

IV. That the baptism of John was by plunging the body (after the same manner as the washing of unclean persons, and the baptism of proselytes was), seems to appear from those things which are related of him; namely, that he "baptized in Jordan"; that he baptized "in Aenon, because there was much water there"; and that Christ, being baptized, "came up out of the water": to which that seems to be parallel, Act 8:38; "Philip and the eunuch went down into the water," etc. Some complain, that this rite is not retained in the Christian church, as though it something derogated from the truth of baptism; or as though it were to be called an innovation, when the sprinkling of water is used instead of plunging. This is no place to dispute of these things. Let us return these three things only for a present answer: --   

1. That the notion of washing in John's baptism differs from ours, in that he baptized none who were not brought over from one religion, and that an irreligious one too, -- into another, and that a true one. But there is no place for this among us who are born Christians: the condition, therefore, being varied, the rite is not only lawfully, but deservedly, varied also. Our baptism argues defilement, indeed, and uncleanness; and demonstrates this doctrinally, -- that we, being polluted, have need of washing: but this is to be understood of our natural and sinful stain, to be washed away by the blood of Christ and the grace of God: with which stain, indeed, they were defiled who were baptized by John. But to denote this washing by a sacramental sign, the sprinkling of water is as sufficient as the dipping into water, -- when, in truth, this argues washing and purification as well as that. But those who were baptized by John were blemished with another stain, and that an outward one, and after a manner visible; that is, a polluted religion, -- namely, Judaism or heathenism; from which, if, according to the custom of the nation, they passed by a deeper and severer washing, -- they neither underwent it without reason; nor with any reason may it be laid upon us, whose condition is different from theirs.   

2. Since dipping was a rite used only in the Jewish nation and proper to it, it were something hard, if all nations should be subjected under it; but especially, when it is neither necessarily to be esteemed of the essence of baptism, and is moreover so harsh and dangerous, that, in regard of these things, it scarcely gave place to circumcision. We read that some, leavened with Judaism to the highest degree, yet wished that dipping in purification might be taken away, because it was accompanied with so much severity. "In the days of R. Joshua Ben Levi, some endeavoured to abolish this dipping, for the sake of the women of Galilee; because, by reason of the cold, they became barren. R. Joshua Ben Levi said unto them, Do ye go about to take away that which hedges in Israel from transgression?" Surely it is hard to lay this yoke upon the neck of all nations, which seemed too rough to the Jews themselves, and not to be borne by them, men too much given to such kind of severer rites. And if it be demanded of them who went about to take away that dipping, Would you have no purification at all by water? It is probable that they would have allowed of the sprinkling of water, which is less harsh, and not less agreeable to the thing itself.   

3. The following ages, with good reason, and by divine prescript, administered a baptism differing in a greater matter from the baptism of John; and therefore it was less to differ in a less matter. The application of water was necessarily of the essence of baptism; but the application of it in this or that manner speaks but a circumstance: the adding also of the word was of the nature of a sacrament; but the changing of the word into this or that form, would you not call this a circumstance also? And yet we read the form of baptism so changed, that you may observe it to have been threefold in the history of the New Testament.   

Secondly, In reference to the form of John's baptism [which thing we have propounded to consider in the second place], it is not at all to be doubted but he baptized "in the name of the Messias now ready to come": and it may be gathered from his words, and from his story. As yet he knew not that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messias; which he confesseth himself, Joh 1:31; yet he knew well enough, that the Messias was coming; therefore, he baptized those that came to him in his name, instructing them in the doctrine of the gospel, concerning faith in the Messias, and repentance; that they might be the readier to receive the Messias when he should manifest himself. Consider well Mal 3:1; Luk 1:17; Joh 1:7; Joh 1:31; etc. The apostles, baptizing the Jews, baptized them "in the name of Jesus"; because Jesus of Nazareth had now been revealed for the Messias; and that they did, when it had been before commanded them by Christ, "Baptize all nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." So you must understand that which is spoken, Joh 3:23; 4:2, concerning the disciples of Christ baptizing; namely, that they baptized in 'the name of Jesus,' that thence it might be known that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messias, in the name of whom, suddenly to come, John had baptized. That of St. Peter is plain, Act 2:38; "Be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ": and that, Act 8:16; "They were baptized in the name of Jesus."   

But the apostles baptized the Gentiles, according to the precept of our Lord, "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," Mat 28:19. For since it was very much controverted among the Jews about the true Messias, and that unbelieving nation denied, stiffly and without ceasing, that Jesus of Nazareth was he (under which virulent spirit they labour even to this day), it was not without cause, yea, nor without necessity, that they baptized in the name of Jesus; that by that seal might be confirmed this most principal truth in the gospel, and that those that were baptized might profess it; that Jesus of Nazareth was the true Messias. But among the Gentiles, the controversy was not concerning the true Messias, but concerning the true God: among them, therefore, it was needful that baptism should be conferred in the name of the true God, "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit."   

We suppose, therefore, that men, women, and children came to John's baptism, according to the manner of the nation in the reception of proselytes; namely, that they standing in Jordan were taught by John that they were baptized into the name of the Messias, that was now immediately to come; and into the profession of the doctrine of the gospel concerning faith and repentance; that they plunged themselves into the river, and so came out. And that which is said of them, that they were baptized by him "confessing their sins," is to be understood according to the tenour of the Baptist's preaching; not that they did this man by man, or by some auricular confession made to John, or by openly declaring some particular sins; but when the doctrine of John exhorted them to repentance and to faith in the Messias, they renounced and disowned the doctrine and opinion of justification by their works, wherewith they had been beforetime leavened, and acknowledged and confessed themselves sinners.   

[In Jordan.] John could not baptize in any part of Jordan, so it were within the bounds of Judea (which the evangelists assert), which had not been dried up, and had afforded a passage to the Israelites when they came out of Egypt, and were now entering into the promised land.

Lightfoot: Mat 3:7

But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?   

[And seeing many of the Pharisees and Sadducees.] To attempt a history of the Pharisees and Sadducees; after so many very learned men, who have treated of their original, manners, and institutions, would be next to madness: we will briefly touch at a few things, and those, perhaps, less obvious.   

1. That the Pharisees do not derive their name (as some would have it) from the word which signifies to expound is sufficiently evinced by this, that there were women-Pharisees as well as men. "R. Joshua saith, A religious man foolish, a wicked man crafty, a woman-Pharisee; and the dashing of the Pharisees [against the stones], destroy the world." Those things are worthy observing, which are spoke by the Babylonian Gemarists on that clause, A woman-Pharisee. "The Rabbins teach. A praying [procax] maid, a gadding widow, and a boy whose months are not fulfilled, these corrupt the world. But R. Jochanan saith, We learn the shunning of sin from a maid, and the receiving of a reward from a widow. 'The shunning of sin from a maid'; for R. Jochanan heard a certain maid prostrate on her face thus praying; Eternal Lord, thou hast created Paradise, thou hast created hell also, thou hast created the righteous, and thou hast created the wicked: let it be thy good pleasure that I be not a scandal to men. 'The receiving of a reward from a widow'; for there was a certain widow, who, when there were synagogues nearer everywhere, she always resorted to the school of R. Jochanan to pray: to whom R. Jochanan said, O my daughter, are there not synagogues at hand round about you? But she answered, Will there not be a reward for my steps [or, for my journey hither]? For [the tradition] saith, These destroy the world, as Joanna, the daughter of Retib."   

...[O]ne Gloss [says] a maid given to prayer; or a maid of many prayers. By another it is rendered, a maid given to fasting: losing her virginity by fasting.   

A gadding widow they call her, "who always goes about from place to place to visit her neighbours"; they are the words of the Gloss. "And these corrupt the world, because they are no other but bawds and sorceresses, and yet they pretend sanctity."   

"Joanna the daughter of Retib [the Gloss also being witness] was a certain sorceress widow, who, when the time of any child's birth drew near, shut up the womb of the child-bearing woman with magic arts, that she could not be delivered. And when the poor woman had endured long and great torments, she would say, 'I will go and pray for you; perhaps my prayers will be heard': when she was gone, she would dissolve the enchantments, and presently the infant would be born. On a certain day as a hired man wrought in her house, she being gone to a woman's labour, he heard the charms tinkling in a pan; and, taking off the cover, the charms presently came out, and strait the infant is born; and hence it was known that she was a witch."   

I have therefore cited these passages, not only that it may be shown that there were women-Pharisees; and so that the name is not take from interpreting or expounding; but that it may be observed also what kind of women, for the most part, embrace Pharisaism; namely, widows and maids, under the veil of sanctity and devotion, hiding and practising all manner of wickedness. And so much we gain of the history of the Pharisees; while we are tracing the etymology of the word.   

II. That the Pharisees therefore were so called from the word signifying separation; is more commonly asserted, and more truly; and the thing itself, as well as the word, speaks it. So that by a word more known to us, you might rightly call the Pharisees, Separatists; but in what sense, has need of more narrow inquiry. The differences of the Jewish people are to be disposed here into diverse ranks: and, first, we will begin with the women.   

1. It were an infinite task to search particularly, how their canons indulged (shall I say?) or prescribed the woman a freedom from very many rites, in which a great part of the Jewish religion was placed. How numberless are the times that that occurs in the Talmudic pandect, " Women, servants, and children, are not bound to these things. Women, servants, and children, are not bound to recite their phylacteries, nor to wear them. The Passovers of women are at their own will." And, not to dwell upon things that are obvious, let this one serve instead of many: "A certain matron asked R. Eleazar, Why, when Aaron sinned in making the golden calf, the people are punished with a threefold death? He answered, Let not a woman be learned beyond her distaff. Hircanus his son said unto him, Because no answer is given her in one word out of the law, she will withdraw from us three hundred tenth cori yearly. To whom he replied, Let them rather go and be burnt, than the words of the law be delivered to women."   

From hence it appears that the women that embraced Pharisaism did it of their own free will and vow, not by command: which the men-Pharisees also did.   

2. Pass we from the women to the men; and, first, to the lowest degrees of men in the distinction relating to religion; namely, to them whom they ordinarily called illiterate; and the people of the earth; or the plebeians. Of them, thus the Gemara in Sotah newly cited: "One reads the Scriptures, and recites the Misna, and yet he waits not upon the scholars of the wise men; what of him? R. Eleazar said, This is one of the people of the earth. R. Samuel Bar Nachmani saith, Behold, this is an illiterate man. R. Jannai saith, 'Behold, this is a Cuthean.' R. Achabar saith, 'Behold, this is a magician.' " And a little after, "Who is the people of the earth?" R. Meith saith, 'He that recites not his phylacteries morning and evening with his prayers.' But the wise men say, 'He, whosoever he be, that lays not up his phylacteries.' Ben Azzai saith, 'He who hath not a fringe on his garment.' R. Jochanan Ben Joseph saith, 'He that instructs not his sons in the doctrine of the law.' Others say, 'He who, although he read the Scriptures, and repeats the traditions, yet attends not on the scholars of the wise men, this is, the people of the earth [or the plebeians]. Does he read the Scriptures, and not repeat the tradition? Behold, this man is illiterate.' " The Gloss upon the place speaks thus, " The people of the earth are they of whom there is suspicion of tenths and cleanness": that is, lest they tithe not rightly, nor take care aright concerning cleansings. And the illiterate person is " more vile than, or inferior to, the people of the earth." Compare that, Joh 7:49; "this people that knoweth not the law is cursed."   

The colleagues or associates; and scholars of the wise men; were opposed to these vulgar persons. Under the title of scholars of the wise men are comprehended all that were learned and studious: under the title of religious; as well learned as unlearned. There were some of the learned whom they commonly called colleagues of the Rabbins; who as yet were candidates, and not preferred to the public office of teaching or judging. The thing may be illustrated by one example: " Do the colleagues enter in to appoint the new moon?" R. Hoshaia said, When I was a colleague; R. Samuel Ben R. Isaac led me in to the appointment of the new moon, but I knew not whether I were of the number or no." And a little later; "Do the colleagues [or fellows] go in to intercalate the year? Let us learn this from the example of Rabban Gamaliel, who said, Let the seven seniors meet me in the chamber. But eight entered, 'Who came in hither,' saith he, 'without leave?' 'I,' answered Samuel the Little."   

In this sense the word a colleague; differs nothing from a scholar of a wise man; in that both signify a student and a learned man. But the word a colleague; hath a wider sense, denoting all such who have more professedly devoted themselves to religion, and have professed a more devout life and rule than the common people, whether they were learned or unlearned, whether of the sect of the Pharisees; or of the Sadducees; or some other. Hence you have mention of a religious Samaritan; and of a religious baker. And the phrase seems to be drawn from Psa 119:63; "I am a companion of all those that fear thee": They take upon them the habit of religion. See the Babylonian Talmud in Avodah Zarah in the Gloss. That distinction also is worthy of consideration, of The greater and the less religious.   

Yet the word seems sometimes to be appropriated to the Pharisees; as being men who, above all others, put on a splendidly cloaked religion, which appears enough from the history of the Gospel. So, perhaps, is that to be understood, The religious Galileans purify; that is, as the Gloss explains it, "They cleanse their wine and their oil for a drink-offering, if perhaps the Temple may be built in their days." Which, nevertheless, the Aruch citing, thus explains them, The religious eat their common food in cleanness. By which very thing the Gloss defines Pharisees; To the Pharisees; that is, to them that eat their common food in cleanness. Behold, how the word religious; and Pharisees; are convertible terms; and how this was the proper notion whereby a Pharisee was defined, "That he ate his common food in cleanness": that is, that he washed his hands when he ate.   

III. We must not think that Pharisaism arose altogether and at once, but it was long a-conceiving, and of not fixed form when it was brought forth. The same may, in a manner, be said of this, which is of the traditions: both these and that were the issue of many years. The traditionarians do refer the first conception of the Traditions to the times of Ezra. But how many centuries of years passed before the birth of this whole monster was full ripe? In like manner, the first seeds of Pharisaism were cast long before its birth; and being now brought forth, was a long time growing, before it came to maturity; if so be any can define what its maturity was.   

We observe presently, that the foundations of Sadduceeism were laid in the days of Ezra, before there were any Sadducees: in his days also, I suspect, the foundations of Pharisaism were laid long before there were any Pharisees. For, since the Pharisees were marked with that title because they separated themselves from other men, as more profane; and since, in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, it was the great care, and that a holy care too, to separate the seed of Israel from the heathen inhabitants of the land, to wit, the Samaritans, the Ashdodites, the Moabites, etc., not much after; some men, arrogating too much for themselves, took occasion hence of separating themselves from the men of the Israelitic seed, as too profane, and very unfit (alas!) for their communion. Which very thing we experience in our present Separatists. For when the Scripture commands Christians that they communicate not "with unbelievers, with those who are without," etc., that is, with heathens; some do hence make a pretence of withdrawing themselves from the assemblies of Christians: by what right, by what foundation, let themselves look to it.   

We shall not trace the time wherein the name of Pharisee first arose; this is done by learneder men: and therefore let it be enough to have observed that only. After once this pretence of religion was received, "that it was a pious matter to separate a man's self from the common people," superstition increased every day, which served for a stay and patronage to this sect and separation. For when they had espoused a religion so supercilious, that they commonly said, "Stand off, I am holier than thou" (which was also foretold by the prophet with an execration, Isa 65:5), and that they place the highest sanctimony in this, to withdraw themselves from the common people, as profane; it was certainly necessary to circumscribe, and to put themselves under a more austere rule and discipline, that they might retain the name and fame of religious person in other things besides that separation, that argued so much pride and arrogancy. Hence the troubles about tithings and washings arose, and increased age after age: hence sprang the frequent fasting and prayers, the cares of the phylacteries, fringes, and other matters without number: so that (a thing fatal to Separatists) this sect, at last, was crumbled into sects, and a Pharisee was, in a manner, the same to a Pharisee; that the people of the earth was to a Pharisee.   

Both Talmuds reckon seven sects of Pharisees; and so does the Aruch; which it will not be irksome to describe with their pencil, that the reader may see to what a degree of madness this sect was come, as well as to what a degree of hypocrisy. The Pharisees are seven:   

1. A Shechemite Pharisee. This [Pharisee] does as Shechem Where the Gloss is, "Who is circumcised, but not for the honour of God." He carrieth his precepts upon his shoulders; that is, as the Aruch explains it, "wood to make a booth [in the feast of Tabernacles], or something of that nature."   

2. A Pharisee struck or dashing. Who dasheth his feet. The Gloss is, "He who walketh in humility, the heel of one foot touching the great toe of the other: nor did he lift up his feet from the earth, so that his toes were dashed against the stones." The Aruch writes, "Who withdrew himself a great way off, that he might not press upon men in the ways, and dashed his feet against the stones." Strike me (or surround me), and yet I will perform the command.   

3. A Pharisee that lets out his blood. "He strikes out his blood against the walls." The Gloss is; "He shows himself such a one as if his eyes were hoodwinked, that he might not look upon a woman; and hereupon dashed his head against the walls, and let out his blood." The Aruch writes, "He so pressed up himself against the walls, that he might not touch those that passed by, that by the dashing he fetched blood of himself." -- "He performed one precept, and one duty, and struck out blood at each."   

4. A Pharisee of the mortar. The Aruch thus describes him; "He went in a loose coat, resembling a mortar with the mouth turned downwards. So he, with his loose garment, was straiter above and broader below." In the Jerusalem Talmud he is called "who saith, I withdraw whatsoever is mine and fulfil the command."   

5. " The Pharisee which saith, Let me know what my duty is, and I will do it." "I have done my duty, that the command may be performed according to it." The Aruch thus; "As though he should say, There is no man can show me wherein I have transgressed."   

6. A Pharisee of fear; such was Job.   

7. A Pharisee of love: Among all these, none is worthy to be loved but the Pharisee of love: as Abraham.   

Whether Pharisaism ran out into any of these sects in the days of the Baptist, we dispute not. Let it be granted, that the best and the most modest of that order came to his baptism: the best of the Pharisees certainly were the worst of men. And it is so much the more to be wondered at that these men should receive his baptism after that manner as they did; when it was highly contrary to the rule of the Pharisees to converse among the common people, of whom there was so great a concourse to John; and highly contrary to the doctrine of the Pharisees; so much as to dream of any righteousness, besides that which was of the works of the law, which the doctrine of John diametrically contradicted.   

The original of the Sadducees; learned men as well Jews as Christians, do, for the most part, refer to one Zadoc; a scholar of Antigonus Socheus; which Antigonus took the chief seat in the Sanhedrim after the death of Simeon the Just. Of him thus speaks the tract Avoth; "Antigonus of Socho received traditions of Simeon the Just. He said, Be not as servants, who wait upon their master for the sake of the reward; but be ye like servants who wait upon their master not for the sake of the reward: but let the fear of the Lord rule you."   

"This wise man (saith Rambam upon the place) had two scholars, Zadoc and Baithus; who, when they heard this from their master, said among themselves, when they were gone away. Our master in his exposition teacheth us that there is neither reward nor punishment, nor any expectation at all [for the future]: for they understood not what he meant: therefore, they mutually strengthened one another, and departed from the rule, and forsook the law: and some company adhered to both. The wise men, therefore, called them Sadducees and Baithusees." And a little after; "But in these countries, namely in Egypt, they call them Karaites; but Sadducees and Baithusees are their names among the wise men." See also the Avoth of R. Nathan.   

Yet that raiseth a scruple here: "At the conclusion of all prayers in the Temple they said, for ever. But when the heretics brake in and said, There was no age but one, it was appointed to be said, for ever and ever; or from age to age." Upon these words thus the Gloss; "In the first Temple they said only, 'Blessed be the Lord God of Israel for ever.' But when the heretics brake in and said there was no age but this, Ezra and his consistory appointed that it should be said, for ever and ever; or from age to age; to imply there is a double world [this, and one to come], to root out of the heart the opinion of those that deny the resurrection of the dead."   

Take notice, reader, that "there were some who denied the resurrection of the dead in the days of Ezra," when as yet Zadoc, the father of the Sadducees; was not born. After Ezra, and his great synagogue (which endured many a year after Ezra was dead), sat Simeon the Just, performing the office of the high-priest, for the space of forty years: and Antigonus Socheus, the master of Zadoc, succeeded him in the chair of the Sanhedrim. So that although the Sadducees, with good reason, do bear an ill report for denying the resurrection, and that was their principal heresy; yet that heresy was, when as yet there were no heretics, called by the name of Sadducees. To which, perhaps, those words do agree (which sufficiently taste of such a heresy), "Ye have said, It is in vain to serve God," etc., Mal 3:14.   

It is not, therefore, to be denied that the Sadducee-heretics were so named from Zadoc; but that the heresy of the Sadducees; concerning the resurrection, was older than that name, one may suppose not without reason; nor that that cursed doctrine first arose from the words of Antigonus, illy understood by Zadoc and Baithus, but was of an ancienter original, when as yet the prophets Zecharias, Malachi, and Ezra himself, were alive, if that Ezra were not the same with Malachi, as the Jews suppose. Therefore I do rather think that heresy sprang from the misunderstanding of the words of Ezekiel, Ezekiel_37; which some understanding according to the letter, and, together with it, seeing no resurrection, dreamt that there would be none afterward. And this doctrine increased, and exalted itself into a sect; when, at length, Zadoc and Baithus asserted that it was so determined out of the chair by their master Antigonus, the president of the Sanhedrim.   

When I fetch the rise of the Sadducees not much after the death of Simeon the Just, that does not unseasonably come into my mind, which is mentioned by the Talmudists, that the state of things became worse after his death. "All the days of Simeon the Just, the scape-goat had scarce come to the middle of the precipice of the mountain [whence he was cast down], but he was broken into pieces: but, when Simeon the Just was dead, he fled away [alive] into the desert, and was eaten by Saracens. While Simeon the Just lived, the lot of God [in the day of expiation] went forth always to the right hand: Simeon the Just being dead, it went forth sometimes to the right hand and sometimes to the left. All the days of Simeon the Just, the little scarlet tongue looked always white; but when Simeon the Just was dead, it sometimes looked white and sometimes red. All the days of Simeon the Just, the west light always burnt; but when he was dead, it sometimes burnt and sometimes went out. All the days of Simeon the Just, the fire upon the altar burnt clear and bright; and, after two pieces of wood laid on in the morning, they laid on nothing else the whole day: but when he was dead, the force of the fire languished in that manner that they were compelled to supply it all the day. All the days of Simeon the Just, a blessing was sent upon the two loaves and the show-bread, so that a portion came to every priest, to the quantity of an olive at least; and there were some others to whom something remained after they had eaten their fill: but when Simeon the Just was dead, that blessing was withdrawn, and so little remained to each, that those that were modest withdrew their hands, and those that were greedy still stretched them out."   

For more info on Pharisees and Sadducees see "Sketches of Jewish Social Life," chapter 13. Among the People, and with the Pharisees, chapter 14. The "Fraternity" of Pharisees and chapter 15. Relation of the Pharisees to the Sadducees and Essenes, and to the Gospel of Christ by Alfred Edersheim.  

[Generation of vipers.] I. Serpents,; Mat 23:33. Not so much "the seed of Abraham," which ye boast of, as "the seed of the serpent," "O, the Antichrist, the Opposer; 2Th 2:4. A nation and offspring diametrically opposite, and an enemy to that seed of the woman, and which was to bruise his heel."   

II. Hence, not without ground, it is concluded that that nation was rejected and given over to a reprobate sense, even before the coming of Christ. They were not only a generation; but an offspring of vipers, serpents sprung from serpents. Nor is it wonder that they were rejected by God, when they had long since rejected God, and God's word, by their traditions. See that Mat 13:13-15; 1Pe 2:10; "Ye were not a people."   

There was, indeed, a certain remnant among them to be gathered by Christ: and when that was gathered, the rest of the nation as delivered over to everlasting perdition. This is that remnant of the apostle, Rom 11:5; which then was, when he writ those things; which then as to be gathered, before the destruction of that nation.   

[To fly from the wrath to come.] These words respect the very last words of the Old Testament, "lest I smite the earth with a curse," Malachi_4; and denote the most miserable destruction of the nation, and now almost ready to fall upon them.   

The receiving of John's baptism signed and fenced those that received it from the ruin that was just coming. To this belongs that of St. Peter, Epistle 1, 1Pe 3:20-21; in that manner as Noah and his sons were by water delivered from the flood, "so also baptism now, the antitype of that type, saveth us" from the deluge of divine indignation, which in a short time is to overflow the Jewish nation. Think here, if those that came to baptism brought not their little ones with them to baptism: when, by the plain words of the Baptist, those that are baptized are said to "fly from the wrath to come?" that is, 'the wrath of God,' that was not long hence to destroy the nation by a most sad overthrow.

Lightfoot: Mat 3:9

And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.   

[Think not to say.] A Jerusalem phrase, to be met with everywhere in the Talmud: To think a word; or to be of that opinion.

Lightfoot: Mat 3:10

And now also the ax is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.   

[The axe is laid to the root.] These words seem to be taken from Isa 5:23-24. The destruction of the nation was to proceed from the Romans, who had now a great while held them under the yoke. That axe, now laid to the root of the tree, shall certainly cut it down, if from this last dressing by the gospel it bears not fruit. In the Talmud, those words of Isaiah are applied to the destruction of the city; and thence it is argued, that the Messias should be born not much after the time of that destruction, because presently after the threatening of that ruin follows, "A Branch shall arise out of the stock of Jesse," Isa 11:1.

Lightfoot: Mat 3:11

I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire:   

[Whose shoes I am not worthy to bear.] In Luke it is to unloose the latchet of his shoes; which comes to the same thing: both sound to the same import, as if he had said, 'Whose servant I am not worthy to be.'   

"A Canaanite servant is like a farm, in respect of buying: for he is bought with money, or with a writing, or by some service done as a pledge or pawn. And what is such a pawning in the buying of servants? Namely, that he looseth the shoe of him [who buys], or binds on his shoe, or carries to the bath such things as be necessary for him," etc. These things Maimonides produceth out of the Talmud, where these words are, "How is a servant bought by service? He looseneth the buyer's shoe; he carrieth such things after him as are necessary for the bath; he unclothes him; washes, anoints, rubs, dresses him; puts on his shoes, and lifts him up from the earth," etc. See also the Tosaphta.   

This, by the way, is to be noted, which the Gloss intimates, that all servants, of what heathen nation soever, bought by the Jews, were called 'Canaanite servants,' because it is said of Canaan, "Canaan a servant of servants."

Haydock: Mat 3:1

"In those days," i.e. at the time of Jesus Christ, whose history this book contains. This expression does not always mean that what is going to be narrated, happened immediately after that which precedes. (Bible de Vence) ---

'Tis a way of speaking used by the Hebrews, even when there is no connection of time, as here are passed over 30 years of Christ's life. John the Baptist was so called from his baptizing the people in water. The Jews took this for some token of their Messias: for they said to him, (John i. 25,) why dost thou baptize if thou art not the Christ? ---

In the desert, not in the house of his Father Zacharias, as some pretend, but in a true wilderness, as appears by the circumstances of his food, apparel, &c. (Witham) ---

The Baptist was about 30 years of age. He, as well as our Lord, in conformity with the Jewish law, did not enter upon his public ministry before that age. (Haydock)

Haydock: Mat 3:2

"Desert," in Greek eremos, hence hermit. St. John the Baptist is praised by St. John Chrysostom, as a perfect model, and the prince of an Eremitical life. (Hom. i. in Mar. and hom. i. in J. Bap.) Several sectarists do not approve of what St. John Chrysostom advances in favour of an ascetic life, and doing penance for past sins. (Bristow) ---

Do penance. [1] Beza would have it translated repent. We retain the ancient expression, consecrated in a manner by the use of the Church; especially since a true conversion comprehends not only a change of mind, and a new life, but also a sorrow for past offences, accompanied with self-denials, and some severities of a penitential life. ---

The kingdom of heaven, which many times signifies the present condition of Christ's Church. (Witham) ---

In this and other places of holy writ, instead of "do penance," Protestants give "repent ye;" but general use has rendered Greek: metanoia, by pœnitentia, or penance; and in this text, not any kind of penance, or grief for sins committed, but that which is joined with a desire of appeasing Him who has been offended by sin; and this also by some external signs and works. For as many as heard this Greek: metanoeite, obeyed the voice, received from him the baptism of penance, confessed their sins, and it was said to them: Bring forth fruit worthy of repentance, ver. 8. Therefore, all this was contained in the penance preached by the baptist. And here we must not omit, that while sectarists preach faith alone, both the baptist and Jesus Christ begin their ministry which practising and preaching penance. (Tirinus) ---

Pœnitentiam agite, Greek: metanoeite. Which word, according to the use of the Scriptures and the holy fathers, does not only signify repentance and amendment of life, but also punishing past sins by fasting, and such like penitential exercises. (Challoner)

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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

Pœnitentiam agite. Greek: metanoeite. There is no need of translating in Latin, recipiscite, though more according to the etymology of the word. The judicious Mr. Bois, prebend. of Ely, in his book entitled, Veteris Interpretis cum Beza, &c. Collatio. Londini. an. 1655, commended by Walton in his Polyglot, declares he would not have this common translation of pœnitentiam agite changed: and brings these words of Melancthon, Let us not be ashamed of our mother tongue; the Church is our Mother, an so speaks the Church.

Haydock: Mat 3:3

Isaias spoke these words of the deliverance of the Jews from Babylon; but this was a figure of the freedom of mankind through Jesus Christ. The Jews expected Elias would come in person to prepare the ways of the Messias; but John the Baptist was raised up by God in the spirit and power of Elias, to precede the first coming of Jesus Christ, as Elias in person was to precede the second coming of this divine Saviour. (Bible de Vence)

Haydock: Mat 3:4

His garment of camels' hair, [2] not wrought camlet as some would have it, but made of the skin of a camel, with the hair on it. Thus Elias (4 Kings, i. 8,) is called an hairy man, with a leathern girdle about him. ---

Locusts, not sea-crabs, as others again expound it; but a sort of flies, or grasshoppers, frequent in hot countries. They are numbered among eatables. (Leviticus xi. 22) St. Jerome and others mention them as food of the common people, when dried with smoke and salt. Theophylactus, by the Greek word, understands the tops of trees or buds. (Witham)

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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

St. Hierom. [St. Jerome] lib. 2. con. Jovin. tom. 4. part. 2. p. 201. Orientales, et Libyæ populos . . . locustis vesci, moris est. Theophylactus by Greek: akrides, understands buds of trees.

Haydock: Mat 3:5

So great was the celebrity of St. John's sanctity, so much did his mortified life, and powerful preaching, weigh upon the minds of the people, that all wished to receive baptism at his hands. (Haydock)

Haydock: Mat 3:6

Baptized. the word baptism signifies a washing, particularly when it is done by immersion, or by dipping, or plunging a thing under water, which was formerly the ordinary way of administering the sacrament of baptism. But the Church, which cannot change the least article of the Christian faith, is not so tied up in matters of discipline and ceremonies. Not only the Catholic Church, but also the pretended reformed churches, have altered this primitive custom in giving the sacrament of baptism, and now allow of baptism by pouring or sprinkling water on the person baptized; nay may of their ministers do it now-a-days, by filliping a wet finger and thumb over the child's head, or by shaking a wet finger or two over the child, which it is hard enough to call a baptizing in any sense. ---

Confessing their sins. [3] We bring not this as a proof for sacramental auricular confession; yet we may take notice, with Grotius, that it is a different thing for men to confess their sins, and to confess themselves sinners. And here is expressed a declaring of particular sins, (as also Acts xix. 18,) such as is recommended in the Protestant Prayer Book, in the visitation of the sick. (Witham) ---

As the baptism of John was an external profession of penance, to this it was mett to add an external or oral confession of sins; and the more so, because such as were baptized by John, sought of him also, as we read in St. Luke, instructions how they were to amend their lives; now it is naturally expected of whoever asks for similar advice, that he should expose the defects of his past life. It is thus patients act with their physicians. (Haydock)

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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

confitentes peccata sua. Greek: exomologoumenoi tas amartias auton.

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Haydock: Mat 3:7

Pharisees and Sadducees. These are the names of two sects at that time among the Jews. There are different conjectures about the name of the Sadducees. This at least we find by the Gospels, and by the Acts of the Apostles, that they were a profane sort of men, that made a jest of the resurrection, and of the existence of spirits, and of the immortality of souls. To these the Pharisees were declared adversaries, as being a more religious sect, who pretended to be exact observers of the law, and also of a great many traditions, which they had, or pretended to have, from their forefathers. St. Epiphanius (hær. 16, p. 34,) derives their name from the Hebrew word Pharas, signifying separated, divided, or distinguished from others by a more holy way of living. So the proud Pharisee (Luke xviii.) said of himself, I am not like the rest of men, &c. ---

Brood of vipers. St. John the Baptist, and also our Saviour himself, (Matthew xxii. 33,) made use of this sharp reprehension to such as come to them full of hypocrisy. ---

the wrath to come: meaning punishments for the wicked after death. Or as some expound it, the destruction that was shortly to fall on the city of Jerusalem, on the temple, and the whole nation of the Jews. (Witham)

Haydock: Mat 3:8

See note for ver. 2.

Haydock: Mat 3:9

Do not, therefore, wantonly imagine, that the fear of destroying the posterity of this patriarch, and of annulling the promises which God had made to him and to his seed, will hinder Him from punishing you. (Bible de Vence)

Haydock: Mat 3:10

Without the least attention to its origin, or other advantages. Hence you must not rest your hopes of salvation on your birth alone, nor on the baptism alone you receive at my hands. (Bible de Vence)

Haydock: Mat 3:11

My baptism is only calculated to lead you to a penitential life, and not to give you true justice; but he who comes after me, is stronger than I, and whose shoes I am not worthy to carry: (it was customary with the attendant slave to carry a change of shoes for his master) he will baptize you in the Holy Ghost, and in the fire of his divine charity, which he will infuse into your hearts, to purify you from all your sins. (Bible de Vence) ---

Here St. John tacitly insinuates the divinity of Jesus Christ. He acknowledges his unworthiness, and it is this his humility that makes him the more acceptable to God, "I ought to be baptized by thee, and comest thou to me?" (Tirinus) ---

Whose shoes I am not worthy to carry. In St. Mark, (chap. i. 7.) and in St. Luke, (iii. 21.) we read, the latchet of whose shoes . . . I am not worthy to untie. The sense is the same, and St. John might use both these expression. His meaning is, that he was not worthy to do him the least, or the lowest service. ---

He shall baptize you in, or with the Holy Ghost, i.e. by his baptism, he will give you the remission of your sins, and the graces of the Holy Ghost, signified also by fire, which may allude to the coming of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost, in the shape of fiery tongues. (Witham)

Haydock: Mat 3:12

Address yourselves then to Him, and prevent, by a prompt and sincere conversion, that dreadful judgment which the just and severe Judge, whom I now announce to you, will most undoubtedly pass upon sinners, when he shall remove the chaff from the good grain, i.e. the bad from the good, calling the latter with him to his heavenly kingdom, and sending the former to burn in unquenchable fire. (Haydock)

Gill: Mat 3:1

In those days came John the Baptist,.... The Evangelist having given an account of the genealogy and birth of Christ; of the coming of the wise men from the east to him; of his preservation from Herod's bloody design against him, when all the infants at Bethlehem were slain; of the flight of Joseph with Mary and Jesus into Egypt, and of their return from thence, and settlement in Nazareth, where Christ continued till near the time of his baptism, and entrance on his public ministry; proceeds to give a brief relation of John, the harbinger and forerunner of Christ, and the administrator of baptism to him: and he describes him by his name John, in Hebrew יוחנן, "Jochanan", which signifies "gracious", or "the grace of the Lord", or "the Lord has given grace"; which agrees with him, both as a good man, on whom the Lord had bestowed much grace, and as a preacher, whose business it was to publish the grace of God in Christ, Luk 16:16. This name was given him by an angel before his conception, and by his parents at his birth, contrary to the mind of their relations and neighbours, Luk 1:13. He is called by some of the Jewish writers ^m, John the "high priest"; his father Zacharias was a priest of the course of Abia, and he might succeed him therein, and be the head of that course, and for that reason be called a "high" or "chief priest"; as we find such were called, who were the principal among the priests, as were those who were chosen into the sanhedrim, or were the heads of these courses; and therefore we read of many chief priests, Mat 2:4. From his being the first administrator of the ordinance of baptism, he is called John the Baptist; and this was a well known title and character of him. Josephus ⁿ calls him "John", who is surnamed ο βαπτιστης, "the Baptist"; and Ben Gorion having spoken of him, says ^o, this is that John who עשה טבילה, "made", instituted, or practised "baptism"; and which, by the way, shows that this was not in use among the Jews before, but that John was the first practiser this way. He is described by his work and office as a preacher, he "came" or "was preaching" the doctrines of repentance and baptism; he published and declared that the kingdom of the Messiah was at hand, that he would quickly be revealed; and exhorted the people to believe on him, which should come after him. The place where he preached is mentioned,

in the wilderness of Judea; not that he preached to trees and to the wild beasts of the desert; for the wilderness of Judea was an habitable place, and had in it many cities, towns, and villages, in which we must suppose John came preaching, at least to persons which came out from thence. There were in Joshua's time six cities in this wilderness, namely Betharabah, Middin, and Secacah, and Nibshan, and the city of Salt, and Engedi, Jos 15:61. Mention is made in the Talmud ^p of this wilderness of Judea, as distinct from the land of Israel, when the doctors say, that

"they do not bring up small cattle in the land of Israel, but they bring them up במדבר שביהודה, "in the wilderness which is in Judea".''

The Jews have an observation ^q of many things coming from the wilderness;

"the law, they say, came from the wilderness; the tabernacle from the wilderness; the sanhedrim from the wilderness; the priesthood from the wilderness; the office of the Levites from the wilderness; the kingdom from the wilderness; and all the good gifts which God gave to Israel were from the wilderness.''

So John came preaching here, and Christ was tempted here. The time of his appearance and preaching was in those days: not when Christ was newly born; or when the wise men paid their adoration to him; or when Herod slew the infants; or when he was just dead, and Archelaus reigned in his room; or when Christ first went to Nazareth; though it was whilst he dwelt there as a private person; but when John was about thirty years of age, and Christ was near unto it, Luk 3:23 an age in which ecclesiastical persons entered into service, Num 4:3. It was indeed, as Luke says, Luk 3:1 in the "fifteenth" year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar; Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea; and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee; and his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea; and of the region of Trachonitis; and Lysanias, the tetrarch of Abilene; Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests.

Gill: Mat 3:2

And saying, repent ye,.... The doctrine which John preached was the doctrine of repentance; which may be understood either of amendment of life and manners; for the state of the Jews was then very corrupt, all sorts of men were grown very wicked; and though there was a generation among them, who were righteous in their own eyes, and needed no repentance; yet John calls upon them all, without any distinction, to repent; and hereby tacitly strikes at the doctrine of justification by works, which they had embraced, to which the doctrine of repentance is directly opposite: or rather, this is meant, as the word here used signifies, of a change of mind, and principles. The Jews had imbibed many bad notions. The Pharisees held the traditions of the elders, and the doctrine of justification by the works of the law; and the Sadducees denied the resurrection of the dead; and it was a prevailing opinion among them all, and seems to be what is particularly struck at by John, that the Messiah would be a temporal king, and set up an earthly kingdom in this world. Wherefore he exhorts them to change their minds, to relinquish this notion; assuring them, that though he would be a king, and would have a kingdom, which was near at hand, yet it would be a heavenly, and not an earthly one. Hence the manner in which John enforces his doctrine, or the reason and argument he uses to prevail upon them to regard it, is by saying,

for the kingdom of heaven is at hand: by which is meant not the kingdom of glory to be expected in another world; or the kingdom of grace, that is internal grace, which only believers are partakers of in this; but the kingdom of the Messiah, which was "at hand", just ready to appear, when he would be made manifest in Israel and enter upon his work and office: it is the Gospel dispensation which was about to take place, and is so called; because of the wise and orderly management of it under Christ, the king and head of his church by the ministration of the word, and administration of ordinances; whereby, as means, spiritual and internal grace would be communicated to many, in whose hearts it would reign and make them meet for the kingdom of glory; and because the whole economy of the Gospel, the doctrines and ordinances of it are from heaven. This phrase, "the kingdom of heaven" is often to be met with in Jewish writings; and sometimes it stands opposed to the "kingdom of the earth" ^r; by it is often meant the worship, service, fear, and love of God, and faith in him: thus in one of their books ^s having mentioned those words, "serve the Lord with fear": it is asked, what means this phrase, "with fear?" It is answered, the same as it is written, "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom"; and this is מלכות שמים "the kingdom of heaven". And elsewhere they ^t ask, "what is the kingdom of heaven?" To which is answered, "the Lord our God is one Lord". Yea, the Lord God himself is so called ^u, and sometimes the sanctuary; and sometimes they intend by it the times of the Messiah, as the Baptist here does; for so they paraphrase ^w those words,

"the time of the singing of birds, or of pruning, is come; the time for Israel to be redeemed is come; the time for the uncircumcision to be cut off is come; the time that the kingdom of the Cuthites (Samaritans or Heathens) shall be consumed is come; and the time של מלכות שמים שתגלה that "the kingdom of heaven shall be revealed" is come, as it is written, "and the Lord shall be king over all, the earth."''

Very pertinently does John make use of this argument to engage to repentance; since there cannot be a greater motive to it, whether it regard sorrow for sin, and confession of it, or a change of principles and practice, than the grace of God through Christ, which is exhibited in the Gospel dispensation: and very appropriately does he urge repentance previous to the kingdom of heaven; because without that there can be no true and cordial embracing or entering into the Gospel dispensation, or kingdom of heaven; that is, no real and hearty receiving the doctrines, and submitting to the ordinances of it. Nor ought the Jews above all people to object to John's method of preaching; since they make repentance absolutely necessary to the revelation of the Messiah and his kingdom, and redemption by him; for they say ^x in so many words, that

"if Israel do not repent, they will never be redeemed; but as soon as they repent, they will be redeemed; yea, if they repent but one day, immediately the son of David will come.''

Gill: Mat 3:3

For this is he that was spoken of,.... These are not the words of the Baptist himself, as in Joh 1:23 but of the Evangelist, who cites and applies to John a passage in the Prophet Isaiah, Isa 40:3 and that very pertinently, since that "chapter" is a prophecy of the Messiah. The consolations spoken of in Isa 40:3, were to be in the days of the king Messiah, as a writer of note ^y among the Jews observes. The Messiah is more expressly prophesied of in Isa 40:9 as one that should appear to the joy of his people, and "come with a strong hand", vigorously prosecute his designs, faithfully perform his work, and then receive his reward; he is spoken of under the "character" of a "shepherd", who would tenderly discharge the several parts of his office as such, which character is frequently given to the Messiah in the Old Testament: now the person spoken of in Isa 40:3 was to be his harbinger to go before him, proclaim and make ready for his coming; and what is said of him agrees entirely with John the Baptist, as the character given of him,

the voice of one crying, Βοωντος, lowing like an ox; which expresses the austerity of the man, the roughness of his voice, the severity of his language; that he called aloud and spoke out, openly, publicly, and freely; and that he delivered himself in preaching with a great deal of zeal and fervency. The place where he preached was "in the wilderness", that is, of Judea, where he is said before, in Mat 3:1 to come preaching. The doctrine he preached was,

prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight, which is best explained by what is said before, in Mat 3:2

repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. The Lord whom ye have sought, the Messiah whom you have expected, is just coming, he will quickly appear; prepare to meet him by repentance, and receive him by faith, relinquish your former notions and principles, correct your errors, and amend your lives, remove all out of the way which may be offensive to him. The allusion is to a great personage being about to make his public appearance or entrance; when a harbinger goes before him, orders the way to be cleared, all impediments to be removed, and everything got ready for the reception of him.

Gill: Mat 3:4

The same John had his raiment,.... The Evangelist goes on to describe this excellent person, the forerunner of our Lord, by his raiment;

the same John of whom Isaiah prophesied, and who came preaching the doctrine in the place and manner before expressed,

had his raiment of camel's hair; not of camel's hair softened and dressed, which the Talmudists ^z call צמר גמלים "camel's wool"; of which wool of camels and of hares, the Jews say ^a the coats were made, with which God clothed Adam and Eve; and which being spun to a thread, and wove, and made a garment of, they call ^b חמילה, and we "camlet"; for this would have been too fine and soft for John to wear, which is denied of him, Mat 11:8 but either of a camel's skin with the hair on it, such was the "rough garment", or "garment of hair", the prophets used to wear, Zec 13:4 or of camels hair not softened but undressed; and so was very coarse and rough, and which was suitable to the austerity of his life, and the roughness of his ministry. And it is to be observed he appeared in the same dress as Elijah or Elias did, 2Ki 1:8 in whose spirit and power he came, and whose name he bore, Luk 1:17.

And a leathern girdle about his loins; and such an one also Elijah was girt with, 2Ki 1:8 and which added to the roughness of his garment, though it shows he was prepared and in a readiness to do the work he was sent about.

And his meat was locusts and wild honey; by the "locusts" some have thought are meant a sort of fish called "crabs", which John found upon the banks of Jordan, and lived upon; others, that a sort of wild fruit, or the tops of trees and plants he found in the wilderness and fed on, are designed; but the truth is, these were a sort of creatures "called locusts", and which by the ceremonial law were lawful to be eaten, see Lev 11:22. The Misnic doctors ^c describe such as are fit to be eaten after this manner;

"all that have four feet and four wings, and whose thighs and wings cover the greatest part of their body, and whose name is חגב "a locust."''

For it seems they must not only have these marks and signs, but must be so called, or by a word in any other language which answers to it, as the commentators ^d on this passage observe; and very frequently do these writers speak ^e of locusts that are clean, and may be eaten. Maimonides ^f reckons up "eight" sorts of them, which might be eaten according to the law. Besides, these were eaten by people of other nations, particularly the Ethiopians ^g, Parthians ^h, and Lybians ⁱ.

And wild honey: this was honey of bees, which were not kept at home, but such as were in the woods and fields; of this sort was that which Jonathan found, and eat of, 1Sa 14:25 now the honey of bees might be eaten, according to the Jewish laws ^k, though bees themselves might not.

Gill: Mat 3:5

Then went out to him Jerusalem,.... The uncommon appearance of this person, the oddness of his dress, the austerity of his life, together with the awfulness and importance of his doctrine, and the novelty of the ordinance of baptism he administered, and the Jews having had no prophet for some hundreds of years, and imagining he might be the Messiah, quickly drew large numbers of people to him. Some copies read "all Jerusalem": that is, the inhabitants of that city, a very large number of them; and "all Judea", a great number of people from all parts of that country. "All" is here put for "many". And

all the region round about Jordan; multitudes from thence, which seems to be the same country with that which is called "beyond Jordan", Mat 4:25 and is distinguished from Judea as here. The Septuagint in 2Ch 4:17 use the same phrase the Evangelist does here, and likewise in Gen 13:10.

Gill: Mat 3:6

And were baptized of him,.... The place where they were baptized of him was, "in Jordan"; some copies read, "in the river Jordan", as in Mar 1:5. As to the name of this river, and the etymology of it, the Jews say ^l it was so called, שיורד מדן "because it descended" from Dan, i.e. Leshem Dan, or Pamias, which they say is a cave at the head of it. It was in John's time and long after a considerable river, a river to swim in; we ^m read that "Resh Lakish הוה סחי בירדנא was swimming in Jordan." And elsewhere ⁿ, that one day "R. Jochanan was swimming in Jordan." Also it was a river for boats and ships to pass in, so that it was a navigable river; hence we read ^o of עריבת הירדן "the boat of Jordan", and of ships in it, and of such and such things being forbidden to be carried over Jordan in a ship ^p; particularly,

"a man might not take the water of the sin offering, and the ashes of the sin offering, and carry them over Jordan in a ship.''

Pliny ^q, Pausanias ^r, Solinus ^s, and others, speak of it as a very considerable and delightful river; see Jos 3:15. The Christians of Christ's time are called by the Jews, in a way of contempt, apostates, that received the doctrine of baptism, and were טבולים בירדן "dipped in Jordan" ^t. The manner in which they were baptized by him was by immersion or plunging them in the water: this may be concluded from the signification of the word βαπτιζω where used, which in the primary sense of it signifies to dip or plunge; from the place in which they were baptized, "the river Jordan"; and from John's constant manner of baptizing elsewhere, who chose places for this purpose, where and because there was there much water; see Joh 1:28. The character of the persons baptized by him is this, they were such as were

confessing their sins. They were called to repentance by John's ministry, and had the grace of it bestowed upon them; being thoroughly convinced of sin, and truly sorry for it, they were ready to acknowledge and confess it to God and men; and such an abiding sense they had of it upon their minds, that they continued doing it: they were not only confessing their sins before baptism, which engaged John to administer it to them; since we find afterwards he refused to admit others, because of their want of repentance and fruits meet for it; but also whilst they were going into the water, and when they came up out of it, so full were they of a sense of sin, and so ready to own it. Even in baptism itself there is a tacit confession and acknowledgment of sin, for it represents the sufferings and death of Christ which were for sin, into which persons are baptized, and profess to be dead to sin thereby; and also the resurrection of Christ for justification from sin, which obliges the baptized person to walk in newness of life, see Rom 6:3 besides, in this ordinance believers are led to the blood of Christ, both for the cleansing and remission of their sins, which suppose filth and guilt, Act 22:16 and Act 2:38. Now this is the character given of the very first persons that were baptized by John, and ought surely to be attended to, by us; and as much care as possible should be taken, that none but such as have a true sense of sin, and are brought to an humble and hearty acknowledgment of it, be admitted to this ordinance.

Gill: Mat 3:7

But when he saw many of the Pharisees,.... This being the first place in which mention is made of the Pharisees and Sadducees, it may not be amiss to give some account of them once for all, and to begin with the Pharisees, and first with their name. Some derive this word from פרץ pharatz to "divide", to "make a breach", from whence Phares had his name Gen 38:29 so Jerom ^u, who observes, that

"the Pharisees, who separated themselves from the people as righteous persons, were called "divisi, the divided."''

And in ^w another place,

"because the Pharisees were "divided" from the Jews on account of some superfluous observations, they also took their name from their disagreement.''

Origen ^x seems to refer to this etymology of the word, when he says,

"the Pharisees, according to their name, were διηρημενοι τινες και στασιωδεις, certain divided and seditious persons.''

And true it is, that this sect often meddled with the affairs of the government, and were very ambitious of being concerned therein. Josephus ^y observes of queen Alexandra, that she governed others, and the Pharisees governed her; hence, though they were in great esteem with the people, they were rather dreaded than loved by the government. Others derive this name from פרש "Pharas" to "expand", or "stretch out"; either because they made broad their phylacteries, and enlarged the borders of their garments; or because they exposed themselves to public notice, did all they could to be seen of men, prayed in the corners of the streets, had a trumpet blown before them when they gave alms, chose the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, greetings in the markets, and to be called of men "Rabbi": all which to be sure are their just characters. Others derive it from the same word, as signifying to "explain" or "expound"; because it was one part of their work, and in which they excelled, to expound the law; but this cannot be the reason of their general name, because there were women Pharisees as well as men, who cannot be thought to be employed in that work. The more generally received opinion is, that this name is taken from the above word, as signifying to "separate"; because they separated themselves from the men and manners of the world, to the study of the law, and to a greater degree of holiness, at least in pretence, than other persons. They were strict observers of the traditions of the elders; are said, to hold both fate and free will; they owned the resurrection of the dead, and that there were angels and spirits, in which they differed from the Sadducees. Or rather they have their name from פרס, which signifies "a reward"; they being stiff defenders of the doctrine of rewards and punishments in a future state, which the Sadducees denied. The Talmudic writers ^z say, there were "seven" sorts of them, and if it would not be too tedious to the reader, I would give the names of them; and the rather, because some of them seem to tally with the complexion and conduct of the Pharisees mentioned in the scriptures. There were then,

1. פרוש שיכמי the "Shechemite Pharisee", who does as Shechem did; is circumcised, not on God's account, or for his glory, or because circumcision is a command of his, but for his own profit and advantage, and that he may get honour from men.

2. פרוש ניקפי "the dashing Pharisee"; who walks gently, the heel of one foot touching the great toe of the other; and scarce lifts up his feet from the earth, so that he dashes them against the stones, and would be thought hereby to be in deep meditation.

3. פרוש קיזאי the "Pharisee letting blood"; who makes as if he shut his eyes, that he may not look upon women, and so runs and dashes his head against the wall, till the blood gushes out, as though a vein was opened.

4. פרוש מדוכיא the "depressed Pharisee"; who went double, or bowed down, or as others render the phrase, "the mortar Pharisee"; either because he wore a garment like a mortar, with the mouth turned downwards; or a hat resembling such a vessel; so that he could not look upward, nor on either side, only downward, or right forward.

5. פרוש מה חובתי ואעשנה the Pharisee, that said, what is my duty and I will do it? the gloss upon it is, teach me what is my duty, and I will do it: Lo! this is his excellency, if he is not expert in the prohibitions and niceties of the commands, and comes to learn; or thus, what is more to be done and I have not done it? so that he shows himself, or would appear as if he had performed all.

6. פרוש יראה "the Pharisee of fear"; who does what he does from fear of punishment.

7. פרוש אהבה "the Pharisee of love"; who does what he does from love; which the gloss explains thus: for the love of the reward of the commandment, and not for the love of the commandment of his Creator; though they say of all these there is none to be beloved, but the Pharisee of love.

When this sect first began, and who was the first author of it, is not easy to say; it is certain there were great numbers of them in the times of John the Baptist, and of Christ, and for some time after. The Jews say ^a, that when the temple was destroyed the second time, the Pharisees increased in Israel.

Next let us consider the Sadducees, who they were, and from whence they sprung. These have their name not from צדיק "Saddik righteous" ^b, or צדק "Sedek righteousness", being self justitiaries; for though they were, yet this would not have distinguished them from the Pharisees, who were likewise such; but from צדוק Sadok or Saduk, a disciple of Antigonus, a man of Socho ^c. The occasion of this new sect was this; Antigonus, among the instructions he gave to his scholars, had this saying;

"be not as servants who serve their master for the sake of reward; but be ye as servants that serve their master not for the sake of reward, and let the fear of God be upon you.''

Which, when Sadok and a fellow scholar, whose name was Baithos, or Baithus, heard, not rightly understanding him, concluded that there was no future state of rewards and punishments; which notion they broached and had their followers, who from the one were called Sadducees, and sometimes from the other Baithuseans: these men held the Scriptures only, rejecting the traditions of the elders; they denied fate, and ascribed all to free will; they affirmed that there is no resurrection of the dead; that the soul dies with the body; that there is no future state after this life, and that there are neither angels nor spirits. Now when "John saw" or observed "many" of both these sects "come to his baptism"; not merely to see it administered, led thither by the novelty of the thing; but to submit to it, to which they might be induced by that very great character of a very holy good man, which John had got among the people; and they were desirous of being thought so too, and therefore desired to be baptized by him; but he knowing the men and their manners,

said unto them; addressed them in a very severe style, quite contrary to their expectation, and the opinion the people had of them,

O generation of vipers! It seems their parents before them were vipers, and they their offspring were like them, in hypocrisy and malice. The viper appears very beautiful outwardly, but is full of poison; it looks harmless and innocent, as if it neither could nor would do any hurt, its teeth being hid, but is a most deadly and hurtful creature: so these men, though they made specious pretences to religion and holiness, yet were full of the deadly poison of hypocrisy, malice, and error. A very disagreeable salutation this must be to men, who were desirous of being reckoned very religious, and who boasted of, and trusted in, their being the seed of Abraham; when they were the children of the devil, the seed of the old serpent, and the offspring of the worst of men, and in whom was verified the proverb, like father like son. John proceeds and asks, saying, "who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" who has suggested this to you? from whom have ye received this hint? who has pointed out the way to you to escape divine vengeance, or the ruin which will quickly come upon you? for by

wrath to come is not meant hell fire, everlasting destruction, from which baptism could not save them; but temporal calamity and destruction, the wrath which in a little time came upon that nation to the uttermost, for rejecting the Messiah, and the Gospel dispensation; from which they might have been saved, had they given credit to Jesus as the Messiah, though only with a bare assent; and had they entered into the kingdom of heaven, or Messiah, the Gospel dispensation, by receiving its doctrines, and submitting to its ordinances, though only externally.

Gill: Mat 3:8

Bring forth therefore fruits,.... That is, if you are truly penitent, if you have a proper sense of sin, and true repentance for it, do such works as are suitable to it, and will show the genuineness of it; for

fruits meet for repentance are the same as "works meet for repentance", Act 26:20 and as a tree is known by its fruit, so repentance is known by good works; these are the fruits and effects of repentance, and which are proofs with men of the sincerity of it. Those which follow upon evangelical repentance are such as are mentioned in 2Co 7:11. Now let it be observed, that John insisted upon repentance, and a good conversation, attesting the truth of it as necessary prerequisites to the ordinance of baptism; and so Peter first urged repentance; and then proposed baptism, Act 2:38 from whence one should think it may be rationally and strongly concluded, that none but truly repenting sinners, and such who have given proofs that they are so, are to be admitted to this ordinance.

Gill: Mat 3:9

And think not to say within yourselves,.... John knew the sentiments of their minds, and the prevailing opinion they had given into, against which he cautions them; as, that because they were Abraham's seed, they were in a state of salvation, in the favour of God, and had a right to all privileges and ordinances: this they trusted in, and boasted of, and would often think of it within themselves, pleasing themselves with the thoughts of it, and speak of it to others;

we have Abraham for our father. The Baptist was aware how ready they would be to object this to him; and therefore prevents their plea from hence in favour of their admission to baptism, by assuring them, that this would have no weight with him, nor give them any right to the ordinance he administered: hence it appears that it is not a person's being born of believing parents that can entitle him to water baptism; or be a reason why it ought to be administered to him: if nothing more than this can be said in his favour, it is a plain case from hence, he ought to be debarred from it. The reason John gives why such a plea as this would be insufficient is,

for I say unto you; I assure you of it; you may depend on it as a certain truth,

that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. To "raise up children" is an Hebrew way of speaking, and the same with שם or להקים זרע to "raise up seed", or a "name" to another, Gen 38:8 and signifies to beget children for another, who are to be called by his name. Some by "the stones" understand the Gentiles, comparable to stones, both for the hardness of their hearts, and their idolatry in worshipping stocks and stones; of and among whom God was able to raise, and has raised up, a spiritual seed to Abraham; who are of the same faith with him, who walk in his steps, and whose father he is: but then it must be supposed, according to this sense, that there were some Gentiles present, since John calls them "these" stones, pointing to some persons or things, that were before him; wherefore I rather think that this phrase is to be taken literally, and that John pointed to some certain stones that were near him, within sight, and which lay upon the banks of Jordan, where he was baptizing; for what is it that the omnipotent God cannot do? He could as easily of stones make men, as make Adam out of the dust of the earth, and then make these men, in a spiritual sense, children of Abraham; that is, believers in Christ, and partakers of his "grace; for if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise", Gal 3:29. So that God stood in no need of these persons, nor had they any reason to boast of their natural descent from Abraham; since this in spiritual matters, and in things relating to the Gospel dispensation, would stand them in no stead, or be of any advantage to them.

Gill: Mat 3:10

And now also the axe is laid,.... These words may be rendered, "for now also", and contain in them a reason why they might expect future wrath; why they should bring forth good fruit; and why they should not trust to nor plead their descent from Abraham, because "the axe is now laid": by which is meant, not the Gospel which now began to be preached by John; though this was like an axe laid to the root of, and which cut down, their pride and vanity, their self-confidence and glorying in their righteousness, holiness, carnal wisdom, and fleshly privileges: but rather; the axe of God's judgment and vengeance is here designed, which, because of the certainty and near approach of it, is said to be "now laid"; and that not to some of the branches only, to lop them off, to take away from the Jews some particular privileges, but "to the root" of all their privileges, civil and ecclesiastical; even the covenant which God had made with that people as a nation, who was now about to write "Lo Ammi" upon them; so that henceforward they would have nothing to expect from their being the seed of Abraham, Israelites, or circumcised persons. The time was just at hand, when the Lord would take his "staff Beauty and cut it asunder, that he might break the covenant he had made with all the people", Zec 11:10 in a short time their civil polity and church state would be both at an end. The Romans, who were already among them and over them, would very quickly come upon them, and cut them off root and branch; and utterly destroy their temple, city, and nation: and this ruin and destruction was levelled not at a single tree, a single person, or family only, as Jesse's, or any others, but at the root

of the trees: of all the trees of the whole body of the people; for the covenant which was made with them all being broke, and which was their hedge and fence, they were all exposed to the wild boar of the forest.

Therefore every tree, every individual person, though one of Abraham's children, and made never such a fair show in the

flesh, which bringeth not forth good fruit; does not perform good works from a right principle, to a right end, such as are meet for repentance; particularly, does not believe in the Messiah now ready to be revealed, which is the main and principal work; and does not continue so doing, and thus believing,

is hewn down and cast into the fire. Temporal ruin and destruction shall come upon him; he shall not escape divine vengeance here, and shall be cast into everlasting burnings hereafter; which is quite contrary to a notion of theirs, that בזכותי דאברהם "by the merits of Abraham", the Israelites shall be delivered from the fire of hell ^d.

Gill: Mat 3:11

I indeed baptize you with water,.... These words, at first view, look as if they were a continuation of John's discourse with the Pharisees and Sadducees, and as though he had baptized them; whereas by comparing them with what the other Evangelists relate, see Mar 1:5 they are spoken to the people, who, confessing their sins, had been baptized by him; to whom he gives an account of the ordinance of water baptism, of which he was the administrator, in what manner, and on what account he performed it:

I indeed baptize you; or, as Mark says, "I have baptized you"; I have authority from God so to do; my commission reaches thus far, and no farther; I can administer, and have administered the outward ordinance to you; but the inward grace and increase of it, together with the ordinary and extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, I cannot confer. I can, and do baptize, upon a profession of repentance, and I can threaten impenitent sinners with divine vengeance; but I cannot bestow the grace of repentance on any, nor punish for impenitence, either here or hereafter; these things are out of my power, and belong to another person hereafter named: all that I do, and pretend to do, is to baptize

with water, or rather in water, as εν υδατι should be rendered. Our version seems to be calculated in favour of pouring, or sprinkling water upon, or application of it to the person baptized, in opposition to immersion in it; whereas the "preposition" is not instrumental, but local, and denotes the place, the river Jordan, and the element of water there, in which John was baptizing: and this he did

unto repentance, or "at", or upon "repentance": for so εις may be rendered, as it is in Mat 12:41 for the meaning is not that John baptized them, in order to bring them to repentance; since he required repentance and fruits meet for it, previous to baptism; but that he had baptized them upon the foot of their repentance; and so the learned Grotius observes, that the phrase may be very aptly explained thus: "I baptize you upon the `profession' of repentance which ye make." John gives a hint of the person whose forerunner he was, and of his superior excellency to him: he indeed first speaks of him as one behind him, not in nature or dignity, but in order of time as man;

but he that comes after me. John was born before Jesus, and began his ministry before he did; he was his harbinger; Jesus was now coming after him to Jordan from Galilee, to be baptized by him, and then enter on his public ministry: but though he came after him in this sense, he was not beneath, but above him in character; which he freely declares, saying,

is mightier than I; not only as he is the mighty God, and so infinitely mightier than he; but in his office and ministry, which was exercised with greater power and authority, and attended with mighty works and miracles, and was followed with the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit. Not to mention the mighty work of redemption performed by him; the resurrection of his own body from the dead; and his exaltation in human nature, above all power, might, and dominion. The Baptist was so sensible of the inequality between them, and of his unworthiness to be mentioned with him, that he seems at a loss almost to express his distance from him; and therefore signifies it by his being unfit to perform one of the most servile offices to him,

whose shoes I am not worthy to bear; or as the other Evangelists relate it, "whose shoelatchet I am not worthy to unloose"; which amounts to the same sense, since shoes are unloosed in order to be taken from, or carried before, or after a person; which to do was the work of servants among the Jews. In the Talmud ^e it is asked,

"What is the manner of possessing of servants? or what is their service? He buckles his (master's) shoes; he "unlooses his shoes", and "carries them before him to the bath."''

Or, as is elsewhere ^f said,

"he unlooses his shoes, or carries after him his vessels (whatever he wants) to the bath; he unclothes him, he washes him, he anoints him, he rubs him, he clothes him, he buckles his shoes, and lifts him up.''

This was such a servile work, that it was thought too mean for a scholar or a disciple to do; for it is ^g said,

"all services which a servant does for his master, a disciple does for his master, חוץ מהתרת לו מנעל, "except unloosing his shoes".''

The gloss on it says, "he that sees it, will say, he is a "Canaanitish servant":''

for only a Canaanitish, not an Hebrew servant ^h, might be employed in, or obliged to such work; for it was reckoned not only, mean and servile, but even base and reproachful. It is one of their ⁱ canons;

"if thy brother is become poor, and is sold unto thee, thou shalt not make him do the work of a servant; that is, נגאי עבורת של, any reproachful work; such as to buckle his shoes, or unloose them, or carry his instruments (or necessaries) after him to the bath.''

Now John thought himself unworthy; it was too great an honour for him to do that for Christ, which was thought too mean for a disciple to do for a wise man, and too scandalous for an Hebrew servant to do for his master, to whom he was sold; which shows the great humility of John, and the high opinion he had of Christ. It has been controverted whether Christ wore shoes or not; Jerom affirmed that he did not: but it seems from hence that he did; nor were the Jews used to walk barefoot, but on certain occasions. The Baptist points at the peculiar work of this great person, in which he greatly exceeds anything done by him;

he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire; referring, either to the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, to be bestowed on the disciples on the day of Pentecost, of which the cloven tongues, like as of fire, which appeared unto them, and sat upon them, were the symbols; which was an instance of the great power and grace of Christ, and of his exaltation at the Father's right hand. Or rather, this phrase is expressive of the awful judgments which should be inflicted by him on the Jewish nation; when he by his Spirit should "reprove" them for the sin of rejecting him; and when he should appear as a "refiner's fire", and as "fuller's soap"; when "the day of the Lord" should "burn as an oven"; when he should "purge the blood of Jerusalem", his own blood, and the blood of the Apostles and Prophets shed in it, "from the midst thereof, by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning"; the same with "the Holy Ghost and fire" here, or the fire of the Holy Ghost, or the holy Spirit of fire; and is the same with "the wrath to come", and with what is threatened in the context: the unfruitful trees shall be cut down, and cast into the fire", and the "chaff" shall be burnt with unquenchable fire". And as this sense best agrees with the context, it may the rather be thought to be genuine; since John is speaking not to the disciples of Christ, who were not yet called, and who only on the day of Pentecost were baptized with the Holy Ghost and fire, in the other sense of this phrase; but to the people of the Jews, some of whom had been baptized by him; and others were asking him questions, others gazing upon him, and wondering what manner of person he was; and multitudes of them continued obdurate and impenitent under his ministry, whom he threatens severely in the context. Add to all this, that the phrase of dipping or baptizing in fire seems to be used in this sense by the Jewish writers. In the Talmud ^k one puts the question, In what does he (God,) dip? You will say in water, as it is written, "who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand?" Another replies, בנורא טביל, "he dips in fire"; as it is written, "for behold the Lord will come with fire". What is the meaning of טבילותא בנורא, "baptism in fire?" He answers, according to the mind of Rabbah, the root of "dipping in the fire", is what is written; "all that abideth not the fire, ye shall make go" through the water. Dipping in the fire of the law, is a phrase used by the Jews ^l. The phrases of "dipping, and washing in fire", are also used by Greek ^m authors.

Gill: Mat 3:12

Whose fan is in his hand,.... The Jews had their hand fans, and which were like a man's hand; their names were מגוב מעבר מורה; which, as Maimonides says ⁿ, were three sorts of instruments used in the floor, in form of a man's hand; with which they cleansed the wheat and barley from the straw; and their names differ according to their form: some have many teeth, and with them they cleanse the wheat at the end of the work; and there are others that have few teeth, no more than three, and with these they purge the wheat at first, from the thick straw. By the "fan", here is meant, either the Gospel which Christ was just ready to publish; by which he would effectually call his chosen people among the Jews, and so distinguish and separate them from others, as well as purify and cleanse them, or rather the awful judgment of God, which Christ was ready to execute, and in a short time would execute on the unbelieving and impenitent Jews: hence it is said to be "in his hand"; being put there by his Father, who "hath committed all judgment to the Son". That this is the meaning of the "Baptist", seems evident, since "fanning" is always, when figuratively taken, used for judgments, Isa 41:16. By "his floor", is meant the land of Israel, where he was born, brought up, and lived; of which the Lord says, "O my threshing, and the corn of my floor!" Isa 21:10. This, he says, "he will thoroughly purge" of all his refuse and chaff, that is, by fanning: so fanning and cleansing, or purging, are joined together, Jer 4:11 so ברר is used for purging by fanning, in the Misnic writings ^o. By "his wheat", are meant his elect among the Jews, the chosen of God and precious; so called because of their excellency, purity, usefulness, solidity, and constancy: these he "will gather into his garner"; meaning either some place of protection, where he would direct his people to for safety from that wrath, ruin, and destruction; which should fall upon the Jewish nation; or else the kingdom of heaven, into which he would bring them, by taking them out of the world from the evil to come. By "the chaff", are meant wicked and ungodly persons, such as are destitute of the grace of God, whether professors, or profane; being empty, barren, and unfruitful; and so good for nothing but the fire, which therefore "he will burn with unquenchable fire", of divine wrath and vengeance: an allusion to a custom among the Jews, who, when they purified the increase of their unclean fields, gathered it together in an "area" or floor, in the midst of them, and then sifted it with sieves; one sort with two sieves, another with three, that they might thoroughly purge it, and burnt the chaff and stalks ^p; see Isa 5:24.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Mat 3:1

¹ tn Or “desert.”

NET Notes: Mat 3:2

¹ tn Grk “and saying, ‘Repent.’” The participle λέγων (legwn) at the beginning of v. 2 is redundant in English and has not been translated.

NET Notes: Mat 3:3

¹ tn Grk “was spoken of by Isaiah the prophet, saying.” The participle λέγοντος (legonto") is redundant and has not been translated. The passive construction has also been rendered as active in the translation for the sake of English style.

² tn Or “A voice.”

³ sn This call to “make paths straight” in this context is probably an allusion to preparation through repentance.

⁴ sn A quotation from Isa 40:3.

NET Notes: Mat 3:4

¹ sn John’s lifestyle was in stark contrast to many of the religious leaders of Jerusalem who lived in relative ease and luxury. While his clothing and diet were indicative of someone who lived in the desert, they also depicted him in his role as God’s prophet (cf. Zech 13:4); his appearance is similar to the Prophet Elijah (2 Kgs 1:8). Locusts and wild honey were a common diet in desert regions, and locusts (dried insects) are listed in Lev 11:22 among the “clean” foods.

NET Notes: Mat 3:5

¹ tn Grk “Then Jerusalem.”

map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

NET Notes: Mat 3:6

¹ tn Grk “they were being baptized by him.” The passive construction has been rendered as active in the translation for the sake of English style.

NET Notes: Mat 3:7

¹ sn Pharisees were members of one of the most important and influential religious and political parties of Judaism in the time of Jesus. There were more Pharisees than Sadducees (according to Josephus, Ant. 17.2.4 [17.42] there were more than 6,000 Pharisees at about this time). Pharisees differed with Sadducees on certain doctrines and patterns of behavior. The Pharisees were strict and zealous adherents to the laws of the OT and to numerous additional traditions such as angels and bodily resurrection.

² sn The Sadducees controlled the official political structures of Judaism at this time, being the majority members of the Sanhedrin. They were known as extremely strict on law and order issues (Josephus, J. W. 2.8.2 [2.119], 2.8.14 [2.164-166]; Ant. 13.5.9 [13.171-173], 13.10.6 [13.293-298], 18.1.2 [18.11], 18.1.4 [18.16-17], 20.9.1 [20.199]; Life 2 [10-11]). See also Matt 16:1-12; 22:23-34; Mark 12:18-27; Luke 20:27-38; Acts 5:17; 23:6-8.

NET Notes: Mat 3:8

¹ sn Fruit worthy of repentance refers to the deeds that indicate a change of attitude (heart) on the part of John’s hearers.

² tn Grk “fruit worthy of.”

NET Notes: Mat 3:10

¹ sn Laid at the root. That is, placed and aimed, ready to begin cutting.

NET Notes: Mat 3:11

¹ tn Grk “of whom I am not worthy.”

sn The humility of John is evident in the statement I am not worthy. This was considered one of the least worthy tasks of a slave, and John did not consider himself worthy to do even that for the one to come, despite the fact he himself was a prophet.

² sn With the Holy Spirit and fire. There are differing interpretations for this phrase regarding the number of baptisms and their nature. (1) Some see one baptism here, and this can be divided further into two options. (a) The baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire could refer to the cleansing, purifying work of the Spirit in the individual believer through salvation and sanctification, or (b) it could refer to two different results of Christ’s ministry: Some accept Christ and are baptized with the Holy Spirit, but some reject him and receive judgment. (2) Other interpreters see two baptisms here: The baptism of the Holy Spirit refers to the salvation Jesus brings at his first advent, in which believers receive the Holy Spirit, and the baptism of fire refers to the judgment Jesus will bring upon the world at his second coming. One must take into account both the image of fire and whether individual or corporate baptism is in view. A decision is not easy on either issue. The image of fire is used to refer to both eternal judgment (e.g., Matt 25:41) and the power of the Lord’s presence to purge and cleanse his people (e.g., Isa 4:4-5). The pouring out of the Spirit at Pentecost, a fulfillment of this prophecy no matter which interpretation is taken, had both individual and corporate dimensions. It is possible that since Holy Spirit and fire are governed by a single preposition in Greek, the one-baptism view may be more likely, but this is not certain. Simply put, there is no consensus view in scholarship at this time on the best interpretation of this passage.

NET Notes: Mat 3:12

¹ sn A winnowing fork was a pitchfork-like tool used to toss threshed grain in the air so that the wind blew away the chaff, leaving the grain to fall to the ground. The note of purging is highlighted by the use of imagery involving sifting though threshed grain for the useful kernels.

² tn Or “granary,” “barn” (referring to a building used to store a farm’s produce rather than a building to house livestock).

³ sn The image of fire that cannot be extinguished is from the OT: Job 20:26; Isa 34:8-10; 66:24.

Geneva Bible: Mat 3:1

In ^{( a )} those days came ^{( 1 )} John the Baptist, preaching in the ^{( b )} wilderness of Judaea,

^{( a )} Not when Joseph went to dwell at Nazareth, but a great while after, about fifteen years: for in the 30th year of his life Jesus was baptized by John: therefore "those days" means the time when Jesus remained as an inhabitant of the town of Nazareth. ^{( 1 )} John, who through his singular holiness and rare austerity of life caused men to cast their eyes on him, prepares the way for Christ who is following fast on his heels, as the prophet Isaiah foretold, and delivers the sum of the gospel, which a short time later would be delivered more fully.

^{( b )} In a hilly country, which was nonetheless inhabited, for Zacharias dwelt there, (Luk 1:39-40), and there was Joab's house, (1Ki 2:34); and besides these, Joshua makes mention of six towns that were in the wilderness, (Jos 15:61-62).

Geneva Bible: Mat 3:2

And saying, ^{( c )} Repent ye: for the ^{( d )} kingdom of heaven is at hand.

^{( c )} The word in the greek signifies a changing of our minds and heart from evil to better.

^{( d )} The kingdom of Messiah, whose government will be heavenly, and nothing but heavenly.

Geneva Bible: Mat 3:3

For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, ^{( e )} make his paths straight.

^{( e )} Make him a plain and smooth way.

Geneva Bible: Mat 3:4

And the same John had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was ^{( f )} locusts and wild honey.

^{( f )} Locusts were a type of meat which certain of the eastern people use, who were therefore called devourers of locusts.

Geneva Bible: Mat 3:5

Then went out to him ^{( g )} Jerusalem, and all Judaea, and all the region round about Jordan,

^{( g )} The people of Jerusalem.

Geneva Bible: Mat 3:6

And were baptized of him in Jordan, ^{( h )} confessing their sins.

^{( h )} Acknowledging that they were saved only by free remission and forgiveness of their sins.

Geneva Bible: Mat 3:7

^{( 2 )} But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

^{( 2 )} There is nothing that shuts up the way of mercy and salvation from us so much as the opinion of our own righteousness does.

Geneva Bible: Mat 3:8

^{( 3 )} Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance:

^{( 3 )} True repentance is an inward thing which has its seat in the mind and heart.

Geneva Bible: Mat 3:9

^{( 4 )} And ^{( i )} think not to say ^{( k )} within yourselves, We have Abraham to [our] father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.

^{( 4 )} The faith of the fathers does not benefit you unbelieving children at all: and yet for all that, God does not play the liar, nor deal unfaithfully in his covenant which he made with the holy fathers.

^{( i )} Think not that you have any reason to be proud of Abraham.

^{( k )} In your hearts.

Geneva Bible: Mat 3:11

^{( 5 )} I indeed baptize you with water unto ^{( l )} repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit, and [with] fire:

^{( 5 )} We may neither dwell upon the signs which God has ordained as means to lead us into our salvation, neither upon those that minister them: but we must climb up to the matter itself, that is to say, to Christ, who inwardly works that effectually, which is outwardly signified to us.

^{( l )} The outward sign reminds us of this, that we must change our lives and become better, assuring us as by a seal, that we are ingrafted into Christ; by which our old man dies and the new man rises up; (Rom 6:4).

Geneva Bible: Mat 3:12

^{( 6 )} Whose fan [is] in his hand, and he will throughly ^{( m )} purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

^{( 6 )} The triumphs of the wicked will end in everlasting torment.

^{( m )} Will clean it thoroughly, and make a full riddance.

Commentary -- Verse Range Notes

TSK Synopsis: Mat 3:1-17

1 John preaches: his office, life, and baptism.

7 He reprehends the Pharisees,

13 and baptizes Christ in Jordan.

Maclaren: Mat 3:1-12

The Herald Of The King

In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, 2. And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. 3. For this is He that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make His paths straight. 4. And the same John had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey. 5. Then went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judaea, and all the region round about Jordan, 6. And were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins. 7. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8. Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance: 9. And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. 10. And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. 11. I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire: 12. Whose fan is in His hand, and He will throughly purge His floor, and gather His wheat into the garner; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.'--Matt. 3:1-12.

MATTHEW'S Gospel is emphatically the Gospel of the kingdom. The keynote sounded in the story of the Magi dominates the whole. We have stood by the cradle of the King, and seen the homage and the dread which surrounded it. We have seen the usurper's hatred and the divine guardianship. Now we hear the voice of the herald of the King. This section may be conveniently treated as falling into two parts: the first, from Matt. 3:1-6, a general outline of the Baptist's person and work; the second, from Matt. 3:7 to end, a more detailed account of his preaching.

I. We Have An Outline Sketch Of The Herald And Of His Work.

The voice of prophecy had fallen silent for four hundred years. Now, when it is once more heard, it sounds in exactly the same key as when it ceased. Its last word had been the prediction of the day of the Lord, and of the coming of Elijah once more. John was Elijah over again. There were the same garb, the same isolation, the same fearlessness, the same grim, gaunt strength, the same fiery energy of rebuke which bearded kings in the full fury of their self-will. Elijah, Ahab, and Jezebel have their doubles in John, Herod, and Herodias. The closing words of Malachi, which Matthew, singularly enough, does not quote, are the best explication of the character and work of the Baptist. His portrait is flung on the canvas with the same startling abruptness with which Elijah is introduced. Matthew makes no allusion to his relationship to Jesus, has nothing to say about his birth or long seclusion in the desert. He gives no hint that his vague expression in these days' covers thirty years. John leaps, as it were, into the arena full grown and full armed. His work is described by one word--preaching'; out of which all modern associations, which have too often made it a synonym for long-winded tediousness and toothless platitudes, must be removed. It means proclaiming, or acting as a herald, and implies the uplifted voice and the brief, urgent message of one who runs before the chariot, and shouts, The king I the king!'

His message is summed up in two sentences, two blasts of the trumpet: the call to repentance, and the rousing proclamation that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. In the former he but reproduces the tone of earlier prophecy, when he insists on a thorough change of disposition and a true sorrow for sin. But he advances far beyond his precursors in the latter, which is the reason for repentance. They had seen the vision of the kingdom and the King, but not nigh.' He has to peal into the drowsy ears of a generation which had almost forgotten the ancient hope, that it was at the very threshold. Like some solitary stern crag which catches the light of the sun yet unrisen but hastening upwards, long before the shadowed valleys, John flamed above his generation, all aglow with the light, as the witness that in another moment it would spring above the eastern horizon. But he sees that this is no joyful message to them. Nothing is more remarkable in his preaching than the sombre hues with which his expectation of the day of the Lord is coloured. To what purpose is the day of the Lord to you? It is darkness and not light'; it is to be judgment, therefore repentance is the preparation.

The gleam and purity of lofty spiritual ideas are soon darkened, as a film forms on quicksilver after short exposure. John's contemporaries thought that the kingdom of heaven meant exclusive privileges, and their rule over the heathen. They had all but lost the thought that it meant first God's rule over their wills, and their harmony with the glad obedience of heaven. They had to be rudely shaken out of their self-complacency and taught that the livery of the King was purity, and the preparation for His coming, penitence.

The next touch in this outline sketch is John's fulfilment of prophecy. Matthew probably knew that wonderfully touching and lowly answer of his to the deputation from the ecclesiastical authorities, which at once claimed prophetic authority and disclaimed personal importance,' I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness.' The prophecy in its original application refers to the preparation of a path in the desert, for Jehovah coming to redeem His people from captivity. The use made of it by Matthew, and endorsed by all the evangelists, rests on the principle, without which we have no clue to the significance of the Old Testament, that the history of Israel is prophetic, and that the bondage and deliverance are types of the sorer captivity from which Christ redeems, and of the grander deliverance which He effects.

Our evangelist gives a vivid picture of the asceticism of John, which was one secret, as our Lord pointed out, of his hold on the people. The more luxuriously self-indulgent men are, the more are they fascinated by religious self-denial. A man clothed in soft raiment' would have drawn no crowds. A religious teacher must be clearly free from sensual appetites and love of ease, if he is to stir the multitude. John's rough garb and coarse food were not assumed by him to create an impression. He was no mere imitator of the old prophets, though he wore a robe like Elijah's. His asceticism was the expression of his severe, solitary spirit, detached from the delights of sense, and even from the softer play of loves, because the coming kingdom flamed ever before him, and the age seemed to him to be rotting and ready for the fire. There is no need to bring in irrelevant learning about Essenes to account for his mode of life. The thoughts which burned in him drove him into the wilderness. He who was possessed with them could not come eating and drinking,' and might well seem to sense-bound wonderers as if some demonic force, other than ordinary motives, tyrannised over him.

The last point in this brief resume of John's work is the universal excitement which it produced. He did not come out of the desert with his message. If men would hear it, they must go to him. And they went. All the southern portion of the country seemed to empty itself into the wilderness. Sleeping national hopes revived, the awe of the coming judgment seized all classes. It was so long since a fiery soul had scattered flaming words, and religious teachers had for so many centuries been mumbling the old well-worn formulas, and splitting hairs, that it was an apocalypse to hear once more the accent of conviction from a man who really believed every word he said, and himself thrilled with the solemn truths which he thundered. Wherever a religious teacher shows that he has John's qualities, as our Lord in His eulogium analysed them--namely, unalterable resolution, like an iron pillar, and not like a reed shaken with the wind, conspicuous superiority to considerations of ease and comfort, a direct vision of the unseen, and a message from God, the crowds will go out to see him; and even if the enthusiasm be shallow and transient, some spasm of conviction will pass across many a conscience, and some will be pointed by him to the King.

II. The Second Portion Of This Section Is A More Detailed Account Of John's Preaching.

Which Matthew gives as addressed to the Pharisees and Sadducees. We are not to suppose that at any time John had a congregation exclusively made up of such; nor that these words were addressed to them only. What is emphasised is the fact that among the crowds were many of both these parties, the religious aristocrats who represented two tendencies of mind bitterly antagonistic, and each unlikely to be drawn to the prophet. Self-righteous pedants who had turned religion into a jumble of petty precepts, and very superior persons who keenly appreciated the good things of this world, and were too enlightened to have much belief in anything, and too comfortable to be enthusiasts, were not hopeful material If they were drawn into the current, it must have run strong indeed. These representatives of the highest and coldest classes of the nation had the very same red-hot words flung at them as the mob had. Luke tells us that the first words in this summary were spoken to the people. Both representations are true. All fared alike. So they should, and so they always will, if a real prophet has to talk to them. John's salutation is excessively rough and rude. Honeyed words were not in his line; he had not lived in the desert for all these years, and held converse with God and his own heart, without having learned that his business was to smite on conscience with a strong hand, and to tear away the masks which hid men from themselves. The whole spirit of the old prophets was revived in his brusque, almost fierce, address to such very learned, religious, and distinguished personages. Isaiah in his day had called their predecessors rulers of Sodom'; John was not scolding when he called his hearers ye offspring of vipers,' but charging them with moral corruption and creeping earthliness.

The summary of his preaching is like a succession of lightning flashes. We can but note in a word or two each flash as it flames and strikes. The remarkable thing about his teaching is that, in his hands, the great hope of Israel became a message of terror, the proclamation of the impending kingdom passed into a denunciation of' the wrath to come,' set forth with a tremendous wealth of imagery as the axe lying at the root of the trees, the fan winnowing the wheat from the chaff, the destroying fire. That wrath was inseparable from the coming of the King; for His righteous reign necessarily meant punishment of unrighteousness. So all the older prophets had said, and John was but carrying on their testimony. So Christ has said. No more terrible warnings of the certain judgment of evil which is involved in His merciful work, have ever been given, than fell from the lips into which grace was poured. We need to-day a clearer discernment of the truth which flamed before John's eyes, that the full proclamation of the kingdom of heaven must include the plain teaching of' the wrath to come.'

Next comes the urgent demand for reformation of life as the sign of real repentance. John's exhortation does not touch the deepest ground for repentance which is laid in the heart-softening love of God manifested in the sacrifice of His Son, but is based wholly on the certainty of judgment. So far, it is incomplete; but the demand for righteous living as the only test of religious emotion is fully Christian, and needed in this generation as much as it ever was. All preachers and others concerned in revivals' may well learn a lesson, and while they follow John in seeking to arouse torpid consciences by the terrors which are a part of the gospel, should not forget to demand, not merely an emotional repentance, but the solid fruits which alone guarantee the worth of the emotion.

The next flash strikes the lofty structure of confidence in their descent. John knows that every man in that listening crowd believes that his birth secured him joy and dominion when Messiah came. So he wrenches away this shield against which his sharpest arrows were blunted. What a murmur of angry denial must have met his contemptuous, audacious denial of their trusted privilege! The pebbles on the Jordan beach, or the loose rocks scattered so plentifully over the desert, could be made as good sons of Abraham as they. A glimpse of the transference of the kingdom to the despised Gentiles passed across his vision. And in these far-reaching words lay the anticipation, not only of the destruction of all Jewish exclusiveness, but of the miracles of quickening to be wrought on the stony hearts of those beyond its pale.

Once more with a new emblem the immediate beginning of the judgment is proclaimed, and its principles and issues are declared. The sharp axe lies at the roots of the tree, ready to be lifted and buried in its bark. The woodman's eye is looking over the forest; he marks with the fatal red line the worthless trees, and at once the swinging blows come down, and the timber is carted away to be burned. The trees are men. The judgment is an individualising one, and all-embracing. Nothing but actual righteousness of life will endure. All else will be destroyed.

The coming of the kingdom implied the coming of the King. John knew that the King was a man, and that He was at the door. So his sermon reaches its climax in the ringing proclamation of His advent. The first noticeable feature in it is the utter humility of the dauntless prophet before the yet veiled Sovereign. All the fiery force, the righteous scorn and anger, the unflinching bravery, melt into meek submission. He knows the limits of his own power, and gladly recognises the infinite superiority of the coming One. He never moved from that lowly attitude. Even when his followers tried to stir up base jealousy in him at being distanced by the Christ, who, as they suggested, owed His first recognition to him, all that his immovable self-abnegation cared to answer was, He must increase, but I must decrease.' He was glad to fade in the light of the Sun that he loved.' What a wealth of suppressed emotion and lowly love there is in the words so pathetic from the lips of the lonely ascetic, whom no home joys had ever cheered: He that hath the bride is the bridegroom My joy is fulfilled!

Note, too, the grand conception of the gifts of the King. John knew that his baptism was, like the water in which he immersed, cold, and incapable of giving life. It symbolised, but did not effect, cleansing, any more than his preaching righteousness could produce righteousness. But the King would come, bringing with Him the gift of a mighty Spirit, whose quick energy, transforming dead matter into its own likeness, burning out the foul stains from character, and melting cold hearts into radiant warmth, should do all that his poor, cold, outward baptism only shadowed. Form and substance of this great promise gather up many Old Testament utterances. From of old, fire had been the emblem of the divine nature, not only, nor chiefly, as destructive, but rather as life-giving, cleansing, gladdening, fructifying, transforming. From of old, the promise of a divine Spirit poured out on all flesh had been connected with the kingdom of Messiah; and John but reiterates the uniform voice of prophecy, even as he anticipates the crowning gift of the gospel, in this saying.

Note, further, the renewed prophecy of judgment. There is something very solemn in the stern refrain at the end of each of three consecutive verses,--with fire.' The first and the third refer to the destructive fire; the second, to the cleansing Spirit. But the fire that destroys is not unconnected with that which purifies. And the very same divine flame, if welcomed and yielded to, works purity, and if repelled and scorned, consumes. The rustic simplicity of the figures of the husbandman with his winnowing-shovel, the threshing-floor exposed to every wind, the stored wheat, the rootless, lifeless, worthless chaff, and the fierce fire in some corner of the autumn field where it is utterly burned up--needs no comment. They add nothing but another vivid picture to the thoughts already dealt with. But the question arises as to the whole of the representation of judgment here: Does it look beyond the present world? I see no reason for supposing that John was speaking about anything but the sifting and destroying which would attend the coming of the looked-for kingdom on earth. The principles which he laid down are, no doubt, true for both worlds; but the application of them which his prophetic mission embraced, lies on this side of the grave.

Note, further, the limitations in John's knowledge of the King. His prophecy unites, as contemporaneous, events which, in fact, are widely separate, the coming of Christ, and the judgments which He executes, whether on Israel or in the final great day of the Lord.' There is no perspective in prophecy. The future is foreshortened, and great gulfs of centuries are passed over, as, standing on a plain, we see it as continuous, though it may really be cleft by deep ravines. He did not know what manner of time' the spirit which was in him did signify.' No doubt his expectations were correct, in so far as Christ's coming really sifted and separated, and was the rising and the falling of many; but it was not attended by such tokens as John inferred. Hence we can understand his doubts when in prison, and learn that a prophet was often mistaken as to the meaning of his message.

Again, while we have here a clear prediction of the Spirit as bestowed by Christ, we find no hint of His work as the sacrifice for sin, through whom the guilt which no repentance and no outward baptism could touch was taken away. The Gospel of John gives us later utterances of the Baptist's, by which we learn that he advanced beyond the point at which he stood here. Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world,' was his message after Christ's baptism. It is the last, highest voice of prophecy. The proclamation of a kingdom of heaven, of a king mighty and righteous, whose coming kindled a fire of judgment, and a blessed fire of purifying, into one or other of which all men must be plunged, contained elements of terror, as well as of hope. It needed completion by that later word.

When John stretched out his forefinger, and with awe-struck voice bade his hearers look at Jesus coming to him, prophecy had done its work. The promise had been gradually concentrated on the nation, the tribe, the house, and now it falls on the person. The dove narrows its circling flight till it lights on His head. The goal has boon reached, too, in the clear declaration of Messiah's work. He is King, Giver of the Spirit, Judge, but He is before all else the Sacrifice for the world's sins. Therefore he to whom it was given to utter that great saying was a prophet, and more than a prophet; and when he had spoken it, there was nothing more for him to do but to decrease. He was like the breeze before sunrise, which springs up, as crying' The dawn! the dawn!' and dies away.

Maclaren: Mat 3:11

The Baptism In Fire

He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire.'--Matt. 3:11.

THERE is no more pathetic figure in Scripture than that of the forerunner of our Lord. Lonely and ascetic, charged to fight against all the social order of which he was a part, seeing many of his disciples leave him for another master; then changing the free wilderness for a prison cell, and tortured by morbid doubts; finally murdered as the victim of a profligate woman's hate and a profligate man's perverse sense of honour: he had indeed to bear the burden of the Lord.' But perhaps most pathetic of all is the combination in his character of gaunt strength and absolute humility. How he confronts these people whom he had to rebuke, and yet how, in a moment, the flashing eye sinks in lowest self-abasement before Him that cometh after me'! How true, amidst many temptations, he was to his own description of himself: I am a voice'--nothing more. His sinewy arm was ever pointed to the Lamb of God.' It is given to very few to know so clearly their limits, and to still fewer --and these, men who keep very near God--to abide so contentedly within them, and to acquiesce so thankfully in the brightening glories of One whom self-importance and ambition would prompt to take for a rival and an enemy.

The words before us signalise at once John's lofty conception of the worth of his work, and his humble consciousness of its worthlessness as compared with Christ's. I indeed baptize you with water, but He with fire.' As is the difference between the two elements, so is the difference between His ministry and mine, the one effecting an outward cleansing, the other being an inward penetrating power, which shah search men through and through, and, burning, shall purge away dross and filth. The text comes in the midst of a triple representation of our Lord's work in its relation to his, each portion of which ends with the refrain, the fire.' But these three fires have not the same effects. The first and last destroy, the second cleanses. These are threatenings, but this is altogether a promise. There is a fire that consumes the barren tree and the light chaff that is whirled from the threshing-floor by the wind of His fan; but there is also a fire that, like the genial heat in some greenhouse, makes even the barren tree glow with blossom, and loads its branches with precious fruit. His coming may kindle fire that will destroy, but its merciful purpose is to plunge us into that fiery baptism of the Holy Ghost, whereof the result is cleansing and life. Looking at the words before us, then, they lead us to think of that emblem of the Spirit of God, of Christ as bestowing it, and of its effects on us. I venture to offer a few considerations now on each of these points.

I. The Holy Spirit Is Fire.

It would scarcely be necessary to spend any time in illustrating that truth, but for the strange misapprehension of the words of our text which I believe to be not uncommon. People sometimes read them as if the first portion referred to those who trust in Christ, and who therefore receive the blessings of His sanctifying energy, whilst the latter words, on the other hand, were a threatening against unbelievers. Now, whatever may be the meaning of the emblem in the preceding and subsequent clauses, it can have but one meaning in our text itself--and that is, the purifying influence of the Spirit of God. Baptism with the Holy Ghost is not one thing and baptism with fire another, but the former is the reality of which the latter is the symbol.

It may be worth while to dwell briefly on the force of the emblem, which is often misunderstood. Fire, then, all over the world has been taken to represent the divine energy. Even in heathendom, side by side with the worship of light was the worship of fire. Even that cruel Moloch-worship, with all its abominations, rested upon the notion that the swift power and ruddy blaze of fire were symbols of glorious attributes. Though the thought was darkened and marred, wrongly apprehended and ferociously worked out in ritual, it was a true thought for all that. And Scripture has from the beginning used it. It would carry us too far to enumerate the instances which might be adduced. But we may quote a few. When the covenant was made between God and Abraham, upon which all the subsequent revelation reposed, the divine presence was represented by a smoking furnace, and a lamp of fire that passed between the divided pieces of the sacrifice. When the great revelation of the divine Name was given to Moses, which prepared for the great deliverance from Egypt, the sign of it was a thorn-bush--one of the many dotted over the desert--burning and unconsumed. Surely the ordinary interpretation, which sees, in that undying flame, an emblem of Israel undestroyed in the furnace of bondage, is less natural than that which sees in it a sign having the same purpose and the same meaning as the deep words, I am that I am.' The Name, the revelation proper, is accompanied by the sign which expresses in figure the very same truths the unwearied power, the undecaying life of the great self-existent God, who wills and does not change, who acts and does not faint, who gives and is none the poorer, who fills the universe and is Himself the same, who burns and is not consumed--the I am.' Further, we remember how to Israel the pledge and sacramental seal of God's guardianship and guidance was the pillar which, in the fervid light of the noonday sun, seemed to be but a column of wavering smoke, but which, when the darkness fell, glowed at the heart and blazed across the sleeping camp, a fiery guard. Who among us,' says the prophet, shall dwell with everlasting burnings?' The answer is a parallel to the description given in one of the Psalms in reply to the question, Lord, who shall abide in Thy tabernacle?' From which parallelism, as well as from the whole tone of the passage, the conclusion is unavoidable that to Isaiah everlasting burnings' was a symbolic designation of God. And, passing by all other references, we remember that our Lord Himself used the same emblem, as John does, with apparently the same meaning, when, yearning for the fulfilment of His work, He said,' I am come to send fire on earth --oh that it were already kindled!' The day of Pentecost teaches the same lesson by its fiery tongues; and the Seer in Patmos beheld, burning before the throne, the sevenfold lamps of fire which are the seven spirits of God.'

Thus, then, there is a continuous chain of symbolism according to which some aspect of the divine nature, and especially of the Spirit of God, is set forth for us by fire. The question, then, comes to be--what is that aspect? In answer, I would remind you that the attributes and offices of the Spirit of God are never in Scripture represented as being destructive, and are only punitive, in so far as the convictions of sin, which He works in the heart, may be regarded as being punishments. The fire of God's Spirit, at all events, is not a wrathful energy, working pain and death, but a merciful omnipotence, bringing light and joy and peace. The Spirit which is fire is a Spirit which giveth life. So the symbol, in the special reference in the text, has nothing of terror or destruction but is full of hope and bright with promise.

Even in its more general application to the divine nature, the same thing is to a large extent true. The common impression is the reverse of this. The interpretation which most readers unconsciously supply to the passages of Scripture where God is spoken of as flaming fire, is that God's terrible wrath is revealed in them. I am very far from denying that the punitive and destructive side of the divine character is in the symbol, but certainly that is not its exclusive meaning, nor does it seem to me to be its principal one. The emblem is employed over and over again, in connections where it must mean chiefly the blessed and joyous aspect of God's Name to men. It is unquestionably part of the felicity of the symbol that there should be in it this double force--for so is it the fitter to show forth Him who, by the very same attributes, is the life of those who love Him and the death of those who turn from Him. But, still, though it is true that the bright and the awful aspects of that Name are in themselves one, and that their difference arises from the difference of the eyes which behold them, yet we are justified, I think, in saying that this emblem of fire regards mainly the former of these and not the latter. The principal ideas in it seem to be swift energy and penetrating power, which cleanses and transforms. It is fire as the source of light and heat; it is fire, not so much as burning up what it seizes into ashes, but rather as laying hold upon cold dead matter, making it sparkle and blaze, and turning it into the likeness of its own leaping brightness; it is fire as springing heavenwards, and bearing up earthly particles in its shooting spires; it is fire, as least gross of visible things;--in a word, it is fire as life, and not as death, that is the symbol of God. It speaks of the might of His transforming power, the melting, Cleansing, vitalising influence of His communicated grace, the warmth of His conquering love. It has, indeed, an under side of possible judgment, punishment, and destruction, but it has a face of blessing, of life-giving, of sanctifying power. And therefore the Baptist spake glad tidings when he said, He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire.'

II. Christ Plunges Us Into This Divine Fire.

I presume that scarcely any one will deny that our version weakens the force of John's words by translating' with water, with the Holy Ghost,' instead of in water, in the Holy Ghost.' One of the most accurate of recent commentators, for instance, in his remarks on this verse, says that the preposition here is to be understood in accordance with the idea of baptism that is immersion, not as expressing the instrument with which, but as meaning "in," and expressing the element in which the immersion takes place.' I suppose that very few persons would hesitate to agree with that statement. If it is correct, what a grand idea is conveyed by that metaphor of the completeness of the contact with the Spirit of God into which we are brought! How it represents all our being as flooded with that transforming power! But, apart from the intensity communicated to the promise by such a figure, there is another important matter brought distinctly before us by the words, and that is Christ's personal agency in effecting this saturating of man's coldness with the fire from God. This testimony of John's is in full accord with Christ's claims for Himself, and with the whole tenor of Scripture on the subject, He is the Lord of the Spirit. He is come to scatter that fire on the earth. He brings the ruddy gift from heaven to mortals, carrying it in the bruised reed of His humanity; and, in pursuance of His merciful design, He is bound and suffers for our sakes, but, loosed at last from the bands by which it was not possible that He should be holden, and being by the right hand of God exalted, He hath shed forth this.' His mighty work opens the way for the life-giving power of the Spirit to dwell as an habitual principle, and not as a mere occasional gift, among men, sanctifying their characters from the foundation, and not merely, as of old, bestowing special powers for special functions. He claims to send us the Comforter. We know but little of such high themes, but we can clearly see that, while there may be many other reasons for the full bestowment of the Spirit of God having to be preceded by the gift of Christ, one reason must be that the measure of individual and subjective inspiration varies according to the amount of objective revelation. The truth revealed is the condition and the instrument of the Spirit's working. The sharper that sword of the Spirit is, the mightier will be His power. Hence, only when the revelation of God is complete by the message of His Son, His life, death, resurrection, and ascension, was the full, permanent gift of the Spirit possible, not to make new revelations, but to unfold all that lay in the Word spoken once for all, in whom the whole Name of God is contained.

However that may be, the main thing for us, dear friends, is this--that Christ gives the Spirit. In and by Jesus, you and I are brought into real contact with this cleansing fire. Without His work, it would never have burned on earth; without our faith in His work it will never purify our souls. The Spirit of God is not a synonym for the moral influence which the principles of Christianity exert on men who believe them; but these principles, the truths revealed in Jesus Christ, are the means by which the Spirit works its noblest work. Our acceptance of these truths, then, our faith in Him whom these truths reveal, is absolutely essential to our possession of that cleansing power. The promise is of that Spirit which they that believe on Him should receive.' If we have no faith in Jesus, then, however we may fancy that the gift of God can be ours by other means, the stern answer comes to our fond delusions and mistaken efforts, Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter.' Oh! you who are seeking for spiritual elevation, for intellectual enlightenment, for the fire of a noble enthusiasm, for the consecration of pure hearts, anywhere but in Christ your Lord, will you not listen to the majestic and yet lowly voice, which blends in its tones grave and loving rebuke, gentle pity, wonder and sorrow at our blindness, earnest entreaty, and divine authority--If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that speaketh to thee, thou wouldst have asked of Him, and He would have given thee living water'?

Here are we cold, foul, dark, dead: there is that fire of God able to cleanse, to enlighten, to give life. How is true contact to be effected between our great need and His all-sufficient energy? One voice brings the answer for every Christian soul, I will" send the Comforter.' Brethren, let us cleave to Him, and in humble faith ask Him to plunge us into that fiery stream which, for all its fire, is yet a river of water of life proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. He shall baptize you in the Holy Ghost and in fire.'

III. That Fiery Baptism Quickens And Cleanses.

In John's mind, the difference between the two baptisms, his and the Christ's, expresses accurately the difference between the two ministries and their effects. As has been truly and beautifully said, he is conscious of something cold and negative' in his own teaching, of which the water of his baptism is a fit representation. His message is divine and true, but it is hard: Repent, do what you ought, wait for the Kingdom and its King.' And, when his command has been obeyed, his disciples come up out of Jordan, at the best but superficially cleansed, and needing that the process begun in them should be perfected by mightier powers than any which his message wields. They need more than that outward washing--they need an inward cleansing; they need more than the preaching of repentance and morality--they need a gift of life; they need a new power poured into their souls, the fiery steam of which, as it rolls along, like a lava current through mountain forests, shall seize and burn every growth of evil in their natures. They need not water, but Spirit; not water, but Fire. They need what shall be life to their truest life, and death to all the death within, that separates them from the life of God.

So the two main effects expressed here are these: quickening and cleansing.

Fire gives warmth. We talk about ardent desires, warm hearts, the glow of love, the fire of enthusiasm, and even the flame of life. We draw the contrast with cold natures, which are loveless and unemotional, hard to stir and quicken; we talk about thawing reserve, about an icy torpor, and so on. The same general strain of allusion is undoubtedly to be traced in our text. Whatever more it means, it surely means this, that Christ comes to kindle in men's souls a blaze of enthusiastic, divine love, such as the world never saw, and to set them aflame with fervent earnestness, which shall melt all their icy hardness of heart, and turn cold self-regard into self-forgetting consecration.

Here, then, our text touches upon one of the very profoundest characteristics of Christianity considered as a power in human life. The contrast between it and all other religions and systems of ethics lies, amongst other things, in the stress which it lays upon love and on the earnestness which comes from love; whereas these are scarcely regarded as elements in virtue according to the world, and have certainly no place at all in the world's notion of temperate religion.' Christ gives fervour by giving His Spirit. Christ gives fervour by bringing the warmth of His own love to bear upon our hearts through the Spirit, and that kindles ours. Where His great work for men is believed and trusted in, there, and there only, is there excited an intensity of consequent affection to Him which glows throughout the life. It is not enough to say that Christianity is singular among religious and moral systems in exalting fervour into a virtue. Its peculiarity lies deeper--in its method of producing that fervour. It is kindled by that Spirit using as His means the truth of the dying love of Christ. The secret of the Gospel is not solved by saying that Christ excites love in our souls. The question yet remains--how? There is but one answer to that: He loved us to the death. That truth laid on hearts by the Spirit, who takes of Christ's and shows them to us, and that truth alone, makes fire burst from their coldness.

Here is the power that produces that inner fervour without which virtue is a name and religion a yoke. Here is the contrast, not only to John's baptism, but to all worldly religion, to all formalism and decent deadness of external propriety. Here is the consecration of enthusiasm--not a lurid, sullen heat of ignorant fanaticism, but a living glow of an enkindled nature, which flames because kindled by the inextinguishable blaze of His love who gave Himself for us. He shall baptize you in fire.'

Then, dear brethren, if we profess to have come into personal contact with Jesus Christ, here is a sharp test for us, and a solemn rebuke to much of our lives. For a Christian to be cold is sin. Our coldness can only come from our neglecting to stir up the gift that is in us. People reproach us with extravagant emotion: let us confess that we have never deserved that reproach half as much as we ought. The world's ideal of religion is decorous coldness--has not the world's ideal been our practice? We are afraid to be fervent, but our true danger is icy torpor. We sit frost-bitten and almost dead among the snows, and all the while the gracious sunshine is pouring down, that is able to melt the white death that covers us, and to free us from the bonds that hold us prisoned in their benumbing clasp.

No evil is more marked among the Christian Churches of this day than precisely the absence of this spirit of burning.' There is plenty of liberality and effort, there is much interest in religious questions, there is genial tolerance and wide culture, there is a high standard of morality, and, on the whole, a tolerable adherence to it--but there is little love, and little fervour. I have somewhat against thee, that thou hast left thy first love.'

Where is that Spirit which was poured out as Pentecost? Where are the cloven tongues of fire, where the flame which Christ died to light up? Has it burned down to grey ashes, or, like some house-fire, lit and left untended, has it gone out after a little ineffectual crackling among the lighter pieces of wood and paper, without ever reaching the solid mass of obstinate coal? Where? The question is not difficult to answer. His promise remains faithful. He does send the Spirit, who is fire. But our sin, our negligence, our eager absorption with worldly cares, and our withdrawal of mind and heart from the patient contemplation of His truth, have gone far to quench the Spirit. Is it not soy Are our souls on fire with the love of God, aglow with the ardour caught from Christ's love? Does that love which fills our hearts coruscate and flame in our lives, making us lights in the darkness, as some firebrand caught up from the hearth will serve for a torch and blaze out into the night? He shall baptize with fire.'

O Thou that camest from above,The pure celestial fire to impart,Kindle a flame of sacred loveOn the mean altar of my heart.'

Then there is another thought expressed by this symbol, namely, that this baptism gives cleansing as well as warmth, or rather gives cleansing by warmth. Fire purifies. That Spirit, which is fire, produces holiness in heart and character, by this most chiefly among all His manifold operations, that He excites the flame of love to God, which burns our souls clear with its white fervours. This is the Christian method of making men good,--first, know His love, then believe it, then love Him back again, and then let that genial heat permeate all your life, and it will woo forth everywhere blossoms of beauty and fruits of holiness, that shall clothe the pastures of the wilderness with gladness. Did you ever see a blast-furnace? How long would it take a man, think you, with hammer and chisel, or by chemical means, to get the bits of ore out from the stony matrix? But fling them into the great cylinder, and pile the fire and let the strong draught roar through the burning mass, and by evening you can run off a golden stream of pure and fluid metal, from which all the dross and rubbish is parted, which has been charmed out of all its sullen hardness, and will take the shape of any mould into which you like to run it. The fire has conquered, has melted, has purified. So with us. Love shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost given unto us,' love that answers to Christ's, love that is fixed upon Him who is pure and separate from sinners, will purify us and sever us from our sins. Nothing else will. All other cleansing is superficial, like the water of John's baptism. Moralities and the externals of religion will wash away the foulness which lies on the surface, but stains that have sunk deep into the very substance of the soul, and have dyed every thread in warp and woof to its centre, are not to be got rid of so. The awful words which our great dramatist puts into the mouth of the queenly murderess are heavy with the weight of most solemn truth. After all vain attempts to cleanse away the stains, we, like her, have to say,' There's the smell of the blood still--will these hands ne'er be clean?' No, never; unless there be something mightier, more inward in its power, than the water with which we can wash them, some better gospel than Repent and reform. God be thanked, there is a mightier detergent than all these--even that divine Spirit which Christ gives, and that divine forgiveness which Christ brings. There, and there alone, dear brethren, we can lose all the guilt of our faultful past, and receive a new and better life which will mould our future into growing likeness to His great purity. Oh do not resist that merciful searching fire, which is ready to penetrate our very bones and marrow, and burn up the seeds of death which lurk in the inmost intents of the heart! Let Him plunge you into that gracious baptism, as we put some poor piece of foul clay into the fire, and like it, as you glow you will whiten, and all the spots will melt away before the conquering tongues of the cleansing flame. In that furnace, heated seven times hotter than any earthly power could achieve, they who walk live by the presence of the Son of Man, and nothing is consumed but the bonds that held them. His Spirit is fire, and that Spirit of fire is, therefore, the Spirit of holiness.

But take one warning word in conclusion. The alternative for every man is to be baptized in the fire or to be consumed by it. The symbol of which we have been speaking sets forth the double thought of purifying and destruction. Nothing which we have said as to the former in the least weakens the completing truth that there is in it an under side of possible terror. One of the felicities of the emblem is its capacity to set forth this twofold idea. There is that in the divine nature which the Bible calls wrath, the necessary displeasure and aversion of holy love from sin and wrongdoers. There is in the divine procedure even now and here, the manifestation of that aversion in punishment. The light of Israel becomes a flaming fire.'

I have no panorama of hell to exhibit, and I would speak with all reticence on matters so awful; but this much, at any rate, is clear, that the very same revelation of God, thankfully accepted and submitted to, is the medium of cleansing and the source of joyful life, and, rejected, becomes the source of sorrow and the occasion of death. Every man sees that aspect of God's face which he has made himself fit to see. Every gift of God is to men either a savour of life unto life, or a savour of death unto death. Most chiefly is this so in regard to Christ and His gospel, who, though He came not to judge but to save, yet by reason of that very universal purpose of salvation, becomes a judge in the act of saving, and a condemnation to those in whom, by their own faults, that purpose is not fulfilled.

The same pillar of fire which gladdened the ranks of Israel as they camped by the Red Sea, shone baleful and terrible to the Egyptian hosts. The same Ark of the Covenant whose presence blessed the house of Obed-edom, and hallowed Zion, and saved Jerusalem, smote the Philistines, and struck down their bestial gods. Christ and His gospel even here hurt the men whom they do not save.

And we have only to carry that process onwards into another world, and suppose it made more energetic there, as it will be, to feel dimly in how awful a sense it may be that the same fire which gives life may be the occasion of death--and how profound a truth lies in the words--

What maketh Heaven, that maketh Hell.'

Yes, verily; to be salted with fire or to be consumed by it, to be baptized in it or to be cast into it, is the choice offered to us all; to thee, my brother, and to me. Israel made its choice, and in seventy years, the Roman standards on Zion and the flames leaping round the Temple, interpreted John's words in one of their halves, while the growing energy of the fire that was lit on Pentecost fulfilled them in the other. Many a nation and Church has made its choice since then. You have to make yours. The fire shall try every man's work, of what sort it is.' Shall our work be gold, and silver, and precious stones which shall gleam and flash in the light, or wood, hay, and stubble which shall writhe for a moment in the blaze and perish? Our God is a consuming fire.' Shall that be the ground of my confidence that I shall one day be pure from all my sins, or shall it be the parent of my ghastliest fear that I may be, like the chaff, destroyed by contact with a holy love rejected, with a Saviour disbelieved, with a Spirit grieved and quenched? Choose which.

MHCC: Mat 3:1-6

After Malachi there was no prophet until John the Baptist came. He appeared first in the wilderness of Judea. This was not an uninhabited desert, but a part of the country not thickly peopled, nor much enclosed. No place is so remote as to shut us out from the visits of Divine grace. The doctrine he preached was repentance; " Repent ye." The word here used, implies a total alteration in the mind, a change in the judgment, disposition, and affections, another and a better bias of the soul. Consider your ways, change your minds: you have thought amiss; think again, and think aright. True penitents have other thoughts of God and Christ, sin and holiness, of this world and the other, than they had. The change of the mind produces a change of the way. That is gospel repentance, which flows from a sight of Christ, from a sense of his love, and from hopes of pardon and forgiveness through him. It is a great encouragement to us to repent; repent, for your sins shall be pardoned upon your repentance. Return to God in a way of duty, and he will, through Christ, return unto you in the way of mercy. It is still as necessary to repent and humble ourselves, to prepare the way of the Lord, as it then was. There is a great deal to be done, to make way for Christ into a soul, and nothing is more needful than the discovery of sin, and a conviction that we cannot be saved by our own righteousness. The way of sin and Satan is a crooked way; but to prepare a way for Christ, the paths must be made straight, Heb 12:13. Those whose business it is to call others to mourn for sin, and to mortify it, ought themselves to live a serious life, a life of self-denial, and contempt of the world. By giving others this example, John made way for Christ. Many came to John's baptism, but few kept to the profession they made. There may be many forward hearers, where there are few true believers. Curiosity, and love for novelty and variety, may bring many to attend on good preaching, and to be affected for a while, who never are subject to the power of it. Those who received John's doctrine, testified their repentance by confessing their sins. Those only are ready to receive Jesus Christ as their righteousness, who are brought with sorrow and shame to own their guilt. The benefits of the kingdom of heaven, now at hand, were thereupon sealed to them by baptism. John washed them with water, in token that God would cleanse them from all their iniquities, thereby intimating, that by nature and practice all were polluted, and could not be admitted among the people of God, unless washed from their sins in the fountain Christ was to open, Zec 13:1.

MHCC: Mat 3:7-12

To make application to the souls of the hearers, is the life of preaching; so it was of John's preaching. The Pharisees laid their chief stress on outward observances, neglecting the weightier matters of the moral law, and the spiritual meaning of their legal ceremonies. Others of them were detestable hypocrites, making their pretences to holiness a cloak for iniquity. The Sadducees ran into the opposite extreme, denying the existence of spirits, and a future state. They were the scornful infidels of that time and country. There is a wrath to come. It is the great concern of every one to flee from that wrath. God, who delights not in our ruin, has warned us; he warns by the written word, by ministers, by conscience. And those are not worthy of the name of penitents, or their privileges, who say they are sorry for their sins, yet persist in them. It becomes penitents to be humble and low in their own eyes, to be thankful for the least mercy, patient under the greatest affliction, to be watchful against all appearances of sin, to abound in every duty, and to be charitable in judging others. Here is a word of caution, not to trust in outward privileges. There is a great deal which carnal hearts are apt to say within themselves, to put aside the convincing, commanding power of the word of God. Multitudes, by resting in the honours and mere advantages of their being members of an outward church, come short of heaven. Here is a word of terror to the careless and secure. Our corrupt hearts cannot be made to produce good fruit, unless the regenerating Spirit of Christ graft the good word of God upon them. And every tree, however high in gifts and honours, however green in outward professions and performances, if it bring not forth good fruit, the fruits meet for repentance, is hewn down and cast into the fire of God's wrath, the fittest place for barren trees: what else are they good for? If not fit for fruit, they are fit for fuel. John shows the design and intention of Christ's appearing, which they were now speedily to expect. No outward forms can make us clean. No ordinances, by whomsoever administered, or after whatever mode, can supply the want of the baptism of the Holy Ghost and of fire. The purifying and cleansing power of the Holy Spirit alone can produce that purity of heart, and those holy affections, which accompany salvation. It is Christ who baptizes with the Holy Ghost. This he did in the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit sent upon the apostles, Act 2:4. This he does in the graces and comforts of the Spirit, given to those that ask him, Luk 11:13; Joh 7:38, Joh 7:39; see Act 11:16. Observe here, the outward church is Christ's floor, Isa 21:10. True believers are as wheat, substantial, useful, and valuable; hypocrites are as chaff, light and empty, useless and worthless, carried about with every wind; these are mixed, good and bad, in the same outward communion. There is a day coming when the wheat and chaff shall be separated. The last judgment will be the distinguishing day, when saints and sinners shall be parted for ever. In heaven the saints are brought together, and no longer scattered; they are safe, and no longer exposed; separated from corrupt neighbours without, and corrupt affections within, and there is no chaff among them. Hell is the unquenchable fire, which will certainly be the portion and punishment of hypocrites and unbelievers. Here life and death, good and evil, are set before us: according as we now are in the field, we shall be then in the floor.

Matthew Henry: Mat 3:1-6

We have here an account of the preaching and baptism of John, which were the dawning of the gospel-day. Observe,

I. The time when he appeared. In those days (Mat 3:1), or, after those days, long after what was recorded in the foregoing chapter, which left the child Jesus in his infancy. In those days, in the time appointed of the Father for the beginning of the gospel, when the fulness of time was come, which was often thus spoken of in the Old Testament, In those days. Now the last of Daniel's weeks began, or rather, the latter half of the week, when the Messiah was to confirm the covenant with many, Dan 9:27. Christ's appearances are all in their season. Glorious things were spoken both of John and Jesus, at and before their births, which would have given occasion to expect some extraordinary appearances of a divine presence and power with them when they were very young; but it is quite otherwise. Except Christ's disputing with the doctors at twelve years old, nothing appears remarkable concerning either of them, till they were about thirty years old. Nothing is recorded of their childhood and youth, but the greatest part of their life is tempus, adēlon - wrapt up in darkness and obscurity: these children differ little in outward appearance from other children, as the heir, while he is under age, differs nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all. And this was to show, 1. That even when God is acting as the God of Israel, the Saviour, yet verily he is a God that hideth himself (Isa 45:15). The Lord is in this place and I knew it not, Gen 28:16. Our beloved stands behind the wall long before he looks forth at the windows, Son 2:9. 2. That our faith must principally have an eye to Christ in his office and undertaking, for there is the display of his power; but in his person is the hiding of his power. All this while, Christ was god-man; yet we are not told what he said or did, till he appeared as a prophet; and then, Hear ye him. 3. That young men, though well qualified, should not be forward to put forth themselves in public service, but be humble, and modest, and self-diffident, swift to hear, and slow to speak.

Matthew says nothing of the conception and birth of John the Baptist, which is largely related by St. Luke, but finds him at full age, as if dropt from the clouds to preach in the wilderness. For above three hundred years the church had been without prophets; those lights had been long put out, that he might be the more desired, who was to be the great prophet. After Malachi there was no prophet, nor any pretender to prophecy, till John the Baptist, to whom therefore the prophet Malachi points more directly than any of the Old Testament prophets had done (Mal 3:1); I send my messenger.

II. The place where he appeared first. In the wilderness of Judea. It was not an uninhabited desert, but a part of the country not so thickly peopled, nor so much enclosed into fields and vineyards, as other parts were; it was such a wilderness as had six cities and their villages in it, which are named, Jos 15:61, Jos 15:62. In these cities and villages John preached, for thereabouts he had hitherto lived, being born hard by, in Hebron; the scenes of his action began there, where he had long spent his time in contemplation; and even when he showed himself to Israel, he showed how well he loved retirement, as far as would consist with his business. The word of the Lord found John here in a wilderness. Note, No place is so remote as to shut us out from the visits of divine grace; nay, commonly the sweetest intercourse the saints have with Heaven, is when they are withdrawn furthest from the noise of this world. It was in this wilderness of Judah that David penned the 63rd Psalm, which speaks so much of the sweet communion he then had with God, Hos 2:14. In a wilderness the law was given; and as the Old Testament, so the New Testament Israel was first found in the desert land, and there God led him about and instructed him, Deu 32:10. John Baptist was a priest of the order of Aaron, yet we find him preaching in a wilderness, and never officiating in the temple; but Christ, who was not a son of Aaron, is yet often found in the temple, and sitting there as one having authority; so it was foretold, Mal 3:1. The Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his temple; not the messenger that was to prepare his way. This intimated that the priesthood of Christ was to thrust out that of Aaron, and drive it into a wilderness.

The beginning of the gospel in a wilderness, speaks comfort to the deserts of the Gentile world. Now must the prophecies be fulfilled, I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, Isa 41:18, Isa 41:19. The wilderness shall be a fruitful field, Isa 32:15. And the desert shall rejoice, Isa 35:1, Isa 35:2. The Septuagint reads, the deserts of Jordan, the very wilderness in which John preached. In the Romish church there are those who call themselves hermits, and pretend to follow John; but when they say of Christ, Behold, he is in the desert, go not forth, Mat 24:26. There was a seducer that led his followers into the wilderness, Act 21:38.

III. His preaching. This he made his business. He came, not fighting, nor disputing, but preaching (Mat 3:1); for by the foolishness of preaching, Christ's kingdom must be set up.

1. The doctrine he preached was that of repentance (Mat 3:2); Repent ye. He preached this in Judea, among those that were called Jews, and made a profession of religion; for even they needed repentance. He preached it, not in Jerusalem, but in the wilderness of Judea, among the plain country people; for even those who think themselves most out of the way of temptation, and furthest from the vanities and vices of the town, cannot wash their hands in innocency, but must do it in repentance. John Baptist's business was to call men to repent of their sins; Metanoeite - Bethink yourselves; "Admit a second thought, to correct the errors of the first - an afterthought. Consider your ways, change your minds; you have thought amiss; think again, and think aright. "Note, True penitents have other thoughts of God and Christ, and sin and holiness, and this world and the other, than they have had, and stand otherwise affected toward them. The change of the mind produces a change of the way. Those who are truly sorry for what they have done amiss, will be careful to do so no more. This repentance is a necessary duty, in obedience to the command of God (Act 17:30); and a necessary preparative and qualification for the comforts of the gospel of Christ. If the heart of man had continued upright and unstained, divine consolations might have been received without this painful operation preceding; but, being sinful, it must be first pained before it can be laid at ease, must labour before it can be at rest. The sore must be searched, or it cannot be cured. I wound and I heal.

2. The argument he used to enforce this call was, For the kingdom of heaven is at hand. The prophets of the Old Testament called people to repent, for the obtaining and securing of temporal national mercies, and for the preventing and removing of temporal national judgments: but now, though the duty pressed is the same, the reason is new, and purely evangelical. Men are now considered in their personal capacity, and not so much as then in a social and political one. Now repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand; the gospel dispensation of the covenant of grace, the opening of the kingdom of heaven to all believers, by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is a kingdom of which Christ is the Sovereign, and we must be the willing, loyal subjects of it. It is a kingdom of heaven, not of this world, a spiritual kingdom: its original from heaven, its tendency to heaven. John preached this as at hand; then it was at the door; to us it is come, by the pouring out of the Spirit, and the full exhibition of the riches of gospel-grace. Now, (1.) This is a great inducement to us to repent. There is nothing like the consideration of divine grace to break the heart, both for sin and from sin. That is evangelical repentance, that flows from a sight of Christ, from a sense of his love, and the hopes of pardon and forgiveness through him. Kindness is conquering; abused kindness, humbling and melting. What a wretch was I to sin against such grace, against the law and love of such a kingdom! (2.) It is a great encouragement to us to repent; "Repent, for your sins shall be pardoned upon your repentance. Return to God in a way of duty, and he will, through Christ, return to you in a way of mercy."The proclamation of pardon discovers, and fetches in, the malefactor who before fled and absconded. Thus we are drawn to it with the cords of man, and the bands of love.

IV. The prophecy that was fulfilled in him, Mat 3:3. This is he that was spoken of in the beginning of that part of the prophecy of Esaias, which is mostly evangelical, and which points at gospel-times and gospel-grace; see Isa 40:3, Isa 40:4. John is here spoken of,

1. As the voice of one crying in the wilderness. John owned it himself (Joh 1:23); I am the voice, and that is all, God is the Speaker, who makes known his mind by John, as a man does by his voice. The word of God must be received as such (1Th 2:13); what else is Paul, and what is Apollos, but the voice! John is called the voice, phōnē boōntos - the voice of one crying aloud, which is startling and awakening. Christ is called the Word, which, being distinct and articulate, is more instructive. John as the voice, roused men, and then Christ, as the Word, taught them; as we find, Rev 14:2. The voice of many waters, and of a great thunder, made way for the melodious voice of harpers and the new song, Mat 3:3. Some observe that, as Samson's mother must drink no strong drink, yet he was designed to be a strong man; so John Baptist's father was struck dumb, and yet he was designed to be the voice of one crying. When the crier's voice is begotten of a dumb father, it shows the excellency of the power to be of God, and not of man.

2. As one whose business it was to prepare the way of the Lord, and to make his paths straight; so it was said of him before he was born, that he should make ready a people prepared for the Lord (Luk 1:17), as Christ's harbinger and forerunner: he was such a one as intimated the nature of Christ's kingdom, for he came not in the gaudy dress of a herald at arms, but in the homely one of a hermit. Officers were sent before great men to clear the way; so John prepares the way of the Lord. (1.) He himself did so among the men of that generation. In the Jewish church and nation, at that time, all was out of course; there was a great decay of piety, the vitals of religion were corrupted and eaten out by the traditions and injunctions of the elders. The Scribes and Pharisees, that is, the greatest hypocrites in the world, had the key of knowledge, and the key of government, at their girdle. The people were, generally, extremely proud of their privileges, confident of justification by their own righteousness, insensible of sin; and, though now under the most humbling providences, being lately made a province of the Roman Empire, yet they were unhumbled; they were much in the same temper as they were in Malachi's time, insolent and haughty, and ready to contradict the word of God: now John was sent to level these mountains, to take down their high opinion of themselves, and to show them their sins, that the doctrine of Christ might be the more acceptable and effectual. (2.) His doctrine of repentance and humiliation is still as necessary as it was then to prepare the way of the Lord. Note, There is a great deal to be done, to make way for Christ into a soul, to bow the heart for the reception of the Son of David (2Sa 19:14); and nothing is more needful, in order to this, than the discovery of sin, and a conviction of the insufficiency of our own righteousness. That which lets will let, until it be taken out of the way; prejudices must be removed, high thoughts brought down, and captivated to the obedience of Christ. Gates of brass must be broken, and bars of iron cut asunder, ere the everlasting doors be opened for the King of glory to come in. The way of sin and Satan is a crooked way; to prepare a way for Christ, the paths must be made straight, Heb 12:13.

V. The garb in which he appeared, the figure he made, and the manner of his life, Mat 3:4. They, who expected the Messiah as a temporal prince, would think that his forerunner must come in great pomp and splendour, that his equipage should be very magnificent and gay; but it proves quite contrary; he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, but mean in the eyes of the world; and, as Christ himself, having no form or comeliness; to intimate betimes, that the glory of Christ's kingdom was to be spiritual, and the subjects of it such as ordinarily were either found by it, or made by it, poor and despised, who derived their honours, pleasures, and riches, from another world.

1. His dress was plain. This same John had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; he did not go in long clothing, as the scribes, or soft clothing, as the courtiers, but in the clothing of a country husbandman; for he lived in a country place, and suited his habit to his habitation. Note, It is good for us to accommodate ourselves to the place and condition which God, in his providence, has put us in. John appeared in this dress, (1.) To show that, like Jacob, he was a plain man, and mortified to this world, and the delights and gaieties of it. Behold an Israelite indeed! Those that are lowly in heart should show it by a holy negligence and indifference in their attire; and not make the putting on of apparel their adorning, nor value others by their attire. (2.) To show that he was a prophet, for prophets wore rough garments, as mortified men (Zec 13:4); and, especially, to show that he was the Elias promised; for particular notice is taken of Elias, that he was a hairy man (which, some think, is meant of the hairy garments he wore), and that he was girt with a girdle of leather about his loins, 2Ki 1:8. John Baptist appears no way inferior to him in mortification; this therefore is that Elias that was to come. (3.) To show that he was a man of resolution; his girdle was not fine, such as were then commonly worn, but it was strong, it was a leathern girdle; and blessed is that servant, whom his Lord, when he comes, finds with his loins girt, Luk 12:35; 1Pe 1:13.

2. His diet was plain; his meat was locusts and wild honey; not as if he never ate any thing else; but these he frequently fed upon, and made many meals of them, when he retired into solitary places, and continued long there for contemplation. Locusts were a sort of flying insect, very good for food, and allowed as clean (Lev 11:22); they required little dressing, and were light, and easy of digestion, whence it is reckoned among the infirmities of old age, that the grasshopper, or locust, is then a burden to the stomach, Ecc 12:5. Wild honey was that which Canaan flowed with, 1Sa 14:26. Either it was gathered immediately, as it fell in the dew, or rather, as it was found in the hollows of trees and rocks, where bees built, that were not, like those in hives, under the care and inspection of men. This intimates that he ate sparingly, a little served his turn; a man would be long ere he filled his belly with locusts and wild honey: John Baptist came neither eating nor drinking (Mat 11:18) - not with the curiosity, formality, and familiarity that other people do. He was so entirely taken up with spiritual things, that he could seldom find time for a set meal. Now, (1.) This agreed with the doctrine he preached of repentance, and fruits meet for repentance. Note, Those whose business it is to call others to mourn for sin, and to mortify it, ought themselves to live a serious life, a life of self-denial, mortification, and contempt of the world. John Baptist thus showed the deep sense he had of the badness of the time and place he lived in, which made the preaching of repentance needful; every day was a fast-day with him. (2.) This agreed with his office as Christ's forerunner; by this practice he showed that he knew what the kingdom of heaven was, and had experienced the powers of it. Note, Those that are acquainted with divine and spiritual pleasures, cannot but look upon all the delights and ornaments of sense with a holy indifference; they know better things. By giving others this example he made way for Christ. Note, A conviction of the vanity of the world, and everything in it, is the best preparative for the entertainment of the kingdom of heaven in the heart. Blessed are the poor in spirit.

VI. The people who attended upon him, and flocked after him (Mat 3:5); Then went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judea. Great multitudes came to him from the city, and from all parts of the country; some of all sorts, men and women, young and old, rich and poor, Pharisees and publicans; they went out to him, as soon as they heard his preaching the kingdom of heaven, that they might hear what they heard so much of. Now, 1. This was a great honour put upon John, that so many attended him, and with so much respect. Note, Frequently those have most real honour done them, who least court the shadow of it. Those who live a mortified life, who are humble and self-denying, and dead to the world, command respect; and men have a secret value and reverence for them, more than they would imagine. 2. This gave John a great opportunity of doing good, and was an evidence that God was with him. Now people began to crowd and press into the kingdom of heaven (Luk 16:16); and a blessed sight it was, to see the dew of the youth dropping from the womb of the gospel-morning (Psa 110:3), to see the net cast where there were so many fish. 3. This was an evidence, that it was now a time of great expectation; it was generally thought that the kingdom of God would presently appear (Luk 19:11), and therefore, when John showed himself to Israel, lived and preached at this rate, so very different from the Scribes and Pharisees, they were ready to say of him, that he was the Christ (Luk 3:15); and this occasioned such a confluence of people about him. 4. Those who would have the benefit of John's ministry must go out to him in the wilderness, sharing in his reproach. Note, They who truly desire the sincere milk of the word, it if be not brought to them, will seek out for it: and they who would learn the doctrine of repentance must go out from the hurry of this world, and be still. 5. It appears by the issue, that of the many who came to John's Baptism, there were but few that adhered to it; witness the cold reception Christ had in Judea, and about Jerusalem. Note, There may be a multitude of forward hearers, where there are but a few true believers. Curiosity, and affectation of novelty and variety, may bring many to attend upon good preaching, and to be affected with it for a while, who yet are never subject to the power of it, Eze 33:31, Eze 33:32.

VII. The rite, or ceremony, by which he admitted disciples, Mat 3:6. Those who received his doctrine, and submitted to his discipline, were baptized of him in Jordan, thereby professing their repentance, and their belief that the kingdom of the Messiah was at hand. 1. They testified their repentance by confessing their sins; a general confession, it is probable, they made to John that they were sinners, that they were polluted by sin, and needed cleansing; but to God they made a confession of particular sins, for he is the party offended. The Jews had been taught to justify themselves; but John teaches them to accuse themselves, and not to rest, as they used to do, in the general confession of sin made for all Israel, once a year, upon the day of atonement; but to make a particular acknowledgment, every one, of the plague of his own heart. Note, A penitent confession of sin is required in order to peace and pardon; and those only are ready to receive Jesus Christ as their Righteousness, who are brought with sorrow and shame to their own guilt, 1Jo 1:9. 2. The benefits of the kingdom of heaven, now at hand, were thereupon sealed to them by baptism. He washed them with water, in token of this - that from all their iniquities God would cleanse them. It was usual with the Jews to baptize those whom they admitted proselytes to their religion, especially those who were only Proselytes of the gate, and were not circumcised, as the Proselytes of righteousness were. Some think it was likewise a custom for persons of eminent religion, who set up for leaders, by baptism to admit pupils and disciples. Christ's question concerning John's Baptism, Was it from heaven, or of men? implied, that there were baptisms of men, who pretended not to a divine mission; with this usage John complied, but his was from heaven, and was distinguished from all others by this character, It was the baptism of repentance, Act 19:4. All Israel were baptized unto Moses, 1Co 10:2. The ceremonial law consisted in divers washings or baptisms (Heb 9:10); but John's baptism refers to the remedial law, the law of repentance and faith. He is said to baptize them in Jordan, that river which was famous for Israel's passage through it, and Naaman's cure; yet it is probable that John did not baptize in that river at first, but that afterward, when the people who came to his baptism were numerous, he removed Jordan. By baptism he obliged them to live a holy life, according to the profession they took upon themselves. Note, Confession of sin must always be accompanied with holy resolutions, in the strength of divine grace, not to return to it again.

Matthew Henry: Mat 3:7-12

The doctrine John preached was that of repentance, in consideration of the kingdom of heaven being at hand; now here we have the use of that doctrine. Application is the life of preaching, so it was of John's preaching.

Observe, 1. To whom he applied it; to the Pharisees and Sadducees that came to his baptism, Mat 3:7. To others he thought it enough to say, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand; but when he saw these Pharisees and Sadducees come about him, he found it necessary to explain himself, and deal more closely. These were two of the three noted sects among the Jews at that time, the third was that of the Essenes, whom we never read of in the gospels, for they affected retirement, and declined busying themselves in public affairs. The Pharisees were zealots for the ceremonies, for the power of the church, and the traditions of the elders; the Sadducees ran into the other extreme, and were little better than deists, denying the existence of spirits and a future state. It was strange that they came to John's baptism, but their curiosity brought them to be hearers; and some of them, it is probable, submitted to be baptized, but it is certain that the generality of them did not; for Christ says (Luk 7:29, Luk 7:30), that when the publicans justified God, and were baptized of John, the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves, being not baptized of him. Note, Many come to ordinances, who come not under the power of them. Now to them John here addresses himself with all faithfulness, and what he said to them, he said to the multitude (Luk 3:7), for they were all concerned in what he said. 2. What the application was. It is plain and home, and directed to their consciences; he speaks as one that came not to preach before them, but to preach to them. Though his education was private, he was not bashful when he appeared in public, nor did he fear the face of man, for he was full of the Holy Ghost, and of power.

I. Here is a word of conviction and awakening. He begins harshly, calls them not Rabbi, gives them not the titles, much less the applauses, they had been used to. 1. The title he gives them is, O generation of vipers. Christ gave them the same title; Mat 12:34; Mat 23:33. They were as vipers; though specious, yet venomous and poisonous, and full of malice and enmity to every thing that was good; they were a viperous brood, the seed and offspring of such as had been of the same spirit; it was bred in the bone with them. They gloried in it, that they were the seed of Abraham; but John showed them that they were the serpent's seed (compare Gen 3:15); of their father the Devil, Joh 8:44. They were a viperous gang, they were all alike; though enemies to one another, yet confederate in mischief. Note, A wicked generation is a generation of vipers, and they ought to be told so; it becomes the ministers of Christ to be bold in showing sinners their true character. 2. The alarm he gives them is, Who has warned you to flee from the wrath to come? This intimates that they were in danger of the wrath to come; and that their case was so nearly desperate, and their hearts so hardened in sin (the Pharisees by their parade of religion, and the Sadducees by their arguments against religion), that it was next to a miracle to effect anything hopeful among them. "What brings you hither? Who thought of seeing you here? What fright have you been put into, that you enquire after the kingdom of heaven?"Note, (1.) There is a wrath to come; besides present wrath, the vials of which are poured out now, there is future wrath, the stores of which are treasured up for hereafter. (2.) It is the great concern of every one of us to flee from this wrath. (3.) It is wonderful mercy that we are fairly warned to flee from this wrath; think - Who has warned us? God has warned us, who delights not in our ruin; he warns by the written word, by ministers, by conscience. (4.) These warnings sometime startle those who seemed to have been very much hardened in their security and good opinion of themselves.

II. Here is a word of exhortation and direction (Mat 3:8); " Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance. Therefore, because you are warned to flee from the wrath to come, let the terrors of the Lord persuade you to a holy life."Or, " Therefore, because you profess repentance, and attend upon the doctrine and baptism of repentance, evidence that you are true penitents."Repentance is seated in the heart. There it is as a root; but in vain do we pretend to have it there, if we do not bring forth the fruits of it in a universal reformation, forsaking all sin, and cleaving to that which is good; these are fruits, axious tēs metanoias - worthy of repentance. Note, Those are not worthy the name of penitents, or their privileges, who say they are sorry for their sins, and yet persist in them. They that profess repentance, as all that are baptized do, must be and act as becomes penitents, and never do any thing unbecoming a penitent sinner. It becomes penitents to be humble and low in their own eyes, to be thankful for the least mercy, patient under the greatest affliction, to be watchful against all appearances of sin, and approaches towards it, to abound in every duty, and to be charitable in judging others.

III. Here is a word of caution, not to trust to their external privileges, so as with them to shift off these calls to repentance (Mat 3:9); Think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father. Note, There is a great deal which carnal hearts are apt to say within themselves, to put by the convincing, commanding power of the word of God, which ministers should labour to meet with and anticipate; vain thoughts which lodge within those who are called to wash their hearts, Jer 4:14. Mē doxēte - Pretend not, presume not, to say within yourselves; be not of the opinion that this will save you; harbour not such a conceit. " Please not yourselves with saying this"(so some read); "rock not yourselves asleep with this, nor flatter yourselves into a fool's paradise."Note, God takes notice of what we say within ourselves, which we dare not speak out, and is acquainted with all the false rests of the soul, and the fallacies with which it deludes itself, but which it will not discover, lest it should be undeceived. Many hide the lie that ruins them, in their right hand, and roll it under their tongue, because they are ashamed to own it; they keep in the Devil's interest, by keeping the Devil's counsel. Now John shows them,

1. What their pretense was; " We have Abraham to our father; we are not sinners of the Gentiles; it is fit indeed that they should be called to repent; but we are Jews, a holy nation, a peculiar people, what is this to us?"Note, The word does us no good, when we will not take it as it is spoken to us, and belonging to us. "Think not that because you are the seed of Abraham, therefore,"(1.) "You need not repent, you have nothing to repent of; your relation to Abraham, and your interest in the covenant made with him, denominate you so holy, that there is no occasion for you to change your mind or way."(2.) "That therefore you shall fare well enough, though you do not repent. Think not that this will bring you off in the judgment, and secure you from the wrath to come; that God will connive at your impenitence, because you are Abraham's seed."Note, It is vain presumption to think that our having good relations will save us, though we be not good ourselves. What though we be descended from pious ancestors; have been blessed with a religious education; have our lot cast in families where the fear of God is uppermost; and have good friends to advise us, and pray for us; what will all this avail us, if we do not repent, and live a life of repentance? We have Abraham to our father, and therefore are entitled to the privileges of the covenant made with him; being his seed, we are sons of the church, the temple of the Lord, Jer 7:4. Note, Multitudes, by resting in the honours and advantages of their visible church-membership, take up short of heaven.

2. How foolish and groundless this pretence was; they thought that being the seed of Abraham, they were the only people God had in the world, and therefore that, if they were cut off, he would be at a loss for a church; but John shows them the folly of this conceit; I say unto you (whatever you say within yourselves), that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. He was now baptizing in Jordan at Bethabara (Joh 1:28), the house of passage, where the children of Israel passed over; and there were the twelve stones, one for each tribe, which Joshua set up for a memorial, Jos 4:20. It is not unlikely that he pointed to those stones, which God could raise to be, more than in representation, the twelve tribes of Israel. Or perhaps he refers to Isa 51:1, where Abraham is called the rock out of which they were hewn. That God who raised Isaac out of such a rock, can, if there be an occasion, do as much again, for with him nothing is impossible. Some think he pointed to those heathen soldiers that were present, telling the Jews that God would raise up a church for himself among the Gentiles, and entail the blessing of Abraham upon them. Thus when our first parents fell, God could have left them to perish, and out of stones have raised up another Adam and another Eve. Or, take it thus, "Stones themselves shall be owned as Abraham's seed, rather than such hard, dry, barren sinners as you are."Note, As it is lowering to the confidence of the sinners in Zion, so it is encouraging to the hopes of the sons of Zion, that, whatever comes of the present generation, God will never want a church in the world; if the Jews fall off, the Gentiles shall be grafted in, Mat 21:43; Rom 11:12, etc.

IV. Here is a word of terror to the careless and secure Pharisees and Sadducees, and other Jews, that knew not the signs of the times, nor the day of their visitation, Mat 3:10. "Now look about you, now that the kingdom of God is at hand, and be made sensible."

1. How strict and short your trial is; Now the axe is carried before you, now it is laid to the root of the tree, now you are upon your good behavior, and are to be so but a while; now you are marked for ruin, and cannot avoid it but by a speedy and sincere repentance. Now you must expect that God will make quicker work with you by his judgments than he did formerly, and that they will begin at the house of God: "where God allows more means, he allows less time." Behold, I come quickly. Now they were put upon their last trial; now or never.

2. "How sore and severe your doom will be, if you do not improve this."It is now declared with the axe at the root, to show that God is in earnest in the declaration, that every tree, however high in gifts and honours, however green in external professions and performances, if it bring not forth good fruit, the fruits meet for repentance, is hewn down, disowned as a tree in God's vineyard, unworthy to have room there, and is cast into the fire of God's wrath - the fittest place for barren trees: what else are they good for? If not fit for fruit, they are fit for fuel. Probably this refers to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, which was not, as other judgments had been, like the lopping off of the branches, or cutting down of the body of the tree, leaving the root to bud again, but it would be the total, final, and irrecoverable extirpation of that people, in which all those should perish that continued impenitent. Now God would make a full end, wrath was coming on them to the utmost.

V. A word of instruction concerning Jesus Christ, in whom all John's preaching centered. Christ's ministers preach, not themselves, but him. Here is,

1. The dignity and pre-eminence of Christ above John. See how meanly he speaks of himself, that he might magnify Christ (Mat 3:11); " I indeed baptize you with water, that is the utmost I can do."Note, Sacraments derive not their efficacy from those who administer them; they can only apply the sign; it is Christ's prerogative to give the thing signified, 1Co 3:6; 2Ki 4:31. But he that comes after me is mightier than I. Though John had much power, for he came in the spirit and power of Elias, Christ has more; though John was truly great, great in the sight of the Lord (not a greater was born of woman), yet he thinks himself unworthy to be in the meanest place of attendance upon Christ, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear. He sees, (1.) How mighty Christ is, in comparison with him. Note, It is a great comfort to the faithful ministers, to think that Jesus Christ is mightier than they, can do that for them, and that by them, which they cannot do; his strength is perfected in their weakness. (2.) How mean he is in comparison with Christ, not worthy to carry his shoes after him! Note, Those whom God puts honour upon, are thereby made very humble and low in their own eyes; willing to be abased, so that Christ may be magnified; to be any thing, to be nothing, so that Christ may be all.

2. The design and intention of Christ's appearing, which they were now speedily to expect. When it was prophesied that John should be sent as Christ's forerunner (Mal 3:1, Mal 3:2), it immediately follows, The Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come, and shall sit as a refiner, Mat 3:3. And after the coming of Elijah, the day comes that shall burn as an oven (Mal 4:1), to which the Baptist seems here to refer. Christ will come to make a distinction,

(1.) By the powerful working of his grace; He shall baptize you, that is, some of you, with the Holy Ghost and with fire. Note, [1.] It is Christ's prerogative to baptize with the Holy Ghost. This he did in the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit conferred upon the apostles, to which Christ himself applies these words of John, Act 1:5. This he does in the graces and comforts of the Spirit given to them that ask him, Luk 11:13; Joh 7:38, Joh 7:39; See Act 11:16. [2.] They who are baptized with the Holy Ghost are baptized as with fire; the seven spirits of God appear as seven lamps of fire, Rev 4:5. Is fire enlightening? So the Spirit is a Spirit of illumination. Is it warming? And do not their hearts burn within them? Is it consuming? And does not the Spirit of judgment, as a Spirit of burning, consume the dross of their corruptions? Does fire make all it seizes like itself? And does it move upwards? So does the Spirit make the soul holy like itself, and its tendency is heaven-ward. Christ says I am come to send fire, Luk 12:49.

(2.) By the final determinations of his judgment (Mat 3:12); Whose fan is in his hand. His ability to distinguish, as the eternal wisdom of the Father, who sees all by a true light, and his authority to distinguish, as the Person to whom all judgment is committed, is the fan that is in his hand, Jer 15:7. Now he sits as a Refiner. Observe here [1.] The visible church is Christ's floor; O my threshing, and the corn of my floor, Isa 21:10. The temple, a type of church, was built upon a threshing-floor. [2.] In this floor there is a mixture of wheat and chaff. True believers are as wheat, substantial, useful, and valuable; hypocrites are as chaff, light, and empty, useless and worthless, and carried about with every wind; these are now mixed, good and bad, under the same external profession; and in the same visible communion. [3.] There is a day coming when the floor shall be purged, and the wheat and chaff shall be separated. Something of this kind is often done in this world, when God calls his people out of Babylon, Rev 18:4. But it is the day of the last judgment that will be the great winnowing, distinguishing day, which will infallibly determine concerning doctrines and works (1Co 3:13), and concerning persons (Mat 25:32, Mat 25:33), when saints and sinners shall be parted for ever. [4.] Heaven is the garner into which Jesus Christ will shortly gather all his wheat, and not a grain of it shall be lost: he will gather them as the ripe fruits were gathered in. Death's scythe is made use of to gather them to their people. In heaven the saints are brought together, and no longer scattered; they are safe, and no longer exposed; separated from corrupt neighbours without, and corrupt affections within, and there is no chaff among them. They are not only gathered into the barn (Mat 13:30), but into the garner, where they are thoroughly purified. [5.] Hell is the unquenchable fire, which will burn up the chaff, which will certainly be the portion and punishment, and everlasting destruction, of hypocrites and unbelievers. So that here are life and death, good and evil, set before us; according as we now are in the field, we shall be then in the floor.

Barclay: Mat 3:1-16

The emergence of John was like the sudden sounding of the voice of God. At this time the Jews were sadly conscious that the voice of the prophets spoke no more. They said that for four hundred years there had been no prophet. Throughout long centuries the voice of prophecy had been silent. As they put it themselves, "There was no voice, nor any that answered." But in John the prophetic voice spoke again. What then were the characteristics of John and his message?

(i) He fearlessly denounced evil wherever he might find it. If Herod the king sinned by contracting an evil and unlawful marriage, John rebuked him. If the Sadducees and Pharisees, the leaders of orthodox religion, the churchmen of their day, were sunk in ritualistic formalism, John never hesitated to say so. If the ordinary people were living lives which were unaware of God, John would tell them so.

Wherever John saw evil--in the state, in the Church, in the crowd--he fearlessly rebuked it. He was like a light which lit up the dark places; he was like wind which swept from God throughout the country. It was said of a famous journalist who was great, but who never quite fulfilled the work he might have done, "He was perhaps not easily enough disturbed." There is still a place in the Christian message for warning and denunciation. "The truth," said Diogenes, "is like the light to sore eyes." "He who never offended anyone," he said, "never did anyone any good."

It may be that there have been times when the Church was too careful not to offend. There come occasions when the time for smooth politeness has gone, and the time for blunt rebuke has come.

(ii) He urgently summoned men to righteousness. John's message was not a mere negative denunciation; it was a positive erecting of the moral standards of God. He not only denounced men for what they had done; he summoned them to what they ought to do. He not only condemned men for what they were; he challenged them to be what they could be. He was like a voice calling men to higher things. He not only rebuked evil, he also set before men the good.

It may well be that there have been times when the Church was too occupied in telling men what not to do; and too little occupied in setting before them the height of the Christian ideal.

(iii) John came from God. He came out of the desert. He came to men only after he had undergone years of lonely preparation by God. As Alexander Maclaren said, "John leapt, as it were, into the arena full-grown and full-armed." He came, not with some opinion of his own, but with a message from God. Before he spoke to men, he had companied long with God.

The preacher, the teacher with the prophetic voice, must always come into the presence of men out of the presence of God.

(iv) John pointed beyond himself. The man was not only a light to illumine evil, a voice to rebuke sin, he was also a signpost to God. It was not himself he wished men to see; he wished to prepare them for the one who was to come.

It was the Jewish belief that Elijah would return before the Messiah came, and that he would t)e the herald of the coming King. "Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes" (Mal 4:5). John wore a garment of camel's hair, and a leathern belt around his waist. That is the very description of the raiment which Elijah had worn (2Ki 1:8).

Matthew connects him with a prophecy from Isaiah (Isa 40:3). In ancient times in the East the roads were bad. There was an eastern proverb which said, "There are three states of misery--sickness, fasting and travel." Before a traveller set out upon a journey he was advised "to pay all debts, provide for dependents, give parting gifts, return all articles under trust, take money and good-temper for the journey; then bid farewell to all." The ordinary roads were no better than tracks. They were not surfaced at all because the soil of Palestine is hard and will bear the traffic of mules and asses and oxen and carts. A journey along such a road was an adventure, and indeed an undertaking to be avoided.

There were some few surfaced and artificially made roads. Josephus, for instance, tells us that Solomon laid a causeway of black basalt stone along the roads that lead to Jerusalem to make them easier for the pilgrims, and "to manifest the grandeur of his riches and government." All such surfaced and artificially-made roads were originally built by the king and for the use of the king. They were called "the king's highway." They were kept in repair only as the king needed them for any journey that he might make. Before the king was due to arrive in any area, a message was sent out to the people to get the king's roads in order for the king's journey.

John was preparing the way for the king. The preacher, the teacher with the prophetic voice, points not at himself, but at God. His aim is not to focus men's eyes on his own cleverness, but on the majesty of God. The true preacher is obliterated in his message.

Men recognized John as a prophet, even after years when no prophetic voice had spoken, because he was a light to light up evil things, a voice to summon men to righteousness, a signpost to point men to God, and because he had in him that unanswerable authority which clings to the man who comes into the presence of men out of the presence of God.

Barclay: Mat 3:7-12

In John's message there is both a threat and a promise. This whole passage is full of vivid pictures.

John calls the Pharisees and the Sadducees a brood of vipers, and asks them who has suggested to them to flee from the coming wrath. There may be one of two pictures there.

John knew the desert. The desert had in places thin, short, dried-up grass, and stunted thorn bushes, brittle for want of moisture. Sometimes a desert fire would break out. When that happened the fire swept like a river of flame across the grass and the bushes, for they were as dry as tinder. And in front of the fire there would come scurrying and hurrying the snakes and the scorpions, and the living creatures who found their shelter in the grass and in the bushes. They were driven from their lairs by this river of flame, and they ran for their lives before it.

But it may be that there is another picture here. There are many little creatures in a standing field of corn--the field mice, the rats, the rabbits, the birds. But when the reaper comes they are driven from their nests and their shelters, and as the field is laid bare they have to flee for their lives.

It is in terms of these pictures that John is thinking. If the Pharisees and Sadducees are really coming for baptism, they are like the animals scurrying for life before a desert fire or in front of the sickle of the harvester.

He warns them that it will avail them nothing to plead that Abraham is their father. To the orthodox Jew that was an incredible statement. To the Jew Abraham was unique. So unique was he in his goodness and in his favour with God, that his merits sufficed not only for himself but for all his descendants also. He had built up a treasury of merit which not all the claims and needs of his descendants could exhaust. So the Jews believed that a Jew simply because he was a Jew, and not for any merits of his own, was safe in the life to come. They said, "All Israelites have a portion in the world to come." They talked about "the delivering merits of the fathers." They said that Abraham sat at the gates of Gehenna to turn back any Israelite who might by chance have been consigned to its terrors. They said that it was the merits of Abraham which enabled the ships to sail safely on the seas; that it was because of the merits of Abraham that the rain descended on the earth; that it was the merits of Abraham which enabled Moses to enter into heaven and to receive the Law; that it was because of the merits of Abraham that David was heard. Even for the wicked these merits sufficed." If thy children," they said of Abraham, "were mere dead bodies, without blood vessels or bones, thy merits would avail for them!"

It is that spirit which John is rebuking. Maybe the Jews carried it to an unparalleled distance, but there is always need of a warning that we cannot live on the spiritual capital of the past. A degenerate age cannot hope to claim salvation for the sake of an heroic past; and an evil son cannot hope to plead the merits of a saintly father.

Then, once again, John returns to his harvest picture. At the end of the season the keeper of the vineyards and the fig trees would look at his vines and his trees; and those which were fruitless and useless would be rooted out. They only cumbered the ground. Uselessness always invites disaster. The man who is useless to God and to his fellow-men is in grave peril, and is under condemnation.

Barclay: Mat 3:7-12

But after John's threat there came the promise--which had also a threat within it. As we have said, John pointed beyond himself to the one who was to come. At the moment he was enjoying a vast reputation, and he was wielding a most powerful influence. Yet he said that he was not fit to carry the sandals of the one who was to come-and to carry sandals was the duty of a slave. John's whole attitude was self-obliteration, not self-importance. His only importance was, as he saw it, as a signpost pointing to the one who was to come.

He said that the one who was to come would baptize them with the Holy Spirit and with fire.

All through their history the Jews had looked for the time when the Spirit would come. Ezekiel heard God say, "A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you.... And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and be careful to observe my ordinances" (Eze 36:26-27). "And I will put my Spirit within you and you shall live" (Eze 37:14). "And I will not hide my face any more from them; when I pour out my Spirit upon the house of Israel, says the Lord God" (Eze 39:29). "For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon your descendants, and my blessing on your offspring" (Isa 44:3). "And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh" (Joe 2:28).

What then is the gift and work of this Spirit of God? When we try to answer that question, we must remember to answer it in Hebrew terms. John was a Jew, and it was to Jews that he was speaking. He is thinking and speaking, not in terms of the Christian doctrine of the Holy Spirit, but in terms of the Jewish doctrine of the Spirit.

(i) The word for spirit is ruwach (07307), and ruwach, like pneuma (4151) in Greek, means not only spirit; it also means breath. Breath is life; and therefore the promise of the Spirit is the promise of life. The Spirit of God breathes God's life into a man. When the Spirit of God enters us, the tired, lack-lustre, weary defeatedness of life is gone, and a surge of new life enters us.

(ii) This word ruwach (07307) not only means breath; it also means wind. It is the word for the storm wind, the mighty rushing wind that once Elijah heard. Wind means power. The gale of wind sweeps the ship before it and uproots the tree. The wind has an irresistible power. The Spirit of God is the Spirit of power. When the Spirit of God enters into a man, his weakness is clad with the power of God. He is enabled to do the undoable, and to face the unfaceable, and to bear the unbearable. Frustration is banished; victory arrives.

(iii) The Spirit of God is connected with the work of creation. It was the Spirit of God who moved upon the face of the waters and made the chaos into a cosmos, turned disorder into order, and made a world out of the uncreated mists. The Spirit of God can re-create us. When the Spirit of God enters into a man the disorder of human nature becomes the order of God; our dishevelled, disorderly, uncontrolled lives are moulded by the Spirit into the harmony of God.

(iv) To the Spirit the Jews assigned special functions. The Spirit brought God's truth to men. Every new discovery in every realm of thought is the gift of the Spirit. The Spirit enters into a man's mind and turns his human guesses into divine certainty, and changes his human ignorance into divine knowledge.

(v) The Spirit enables men to recognize God's truth when they see It. When the Spirit enters our hearts, our eyes are opened. The prejudices which blinded us are taken away. The self-will which darkened us is removed. The spirit enables a man to see.

Such are the gifts of the Spirit, and, as John saw it, such were the gifts the one who was to come would bring.

Barclay: Mat 3:7-12

There is a word and a picture in John's message which combine both promise and threat.

John says that the baptism of the one who is to come will be with fire. In the thought of a baptism with fire there are three ideas.

(i) There is the idea of illumination. The blaze of a flame sends a light through the night and illuminates the darkest corners. The flame of the beacon guides the sailor to the harbour and the traveller to his goal. In fire there is light and guidance. Jesus is the beacon light to lead men into truth and to guide them home to God.

(ii) There is the idea of warmth. A great and a kindly man was described as one who lit fires in cold rooms. When Jesus comes into a man's life, he kindles his heart with the warmth of love towards God and towards his fellow men. Christianity is always the religion of the kindled heart.

(iii) There is the idea of purification. In this sense purification involves destruction; for the purifying flame burns away the false and leaves the true. The flame tempers and strengthens and purifies the metal. When Christ comes into a man's heart, the evil dross is purged away. Sometimes that has to happen through painful experiences, but, if a man throughout all the experiences of life believes that God is working together all things for good, he will emerge from them with a character which is cleansed and purified, until, being pure in heart, he can see God.

So, then, the word fire has in it the illumination, the warmth and the purification of the entry of Jesus Christ into the heart of a man.

But there is also a picture which has in it a promise and a threat--the picture of the threshing floor. The fan was the great wooden winnowing shovel. With it the grain was lifted from the threshing floor and tossed into the air. When that was done the heavy grain fell to the ground, but the light chaff was blown away by the wind. The grain was then collected and stored in the barns, while any chaff which remained was used as fuel for the fire.

The coming of Christ necessarily involves a separation. Men either accept him or reject him. When they are confronted with him, they are confronted with a choice which cannot be avoided. They are either for or against. And it is precisely that choice which settles destiny. Men are separated by their reaction to Jesus Christ.

In Christianity there is no escape from the eternal choice. On the village green in Bedford, John Bunyan heard the voice which drew him up all of a sudden and left him looking at eternity: "Wilt thou leave thy sins and go to heaven, or wilt thou have thy sins and go to hell?" In the last analysis that is the choice which no man can evade.

Barclay: Mat 3:7-12

In all John's preaching there was one basic demand--and that basic demand was: "Repent!" (Mat 3:2). That was also the basic demand of Jesus himself, for Jesus came saying, "Repent, and believe in the gospel" (Mar 1:15). We will do well to seek to understand what this repentance is, and what this basic demand of the King and his herald means.

It is to be noted that both Jesus and John use the word repent without any explanation of its meaning. They use it as a word which they were sure their hearers would know and understand.

Let us then look at the Jewish teaching about repentance.

To the Jew repentance was central to all religious faith and to all relationship with God. G. F. Moore writes, "Repentance is the sole, but inexorable, condition of God's forgiveness and the restoration of his favour, and the divine forgiveness and favour are never refused to genuine repentance." He writes, "That God fully and freely remits the sins of the penitent is a cardinal doctrine of Judaism." The Rabbis said, "Great is repentance for it brings healing upon the world. Great is repentance for it reaches to the throne of glory." C. G. Montefiore wrote, "Repentance is the great mediatorial bond between God and man."

The Law was created two thousand years before creation, but, the Rabbis taught, repentance was one of the things created even before the Law; the six things are repentance, paradise, hell, the glorious throne of God, the celestial temple, and the name of the Messiah. "A man" they said, "can shoot an arrow for a few furlongs, but repentance reaches even to the throne of God."

There is a famous rabbinic passage which sets repentance in the first of all places: "Who is like God a teacher of sinners that they may repent?" They asked Wisdom, "What shall be the punishment of the sinner?" Wisdom answered: "Misfortune pursues sinners" (Pro 13:21). They asked Prophecy. It replied: "The soul that sins shall die" (Eze 18:4). They asked the Law. It replied: "Let him bring a sacrifice" (Lev 1:4), they asked God, and he replied: "Let him repent and obtain his atonement. My children, what do I ask of you? Seek me and live." So, then, to the Jew the one gateway back to God is the gateway of repentance.

The Jewish word commonly used for repentance is itself interesting. It is the word teshubah (08666) which is the noun for the verb shuwb (07725) which means to turn. Repentance is a turning away from evil and a turning towards God. G. F. Moore writes, "The transparent primary meaning of repentance in Judaism is always a change in man's attitude towards God, and in the conduct of life, a religious and moral reformation of the people or the individual." C. G. Montefiore writes, "To the Rabbis the essence of repentance lay in such a thorough change of mind that it issues in a change of life and a change of conduct." Maimonides, the great medieval Jewish scholar, defines repentance thus: "What is repentance? Repentance is that the sinner forsakes his sin and puts it away out of his thoughts and fully resolves in his mind that he will not do it again; as it is written, 'Let the wicked forsake his way, and the bad man his plans.' "

G. F. Moore very interestingly and very truly points out that, with the single exception of the two words in brackets, the Westminster Confession definition of repentance would be entirely acceptable to a Jew: "Repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of sin, and apprehension of the mercy of God (in Christ), doth, with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God, with full purpose of and endeavour after, new obedience." Again and again the Bible speaks of this turning away from sin, and this turning towards God. Ezekiel had it: "As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways; for why will you die, O house of Israel" (Eze 33:11). Jeremiah had it: "Bring me back that I may be restored, for thou art the Lord my God" (Jer 31:18). Hosea had it: "Return, O Israel, to the Lord thy God.... Take with you words and return to the Lord" (Hos 14:1-2).

From all this it is quite clear that in Judaism repentance has in it an ethical demand. It is a turn from evil to God, with a corresponding change in action. John was fully within the tradition of his people when he demanded that his hearers should bring forth fruit meet for repentance. There is a beautiful synagogue prayer which runs, "Cause us to return, O Father, unto thy law; draw us near, O King, unto thy service; bring us back in perfect repentance unto thy presence. Blessed art thou, O Lord, who delightest in repentance." But that repentance had to be shown in a real change of life.

A Rabbi, commenting on Jon 3:10, wrote, "My brethren, it is not said of the Ninevites that God saw their sackcloth and their fasting, but that God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way." The Rabbis said, "Be not like fools, who, when they sin, bring a sacrifice but do not repent. If a man says, 'I will sin and repent, I will sin and repent,' he is not allowed to repent." Five unforgivable sinners are listed, and the list includes "Those who sin in order to repent, and those who repent much and always sin afresh." They said: "If a man has an unclean thing in his hands, he may wash them in all the seas of the world, and he will never be clean; but if he throws the unclean thing away, a little water will suffice." The Jewish teachers spoke of what they called "the nine norms of repentance," the nine necessities of real repentance. They found them in the series of commandments in Isa 1:16: "Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes, cease to do evil, learn to do good, seek justice, correct oppression; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow." The son of Sirach writes in Ecclesiasticus: "Say not, I sinned, and what happened to me? For the Lord is long-suffering. Do not become rashly confident about expiation, and go on adding sin to sins; and do not say, his compassion is great, he will forgive the multitude of my sins; for mercy and wrath are with him, and upon sinners his anger will rest. Delay not to turn to the Lord, and do not put it off from day to day" (Sir 5:4-7). He writes again, "A man who bathes to purify himself from contact with a dead body and touches it again, what profit was there in his bath? So a man who fasts for his sins and goes again and does the same things--who will listen to his prayer, and what profit was there in his afflicting himself." (Sir 34:25-26).

The Jew held that true repentance issues, not merely in a sentimental sorrow, but in a real change in life--and so does the Christian. The Jew had a holy horror of seeking to trade on the mercy of God--and so has the Christian. The Jew held that true repentance brings forth fruits which demonstrate the reality of the repentance--and so does the Christian.

But the Jews had still more things to say about repentance and we must go on to look at them.

Barclay: Mat 3:7-12

There is an almost terrifying note in the ethical demand of the Jewish idea of repentance, but there are other comforting things.

Repentance is always available. "Repentance." they said, "is like the sea--a man can bathe in it at any hour." There may be times when even the gates of prayer are shut; but the gates of repentance are never closed.

Repentance is completely essential. There is a story of a kind of argument that Abraham had with God. Abraham said to God, "Thou canst not lay hold of the cord at both ends at once. If Thou desirest strict justice the world cannot endure. If Thou desirest the preservation of the world. strict justice cannot endure." The world cannot continue to exist without the mercy of God, and the gateway of repentance. If there was nothing but the justice of God, it would be the end of all men and of all things. So essential is repentance that in order to make it possible God cancels his own demands: "Beloved is repentance before God, for he cancels his own words for its sake." The threat of the destruction of the sinner is cancelled by the acceptance of repentance for the sinner's sins.

Repentance lasts as long as life. So long as life remains, there remains the possibility of repentance. "God's hand is stretched out under the wings of the heavenly chariot to snatch the penitent from the grasp of justice." Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai said, "If a man has been completely righteous all his days, and rebels at the end, he destroys it all, for it is said, 'The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him when he transgresses' (Eze 33:12); if a man has been completely wicked all his days, and repents at the end, God receives him, for it is said, 'And as for the wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall by it when he turns from his wickedness' " (Eze 33:12). "Many," they said, "can go into the world to come only after years and years; while another gains it in an hour." As the poet said of the man who gained the mercy of God in the instant of death:

Between the saddle and the ground,

I mercy sought, and mercy found."

Such is the mercy of God that he will receive even secret repentance. Rabbi Eleazar 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.' " God's mercy is open to the man who is so ashamed that he can tell his shame to no one except God.

There is no forgetfulness in God, because he is God, but such is the mercy of God that he not only forgives, but, incredible as it may sound, he even forgets the sin of the penitent: "Who is a God like thee pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance?"" (Mic 7:18). "Thou didst forgive the iniquity of thy people; thou didst pardon all their sin" (Psa 85:2).

Loveliest of all, God comes halfway and more to meet the penitent: "Return so far as you can, and I will come to you the rest of the way." The Rabbis at their highest had a glimpse of the Father who in his love ran to meet the prodigal son.

Yet, even remembering all this mercy, it remains the case that in true repentance reparation is necessary in so far as it can be made. The Rabbis said, "Injury must be repaired, and pardon sought and forgiven. The true penitent is he who has the opportunity to do the same sin again, in the same circumstances, and who does not do it." The Rabbis stressed again and again the importance of human relationships, and of setting them right.

There is one curious rabbinic passage. (A tsaddiyq (06662) is a righteous man.) "He who is good towards heaven and towards his fellow men is a good tsaddiyq. He who is good towards heaven and not towards his fellow men, is a bad tsaddiyq (06662). He who is wicked against heaven and wicked against his fellow men, is a bad sinner. He who is wicked against heaven, but not wicked against his fellow men is not a bad sinner."

It is because reparation is so necessary that he who teaches others to sin is the worst of sinners; for he cannot make reparation because he can never tell how far his sin has gone out and how many it has gone on to influence.

Not only is reparation necessary for true repentance; confession is equally necessary. Again and again we find that demand within the Bible itself." When a man or woman commits any of the sins that men commit ... he shall confess his sin which he has committed" (Num 5:6-7). "He who conceals his transgressions will not prosper; but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy" (Pro 28:13). "I acknowledged my sin to thee, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, 'I will confess my transgressions to the Lord'; then thou didst forgive the guilt of my sin" (Psa 32:5). It is the man who says that he is innocent and who refuses to admit that he has sinned who is condemned (Jer 2:35). Maimonides gives the formula which a man may use to confess his sin: "O God, I have sinned, I have done iniquity, I have transgressed before thee, and have done thus and so. I am sorry and ashamed for my deed, and I will never do it again." True repentance necessitates the humility to admit and to confess our sin.

No case is hopeless for repentance, and no man is beyond repentance. The Rabbis said, "Let not a man say, 'Because I have sinned, no repair is possible for me,' but let him trust in God and repent, and God will receive him." The classical example of a seemingly impossible reformation was the case of Manasseh. He worshipped the Baals, he brought strange gods into Jerusalem; he even sacrificed children to Moloch in the valley of Hinnom. Then he was taken away captive to Assyria, and there in fetters he lay upon the thorns. Then he prayed to God in his distress, and God heard his supplication and brought him again to Jerusalem. "Then Manasseh knew that the Lord was God" (2Ch 33:13). Sometimes it takes God's threat and God's discipline to do it, but none is beyond the power of God to bring him home.

There is one last Jewish belief about repentance, and it is a belief which must have been in John's mind. Certain, at least, of the Jewish teachers taught that if Israel could repent perfectly for even one day the Messiah would come. It was only the hardness of the hearts of men which delayed the sending of God's Redeemer into the world.

Repentance was the very centre of the Jewish faith as it is the very centre of the Christian faith, for repentance is the turning away from sin and the turning towards God, and towards the life that God means us to live.

Constable: Mat 1:1--4:12

I. The introduction of the King 1:1--4:11

"Fundamentally, the purpose of this first part is to introduce the reader to Jesus on the one hand and to the religious leaders on the other."³⁰

The first two chapters of this section prepare the reader for Jesus' ministry. Consequently they serve as a prologue to the Gospel.

Constable: Mat 3:1--4:12

D. The King's preparation 3:1-4:11

Matthew passed over Jesus' childhood quickly to relate His preparation for presentation to Israel as her King.

"The material of this section of the Gospel is particularly important since the baptism of Jesus serves as the occasion of his special anointing by the Holy Spirit for the ministry that follows, but it is also Christologically significant in that his divine Sonship is confirmed and the non-triumphalist nature of the present phase of that Sonship is indicated (3:17c and 4:1-11). Thus Matthew provides information that is vitally important to an understanding of the narrative that follows: what Jesus does in his ministry he does by the power of the Spirit; yet Jesus will not act in the manner of a triumphalist messiah, in accordance with popular expectation, but in his own unique way, in obedience to the will of his Father."¹¹⁹

Constable: Mat 3:1-12

1. Jesus' forerunner 3:1-12 (cf. Mark 1:2-8; Luke 3:3-18)

It was common when Jesus lived for forerunners to precede important individuals to prepare the way for their arrival. For example, when a king would visit a town in his realm his emissaries would go before him to announce his visit. They would make sure the town was in good condition to receive him. Sometimes his servants even had to do minor road work to smooth the highway the king would take as he approached his destination.¹²⁰ John not only prepared the way for Jesus but also announced Him as an important person and implied His royalty. John preceded Jesus in His birth, in His public appearance, and in His death.

"As Jesus' forerunner, John foreshadows in his person and work the person and work of Jesus. Both John and Jesus are the agents of God sent by God (11:10; 10:40). Both belong to the time of fulfillment (3:3; 1:32). Both have the same message to proclaim (3:2; 4:17). Both enter into conflict with Israel: in the case of the crowds, a favorable reception ultimately gives way to repudiation; in the case of the leaders, the opposition is implacable from the outset (3:7-10; 9:3). Both John and Jesus are delivered up' to their enemies (4:12; 10:4). And both are made to die violently and shamefully (14:3-12; 27:37)."¹²¹

3:1-2 John appeared "in those days" (v. 1). This phrase is a general term that says little about specific time but identifies what follows as historical. It is a common transitional statement in Matthew's narrative.¹²² John's ministry, as Matthew described it here, occurred just before the beginning of Jesus' public ministry, approximately 30 years after the events of chapter 2.

"John" became a popular name among the Jews following the heroic career of John Hyrcanus (died 106 B.C.). There are four or five Johns in the New Testament. This one received the surname "the Baptist" because of his practice of baptizing repentant Jews (v. 6).

John was a herald with a message to proclaim. "Preaching" is literally heralding (Gr. kerysso).

"In the New Testament the verb does not mean to give an informative or hortatory or edifying discourse expressed in beautifully arranged words with a melodious voice; it means to proclaim an event' . . ."¹²³

The event John proclaimed was the imminent arrival of God's kingdom.

The scene of John's ministry was the wilderness of Judea. This loosely defined area lay mainly to the west and somewhat north of the Dead Sea. John evidently conducted his ministry there because of its rough conditions that were suitable to his appeal for repentance. In Israel's history the wilderness forever reminded the Jews of their 40-year sojourn under extreme conditions and God's giving them the Law of Moses. They associated it with a place of separation unto God and testing for refinement.

John called the people to repent (v. 2).

"Contrary to popular thinking, repent does not mean to be sorry. The Greek word metanoeo means . . . to change one's mind or purpose . . .'¹²⁴ In the New Testament it . . . indicates a complete change of attitude, spiritual and moral, towards God.'¹²⁵ The primary meaning involves a turning to God which may indeed make a person sorry for his sins, but that sorrow is a by-product and not the repentance itself. . . . In a word, John's command to the people of Israel was for them to turn from their sins to God in anticipation of their Messiah."¹²⁶

The Jews needed to change their thinking because most of them believed that they would enter the Messiah's kingdom simply because they were the children of Abraham (v. 9). John was attacking established religious concepts of his day and those who taught them. He demanded evidence of genuine repentance instead of mere complacency, hypocrisy, and superficiality (cf. v. 8).

John also announced that the kingdom of heaven (lit. the heavens) was at hand. What was this kingdom? Students of this question have offered five basic answers.

First, some say that Jesus simply continued the Old Testament prophets' ethical and social ideals, and He taught that people who followed these became a part of God's kingdom. This is the old liberal interpretation that emphasizes the ethical dimension of prophetic teaching to the exclusion of its eschatological content.

Second, some believe that Jesus adopted both the ethical and eschatological teachings of the Old Testament but changed His message later because the Jews rejected Him. They view God's kingdom as Jesus presented it as very different from the kingdom the Old Testament prophets predicted. This view is unacceptable because Jesus' teaching about the kingdom is consistent with Old Testament prophecy, though He added new revelation on the subject.

Third, some interpreters have concluded that Jesus appropriated certain spiritual elements in the Old Testament kingdom prophecies. However, they say, He either omitted or spiritualized the physical elements (e.g., an earthly kingdom in the land of Canaan), and He added some original ideas of His own. The problem with this view is its inconsistency. Many of the physical aspects of Old Testament kingdom prophecy happened literally as predicted (e.g., Jesus' birth in Bethlehem).

Fourth, some believe there are two kingdoms. Advocates argue that at His first advent Jesus offered and established on earth a spiritual kingdom of which all believers have become partakers. At His second advent Jesus will establish on earth a physical earthly kingdom. The text, however, offers no support for this bifurcation of the kingdom. In the Old Testament it was always an earthly kingdom.

"Traditional dispensationalists sometimes contended that the term kingdom of God referred to the sphere of reality and kingdom of heaven only to the sphere of profession, which encompassed both genuine believers and merely professing believers. In this view, also, the kingdom of God was cosmic and universal in its dimensions, having authority over all creation, while the kingdom of heaven was limited to the earth.¹²⁷

"Most recent advocates of a distinction acknowledge that the two expressions are often used synonymously,' yet are to be distinguished in certain contexts.¹²⁸ Others who would generally be identified with dispensationalism agree with most non-dispensationalists that no distinction between these expressions is intended by the biblical writers.¹²⁹ Matthew's use of the kingdom of heaven' is to be explained as a Semitic idiom probably resulting from the Jewish reverence for the name of God and the tendency to use heaven' or heavens' as a substitute.¹³⁰ So, although some dispensationalists still distinguish the two terms in some passages, we agree with Ryrie that this issue is not a determinative feature of dispensationalism.¹³¹

Fifth, there is the one earthly kingdom view. Those of us who hold it believe that the kingdom that John, Jesus (4:17), and His disciples (10:7) announced and offered the Jews was exactly the same kingdom that the Old Testament prophets predicted. Because the Jews rejected their King and His kingdom, God postponed the kingdom until a future time when Israel will accept her Messiah, namely at His second advent (cf. Zech. 12:10-14). Similarly because the generation of Jews that left Egypt in the Exodus refused to trust and obey God at Kadesh Barnea, God postponed the nation's entrance into the Promised Land for 38 years. This view, I believe, best harmonizes the normal meaning of the Old Testament kingdom prophecies and Jesus' teachings.¹³²

There is good evidence that the kingdom that John and Jesus spoke about was the earthly eschatological kingdom that the Old Testament prophets foretold. First, the fact that John, Jesus, and Jesus' disciples did not explain what it was but simply announced that it was near indicates that they referred to a kingdom known to their hearers.¹³³ Second, Jesus restricted the proclamation about the kingdom to Jews (10:5-6). If the kingdom was spiritual, why was this necessary? Moreover the inauguration of the kingdom predicted in the Old Testament depended on the Jews receiving it. Third, Jesus' disciples expected the beginning of an earthly kingdom (20:20-21; Acts 1:6). They did so after they had listened to Jesus' teaching about the kingdom for a long time. Fourth, this kingdom cannot be the church since God had not yet revealed the existence of the church let alone established it (16:18). It cannot be God's universal reign over the hearts of mankind since that had existed since creation.

". . . if the Kingdom, announced as at hand' by the Lord, had been exclusively a spiritual kingdom,' or as some have defined it, the rule of God in the heart,' such an announcement would have had no special significance whatever to Israel, for such a rule of God had always been recognized among the people of God [cf. Ps. 37:31; 103:19]."¹³⁴

Therefore we conclude that when John spoke of the kingdom of heaven (v. 2) he meant the earthly kingdom over which Messiah would rule, which the Old Testament prophets predicted.

"Only the premillennial interpretation of the concept of the kingdom allows a literal interpretation of both Old Testament and New Testament prophecies relating to the future kingdom"¹³⁵

There is some disagreement among those who hold this view (i.e., premillenarians) concerning the terms "kingdom of heaven" and the more common "kingdom of God." Some believe they are synonymous, others hold that they refer to two different entities, and still others see a difference of emphasis but only one entity. Matthew preferred the term "kingdom of heaven," and he used it except in 12:28; 19:24; 21:31; and 21:43.¹³⁶

Here are the major arguments of those who see a distinction between the two terms and the responses of those who do not. First, usage suggests that "the kingdom of God" includes only genuine believers whereas "the kingdom of heaven" also includes merely professing believers.¹³⁷ This distinction is very difficult if not impossible to prove. For example, Jesus laid down rigorous requirements for entrance into the kingdom of heaven (5:20; 7:21; 18:3). Second, usage suggests that "the kingdom of God" refers to His internal rule over believers whereas "the kingdom of heaven" refers to Messiah's earthly reign.¹³⁸ However, John announced the nearness of the kingdom of heaven (3:2), and Jesus announced the nearness of the kingdom of God (12:28; Mark 1:14-15; cf. Luke 10:9). Evidently both terms refer to the earthly eschatological kingdom. Third, the fact that Matthew used both terms in his Gospel has convinced some interpreters that he intended some distinction between them. One explanation of this difference is that Matthew alone among the Gospel writers used the term "the kingdom of heaven" because of his Jewish audience and his general purpose. The term itself comes from Daniel 2:44; 4:26, 37; and 7:27. These references occur in the Aramaic portion of Daniel's prophecy. Most Palestinian Jews living in Jesus' day could not read Hebrew, but Aramaic was their vernacular. Consequently Matthew's original readers would have been familiar with this term, and he evidently used it to connect the kingdom now offered with the one Daniel had predicted.¹³⁹

"Our Lord, Who spoke in Aramaic, would always use this phrase, and when writing in Greek, Matthew, in keeping with the special scope and character of his Gospel retained it, whereas, in the other Gospels the figure was translated as being what it also, although not exclusively, meant, the Kingdom of God."¹⁴⁰

The Jews often substituted another word in the place of God's name because they wanted to avoid using God's name in vain.¹⁴¹ By substituting the term "heaven" for "God," Matthew accommodated himself to his readers' Jewish preference.¹⁴²

Why then did Matthew use the term "kingdom of God" at all? Whenever he used the term "kingdom of God" he apparently did so to stress deliberately the character of the kingdom as involving the rule of God (e.g., 12:28). Whenever he used "kingdom of heaven" the emphasis is on the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy about the kingdom. The same kingdom is in view, but Matthew described it to suit his purpose.¹⁴³

It is particularly important to distinguish the church from the kingdom. The kingdom, whether "of heaven" or "of God," always refers to the earthly reign of Messiah as predicted in the Old Testament. The church will play a part in the kingdom, but they are separate entities.¹⁴⁴ Matthew maintains this distinction throughout his Gospel as do the other New Testament writers.

What did John mean when he announced that the kingdom was "at hand" (v. 2)? The Greek verb eggizo means "to draw near," not "to be here" (cf. 21:1). All that was necessary for the kingdom to be there was Israel's acceptance of her King (11:14). The kingdom was near because the King was near.

"If Israel had accepted its Messiah, the earthly kingdom would have been inaugurated by the King."¹⁴⁵

This statement may seem to some to render Christ's work on the cross unnecessary, but this is incorrect. Had the Jews accepted their Messiah when He offered the kingdom to them He still would have died on the cross and experienced resurrection and ascension. He could not have been the Messiah without doing so in fulfillment of many Old Testament prophecies (Ps. 22; Isa. 53; Dan. 9; Zech. 13). Then the prophecies concerning the seven years of Jacob's trouble would have materialized (Jer. 30:7; Dan. 12:1; 9:26-27). Next Messiah would have returned to set up His kingdom (Isa. 60:1-3; 66:18; Hab. 2:14; cf. Zech. 12:10; 13:6).

Since the Jews rejected Jesus' offer of the kingdom was His offer genuine? Had God not already determined that Israel would reject her Messiah? Jesus' offer of the kingdom was just as genuine as any gospel offer of salvation to someone who rejects it.

"Those who cavil at the idea of an offer which is certain to be rejected betray an ignorance, not only of Biblical history (cf. Isa. 6:8-10 and Ezek. 2:3-7), but also of the important place of the legal proffer in the realm of jurisprudence."¹⁴⁶

3:3 "This is the one OT citation of Matthew's own eleven direct OT quotations that is not introduced by a fulfillment formula . . . Instead he introduces it with a Pesher formula (e.g., Acts 2:16 . . .) that can only be understood as identifying the Baptist in an eschatological, prophecy-and-fulfillment framework with the one of whom Isaiah (40:3) spoke."¹⁴⁷

In Isaiah 40:3 the voice exhorts the people to prepare for God's coming as He brings Israel back from her dispersion. The prophet then proceeded to describe the blessings that would follow her return. Matthew identified Yahweh in Isaiah 40:3 with Jesus in Matthew 3:3. This means the kingdom of God is the kingdom of Jesus. While this is not an implicit statement of Jesus' deity, it certainly presents Jesus as more than just Yahweh's representative.

3:4-6 In his dress and in his food, as well as in his habitat and in his message, John associated himself with the poor and the prophets, particularly Elijah (cf. 2 Kings 1:8; Zech. 13:4; Mal. 4:5). Poor people ate locusts (Lev. 11:22). He called the people to get right with God because the appearing of their Messiah was imminent. Elijah had called the Israelites back to God at the time of their most serious apostasy. John called them back to God on the eve of their greatest opportunity. He was the first prophet from God in 400 years.

Many people responded to John because they perceived that he was a genuine prophet with a message from God (v. 5).

Baptism represented purification to the Jews. Ceremonial washings were part of the Mosaic system of worship (Exod. 19; Lev. 15; Num. 19). When a Gentile became a proselyte to Judaism, he or she underwent baptism. John's baptism carried these connotations of cleansing with it, but it was different. In the other types of ceremonial cleansing, the person washed himself or herself. John, on the other hand, baptized other people. He probably received the name "John the Baptist" or "Baptizer" for this reason.¹⁴⁸

John's baptism did not make a person a member of the church, the body of Christ, since the church had not yet come into existence (16:18). It simply gave public testimony to that person's repentance and commitment to live a holy life. Lenski, a Lutheran commentator, tried to prove that John baptized by effusion (pouring) rather than by immersion.¹⁴⁹ It is impossible to identify the method of baptism John used from what the Gospels tell us. However extrabiblical sources indicate that Jewish proselyte baptism took place in large tanks (Heb. mikvah) in which the person undergoing baptism stood.¹⁵⁰ The issue boils down to whether one takes the word "baptism" in its primary sense of submersion or in its secondary sense of initiation.¹⁵¹ Likewise it is unclear whether the confession involved public or private acts.

3:7-10 This verse contains Matthew's first reference to the Pharisees ("separate ones") and the Sadducees ("righteous ones"). Significantly, John was antagonistic toward them because they were hypocritical, a trait that marks them throughout the Gospels. Matthew lumped them together because they were Israel's leaders.

"Vipers" is a word Isaiah used to describe God's enemies (Isa. 14:29; 30:6). John's use of it associates him with the former prophets and reflects his prophetic authority.

"The first major appearance of the religious leaders in Matthew's story occurs in conjunction with the ministry of John the Baptist (3:7-10). The importance of their appearance here has to do with the fact that John is the forerunner of Jesus. As such, the attitude that John assumes toward the leaders is predictive of the attitude that Jesus will assume toward them."¹⁵²

"Except for Jesus himself, they [the religious leaders] are the ones in Matthew's story who influence most the development of the plot."¹⁵³

John's question (v. 7) amounted to, "Who suggested to you that you would escape the coming wrath?"¹⁵⁴ The behavior of the Pharisees and Sadducees should have demonstrated the genuineness of their professed repentance, but it did not. Fruit is what people produce that other people see that indicates their spiritual condition (13:21; cf. Mark 4:19; Luke 8:14; John 15:1-6). The fruits of repentance were absent in the case of these leaders. There was no external evidence that they desired to draw near to God in anticipation of Messiah's appearance.

Many of the Jews in the inter-testamental period believed that if one was a descendant of Abraham he would automatically enter Messiah's kingdom.¹⁵⁵ They counted on the patriarch's righteousness as sufficient for themselves. However, God had often pruned back the unrighteous in Israel and preserved a remnant in its history. As Matthew continued to point out in his Gospel, many of the Jews refused to humble themselves before God and instead trusted in their own righteousness. The Pharisees and Sadducees were doing that here.

John's reference to "stones" (v. 9) was a play on words with "children" in both the Hebrew and Aramaic languages. If stones could become God's children, certainly Gentiles could.

Verse 10 gives the reason the Jews needed to repent. Divine judgment would precede the establishment of Messiah's kingdom (cf. Isa. 1:27; 4:4; 5:16; 13:6-19; 42:1; Jer. 33:14-16; Dan. 7:26-27). The Jews connected the concepts of repentance and the messianic age closely in their thinking.¹⁵⁶ John announced that this judgment was imminent (vv. 10-12). Any tree (better than every tree) that does not bear good fruit, regardless of its roots, will suffer destruction. Probably John had individuals and the nation of Israel in mind.

The reference to fire in verse 10 pictures the judgment and destruction of those who fail to repent (cf. "wrath," v. 7, and "winnowing fork," v. 13). For individuals this judgment would involve eternal destruction (v. 12) assuming there was no later repentance. For the nation it would involve the postponement of the kingdom and its attendant blessings.

3:11-12 John baptized in water "in connection with" repentance.¹⁵⁷ However the One coming after him, the King, would baptize with the Holy Spirit (cf. Joel 2:28-29) and fire (cf. Mal. 3:2-5). The Malachi prophecy speaks of fire as a refining or purifying agent, not as an instrument of destruction. Both prophecies involve the nation of Israel as a whole primarily.

Are these two different baptisms or one? This is a very difficult question to answer because the arguments on both sides are strong.¹⁵⁸ In both interpretations baptism connotes both immersion, in the metaphorical sense of placing into something, and initiation.

The construction of the statement in the Greek text favors one baptism. Usually one entity is in view when one article precedes two nouns joined by a conjunction.¹⁵⁹ This would mean that the one baptism Jesus would perform would be with the Holy Spirit and fire together. This apparently happened on the day of Pentecost initially (Acts 2:3-4).

The fire in Malachi's prophecy probably refers to purification and judgment. The purification emphasis is in harmony with Malachi's use. This has led many scholars to conclude that the fire baptism that John predicted is not the one at Pentecost.¹⁶⁰ They believe that the time when Jesus will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire to fulfill these prophecies concerning Israel is yet future from our viewpoint in history. It will happen at His second advent. It would have happened at His first advent if Israel had accepted Him. Jesus' baptism of His disciples on the day of Pentecost was a similar baptism, they say. However, it was not the fulfillment of these prophecies since they involved Israel and "the day of the Lord" specifically (cf. John 14:17; Acts 2; 1 Cor. 12:13).¹⁶¹

The context, which speaks of blessing for the repentant but judgment for the unrepentant, tends to favor two baptisms (vv. 8-10, 12; cf. Acts 1:5; 11:16). In this case the fire would refer primarily if not exclusively to judgment.¹⁶² The baptism with the Holy Spirit would refer to Spirit baptism that will happen when Israel accepts her Messiah (Isa. 44:3; Joel 2:28-32). A foretaste of that baptism occurred on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2). The baptism with fire would refer to Jesus' judgment of unrepentant Israel (cf. v. 12). After Israel's rejection of Jesus, it became clear that this national judgment will happen primarily at His second coming. This fiery judgment might also refer to unrepentant individuals when they reach the end of their lives.

All things considered it seems likely that John was referring to one baptism that took place initially on the day of Pentecost but which will find complete fulfillment at Jesus' second coming.

Verse 12 metaphorically describes God separating the true and the false, the repentant and the unrepentant, in a future judgment. This thorough judgment will result in the preservation of the believing Israelites and the destruction of the unbelieving (cf. 25:31-46). The barn probably refers to the kingdom and the "unquenchable fire" to the endless duration and the agonizing nature of this punishment.

"Unquenchable fire' is not just metaphor: fearful reality underlies Messiah's separation of grain from chaff. The nearness' of the kingdom therefore calls for repentance (v. 2)."¹⁶³

What then was the essential message of Messiah's forerunner?

"John preached both a personal salvation, involving the remission of sins (Mark 1:4), and a national salvation, involving the establishment of the millennial kingdom with Israel delivered out of the hand of their enemies (Matt. 3:2; Luke 1:71-75)."¹⁶⁴

College: Mat 3:1-17

MATTHEW 3

D. THE MISSION AND MESSAGE OF JOHN THE BAPTIST

(3:1-12)

Although a temporal gap of roughly thirty years exists between the events of chapter 2 and the appearance of John the Baptist (3:1), Matthew makes very little of it since he is more concerned with the significance of John than in detailing the chronological sequence of events leading to his appearance. One particular form of Jewish messianic hope anticipated the return of Elijah as a precursor to the messianic age (cf. Matt 11:14; 17:10-13; Mal 3:23,24; 4:5-6; Sir 48:9-10; I Enoch 90:31). Matthew takes great care in describing the character and role of John, ultimately to mark his presence and action as a decisive turning point in the unfolding of God's redemptive scheme. John appears in the Davidic territory (3:1), in the spirit of Elijah (cf. 3:4; 2 Kgs 1:8), preaching a message of reform (3:2, 7-10; cf. Mal 3:1-5; 4:5-6), in view of the nearness of the Kingdom (3:2), and the eschatological judgment brought by a " mightier one" to come (3:11-12). In subsequent episodes of Matthew's story the person and work of John function to highlight the messianic contours of Jesus' character and mission (cf. 3:14; 11:1-19; 14:1-12; 16:14-20; 17:9-13; 21:23-27).

While 3:1 does signal a new phase in the pre-ministry stage of the story, the material comprising 3:1-4:16 still anticipates Jesus' public ministry (4:17). The preparatory work of John consists of two sections highlighting his ministry (3:1-6) and his message (3:7-12).

¹ In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the Desert of Judea ² and saying, " Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near." ³ This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah:

" A voice of one calling in the desert,

'Prepare the way for the Lord,

make straight paths for him.'" ^a

⁴ John's clothes were made of camel's hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. ⁵ People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. ⁶ Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.

⁷ But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: " You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? ⁸ Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. ⁹ And do not think you can say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. ¹⁰ The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

¹¹" I baptize you with ^b water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. ¹² His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire."

^a 3 Isaiah 40:3 ^b 11 Or in

3:1. The phrase in those days draws from an OT precedent designed to draw the reader's attention " to a period of historical interest" (cf. Gen 38:1; Exod 20:11; Jer 3:16, 18; 50:4; Dan 10:2; Joel 3:1; Zech 8:23; also I Enoch 99:10). Rather than accenting chronological or temporal elements Matthew is more concerned to highlight the uniqueness of the times now dawning with the arrival of John. His presence in the Desert of Judea conforms to the widely held belief that a return to the desert followed by a second exodus would herald the messianic age (see Isa 40:3-4; 42:14-55:13; Ezek 20:33-44; Hos 2:14-15; 1 Macc 2:29-30; 1QS 8:12-18). Thus, Matthew continues to draw extensive correlations between the story of Jesus and the story of Moses and the Exodus. The reference to John's geographical location also anticipates the language of Isa. 40:3 subsequently cited by Matthew (v. 3).

3:2. John's prophetic call for reform (metanoei'te, metanoeite ) demands both a change of attitude and conduct (see v. 8). The appeal for the renewal of all Israel is motivated (gavr, gar ) by the drawing near of God's sovereign reign (basileiva tw'n oujranw'n, basileia tôn ouranôn). The perfect tense verb translated is near (h[ggiken, çngiken) conveys the nuance of " having drawn near and remaining near." With respect to the present and futurity of the kingdom the comment of Davies and Allison best resolves the tension: " When Jesus announces that the Kingdom of God has come and is coming, this means that the last act has begun but not yet reached its climax: The last things have come and will come."

While Matthew favors the expression kingdom of heaven (33Χ) over the terminology " kingdom of God," the latter form is not entirely absent from Matthean diction (see 12:28; 19:24; 21:34, 43). Most scholars view the expressions as equivalent (cf. 19:23-24), with the variations explained as either typical Jewish avoidance of the divine name or as reflecting nothing more than stylistic diversity. However, it is important to understand that the primary focus of the term " kingdom" is not territorial, but rather the accent is upon God's very presence that has drawn near to his people with saving power. While Jesus will echo the same proclamation of God's dynamic reign (see 4:17), his ministry will transcend John's by both inaugurating and mediating the saving presence of God's reign.

3:3. Matthew continues his penchant for interpreting events in terms of OT fulfillment by illuminating John's ministry in terms of Isa 40:3. Originally, Isa 40:1-5 functioned to highlight the consolation of God as he draws near to assure his people of their eventual return to their homeland following the Babylonian captivity. However, by following the LXX reading (cf. Hebrew text), Matthew places the emphasis upon what was said rather than the place where it was said. A distinctly messianic reading is made possible by following Lord with the personal pronoun him rather than the LXX rendering " of our God." Thereby, " Lord" refers to Jesus rather than in the original instance to God. Clearly, Matthew has no hesitation to alter the wording of an OT text in light of his sense of a deeper christological significance. John's mission is anchored in the imperatives of Isa 40:3: prepare the way , make straight his paths . His message of reform becomes the means whereby the people were " prepared" for the arrival of the Lord.

3:4. John's prophetic role is further confirmed by his appearance and dietary habits. Matthew's description of John's appearance has strong verbal parallels with the prophet Elijah (see 2 Kgs 1:8; cf. Zech 13:4). Indeed, implicit identification with Elijah becomes explicit later in Matthew's story (11:14; 17:12-13). His diet of locusts and wild honey points to an ascetic lifestyle characteristic of a holy man fully consecrated to God. Efforts to link John with the Qumran community usually fail to give adequate attention to major differences between the message and mission of John and the ideology characterizing Qumran.

3:5-6. John's message of reform was met by a favorable response among the Jews throughout Judea , even impacting the capital city, Jerusalem . John's success is highlighted by the imperfect verb ejbaptivzonto ( ebaptizonto ) which matches the continual " coming out" (ejxeporeuveto, exeporeueto ) of the previous verse. The present participle (ejxomologouvmenoi, exomologoumenoi , confessing ) calls attention to the penitent spirit of those participating in John's baptism. Matthew does not explicitly link John's baptism to " forgiveness of sins" (cf. Mark 1:4; Luke 3:3), perhaps because cleansing from sin is so emphatically tied to Jesus' messianic task (1:21; 9:2-5; 26:28).

The question concerning the background of John's baptism has been much discussed. While John's baptism has certain similarities with OT ablutions, Jewish proselyte baptisms, and even the multiple washings at Qumran, distinctive features associated with John's baptism establish his unique contribution: not the least of which is the fact that " his baptism was directed towards the nation as a whole ( contra Qumran), administered once and for all ( contra OT ablutions), and was for Jews only ( contra proselyte baptism). Those participating in John's baptism in effect became a remnant within Israel, actually constituting " true Israel," the beginning of the new community of God.

3:7. Major antagonists of Matthew's story make their debut with the appearance of the Pharisees and Sadducees. While the two groups represent diverse and even competitive sects within Judaism (see Josephus, Ant. 17:42), in Matthew they function as a " monolithic front," sharing a common hostility toward both John and Jesus. Historically, the Pharisees were advocates of a righteousness grounded in the precision of law-keeping based upon the interpretation and application of both the written and oral Torah. Practically, Pharisees were concerned with ritual purity and its implications for defining and defending the boundaries of true Israel. The result was a holiness code which sought to extend priestly purity regulations to all Israel. Loyalty to the covenant and God's election demanded a strict observance of purity ordinances, which in effect produced a factional separatism and a self-righteous condemnation of all others not embracing their agenda. Their ongoing conflict with Jesus throughout Matthew's story is largely driven by his refusal to give credence to a righteousness based solely upon observing legal requirements.

While the Pharisees function in Matthew as the dominant opponents of Jesus, it is the political influence of the Sadducees that ultimately orchestrates the death of Jesus (see 26:57-65; 27:1, 20). Although their leverage with the populace is minimal, in comparison with the Pharisees, their priestly and aristocratic clout controlled cultic life associated with the temple. Their religious and political conservatism resulted in their rejection of Pharisaic oral tradition, along with any movement that tended to subvert the established order. Although perhaps motivated for different reasons, it is not at all surprising for a delegation composed of both Pharisees and Sadducees to be concerned with the implications of John's activities in the Judean desert (cf. John 1:19-25).

The NIV is probably correct in translating ejpi toÉ bavptisma ( epi to baptisma ) as coming to where he was baptizing , rather than " coming for baptism" (cf. NRSV; see Luke 3:7). John's assessment of their character (lit. " offspring of vipers" ) as both detestable and a danger to others (cf. 16:6), followed by his sarcastic question, who warned you to flee . . . ? , indicates that John is not fooled by their hypocritical front. They, in fact, do not feel themselves to be in any danger of God's eschatological wrath, after all they are the offspring of Abraham, children of the covenant.

3:8-9. John challenges such thinking with a demand for concrete evidence of a penitent spirit. They cannot entertain the idea that mere physical descent from Abraham assures their immunity from God's eschatological wrath. John emphatically repudiates their contention that ethnic Israel and the covenantal people of God are one and the same. Neither is salvation guaranteed to Jews as such, but only to those who undergo a radical change of conduct.

Matt 3:10. The language of John bristles with a note of urgency in view of the imminent ushering in of the end-times: the ax is already at the root of the tree . Having earlier called for fruit in keeping with repentance (v. 8), John now elucidates the consequences of failure to bear fruit. In the spirit of a true prophet (cf. Isa 8:6-8; 66:24; Jer 7:16-20; Micah 2:1-3), John envisions a fiery judgment upon those who fail to heed his warnings. The demise of fruitless Israel and a redefining of the true people of God constitutes a major theme in Matthew's story (see 7:21-23; 8:10-13; 21:43-44).

3:11-12. John's message now turns to explicit comments about the nature and role of the expected Messiah. John frankly acknowledges the superior status and mission of the one who comes after him. He readily confesses himself to be unworthy to perform even the most menial task of a slave on behalf of the " mightier one" to come. While John's baptism in water both presupposed and brought to expression the act of repentance, it functioned only as a " prophetic symbol" of a future Spirit-fire baptism producing inward cleansing and genuine renewal. The contrast reinforces John's preparatory function with a greater ministry to be realized in Jesus.

The meaning of the words baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire has been the source of some dispute. Some clarity is brought to the discussion with the observation that the two nouns " Spirit" and " fire" are governed by the single preposition ejn ( en , in/with/by), thus most naturally indicating one baptism composed of two elements. In addition, it seems clear by the personal pronoun uJma'" ( hymas ), that those baptized in water by John can ultimately expect a baptism composed of both Spirit and fire. It therefore appears that John did not envision a twofold baptism wherein some are " baptized in the Holy Spirit," while others receive a fiery baptism resulting in their destruction. It may be that John had in mind a single baptism experienced both as a cleansing (cf. Ezek 36:25-27; 39:29), and as a means of refinery (cf. Isa 1:25; Zech 13:9; Mal 3:2-3). By extension the Spirit-fire baptism, received as a blessing by the penitent, spells judgment and destruction upon all who reject the message of God's coming reign (cf. Isa 4:2-4).

John's message concludes with an ominous warning of impending separation to be executed by the Mightier One . The final separation is likened to the final phase of the harvesting process wherein wheat is separated from the chaff by tossing both elements into the air and allowing the wind to blow away the chaff while the heavier wheat falls to the floor. The wheat is then gathered for storage, while the worthless chaff is destroyed by fire. Like the unfruitful trees of 3:10 (cf. 13:42,49) the metaphoric use of fire is employed to describe the finality of the wicked's irreversible condition. While John's perception of the Messiah as eschatological judge and dispenser of the Holy Spirit is accurate, it will become apparent that he does not, as yet, possess the depth of insight to understand how the Messiah will fulfill his role. Later in the story there develops a seeming conflict between John's " christological expectations" and Jesus' messianic performance (11:2-6).

E. THE BAPTISM AND COMMISSION OF JESUS (3:13-17)

¹³ Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. ¹⁴ But John tried to deter him, saying, " I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?"

¹⁵ Jesus replied, " Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness." Then John consented.

¹⁶ As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. ¹⁷ And a voice from heaven said, " This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased."

3:13. By the use of tovte ( tote , then) and the historical present paragivnetai ( paraginetai ) (cf. 3:1), Matthew vividly connects the appearance of Jesus to the mission of John. Jesus comes from Galilee (cf. 2:22) to John for the express purpose of being baptized by him (tou' [ tou ] + infinitive = purpose).

3:14-15. Thus far in the story Matthew has stressed Jesus' kingly-messianic dignity, as well as his unique transcendent status. Yet, the first independent act of Jesus is submission to John's baptism. Even from John's limited perspective, Jesus' submission to his baptism seemed incongruent with their respective roles. Why would the " mightier one" who will administer a " Spirit-fire baptism" submit to his preparatory baptism? Apparently, John even made several unsuccessful attempts to deter him (diekwvluen, diekôlyen, conative imperfect), insisting on his own need for the greater messianic baptism (3:11). However, the first words spoken by Jesus clarify his purpose in submitting to John's baptism. He affirms that it is the " proper and right" (prevpon, prepon , BAGD, p. 699) thing to do for the " time being" (a[fe" a[rti, aphes arti ), given their appointed roles to fulfill all righteousness . Jesus understands that the time of fulfillment has arrived and submission to John's baptism functions to usher in God's salvific plan. The two key terms " fulfill" (plhrw'sai, plçrôsai) and " righteousness" (dikaiosuvnhn, dikaiosynçn) are best understood not in terms of conformity to legal or moral requirements, but rather to highlight his submission as an important step in the realization of God's saving presence. John participates (hJmi'n, hçmin) in initiating the age of fulfillment by yielding to the authoritative request of Jesus. The brief exchange sets the stage for God's positive assessment and commission of Jesus to his messianic mission.

3:16. Immediately following the immersion of Jesus he receives divine confirmation by being empowered by the Holy Spirit and receiving God's revelatory approval. Jesus' emergence from the water has been linked to both creation (cf. Gen 1:1-2) and Exodus motifs (cf. Exod 4:22; 14:29-30). Certainly, the story of Israel is never far below the surface of Matthew's plot and structure. It should be observed that the baptismal scene also has certain verbal affinities with Ezekiel 1-2, wherein Ezekiel is commissioned by God to his prophetic task (see Ezek 1:1,28; 2:2-3).

The expression heaven was opened was commonly used to signal some form of divine disclosure or revelation (cf. Ezek 1:1; Isa 63:19; Acts 7:56; Rev 4:1). In this instance, Jesus is the recipient of God's anointing Spirit which empowers him for his messianic ministry (cf. Acts 10:38). Although the symbolism conveyed by the Spirit as a dove is unclear, the image of a bird alongside references to water and the Holy Spirit may be intended to recall creation imagery (see Gen 1:1-2), thus suggesting in Jesus the beginning of a new creation. Be that as it may, it should be observed that the Spirit's anointing is not to be construed as a form of adoption wherein Jesus only now becomes God's Son. The role of the Holy Spirit in his birth (1:18-25), and the earlier recognition of his Sonship (2:15) rule out such an interpretation. The anointing of the Spirit is in conjunction with his commissioning to his messianic mission, not to make him something he was not before.

3:17. The coming of God's Spirit is accompanied by the revelatory announcement of God who speaks explicitly both to approve and to commission his Son to his messianic task. It is obvious by the use of the third person ( this is ), rather than the second person (" you are," cf. Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22), that the announcement was not intended as a direct address to Jesus. Hence, the words of God in 3:17 (cf. 17:5) function either as a " narrative aside directed to the reader," or in view of the subsequent temptation scene (4:3,6), the announcement may constitute a challenge to Satan reminiscent of his challenge with respect to his servant Job (see Job 1:8). Whatever may be the significance of Matthew's form of God's announcement, the divine assessment certainly provides significant insights into the nature and role of Jesus' Sonship by linking it to key OT texts.

While disputed by some, it appears that the three significant terms of 3:17 (i.e., son , beloved , pleased ) have been influenced primarily by the language of Ps 2 and Isa 42 (and possibly, Gen 22:1). Specifically, in Ps 2 the Anointed King (2:2), who represents both the nation and the Lord (2:4), is designated by God as his " son" on the day of his coronation to his throne (2:7). In Isa 42:1-5 God puts his Spirit upon his " chosen one," in whom he " delights" and commissions his " servant" to lowly paths of service (cf. Matt 12:18-21). In this way Matthew gives content to Jesus' Sonship and messianic mission by linking it to the themes of Davidic royalty and suffering service. The prophetic influence of Ps 2 and Isa 42 also emphasize that the basic thrust of God's announcement is to be viewed as a commission of Jesus to his messianic task. Subsequent narrative scenes will show how Jesus fulfills his role as God's Son and servant.

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

McGarvey: Mat 3:1-12

P A R T  S E C O N D.
BEGINNING OF THE MINISTRY OF JOHN
THE BAPTIST, THE FOREUNNER.

XVII.
JOHN THE BAPTIST'S PERSON AND PREACHING.
(In the wilderness of Judæa, and on the banks of the Jordan,
occupying several months, probably A. D. 25 or 26.)
^aMATT. III. 1-12; ^bMARK I. 1-8; ^cLUKE III. 1-18.

   ^b1 The beginning of the gospel [John begins his Gospel from eternity, where the Word is found coexistent with God. Matthew begins with Jesus, the humanly generated son of Abraham and David, born in the days of Herod the king. Luke begins with the birth of John the Baptist, the Messiah's herald; and Mark begins with the ministry of John the Baptist. While the three other evangelists take a brief survey of the preparation of the gospel, Mark looks particularly to the period when it began to be preached. Gospel means good news, and news is not news until it is proclaimed. The gospel began to be preached or proclaimed with the ministry of John the Baptist (Luk 16:16). His ministry was the dawn of that gospel of which Christ's preaching was the sunrise] of Jesus [Our Lord's name as a human being; it means "Saviour"] Christ [Though this is also sometimes used as a name, it is in reality our Lord's title. It means "the Anointed," and is equivalent to saying that Jesus is our Prophet, Priest and King] the Son of God. [This indicates our Lord's eternal nature; it was divine. Mark's gospel was written to establish that fact, which is the foundation of the church (Mat 16:18). John's Gospel was written for a like purpose (Joh 20:31). John uses the phrase "Son of [62] God" twenty-nine times, and Mark seven times. As these two evangelists wrote chiefly for Gentile readers, they emphasized the divinity of Jesus, and paid less attention to his Jewish ancestry. But Matthew, writing for Hebrews, prefers the title "Son of David," which he applies to Jesus some nine times, that he may identify him as the Messiah promised in the seed of David -- 2Sa 7:12, Psa 72:1-17, Psa 89:3, Psa 89:4, Psa 132:11, Psa 132:12.]  ^c1 Now in the fifteenth year of the reign [Tiberius Cæsar, stepson of and successor to Augustus, began to reign as joint ruler with Augustus in August, A. U. C. 765 (A. D. 11). On Aug. 19, 767, Augustus died and Tiberius became sole ruler. Luke counts from the beginning of the joint rule, and his fifteen years bring us to 779. In August, 779, Tiberius began his fifteenth year, and about December of that year Jesus would have completed his thirtieth year] of Tiberius Cæsar [He was born B. C. 41, died March 16, A. D. 37. As a citizen he distinguished himself as orator, soldier and public official. But as emperor he was slothful, self-indulgent, indescribably licentious, vindictive and cruel. He was a master of dissimulation and cunning, and was a veritable scourge to his people. But he still found flatterers even in Palestine, Cæsarea Philippi, and the town Tiberias being named for him], Pontius Pilate [see mention of him in account of our Lord's trial] being governor of Judæa [The province of Judæa was subdued by Pompey and brought under Roman control in B. C. 63. Its history from that date till the governorship of Pilate can be found in Josephus], and Herod [Also called Antipas. The ruler who murdered John the Baptist and who assisted at the trial of Jesus] being tetrarch [this word means properly the ruler of a fourth part of a country, but was used loosely for any petty tributary prince] of Galilee [This province lay north of Samaria, and measured about twenty-five miles from north to south, and twenty-seven miles from east to west. It was a rich and fertile country], and his brother [half-brother] Philip [He was distinguished by justice and moderation, the one decent man in the Herodian family. He married Salome, [63] who obtained John the Baptist's head for a dance. He built Cæsarea Philippi, and transformed Bethsaida Julius from a village to a city, and died there A. D. 44. After his death his domains became part of the Roman province of Syria] tetrarch of the region of Ituræa [A district thirty miles long by twenty-five broad, lying north of Batanæa, east of Mt. Hermon, west of Trachonitis. It received its name from Jetur, son of Ishmael (Gen 25:15). Its Ishmaelite inhabitants were conquered by Aristobulus, king of Judæa, B. C. 100, and forced by him to accept the Jewish faith. They were marauders, and famous for the use of the bow] and Trachonitis [A district about twenty-two miles from north to south by fourteen from east to west. Its name means "rough" or "stony," and it amply deserves it. It lies between Ituræa and the desert, and has been infested with robbers from the earliest ages. It is called the Argob in the Old Testament, "an ocean of basaltic rock and boulders, tossed about in the wildest confusion, and intermingled with fissures and crevices in every direction"], and Lysanias [Profane history gives us no account of this man. It tells of a Lysanias, king of Chalcis, under Mt. Lebanon, who was put to death by Mark Antony, B. C. 36, or sixty-odd years before this, and another who was tetrarch of Abilene in the reigns of Caligula and Claudius twenty years after this. He probably was son of the first and father of the second] tetrarch of Abilene [The city of Abila (which comes from the Hebrew word "abel," meaning "meadow") is eighteen miles from Damascus and thirty-eight from Baalbec. The province laying about it is mentioned because it subsequently formed part of the Jewish territory, being given to Herod Agrippa I. by Emperor Claudius about A. D. 41],  2; in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas [Annas had been high priest 7-14 A. D., when he was deposed by the procurator, Gratus. Caiaphas was son-in-law of and successor to Annas. Luke gives both names, one as the rightful and the other as the acting high priest. Compare Act 4:6. Gentile innovations had made sad havoc with the Jewish law as to this office. In the last one [64] hundred and seven years of the temple's existence there were no less than twenty-eight high priests. Luke is the only one who fixes the time when Jesus began his ministry. He locates it by emperor and governor, tetrarch and high priest, as an event of world-wide importance, and of concern to all the kingdoms of men. He conceives of it as Paul did -- Act 26:26], the word of God [The divine commission which bade John enter his career as a prophet (Jer 1:2, Eze 6:1). Prophets gave temporary and limited manifestations of God's will (Heb 1:1, Heb 1:2). Jesus is the everlasting and unlimited manifestation of the divine purpose and of the very Godhead -- Joh 14:9, Joh 12:45, Col 1:15, Heb 1:3, 2Co 4:6] came unto John the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness. [The wilderness of Judæa is that almost uninhabitable mass of barren ridges extending the whole length of the Dead Sea, and a few miles further north. It is from five to ten miles wide.]  ^a1 And in those days [Some take this expression as referring to the years when Jesus dwelt at Nazareth. But it is better to regard it as a Hebraism equivalent to "that age" or "that era" (Exo 2:11). It contrasts the era when the Baptist lived with the era when Matthew wrote his Gospel, just as we say "in these days of enlightenment" when we wish to contrast the present time with the days of the American Revolution] cometh John [he was cousin to Jesus] the Baptist [So called because God first gave through him the ordinance of baptism. It has been erroneously thought by some that John borrowed this ordinance from the Jewish practice of proselyte baptism. This could not be, for John baptized his converts, but Jewish proselytes baptized themselves. The law required such self-baptism of all persons who were unclean (Lev 14:9, Num 19:19, Num 8:7, Lev 1-16:34.). More than twenty distinct cases are specified in which the law required bathing or self-baptism, and it is to these Paul refers when he states that the law consisted in part "of divers baptisms" (Heb 9:10). But the law did not require this of proselytes, and proselyte baptism was a human appendage to the divinely given Jewish [65] ritual, just as infant baptism is to the true Christian ritual. Proselyte baptism is not mentioned in history till the third century of the Christian era. Neither Josephus, nor Philo, nor the Apocrypha, nor the Targums say anything about it, though they all mention proselytes. In fact, the oldest mention of it in Jewish writings is in the Babylonian Gemara, which was completed about five hundred years years after Christ. The New Testament implies the non-existence of proselyte baptism (Mat 21:25, Joh 1:25, Joh 1:33). John could hardly have been called the Baptist, had he used an old-time rite in the accustomed manner. The Baptist was a link between the Old and New Testament. Belonging to the Old, he announced the New], preaching [Not sermonizing, but crying out a message as a king's herald making a proclamation, or a policeman crying "Fire!" in a slumbering town. His discourse was brief and unembellished. Its force lay in the importance of the truth announced. It promised to the Hebrew the fulfillment of two thousand years of longing. It demanded repentance, but for a new reason. The old call to repentance had wooed with the promise of earthly blessings, and warned with the threat of earthly judgments; but John's repentance had to do with the kingdom of heaven and things eternal. It suggested the Holy Spirit as a reward, and unquenchable fire as the punishment] in the wilderness of Judæa [that part of the wilderness which John chose for the scene of his ministry is a desert plain, lying along the western bank of the Jordan, between Jericho and the Dead Sea], saying,  2 Repent ye [to repent is to change the will in reference to sin, resolving to sin no more] for [John sets forth the motive for repentance. Repentance is the duty, and the approach of the kingdom is the motive inciting to it. Only by repentance could the people be prepared for the kingdom. Those who are indifferent to the obligations of an old revelation would be ill-prepared to receive a new one] the kingdom of heaven is at hand [Dan 2:44. "Kingdom of heaven" is peculiar to Matthew, who uses it thirty-one times. He also joins with the other evangelists in calling it the kingdom of God. We know not why [66] he preferred the expression, "kingdom of heaven."]  3 For this is he that was spoken of through Isaiah the prophet,  ^c3 And he came [he made his public appearance, and, like that of Elijah, it was a sudden one -- 1Ki 17:1] into all the region about the Jordan [The Jordan valley is called in the old Testament the Arabah, and by the modern Arabs the Ghor. It is the deepest valley in the world, its lowest part being about thirteen hundred feet below the level of the ocean] preaching the baptism of repentance unto the remission of sins [as a change leading to remission or forgiveness of sins] beven  ^c4 as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet [Isaiah flourished from about 759 to 699 B. C.], asaying, ^bBehold [The clause beginning with "Behold," and ending with "way," is taken from Mal 3:1. The Revised Version makes Mark quote this passage as if it were from Isaiah, the reading being "written in Isaiah the prophet," but the King James' version gives the reading "written in the prophets." Following the reasoning of Canon Cook, we hold that the latter was the original reading -- see Speaker's Commentary, note at the end of Mark i.] I send my messenger [John the Baptist was that messenger] before thy face [Malachi says, "my face." "Thy" and "my" are used interchangeably, because of the unity of the Deity -- Joh 10:30], who shall prepare thy way [Mark says little about the prophets, but at the outset of his Gospel he calls attention to the fact that the entire pathway of Jesus was the subject of prophetical prediction]; ^cThe voice [Isa 40:3, Isa 40:4, quoted from the LXX. The words were God's, the voice was John's. So Paul also spake (1Th 2:1-13). It was prophesied before he was born that John should be a preparing messenger for Christ -- Luk 1:17] of one crying in the wilderness [This prophecy of Isaiah's could relate to none but John, for no other prophet ever made the wilderness the scene of his preaching. But John always preached there, and instead of going to the people, he compelled the people to come out to him. John was the second Elijah. The claims of all who in these days profess to be reincarnations of Elijah [67] may be tested and condemned by this prophecy, for none of them frequent the wilderness], Make ye ready the way [See also Isa 35:8-10. Isaiah's language is highly figurative. It represents a band of engineers and workmen preparing the road for their king through a rough, mountainous district. The figure was familiar to the people of the East, and nearly every generation there witnessed such road-making. The haughty Seriramis leveled the mountains before her. Josephus, describing the march of Vespasian, says that there went before him such as were to make the road even and straight, and if it were anywhere rough and hard, to smooth it over, to plane it, and to cut down woods that hindered the march, that the army might not be tired. Some have thought that Isaiah's prophecy referred primarily to the return of the Jewish captives from Babylon. But it refers far more directly to the ministry of the Baptist; for it is not said that the way was to be prepared for the people, but for Jehovah himself. It is a beautiful figure, but the real preparation was the more beautiful transformation of repentance. By inducing repentance, John was to prepare the people to receive Jesus and his apostles, and to hearken to their preaching] of the Lord, Make his paths straight.  5 Every valley shall be filled, And every mountain and hill shall be brought low; And the crooked shall become straight, And the rough way smooth [The literal meaning of this passage is expressed at Isa 2:12-17. See also Zec 4:7. Commentators give detailed application of this prophecy, and, following their example, we may regard the Pharisees and Sadducees as mountains of self-righteousness, needing to be thrown down, and thereby brought to meekness and humility; the outcasts and harlots as valleys of humiliation, needing to be exalted and filled with hope; and the publicans and soldiers as crooked and rough byways, needing to be straightened and smoothed with proper details of righteousness. But the application is general, and not to be limited to such details. However, civil tyranny, and ecclesiastical pride must be leveled, and the rights of the common people must be exalted before for kingdom of God can [68] enter in];  6 And all flesh shall see the salvation of God [This last clause of the prophecy is added by Luke alone. He loves to dwell upon the universality of Christ's gospel.]  ^b4 John came, who baptized in the wilderness and preached the baptism of repentance unto the remission of sins. [Pardoning mercy was to be found in Christ, and all rites then looked forward to the cleansing effected by the shedding of his blood, as all rites now look back to it. But in popular estimation John's baptism was no doubt regarded as consummating an immediate forgiveness]  ^a4 Now John himself [Himself indicates that John's manner of life differed from that of his disciples. He did not oblige them to practice the full measure of his abstinence] had his raiment of [John's dress and food preached in harmony with his voice. His clothing and fare rendered him independent of the rich and great, so that he could more freely and plainly rebuke their sins. Calling others to repentance, he himself set an example of austere self-denial. So much so that the Pharisees said he had a demon -- Mat 11:18]  ^b6 And was clothed with acamel's hair [Camels were plentiful in the East. Their finer hair was woven into elegant cloths; but that which was coarser and shaggier was made into a fabric like our druggets, and used for the coats of shepherds and camel-drivers, and for the covering of tents. Prophets often wore such cloth (Zec 13:4), and no doubt it was the habitual garb of John's prototype (Mal 4:5), the prophet Elijah (2Ki 1:8). In Elijah's day there was demand for protest against the sad havoc which Phoenician luxury and licentiousness were making with the purer morals of Israel; and in John's day a like protest was needed against a like contamination wrought by Greek manners and customs. Both prophets, by their austerity, rebuked such apostasy, and Jezebel answered the rebuke by attempting Elijah's life, while Herodias actually took the life of John. As a herald, John was suited to the King whose appearing he was to announce, for Jesus was meek and lowly (Zec 9:9), and had no form nor comeliness that he should be desired -- Isa 53:2], [69] and a leathern girdle about his loins [The loose skirts worn in the East required a girdle to bind them to the body. This was usually made of linen or silk, but was frequently more costly, being wrought with silver and gold. John's girdle was plain, undressed leather]; And his food was {band did eat} alocusts [Locusts, like Western grasshoppers, were extremely plentiful (Joe 1:4, Isa 33:4, Isa 33:5). The law declared them clean, and thus permitted the people to eat them for food (Lev 11:22). Arabs still eat them, and in some Oriental cities they are found for sale in the market. But they are regarded as fit only for the poor. They are frequently seasoned with camel's milk and honey] and wild honey. [Canaan was promised as a land flowing with milk and honey (Exo 2:8-17, Exo 13:15, 1Sa 14:26). Many of the trees in the plains of Jericho, such as the palm, fig, manna, ash and tamarisk, exuded sweet gums, which went by the name of tree honey, but there is no need to suppose, as some do, that this was what John ate. The country once abounded in wild bees, and their honey was very plentiful. We have on the record an instance of the speed with which they could fill the place which they selected for their hives (Jdg 14:5-9). The diet of the Baptist was very light, and Jesus so speaks of it (Mat 11:18). He probably had no set time for his meals, and all days were more or less fast-days. Thus John gave himself wholly to his ministry, and became a voice -- all voice. John took the wilderness for a church, and filled it. He courted no honors, but no Jew of his time received more of them, and by some he was even regarded as Messiah -- Luk 3:15.] ^b5 And there  ^a5 Then went out unto him ball [A hyperbole common with Hebrew writers and such as we use when we say, "the whole town turned out," "everybody was there," etc. Both Matthew and Luke show that some did not accept John's baptism (Mat 21:23-25, Luk 7:30). But from the language of the evangelist we might infer that, first and last, something like a million people may have attended John's ministry] the country of Judæa, and all they of Jerusalem; aall [70] the region round about the Jordan [The last phrase includes the entire river valley. On both sides of the river between the lake of Galilee and Jericho, there were many important cities, any one of which would be more apt to send its citizens to John's baptism than the proud capital of Jerusalem];  6 and they were baptized of him [Literally, immersed by him. In every stage of the Greek language this has been the unquestioned meaning of the verb baptizo, and it still retains this meaning in modern Greek. In accordance with this meaning, the Greek Church, in all its branches, has uniformly practiced immersion from the earliest period to the present time. Greek Christians never speak of other denominations as "baptizing by sprinkling," but they say, "they baptize instead of baptizing." John's baptism was instituted of God (Joh 1:33), just as Christian baptism was instituted by Christ (Mat 28:19). The Pharisees recognized John's rite as so important as to require divine authority, and even then they underestimated it, regarding it as a mere purification -- Josephus Ant. xviii. 5, 2] in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. [As John's baptism was for the remission of sins, it was very proper that it should be preceded by a confession. The context indicates that the confession was public and general. There is no hint of such auricular confession as is practiced by the Catholics. See also Act 19:18. John, writing to baptized Christians, bids them to confess their sins, that Jesus may forgive them (1Jo 1:9). Christian baptism is also for the remission of sins (Act 2:38), the ordinance itself a very potent confession that the one baptized has sins to be remitted, and it seems to be a sufficient pubic expression of confession as to sins; for while John's baptism called for a confession sins, Christian baptism calls only for a confession of faith in Christ -- Act 22:16, Rom 10:9, Rom 10:10, Mar 16:16.]  7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees [Josephus tells us that these two leading sects of the Jews started about the same time in the days of Jonathan, the high priest, or B. C. 159-144. But the sentiments which at that time divided the [71] people into two rival parties entered the minds and hearts of the Jews immediately after the return from the Babylonian captivity. These returned Jews differed as to the attitude and policy which Israel should manifest toward the neighboring heathen. Some contended for a strict separation between the Jews and all pagan peoples. These eventually formed the Pharisee party, and the name Pharisee means "the separate." Originally these men were genuine patriots and reformers, but afterwards the majority of them became mere formalists. As theologians the Pharisees represented the orthodox party, and were followed by the vast majority of the people. They believed (1) in the resurrection of the dead; (2) a future state with rewards and punishments; (3) angels and spirits; and (4) a special providence of God carried out by angels and spirits. As a sect they are said to have numbered six thousand at the time of Herod's death. They were the patriotic party, and the zealots were their extreme section. They covered an extremely selfish spirit with a pious formalism, and by parading their virtues they obtained an almost unbounded influence over the people. By exposing their hypocrisy, Jesus sought to destroy their power over the multitude, and incurred that bitter enmity with which they pursued him to his death. But certain other of the captives who returned from Babylon desired a freer intercourse with the pagans, and sought to break away from every restraint which debarred therefrom. These became Sadducees. They consented to no other restraint than the Scriptures themselves imposed, and they interpreted these as laxly as possible. Some take their name to means "the party of 'righteousness,'" but more think it comes from their founder, Zadok, and is a corruption of the word Zadokite. Zadok flourished 260 B. C. His teacher, Antigonus Sochæus, taught him to serve God disinterestedly -- that is, without hope of reward or punishment. From his teaching Zadok inferred that there was no future state of rewards or punishment, and on this belief founded his sect. From this fundamental doctrine sprang the other tenets of the Sadducees. They denied all the four points held by the Pharisees, [72] asserting that there was no resurrection; no rewards and punishments hereafter; no angels, no spirits. They believed there was a God, but denied that he had any special supervision of human affairs (Mat 22:23, Act 23:8). They were the materialists of that day. Considering all God's promises as referring to this world, they looked upon poverty and distress as evidence of God's curse. Hence to relieve the poor was to sin against God in interfering with his mode of government. Far fewer than the Pharisees, they were their rivals in power; for they were the aristocratic party, and held the high-priesthood, with all its glories. Their high political position, their great wealth, and the Roman favor which they courted by consenting to foreign rule and pagan customs, made them a body to be respected and feared] coming to his baptism, he said {ctherefore to the multitudes that went out to be baptized on him} aunto them [John spoke principally to the leaders, but his denunciation indirectly included the multitude who followed their leadership], Ye offspring of vipers [A metaphor for their likeness to vipers -- as like them as if they had been begotten of them. The viper was a species of serpent from two to five feet in length, and about one inch thick. Its head is flat, and its body a yellowish color, speckled with long brown spots. It is extremely poisonous (Act 28:6). John here uses the word figuratively, and probably borrows the figure from Isa 59:5. It means that the Jewish rulers were full of guile and malice, cunning and venom. With these words John gave them a vigorous shaking, for only thus could he hope to waken their slumbering consciences. But only one who has had a vision of "the King in his beauty," should presume thus to address his fellow-men. The serpent is an emblem of the devil (Gen 3:1, Rev 12:9, Rev 12:14, Rev 12:15), and Jesus not only repeated John's words (Mat 12:35, Mat 23:23, Mat 23:33), but he interpreted the words, and told them plainly that they were "the children of the devil" (Joh 8:44). The Jewish rulers well deserved this name, for they poisoned the religious principles of the nation, and accomplished the crucifixion of the Son of God], who warned [73] you to flee [John's baptism, like that of Moses at the Red Sea (1Co 10:2), was a way of escape from destruction, of rightly used. Christian baptism is also such a way, and whosoever will may enter thereby into the safety of the kingdom of Christ, but baptism can not be used as an easy bit of ritual to charm away evil. It must be accompanied by all the spiritual changes which the ordinance implies] from the wrath to come? [Prophecy foretold that Messiah's times would be accompanied with wrath (Isa 63:3-6, Dan 7:10-26); but the Jews were all of the opinion that this wrath would be meted out upon the Gentiles and were not prepared to hear John apply the prophecy to themselves. To all his hearers John preached the coming kingdom; to the impenitent, he preached the coming wrath. Thus he prepared the way for the first coming of the Messiah, and those who would prepare the people for his second coming would do well to follow his example. The Bible has a voice of warning and denunciation, as well as words of invitation and love. Whosoever omits the warning of the judgment, speaks but half the message which God would have him deliver. God's wrath is his resentment against sin -- Mat 18:34, Mat 22:7, Mar 3:5.]  8 Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of repentance [John had demanded repentance, he now demands the fruits of it. By "fruit" or "fruits," as Luke has it, he means the manner of life which shows a real repentance]:  9 and think not {cbegin not} [John nips their self-excuse in the bud] ato say within yourselves [speaking to your conscience to quiet it], We have Abraham to our father [The Jews thought that Messiah would rule over them as a nation, and that all Jews would, therefore, be by birthright citizens of his kingdom. They thought that descent from Abraham was all that would be necessary to bring them into that kingdom. John's words must have been very surprising to them. The Talmud is full of expressions showing the extravagant value which Jews of a later age attached to Abrahamic descent. "Abraham," it says, "sits next the gates of hell, and doth not permit any wicked Israelite to go [74] down into it." Again, it represents God as saying to Abraham, "If thy children were like dead bodies without sinews or bones, thy merit would avail for them." Again, "A single Israelite is worth more before God than all the people who have been or shall be." Again, "The world was made for their [Israel's] sake." This pride was the more inexcusable because the Jews were clearly warned by their prophets that their privileges were not exclusive, and that they would by no means escape just punishment for their sins (Jer 7:3, Jer 7:4, Mic 3:11, Isa 48:2). John repeated this message, and Jesus reiterated it (Mat 8:11, Mat 8:12, Luk 16:23). We should note that in this preparation for the gospel a blow was struck at confidence and trust in carnal descent. Birth gives no man any privileges in the kingdom of God, for all are born outside of it, and all must be born again into it (Joh 1:13, Joh 3:3); yet many still claim peculiar rights from Christian parentage, and infant baptism rests on this false conception. The New Testament teaches us that we are children of Abraham by faith, and not by blood; by spiritual and not carnal descent (Rom 4:12-16, Gal 3:26, Gal 6:15, Joh 8:39). It had been better for the Jews never to have heard of Abraham, than to have thus falsely viewed the rights which they inherited from him]: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham [John meant that their being children of Abraham by natural descent gave them no more merit than children of Abraham made out of stone would have. He pointed to the stones along the bank of Jordan as he spoke.]  10 And even now the axe calso alieth at the root of the trees: every tree therefore that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down [The threatened cutting down means the end of the probation of each hearer, when, if found fruitless, he would be cast into the fire mentioned below], and cast into the fire. [Used as fuel.]  ^c10 And the multitudes asked him, saying, What then must we do? [This is the cry of the awakened conscience (Act 2:37, Act 16:30, Act 22:10). John answered it by recommending them to do the very reverse of what they [75] were doing, which, in their case, was true fruit of repentance.]  11 And he answered and said unto them, He that hath two coats [By coat is meant the tunic, or inner garment, worn next to the skin. It reached to the knees, and sometimes to the ankles, and generally had sleeves. Two tunics were a luxury in a land where thousands were too poor to own even one. Wrath was coming, and he that would obtain mercy from it must show mercy -- Mat 5:7], let him impart to him that hath none [For a like precept given to Christians, see 2Co 8:13-15, Jam 2:15-17, 1Jo 3:17]; and he that hath food, let him do likewise.  12 And there came also publicans [The Roman Government did not collect its own taxes. Instead of doing so, it divided the empire into districts, and sold the privilege of collecting the taxes in these districts to certain capitalists and men of rank. The capitalists employed agents to do the actual collecting. These agents were usually natives of the districts in which they lived, and those in Palestine were called publicans. Their masters urged and encouraged them to make the most fraudulent and vexatious exactions. They systematically overcharged the people and often brought false accusation to obtain money by blackmail. These publicans were justly regarded by the Jews as apostates and traitors, and were classed with the lowest and most abandoned characters. The system was bad, but its practitioners were worse. The Greeks regarded the word "publican" as synonymous with "plunderer." Suidas pictures the life of a publican as "unrestrained plunder, unblushing greed, unreasonable pettifogging, shameless business." The Turks to-day collect by this Roman method. Being publicly condemned, and therefore continually kept conscious of their sin, the publicans repented more readily than the self-righteous Pharisees. Conscience is one of God's greatest gifts, and he that destroys it must answer for it] to be baptized, and they said unto him, Teacher [The publicans, though lowest down, gave John the highest title. Self-abnegation is full of the virtue of reverence, but self-righteousness utterly lacks it], what must we do?  13 And he [76] said unto them, Extort no more than that which is appointed you. [Such was their habitual, universal sin. No man should make his calling an excuse for evil-doing.]  14 And soldiers [These soldiers were probably Jewish troops in the employ of Herod. Had they been Romans, John would doubtless have told them to worship God] also asked him, saying, And we, what must we do? And he said unto them, Extort from no man by violence [The soldiers, poorly paid, often found it convenient to extort money by intimidation. Strong in their organization, they terrified the weak and enforced gratuities by acts of violence], neither accuse any one wrongfully [John here condemns the custom of blackmailing the rich by acting as informers and false accusers against them]; and be content with your wages. [The term wages included rations and money. The soldiers were not to add to their receipts by pillage or extortion. Soldiers' wages were about three cents a day, so they were exposed to strong temptation. Yet John did not bid them abandon their profession, and become ascetics like himself. His teachings was practical. He allowed war as an act of government. Whether Christianity sanctions it or not, is another question.]  15 And as the people were in expectation [Expecting the Christ -- see Joh 1:19-28], and all men reasoned in their hearts concerning John, whether haply he were the Christ [Prophecy induced a Messianic expectation. The scepter had departed from Judah, and Cæsar's deputies ruled. Tetrarchs and procurators held the whole civil government. In their hands lay the power of life and death from which only Roman citizens could appeal (Act 25:11). The power of the Jewish courts was limited to excommunication or scourging. The seventy weeks of Daniel were now expiring, and other prophecies indicated the fullness of time. But distress, rather than prophecy, enhanced their expectation. Tiberius, the most infamous of men, governed the world. Pontius Pilate, insolent, cruel, was making life irksome and maddening the people. Herod Antipas, by a course of reckless apostasy and unbridled lust, [77] grieved even the religious sense of the hypocrite. Annas and Caiaphas, impersonators of materialism, sat in the chief seat of spiritual power. Men might well look for a deliverer, and hasten with joy to hear of a coming King. But, nevertheless, we could have no more forceful statement of the deep impression made by John's ministry than that the people were disposed to take him for the Christ];  16 John answered, saying unto them all,  ^b7 And he preached, saying,  ^a11 I indeed baptize {bbaptized} ayou in {cwith} water unto repentance [That is, unto the completion of your repentance. Repentance had to begin before the baptism was administered. After the sinner repented, baptism consummated his repentance, being the symbolic washing away of that from which he had repented and the bringing of the candidate into the blessings granted to the repentant -- Mar 1:4, Luk 3:3]: ^cBut there {ahe that} [John preached repentance because of a coming King; he now announces who the King is. He pictures this King as, first, administering a different baptism from his own; second, as a judge who would separate the righteous from the wicked, just as a husbandman sifts the wheat from the chaff] bcometh after me [Subsequent to me in ministry. But John indicates that the coming of Christ would be closely coupled with his own appearing. One event was to immediately follow the other. So Malachi binds together in one time the appearing of both forerunner and judge -- Mal 3:1-3] he that is mightier than I [mightier both to save and to punish], awhose shoes [The sandal then worn was a piece of wood or leather bound to the sole of the foot to protect it from the burning sand or the sharp stones. It was the forerunner of our modern shoe] I am not worthy to bear [To untie or carry away the shoe of the master or his guest was the work of the lowest slave of the household. As a figure of speech, the shoe is always associated with subjugation and slavery (Psa 60:8). John means, "I am not worthy to be his servant." John was simply the forerunner of Jesus; the higher office and honor of being Jesus' attendants was reserved for others -- Mat 11:11]: bthe latchet [the lace or strap] of whose shoes I am [78] not worthy to stoop down and unloose. che shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit [That which is here referred to was foretold by the prophets (Isa 44:3, Joe 2:28). In the early church there was an abundant outpouring of the Spirit of God (Tit 3:5, Tit 3:6, Act 2:3, Act 2:4, Act 2:17, Act 10:44). This prophecy began to be fulfilled on the day of Pentecost (Act 1:5, Act 2:4). In the choice of the word "baptize" God indicated through his prophet how full this flooding of the Spirit would be] and in fire [Many learned commentators regard the expression "in fire" as a mere amplification of the spiritual baptism added to express the purging and purifying effects of that baptism, but the context forbids this, for, in Mat 3:10, casting the unfruitful trees into the fire represents the punishment of the wicked, and, in Mat 3:12, the burning of the chaff with fire does the same, and consequently the baptizing in fire of the intervening verse must, according to the force of the context have the same reference. True, the expression "he will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and with fire," does not separate the persons addressed into two parties, and, if the context is disregarded, might be understood as meaning that the same persons were to be baptized in both; yet the context must not be disregarded, and it clearly separates them]:  17 whose fan [Winnowing shovel. In the days of John the Baptist, and in that country at the present day, wheat and other grain was not threshed by machinery. It was beaten out by flails, or trodden out by oxen on some smooth, hard plot of ground called the threshing-floor. These threshing-floors were usually on elevations where the wind blew freely. When the grain was trodden out, it was winnowed or separated from the chaff by being tossed into the air with a fan or winnowing shovel. When so tossed, the wind blew the chaff away, and the clean grain fell upon the threshing-floor] is in his hand [Ready for immediate work. Both John and Malachi, who foretold John, are disposed to picture Jesus as the judge (Mal 3:2-5). Of all the pictures of God which the Bible gives, that of a judge is the most common and frequent], thoroughly to {aand he will thoroughly} ccleanse his threshing-floor [Removing the [79] chaff is called purging the floor. Humanity is a mixture of good and bad, and to separate this mixture, save the good and destroy the bad, is the work of Christ. He partially purges the floor in this present time by gathering his saints into the church and leaving the unrepentant in the world. But hereafter on the day of judgment he will make a complete and final separation between the just and the unjust by sending the evil from his presence and gathering his own into the garner of heaven (Mat 25:32, Mat 25:33). He shall also winnow our individual characters, and remove all evil from us -- Luk 22:31, Luk 22:32, Rom 7:21-25], and to {aand he will} cgather the {ahis} cwheat into his {athe} cgarner [Eastern garners or granaries were usually subterranean vaults or caves. Garnered grain rested in safety. It was removed from peril of birds, storms, blight and mildew. Christians are now on God's threshing-floor; hereafter they will be gathered into the security of his garner]; but the chaff [when the Bible wishes to show the worthlessness and the doom of the ungodly, chaff is one of its favorite figures -- Job 21:18, Psa 1:4, Isa 17:13, Jer 15:7, Hos 13:3, Mal 4:1] he will burn up [To prevent chaff from being blown back and mixed again with the wheat, it was burned up. All the chaff in the church shall be consumed on the day of judgment (1Co 3:12, 1Co 3:13), and there shall be no mixing of good and bad after death -- Luk 16:26] with unquenchable fire [In this and in other places (2Th 1:8, 2Th 1:9, Mar 9:48, Mat 25:41), the future suffering of the wicked is taught in the Bible. He shows no kindness to his neighbor, no friendship toward mankind, who conceals the terrors of the Lord. These terrors are set forth in no uncertain terms. Many believe that God will restore the wicked and eventually save all the human race. Others hold that God will annihilate the wicked, and thus end their torment. This passage and the one cited in Mark would be hard to reconcile with either of these views; they indicate that there will be no arrest of judgment nor stay of punishment when once God begins to execute his condemnation. God purged the world with water [80] at the time of the flood; he will again purge it with fire on the day of judgment -- 2Pe 3:7-10.]  18 With many other exhortations [The sermon here given is in the nature of a summary. It embodies the substance of John's preaching. Afterwards John preached Christ more directly -- Joh 1:29-36] therefore preached he good tidings unto the people. [but, like the good tidings of the angel at Bethlehem, it was good only to those who, by repentance, made themselves well pleasing to God.] [81]

[FFG 62-81]

Lapide: Mat 3:1-17

CHAPTER 3

In those days, &c. This was in the fifteenth year of Tiberius, as S. Luke says, when John and Christ were about thirty years of age. Matthew passes at once from the childhood of Christ to His age of manhood, when He commenced His actual work of preaching and redemption, for which He had been sent by the Father into the world.

He sent John before Him to announce to the Jews that He was the Messiah, lest, if Christ should appear in Judæa abruptly, without one to point out who He was, or a witness worthy of credit, He should be despised of all.

Christ lived in obscurity, and exercised a workman's craft with his father Joseph for nineteen years, to give to the world a memorable example of humility. He began to preach in his thirtieth year, that He might conform Himself to the customs and laws of the Jews. Amongst them it was not lawful for any one to execute the office of a doctor or a priest before his thirtieth year. Such is the Hebrew tradition, and the same thing may be gathered from 1Ch 23:3. Hence John began to preach in this same thirtieth year, but a little before Christ.

That Christ should be hid so long in the obscure depths of His humility S. Bernard admires when he exclaims ( Serm. I de Epiph.), "O humility, virtue of Christ, how dost thou confound the pride of our vanity! Little enough do I know, or rather seem to myself to know, and yet I cannot know—impertinently and imprudently carrying and manifesting myself—ready to speak, swift to teach, slow to hear. And did Christ, when He kept silence for so long a time and hid Himself, did He fear vain glory? What could He fear from vain glory who is the True Glory of the Father? He did fear, indeed, but not for Himself. He feared for us that which He knew was to be feared by us. He took cautious heed for us, and so instructed us. He kept silence with His mouth, but taught by His deeds. And what He afterwards taught in words He at this time cried aloud by His example, 'Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart.'"

In the desert. Not in a cultivated and inhabited place. For Isa 40:3, prophesying concerning this desert of John, speaks of it as a wilderness. And this is plain from the circumstances. We behold John's rough clothing of sackcloth of camel's hair, his woodland food, the locusts and wild honey. The motive cause of this life was that, as a follower of Moses and Elias, and the precursor of Christ, in the desert, removed from the pollutions of men, he might converse with God and the angels, and might from them derive the power of strength and of the Spirit, and might acquire for himself the name and fame of sanctity, that all might give credit to him when he pointed out Christ, and, being pricked at his preaching, might repent. Whence the Fathers constantly call John the prince of monks and anchorites, as S. Jerome ( Epist. 22 ad Eustoch.), S. Chrysostom, Theophylact, Cassian ( Collat. 18. 6). Hence John, living in the desert an angelic life with the angels, was regarded as an angel by Malachi (chap. 3) and by Christ Himself (Mat 11:10): "For this is he of whom it is written, Behold, I send my angel before my face, who shall prepare thy way before thee." (Vulg.)

Symbolically, S. John preaching in the desert signified that the Gospel would be preached chiefly, not in Jerusalem and Judæa, but in the wilderness—i.e., the deserted multitudes of the Gentiles. So S. Jerome.

Tropologically, S. John, by his example, taught that the apostolic men and preachers who were about to be, would first retire from the tumult of men to have leisure in secret for prayer and meditation, that they might thereby drink, as it were, from heaven a mighty power of the Spirit, which they should afterwards pour forth upon their hearers. (See what I have said on Hosea ii. 1 "I will lead her into the wilderness, and will speak to her heart."—Vulg.) To this may be referred what S. Augustine says ( Epist. 76): "He will not be a good clergyman who has not been a good monk." Wherefore SS. Augustine, Martin, Chrysostom, Nazianzen, Basil, and many more were taken out of their monasteries into the ranks of the clergy, and, even against their will, promoted to the episcopate.

The desert of Judæa was near the Jordan, close to Ænon and Salim (Joh 3:23), and was very famous, both from the abundance of water for baptizing, as well as for being the abode and the scene of the miracles of the prophets and religious men who, in the Books of the Kings, are called the sons of the prophets, that is, of Elijah and Elisha, and such as they.

Lastly, Nicephorus (lib. 1, c. 14) asserts that when John was a year and a half old he was taken by his mother into the desert. Cedrinus adds, that he was concealed in a certain cave, and that his mother died there, and that an angel then took care of the child. This cave was afterwards frequented by the hermits, as appears from John Moschus ( Spiritual Meadow, c. I), who says that the cave was situated near the Jordan, and that by chance an abbot, John, who was sick, turned into it, where he was healed by John the Baptist, to whom he promised that he would dwell in the cave. When the Baptist appeared to the abbot, he said to him, "I am John the Baptist, and I bid thee that thou depart not from hence, for this narrow cave is greater than Mount Sinai, for into it our Lord Jesus Christ often entered when He visited me. Promise me therefore to dwell here, and I will restore thee to health." "When the old man heard this, he willingly promised to dwell in the cave; and forthwith he was healed; and he abode there unto his life's end. Moreover, he made that cave a church, and gathered brethren together there. And the name of the place was called Sapsas."

Saying, repent ye, &c. John went into the desert, and there did penance, and led an austere life that he might be a fitting preacher of repentance. S. Gregory Nazianzen strove to imitate John when he says, "The office, or rather the service of John, I strive to undertake, and though I am not the Forerunner, yet I come from the desert." For Gregory went apart with S. Basil into the wilderness of Pontus, and there led a hard life, and then, being filled with the Spirit, he came forth like another Baptist to preach repentance. This was the theme, this the sum of the Baptist's preaching, Repent ; because well-nigh all were grievous sinners, living in vices and lusts, therefore repentance was necessary, that they might receive the grace and righteousness of Christ.

Moreover, repentance is not only amendment of manners, and the beginning of a new life, as the heretics say, but it is a detestation, chastisement, and destruction of the old sinful life, for the new life cannot effectually be begun, unless the old life be cast away. Whence the Interlinear Gloss thus expounds: "Let every man punish the evils of his former life, because salvation shall come nigh, and the opportunity of returning thither from whence we have fallen." S. Augustine ( lib. de Pœniten.) says, "He cannot begin the new life who does not repent of the old." "To repent is to weep over sins past, and not to commit what has been wept over. He who truly repents, chastises in himself his past errors, and lifts up his mind to heavenly things. And this virtue is born of holy fear, and is called pœnitentia, penance, from the Latin puniendo, punishing."—Gloss.

Whence Ausonius sings of penitence:

"A goddess I, who punishment exact of things amiss,

 Metanœa I, from penitence I wiss."

S. Gregory ( Hom. 34, in Evangel.) says, "Penitence is the bewailing past sins, and the abstaining from doing that which you have bewailed." The Hebrew δπην hinnachem has the same meaning; viz., to repent and grieve over the past. Whence God, when He saw the men whom He had created rushing into wickedness, repented Him that He had made man upon the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart; and He said, "I will destroy man, whom I have created, from the face of the earth." Wherefore the Hebrew Gospel, attributed to S. Matthew by Munster, has, less fully, instead of hinnachem and nechumim, i.e. "to repent", and "repentance," teschuba, i.e., "conversion," or schuba, that is, "be converted to the Lord;" for repentance is not merely turning to God, but turning away from sin; also grief, compunction, and satisfaction, as the Apostle teaches (2Co 7:10) and Joe 2:12, "Be converted to me with all your heart, in fasting and weeping and in mourning." Whence it is plain that repentance must include three duties—sorrow, a new life, and chastisement of sins—in order to please God.

For the kingdom of heaven, &c. In which God reigns in the faithful, by grace in this life, and in the life to come by glory; and makes them kings and partakers of His eternal kingdom. "John first preached the kingdom of heaven," says the Gloss, "which the Jews had never heard of," says S. Chrysostom. And S. Jerome says, "John the Baptist first preaches the kingdom of heaven, that the precursor of the Lord might be honoured with this privilege." Observe, the Jews expected that their kingdom, under King Messiah, would be rich and splendid in their land, such as it was under Solomon. S. John, therefore, and after him Christ and the Apostles, begin their preaching from the kingdom of Messiah, but a kingdom heavenly, not earthly; as though to say, "Now is the time of heaven being opened, which Christ shall shortly open unto you by His death. Repent ye, therefore, for your sins past, correct your lives, be changed for the better, that ye may be meet to be taken by Him into His kingdom. Behold, now is the accepted time foretold by Isaiah, now is the day of salvation, the day when heaven, which has been shut for 4,000 years, is opened, and they who will may enter into it, if indeed they will walk in the path which Christ has pointed out, the path of faith, hope, and charity, and a heavenly life, and enter into the spiritual kingdom of the Church militant, which shall have its joyful consummation in the Church triumphant." Thus Theophylact and Jansen. Franc. Lucas says, "The kingdom of heaven is the dominion of Christ, both over the holy angels and the company of those men whose rightly ordered life on earth is obedient to God ruling from heaven."

For this is he, &c. I have commented at length upon this in Isa 11:6, and will not here repeat.

S. John was the voice of God, 1. Announcing that Christ was about to come. 2. Pointing out that He was now born, and inviting men to repent and prepare for the grace of Christ. "By the expression, crying, the strength of his preaching is denoted," says Raban. Aptly says Bede, "God, indeed, cried by means of others, but He Himself is the only Voice, because He shows the present Word." "Prepare therefore the way of the Lord," is the same as, "Repent ye;" as though "Arouse ye, O Jews, and ye! O inhabitants of the world, as many as ye be; Christ is about to come, and to be installed as Messiah, your King. Make smooth your ways, as is wont to be done for monarchs; take away all things which can offend or dishonour Him, that Christ may be freely and with longing received by all; that, indeed, each may prepare their hearts and minds, by thorough repentance, for the faith and grace of Christ and every kind of holiness."

The same John, &c. Not the flowing robe, commonly called camelots, as Chrytraeus, and those luxurious innovators, who magnificently adorn themselves in the pulpits like the suitors of Penelope. For Christ commends John for the roughness of his clothing. (Mat 9:8.) John fled from the halls of Herod, and retired into the desert, and preferred a hovel to a palace. His garment was cheap, rugged, hairy, and made of sackcloth. "Yea," say S. Chrysostom and others, "the clothing of his body spoke of the virtue of his soul." Eusebius of Emissa ( Hom. I de Joan. Bapt.) says that John's raiment was made of camel-hair sackcloth, since Syria abounds in camels. By this means he tamed his flesh in his youth, like as S. Paul says, "I chastise my body, and bring it into subjection: lest perhaps when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway." (1Co 9:27., Vulg.) For sackcloth, by its hairs and pointed bristles, pricking the flesh all over as with little needles. mortifies it greatly, and restrains its lusts. as they know who have made trial of it. Hence S. Ægidius, one of the first companions of S. Francis, being asked why S. John, who had not sinned, led so austere a life, and did penance, replied, "As flesh is seasoned with salt, that it may not corrupt, so was the body of the Baptist seasoned with penance." "Penance," as S. Cyprian says ( Serm. de ratione Circumcisionis ), "is that penetrating salt which dries up the rankling putrescences of the flesh." Hence, SS. Hilarion, Anthony, Paul, Pachomius, and the rest of the Anchorites, according to the testimony of S. Jerome and others, were clothed in hair shirts, or sackcloth, such as the Capuchins wear now, and such as was worn by Elijah, Elisha, and the other prophets, as I have shown in my Preface to the Minor Prophets. In truth, God made for Adam not fine linen or woollen tunics, but coats of skin, and rough ones, that by them, as by a hair shirt, he might tame his flesh and do penance for his sin, as I have shown in Genesis. That is a wise saying of Augustus Caesar in Suetonius, "Soft and splendid clothing is the banner of pride and a seed plot of luxury." S. Ephrem concludes his life of S. Abraham the hermit thus, "In all the fifty years of his abstinence he never changed the hair shirt which was his clothing." S. Clare wore for twenty-eight years, even in sickness, a hair shirt made of hogs' bristles. When S. Josaphat exchanged a kingdom for the desert, he wore a hair shirt next his skin, under his clothes. (See Damas., in Histor. c. 37.) Theodoret says that the emperor, wishing to see S. Abraham the hermit, called him to him, and when he came received him with a salutation, and regarded his rough sackcloth as of more excellence than his own purple. When S. William, Duke of Aquitaine, was converted by S. Bernard, he tamed his flesh with an iron coat of mail, and armed it against temptation. S. Dominic did the same, and was, for that reason, surnamed Loricatus (coated with mail). S. Martin, as Sulpitius testifies, was of opinion that it becomes a Christian to die on ashes; wherefore, he himself, making his bed on ashes, and clothed in sackcloth, so died. SS. Anselm, Charles Borromœo, and many others did the same.

And a leathern girdle, &c. The prophets—indeed, all the Jews and Syrians—wore long robes; to prevent these flowing down to the ground and impeding their walking, they made use of girdles. Thus they were more ready for a journey, and more strong for work. But John had a girdle of skin about his loins, that it might press his sackcloth more closely to his body, and so the more mortify his flesh and subdue it to the Spirit. For in the loins is the origin of lust. S. John was in this a follower of Elias, whose eulogium is that "he was a hairy man, and girt about the loins with a girdle of skin." It is a common saying, "A girded garment, a girded mind; an ungirded garment, an ungirded mind." As it is said in Ecclus 19:27, "A man's clothing, and excessive laughter and gait, shew what he is." (See S. Chrysostom in loc.) And Cassian (lib. i. de Habitu Monach.) thus begins, "so must a monk needs walk as a soldier of Christ, always ready for battle, with his loins always girded."

His meat, &c. For locusts the Greek has ב̉ךס?הוע, which Beza erroneously understands to mean wild pears, for they are not called ב̉ךס?הוע, but ב̉קס?הוע. ֱ̉קסבע is a wild pear-tree, a species of thorn. (See Columella, lib. 10.)

A second opinion of certain heretics mentioned by S. Epiphanius, Hæres. 30, is also wrong. By ב̉ךס?הוע they understood ו̉דךס?הוע, or sweetmeats made of oil and honey.

Thirdly, certain innovators take ב̉ךס?הוע to mean sea-crabs ; but these are not called ב̉ךס?הוע but ב̉קבס?הוע, or ךבס?הוע in Athanæus. But where, I ask, could John procure crabs in the desert? Besides, crabs, as crawling on the ground, were forbidden to the Jews.

Fourthly, some by ב̉ךס?הוע translate herbs, or the tops of trees and leaves. The Ethiopian has, His food was arant anvota, the tops of herbs with wild honey, or dipped in honey.

But I say ב̉ךס?הוע are locusts ; so the Vulgate, Syriac, and Arabic. The Egyptian translates grasshoppers, but it means locusts, which chirp like grasshoppers. And both are so called because they feed upon פב̀ ב̉ךסב̀, i.e. the tops of ears of corn and plants. So Theocritus, and the Lexicons, passim. Whence Origen, Hilary, Ambrose, Chrysostom, Augustine, understand by the word a kind of leaping insect, which is frequently eaten by the Ethiopians, Libyans, Parthians and other Orientals. (See Pliny, lib. 11, C. 29, and lib. 6, c. 30.) Hence S. Jerome (lib. 2 contra Jovin.) says, "Because clouds of locusts are found throughout the vast solitudes of the burning deserts, they are used as food; and this was what John the Baptist ate." So, too, the locust, because it leaps, was counted a clean animal, and was allowed by God to be eaten by the Israelites. (Levit. 11)

Moreover, the ancients were wont to eat locusts, either sodden or roasted; and when dried in the sun, or salted and smoked, they would keep for a year.

Nothing is here said of John's drink, for it is certain that he drank water only. Indeed there was nothing else to be had in the desert. So the angel said of him, "He shall drink neither wine nor strong drink."

Wild honey. What sort of honey was this? First, Rabanus is of opinion that it was the white and tender leaves of trees, which, when rubbed in the hands, give out a kind of honeyed flavour.

2. Others think that this honey was a moisture collected from the leaves of trees.

3. Suidas thinks it was the gum collected from trees and shrubs, which is called manna.

4. And rightly, S. Chrysostom, Theophylact, Isidore of Pelusium, believe that it was wild honey, made by wild bees, which they store in hollow trees, and which has a somewhat bitter and disagreeable flavour. The Ethiopic version has here, sedenæ, which means a particular kind of honey, sweeter and more wholesome than the common honey. It is made by a kind of bee, less than the common bee, about the size of a fly.

Then went out to him. Then, when the fame of his holy and austere and eremitical life was everywhere spread abroad. Of so great power with all men is sanctity, and the reputation of sanctity.

Now Jordan, in Hebrew, is as though, ιψψ ξο γο, iored min dan, that is, descending from Dan. Dan in Hebrew signifies judgment. Whence the passage denotes, mystically, that they who fear the judgment of God run to holy preachers, such as was John, that they may learn from them the way of salvation, and thus, in the Day of Judgment, may have their portion in heaven assigned by Christ the Judge.

And were baptized, &c. Unaptly Calvin interprets were baptized to mean were taught the baptism of repentance. For to baptize does not mean to teach, but to wash the body with water, as is plain from verse 13. The baptism of John was different from the baptism of Christ, as I show against the heretics on Act 19:2. The baptism of John was only a sign and protestation of repentance, and a preparation for the baptism of Christ, that they might be justified by it. Hence they were confessing their sins. For repentance, or sorrow for sin, causes a man to confess his sins, and seek for a remedy for them and for pardon. Thus the Jews in certain cases were obliged to confess their sins to a priest, as I have shown on Lev 5:5, and Lev 6:6-7, and Num 5:7. But this confession was not a Sacrament, nor did it procure remission of sins, as in the confession instituted by Christ. For in that, as in a Sacrament, the priest, by the power conferred upon him by Christ in ordination, absolves the penitent from his sins. But that confession of the Jews was only a sign of penitence and compunction, or inward contrition, which, if it were perfect, that is to say, proceeding from the love of God above all things, would put away sins and justify. "For charity covereth a multitude of sins."(1Pe 4:8).

But when he saw many, &c. As early as the time of Jonathan, the brother of Judas Maccabæus, there were three sects among the Jews, the Pharisees, the Essenes, and the Sadducees. Josephus ( Ant. lib. 13, c. 9) thus writes concerning them: "In the time of Jonathan there were three sects, who disagreed among themselves about human affairs. They were the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes. Of these the Pharisees attributed some things, but not all, to fate; and some things they say are in our own power, so as to be or not to be. The Essenes affirm that all things are in the power of fate; and that nothing can happen to man except by the decree of fate. But the Sadducees altogether deny fate in human affairs. They say that nothing happens because it is fated to happen, and that everything is in our own power; and that we ourselves are the authors of our own happiness or misfortune, according as we follow good or evil counsel." He treats more fully of these sects, de Bell. Jud. lib. 2, C. 7, where he says that the Pharisees professed a more accurate knowledge of the rites of the law: the Sadducees denied Providence, and rewards and punishment for the soul after death, which is the only bridle which will restrain from sin; and when it is withdrawn, men rush, like unbridled horses, into all manner of voluptuousness. Whence S. Luke says (Act 23:8), "The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit, but the Pharisees confess both." For the Sadducees followed the fables of the Greek Sophists and Atheists, and laughed at the Elysian Fields of the Blessed, at Orcus, and Cerberus, and Hell. The Pharisees opposed the Sadducees, following the faith and hope of the ancient Fathers, Abraham, Moses, and the Prophets; and the people were on their side. But on the side of the Sadducees were the nobles, and it would appear, Herod, who lived like an atheist in all licentiousness and cruelty. When Christ came, both Pharisees and Sadducees conspired against Him, as the common enemy of the Jews. Against the Sadducees the Book of Wisdom was written, and the Second Book of the Maccabees, as I have shown. The Sadducees were so called as though they were just, because they arrogated to themselves the name of justice, from sadoc, "justice;" or rather from Sadoc, the name of their founder. The Pharisees were so called as expounders and explainers of the Law, or separated (for the root τψω parash signifies to separate, and also to expound) from the common people by their learning and sanctity. Their masters and chiefs were R. Hillel, and Shammai, who S. Jerome says, on the eighth chapter of Isaiah, lived a little before Christ. They were, however, always opposed to virtue and the truth: whence they are here most severely rebuked by S. John, because they were proud, and puffed up with a vain opinion of their wisdom and sanctity, as well as because they were hypocritical, and, as though ambitious of a feigned holiness, they sought for baptism with the rest, that they might be accounted holy by the people. Thus Origen (tom. 6 in Joan.). It may be added that they wished by this means to bind John to themselves, and stop his mouth from speaking of their faults. This is what politicians do at the present day. The Essenes alone, on account of the goodness of their faith and morals, favoured Christ and Christians. Indeed, being made Christians, they became the first monks under S. Mark, as I have shown, on Act 5:2.

Ye brood of vipers. This is a Hebraism, meaning, ye are vipers sprung from vipers, the very evil children of very evil parents, noxious, crafty, and poisonous, who propagate your pernicious morals and errors which you have derived and inherited from your wicked ancestors, in your disciples, as your children, whose souls you kill and destroy. So SS. Jerome and Gregory. For the bite of the viper is so noxious and destructive that it causes death in seven hours, or, at furthest, on the third day. Christ explains John's words, saying (Mat 23:31), "Wherefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are the sons of them that killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. Ye serpents, generation of vipers, how will ye flee from the judgment of hell?"

S. Ambrose, on Luk 3:7, thinks that the prudence of the Pharisees is here alluded to, according to the words, "Be ye wise as serpents;" for the serpent, by prudence, provides for the future; yet does not its venom leave it. So likewise was it with them: by a certain provident devotion, they took care of the future, and desired the baptism of John; and yet they forsook not their badness and their sins.

Who hath warned you to flee, &c. To flee, that is, to escape. For warned, the Greek has ‎נ?הומום signifying—(I), suggested, advised ; (2), shown, demonstrated—i.e., by reasoning and example. Hence ‎נ?הוימיע means, a demonstration.

The wrath to come does not mean the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, so much as the wrath of Christ the Judge, which He will manifest to the wicked who are condemned in the Day of Judgment. It means the vengeance and sentence of condemnation which He shall then pronounce upon them, as Christ Himself explains. (Mat 23:33.) It means the wrath and angry countenance of Christ, which shall then so terrify the wicked, that "they say to the mountains and to the rocks: Fall upon us and hide us from the face of him that sitteth upon the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: for the great day of their wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand?" (Rev 6:16.) S. John the Baptist was a true preacher of the kingdom of heaven, promising it to those who repent, but a preacher likewise of the wrath of God and of hell, with these threatening the impenitent, such as were the Pharisees and Sadducees. Let the true preacher do the same, as Isaiah did (Isa 2:19), and Hosea (Hos 10:8), and Christ Himself (Luk 23:30).

The meaning of the whole is clear and plain. Who hath shown, or pointed out ( demonstravit, Vulg.) that ye shall escape the coming wrath? That is, the judgment of an angry Christ, and everlasting damnation. For so Christ Himself explains John, when He threatens the same Scribes and Pharisees with Gehenna, saying, "ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how shall ye escape the damnation of hell?" That is to say, "By no means shall ye be able to escape that condemnation; but of a very surety ye shall fall into it, because ye are a generation of vipers; i.e., ye have your malignity and hypocrisy so long a time in you, and so confirmed by practice, that ye cannot be torn away from them, because ye do not wish to be. As dissemblers do ye draw nigh to me, as though ye repented, when either ye do not believe in God's providence, wrath, and vengeance, like the Sadducees; or, if ye do believe in them, ye believe as the Pharisees do; ye fear them not, but proudly think that ye are righteous." So John gravely rebukes them. "Who hath promised you that ye shall escape hell? False is your persuasion, O ye Sadducees! There is a hell. Most vain, likewise, is your presumption and security, O ye Pharisees! in that ye are not afraid of hell, because ye proudly esteem yourselves righteous." The emphasis is on the word ‎נ?הוימום, "Ye live securely, and are asleep in your lusts, just as if there were no vengeance of God, and punishment of wickedness after this life, or at least as if they need not be apprehended by you. Whence is that security of yours, whence that ‎נ?הוימיע, that demonstration, that proof, that suggestion? It comes from no sure and evident reason. It comes only from your own pride and foolish persuasion." Jansen and Franc. Lucas give another turn to the words. They think they are the expression of John's rebuke of the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and Sadducees, as though he said, "I do not believe that ye are approaching my baptism in sincerity: for who could have pointed out to you that by my baptism of repentance, the coming wrath of God might be escaped, when either, like the Sadducees, ye do not believe in that wrath, or else do not fear it, like the Pharisees? For to the unbelieving and the arrogant, nothing can be demonstrated or persuaded which goes contrary to their own opinion or their pride. Wherefore ye do not repent ex animo, but ye pretend that ye are fleeing from the anger of God."

Maldonatus has another opinion. He thinks that these are the words of John admiring so great and so sudden conversion of the Sadducees and Pharisees. "Who hath demonstrated to you that ye should fear the judgment of God and hell fire, which aforetime ye either did not believe, or else did not fear? Whence comes so great a change in you?" "Not surely from yourselves, but from the mighty grace and operation of God," says S. Chrysostom, "and from your evil conscience, which accuses you of your guilt, and compels you to fear the judgment of God."

Tropologically, S. Bernard teaches that coming (Gr. לוככן‎ףחע ) wrath must be escaped by present wrath, i.e., by penance, which a man imposes upon himself, or accepts when imposed upon him by God. "What, O miserable ones! hath pointed out to you to flee from the coming wrath? Why do ye so greatly flee from the present wrath, when by it ye may escape that which is to come? Why do ye fear the scourge? Why decline the rod? These are the things which in this your day belong unto your peace, if ye would but know it. You only change, you do not escape penance. For it cannot be that the wicked shall go unpunished. He who is not punished here of his own will, shall be punished elsewhere without end. A wretched exchange indeed, and a token of the extreme of madness, is that exchange by which ye would decline temporal affliction, and choose the eternal anguish prepared for the devil. The sinner who would avoid the rod of the correcting Father, will fall into the everlasting punishment of God the Judge."

Bring forth therefore, &c. Gr. ךבסנן̀ם?מיןם, worthy fruit, in the singular. Worthy fruit of penance. Observe that the genitive of penance is governed by the word fruit, as well as by the word worthy. The Baptist teaches the way and the means of escaping the wrath to come, that it is present repentance, but it must be worthy penance, that is to say, true, serious, and condign or suitable. "Because ye, O Sadducees, do not believe the providence of God, and the anger which shall overtake the wicked in hell; and because ye, O ye Pharisees, do not fear that anger because ye trust in your own works that ye are righteous, therefore shall ye both fall into that hell. And therefore, that ye may both escape it, do penance, and change your lives. Do ye, O ye Sadducees, exchange your faithless atheism for belief in Divine Providence: do ye, O ye Pharisees, exchange your pride for humility, your gluttony for abstinence, your lust for chastity, your covetousness for almsdeeds, your outward Pharisaic righteousness and the boast of it for Christian and inward holiness. Bring forth such fruits as truly become penance, as indicate serious repentance, such as proceed from the heart of a true penitent. They are tears, detestation and punishment of sin: they are the conversion of life and conduct." (See S. Gregory, Hom. 20 in Evang.)

Let me add that worthy penance is that in which the measure of grief and pain corresponds to the measure of the pleasure and the sin, that according to the enormity of the sin should be the increase of punishment. A far heavier penance should be that of the adulterer than of the thief, of the parricide than of the manslayer. Whence, in the Penitential Canons, penances are justly decreed and measured out to every kind of sin. Justly, I say, having regard to the crimes and to man, not with respect to God. For one single mortal sin, inasmuch as it is an offense against God, and because thereby the sinner implicitly places his chief good and end in the creature, which he loves so as to prefer it to God, and so takes away from the honour of the Deity, such sin is therefore as it were Decide and Christicide, and so contains within it an infinity of wickedness. For it is an offence and an injury against God, who is immense and infinite. Wherefore by no punishment or penance of any creature whatsoever can just and adequate satisfaction be made to God. Yea, even if all men and all angels were, of their own accord, to endure all the torments of hell for all eternity, they could never offer worthy penance and satisfaction to God for a single mortal sin. Christ alone can do this, inasmuch as He is the Son of God, and very God. His penance, therefore, and satisfaction, as regards His Person, which is of infinite dignity, are likewise of infinite value, and are equal and adequate to the infinite offence committed against an infinite God. Such is the sinfulness of sin, which if men thoroughly perceived, surely they would sin no more.

Lastly, he brings forth worthy fruits of repentance, who, when he is converted, serves the truth with as much zeal as before he served the devil and vanity; and loves God as fervently as before he loved the world and the flesh. Hear Climacus, how he gives an exact description of penitence: "Penitence is an ever-abiding abandonment of fleshly consolation. Penitence is a willing endurance of all afflictive dispensations. Penitence is the continual framer of scourges for itself. Penitence is the strong source of tribulation for the belly, and the stern rebuker of the sinful soul."

And think not to say, &c. As it were, boast not to say among yourselves, to think, and flatter yourselves as relying on the thought, that ye have Abraham for your father. For the Jews were accustomed to confide and boast in this, that they were sons of Abraham. This was their reply to Christ, "We be Abraham's seed." It was this vain-glorious boast of theirs which S. John here denounced. And the sense is this: "Abraham was a most holy patriarch and a friend of God, to whom God promised blessing and salvation, which was to be handed down to his children. Now we are sons of Abraham, and therefore heirs of these promises. Let us live therefore as we please, and refuse all worthy penance, yet shall we be saved by this, that we are the children of Abraham. God is faithful to His promises, that what He hath promised He will surely perform. Were it not so, Abraham would be defrauded of his sons, and of their salvation promised by God; and the race of Abraham would come to an end." John answers as S. Paul does (Rom. 9), that the sons of Abraham, the heirs of the blessing and salvation promised to him, are not reckoned by carnal generation, but by faith and virtue, which are spiritual things. Insomuch that not those are counted sons of Abraham who are born of Abraham, but those who imitate the faith and holiness of Abraham. Wherefore even if the Sadducees and Pharisees, and the rest of the Jews, were to fall from righteousness and salvation, God would bring others in their place, and give them to be as it were children unto Abraham and successors to his blessings. "So that, although ye should perish, O ye Jews, the blessings promised to the seed of Abraham will not perish, but will be transferred from you, who are unworthy, to those who are worthy, viz., the Gentiles."

God is able, &c. John was preaching and baptizing in Bethabara, i.e., the house of the passage, where the children of Israel, under Joshua, passed over Jordan dryshod. Wherefore in memory of this great miracle Joshua set up in this place twelve stones, taken from the bed of Jordan. Remigius and S. Anselm think that S. John here spoke of and pointed out those very stones. So also does Pineda. These stones were types and figures of the Gentiles, buried beneath the waves of error and ignorance, but at length raised up by Christ and His Apostles from the lowest pit of idolatry into the Church by baptism, to the glory of being sons of God.

You will ask, how can this be true? For how can sons of stones become sons of Abraham now dead? And even if stones were raised up and endowed with life, how could they be born of Abraham? Many here betake themselves to allegory, but I say that the words are true in their plain meaning as they stand. 1. Because God is able of stones to form men, whom He, by His will and intention, could reckon to Abraham for sons, or whom Abraham might adopt, just as God was able to form Adam out of the ground, and from barren Sara to produce Isaac unto Abraham. S. John seems to allude to Isaiah li.: "Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged," i.e., as he goes on to explain, "Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sara that bare you." 2. Physically and precisely. As God turned Lot's wife into a pillar of salt, so is He able to turn stones into men, and children born of Abraham. Yea, God, by His infinite power, is able wholly to transmute any created substance whatsoever into any other substance, and that either as regards matter or as regards form. For it suffices for a real transformation that the accidents only should remain the same, as is the case in transubstantiation, where the whole substance of the Bread of the Eucharist is converted into the Body of Christ.

S. John compares the Sadducees and Pharisees to stones, both that he might signify their hardness and obstinacy in evil, as well as humble their pride. As though he said, "O ye swelling Pharisees, of yourselves ye are no better than stones; and that wherein ye are more excellent than stones ye have from God. It was God who made you children of Abraham, and if ye be proud He will blot you out from the family of Abraham, and will raise up others in your place, and those even of stones if it so please Him."

Lastly, God is able to turn any stones whatsoever into men, and endow them with the faith and piety of Abraham, and so make them spiritual children of Abraham. For, as the Apostle says (Rom 9:7), "Not they that are the children of the flesh are the children of God, but they that are the children of the promise are counted for the seed"—i.e. are reckoned as the seed and sons of Abraham. Whence, mystically, God raised up out of stones children unto Abraham, when he made Gentiles—who were rough and unpolished, and who worshipped stocks and stones, and were on that account likened unto stones by David (Ps. cxiv. 8)—to become sons of Abraham by imitation of his faith, piety, and obedience. For he is the father of believers and of the just. So SS. Jerome, Hilary, Ambrose, Augustine, Gregory ( Hom. 10), and all the ancient Fathers. Euthymius adds that there was a fulfilment at Christ's Passion, when many who were hard of heart seeing the rocks rent and other miracles, repented and believed in Christ.

For now is the ax, &c. Here is another stimulus wherewith John pricks the Pharisees to do penance, and that speedily, threatening them, indeed, with the peril of being cut down, and burnt up in hell. So S. Chrysostom, Euthymius, and others. Of these Euthymius says, "The axe is compared to death, the tree to man." That is why the Greek is ו̉ךך?נפופבי, is cut down, and ג?ככופבי, is cast into the fire—meaning it is upon the very point and verge of being cut down. "Your fate, therefore, O ye Pharisees, hangs as it were upon a razor's edge. The extreme of peril hangs over you; destruction, death, and hell are gaping for you. Therefore bring forth worthy fruits of penance, that ye may escape those things." The meaning is, the axe—that is, the vengeance and judgment of God—is laid to the roots of the trees—that is, to the life of each individual—that if they be unfruitful, as up to this present time is your case, O ye Sadducees and Pharisees, it may speedily cut them down by death, and cast them into the eternal fire. But if, on the other hand, they be fruitful, and produce repentance and good works, it shall in a little while, not so much cut them down as transfer and transplant them to the celestial paradise, where they shall produce the perennial fruits of eternal felicity, glory and praise.

You may say, Surely this was true before the coming of Christ. Why, then, saith John, after His coming, " Now is the axe laid," &c.? I answer, because all this is more clear and sure since the coming of Christ. For Christ for this very purpose came into the world, that as the Judge, King, and Lord of all men, He might translate those who believe in and obey Him to heaven, and punish the unbelieving and disobedient with present and eternal death. Therefore Christ, by Himself, by His Apostles, and by John, clearly preached and promised to the pious the kingdom of heaven, and threatened the wicked with hell, that they might know that in His hand is their salvation and their damnation, and that by turning to Him they might escape hell, and be put into the way for heaven; and that He was able immediately to do all this, and that He would shortly do it, since there was no longer any excuse of ignorance or infirmity for men, as there was to the uninstructed Jews before Christ, to whom present and temporal rewards and punishments, not future and eternal, were promised and threatened by Moses and the prophets.

Secondly, and more aptly, the axe is the judgment and vengeance of Christ, the King and the Judge, wherewith He will cut off not only noxious, but unfruitful trees—that is, the Jews-from the garden of the Church, and from the salvation and the blessing promised to Abraham and his children, and cast them into the eternal fire; and shall, in their stead, plant the Gentiles who believe in Him in the paradise of His Church, which is, as it were, the estate and heritage of Abraham, who is the father of all them that believe. John therefore threatens the Pharisees with the reprobation of the Jews, and intimates the calling of the Gentiles into their place, which was shortly afterwards accomplished by Christ; for He rejected the Pharisees and the Jews from the family of Abraham—that is, from the Church of the faithful, and consequently from the kingdom of God.

I indeed baptize you, &c. These words must not be connected with what precedes, nor were they spoken immediately afterwards by John. But they were spoken as suitable to an occasion of which S. Luke gives an account and explanation (iii. 15): "And as the people were of opinion, and all were thinking in their hearts of John, that perhaps he might be the Christ: John answered, saying unto all: I indeed baptize you with water: but there shall come one mightier than I, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to loose. He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire" From the sanctity of his life and the fervour of his preaching, and from his baptizing, the people suspected that John was the Messiah, or the Christ. For none of the other prophets, except John and Ezekiel, had made use of baptism. (See Ezek. 26, where he foretold that baptism would be a sign of Christ: "I will pour upon you clean water, and you shall be cleansed from all your filthiness.") John therefore puts an end to this suspicion, and declares that he is not the Christ, but the forerunner and indicator of Christ, and that his baptism was a prelude to the baptism of Christ, and a preparation for it.

So he says, "I indeed baptize you in," or "with water," that is, with water only. This is a Hebraism, for the Hebrews denote the instrument by the preposition or letter α, or in, which is understood in Latin. So the Hebrew said: αξιν, bammayim "in," or "with water, unto repentance," that I may stir you up to repentance, and that I may prepare you by corporeal ablutions for the washing of the soul to be received in the baptism of Christ. The baptism of John therefore was a profession of penance. Whence those who were about to be baptized by him confessed their sins, not that there was thereby a condonation of their faults; for this they were to wait for from Christ, by means of His baptism and true contrition.

He that cometh after me. Gr. ? ו̉סק?לוםןע, i.e., the coming One, He whose advent is at hand, who is nigh us, even at our doors.

Mightier than I. Gr. ?ףקץס?פוסףע, i.e., stronger, more powerful, more excellent, and who in gifts far excels me. For He is mighty by His own divine and heavenly strength, wherewith He influences not only the body, as I do, but the soul by the Spirit of His grace, and purifies it from every spot of sin. Whence Isaiah (chap. ix.) among other titles of Christ gives him that of strong. "He shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, God: the Mighty." (Vulg.) "And verily was He Strong, who, by the wonderful power of His Divinity, overcame the devil, and took his prey out of his hand, and overthrew his kingdom and transferred it to Himself; who opened the doors of heaven, and swallowed up death in victory; who abolished sin, and brought in grace and glory." (Toletus.)

Again, Christ was mightier than John in miracles, because by a single word He raised the dead, drove out demons, healed the sick, changed the elements, whilst John by penance tamed the flesh that he might subdue it under the Spirit. Thus was the strength of Christ the weakness of John.

Whose shoes, &c. in Mar 1:7 "falling down." S. Luke has "Whose shoes' latchet I am not worthy to unloose." Each is true, each denotes the menial office of servants, who kneel down, and put on or take off their master's shoes, and carry his shoes, when he puts on his slippers. John therefore here confesses that he is the servant and slave of Christ, that Christ is his Lord, yea his God.

Mystically, shoe denotes Christ's Humanity, which to serve, by carrying it on his shoulders, or bearing it in his hand, he acknowledges himself unworthy. For this humanity, by union with the WORD, was of boundless dignity and majesty. Whence S. Bernard: "The majesty of the WORD was shod with the shoe of our humanity." For since shoes are worn upon the extremities of the body, and are made of dead animals, according to S. Gregory and S. Jerome they rightly signify the Incarnation of Christ. By shoes Theoplylact understands Christ's coming down to the earth, and descent after death into the Limbus Patrum.

He shall baptize you in the Holy Ghost. Christ shall pour forth the Holy Spirit, with all His gifts, in such abundance upon you, that He shall wash you from all your sins, and fill you, and, as it were, overwhelm you, with grace and charity, and His other charismata. Christ did this visibly at Pentecost. When He was about to ascend into heaven, alluding to these words of John, He said to His Apostles, "John indeed baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence." (Act 1:5.) But invisibly He does it in the sacrament of baptism, and confirmation, which is, as it were, the perfection and consummation of baptism. The contrast, therefore, between John and Christ is this—John baptized with water only, but Christ with water and the Holy Ghost. John washed the body, Christ the soul. And as the soul excels the body, so does the baptism of Christ excel the baptism of John, which was only rudimentary. So the Council of Trent ( Sess. 7 Can. 1), and the Fathers generally. Hence Doctors speak of a threefold baptism—1, of the river; 2, of breath; 3, of blood. The baptism of the river is when any one is baptized with water. Of wind, or spirit ( flaminis sive spiritus, Lat.), when a catechumen in a prison, or a desert, where there is no water, is truly contrite for his sins, and wishes for baptism. For such a one is justified by contrition, which includes the desire of baptism. Of blood, when any one not baptized dies a martyr for the faith; for he is baptized in his own blood, and cleansed from all his sins.

With the Holy Ghost and with fire. So it is in all the Greek, Latin, Syriac, Arabic, Persian, Egyptian, and Ethiopic versions. It is as though the Baptist said, "My baptism is by water, Christ's by fire; and as fire is more powerful than water, so is His baptism more efficacious than mine." Certain heretics, called Hermiani and Seleuciani, were wont, for this reason, to baptize their converts with fire, as S. Augustine testifies ( Hæres. 59).

You ask, what is this fire? 1. Origen ( Hom. 24 in Luc.) understands it of a purgatorial fire, that Christ will cleanse His faithful, dying in venial sins, in the fire of purgatory, according to the words, "The fire shall try every man's work;" and, "He himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire." (1 Cor. 3) So also Suarez out of SS. Jerome and Bede.

2. S. Hilary by fire here understands the judgment of Christ, that it will be sharp, clear, and dreadful, like fire.

3. S. Basil (on Isaiah, chap. iv.), Damascene (lib. 4 de Fide, c. 10), and Toletus, understand the fire of hell, by which Christ punishes the reprobate; whence the Baptist says, "He shall burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire."

4. Some by fire understand tribulations, by which, as by fire, Christ washes His faithful people from their sins.

5. And, correctly, by the Holy Ghost and fire is meant the Holy, Fiery, and Inflaming Spirit, who is fire—that is, like fire—and, as fire, burns, and kindles. It is a hendiadys. The Holy Ghost, as it were fire, purges the faithful from their sins, kindles and illuminates them, raises them towards heaven and strengthens them, unites them closely to Himself, and, like fire, transforms them into Himself. Hence, at Pentecost, the Holy Ghost glided down upon the Apostles in the appearance of tongues of fire. Hence S. Chrysostom: "By adding the mention of fire, he signified the efficacy of the Holy Ghost, the vehement and unconquerable strength of His grace." Hence, in the primitive Church, the Holy Spirit was often wont to descend in the visible appearance of fire upon those who were baptized and confirmed, to denote the complete purgation of their sins, and the fiery love and the words of fire with which the Holy Ghost inflamed them. According to that in Deut. iv. 24, "God is a consuming fire;" and, in Jer 23:29, "Are not my words as a fire? saith the Lord."

Whose fan, &c. The fan is that with which farmers winnow the corn which has been thrashed, in order that the wind may carry away the chaff, and leave only the good corn behind. Fan, in Greek, נפ‎ןם, that which, as it were, spits forth the chaff. It is derived from נפ‎ש, to spit out. The fan denotes the judgment of Christ, by which, as the fan separates the wheat from the chaff, He separates the good from the bad. The floor here does not signify the place, but rather the corn collected in the floor, which is cleansed by the separation of the chaff. By metonymy, that which contains is put for the contents. The floor, then, denotes the Church, or the company of the faithful.

The Fanner is Christ the Judge; the fan is His judgment, by which he fans and examines the thoughts, words, and deeds of every one. The chaff are the wicked. The wheat are the just and the saints, whom He will gather into His barn, the kingdom of heaven, where with them, as with wheat, He will feed and delight the Holy Trinity, the Angels, and all the Church triumphant.

John rises from Christ's first advent of grace to His second advent of judgment. And he signifies that this judgment is pressing on, and is nigh at hand, by saying, "His fan is in His hand." So S. Ambrose on Luk 3:17. For although many hundred years may yet elapse before the judgment day, yet all those years, if compared with eternity, are but as a very little while, or as nothing. Moreover Christ, the Lord and Judge, holds in His hand the spirit, soul, and life of all men, to take them away if He will, to judge, bless, or condemn them.

He will burn up &c. And if the chaff, how much more the tares? The wicked are here called chaff, because, like chaff, they are very light, worthless and useless, and good for nothing save for fuel of Gehenna. For unquenchable, the Greek has ?ףגוףפש, unextinguished, eternal. Hence a stone which always burns is called asbestus. The figure of speech here used is miosis, for little is said, much is meant. The fire of hell is a ?ףגוףפןע inextinguishable, not only because it cannot be quenched, but because it does not consume the wicked whom it burns; nay, it excruciates them living and feeling with endless torments. The error of Origen is here condemned, who thought that the pains of hell would not be eternal, but after the completion of the great cycle of Plato would come to an end.

There is an allusion to Isa 56:24, "Their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched;" and xxxiii. 14, "Which of you can dwell with devouring fire? Which of you shall dwell with everlasting burnings?" Where see what I have said. S. Chrysostom gives examples. "Do you not discern that sun which ever burns and is never extinguished? Have you not read of the inanimate bush, which was burnt with fire, and not consumed?" And S. Austin ( contra Donatist. Lib. post Collat. c. 9) says, "Now I have proved sufficiently, that there are animals, which are called Piraustæ because they can live in the fire, and be burnt without being consumed, in pain without death, by the marvellous power of the Creator. And if any deny that this is possible, they are ignorant of Him by whom whatsoever is wonderful in all nature is effected."

Think of, then, and dread this fire of hell, which no water, no tears can extinguish: yea, though all rivers, all abysses, all seas, were collected together, they could not quench it: which all demons, all creatures, with all their powers, could not even diminish in the very least degree, "because the breath of the Lord as a stream of brimstone doth kindle it."

Then cometh Jesus, &c. Then, when the Baptist was stirring up all to repentance, and baptizing as a preparation for receiving the grace of Christ, then, I say, Christ came, that Him whom he had commended when absent, he might point out being present, even as the day-star goes before and indicates the rising of the sun.

From Galilee, or as S. Mark says from Nazareth, where he had lived with His mother in a private station until He was thirty years of age. Then He came to John, that He might be by him declared to be the Messiah, that is, the Teacher and Redeemer of the world: and that He might, upon John's testimony, inaugurate His public office of teaching, and bringing in the Evangelical Law, for which He had been sent by the Father.

To be baptized. You will ask, what were the causes of John's preaching and baptism, and why did Christ wish to be baptized by him? There was a threefold reason, says S. Jerome. 1. That because He was born a man, he might fulfil all the righteousness and humility of the law. 2. That He might give a sanction to John's baptism. 3. That sanctifying the waters of Jordan by the descent of the Dove, He might show the coming of the Holy Ghost to the laver of the faithful.

4. A fourth reason was that by the Holy Spirit's coming down upon Christ in the form of a dove, and by the Father thundering from heaven, He might afford Himself an irrefragable testimony. So S. Jerome.

5. Christ, by receiving baptism from John, would allure all men to His own Baptism, and would show them its benefit, viz. the coming and gift of the Holy Ghost.

6. Christ took our sins upon Him. Therefore as guilty and a penitent He stood before John, that He might wash away and cleanse our sins in Himself. Whence Nazianzen says ( Orat. in sancta luminaria ), "John baptizes, and Jesus comes to him, sanctifying even him who baptizes, that especially He may bury the old Adam in the waters." And again, "Jesus ascended up out of the water, drawing and lifting up with Himself a drowned world."

7. That Christ, who had determined to found the new commonwealth of Christians, in which none should be admitted except by baptism, should Himself, their Chief, be baptized, that He might in all things except sin, be made like unto His brethren. That is a famous saying of Cato, "Submit to the law, which thou thyself hast enacted."

8. As Abraham formerly, by God's command, instituted the sign of circumcision, so Christ would give a new pledge to His Church by sanctioning baptism. Thus S. Thomas thinks (3 p., q. 66, art. 2) that when Christ was baptized, He instituted the Sacrament of Baptism, not in words, but in deed. For then there appeared all the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity, in whose name we are baptized. The Father was manifested by His Voice, the Son appeared in Jordan, the Holy Ghost was seen in the form of a Dove.

But it is more correct to say that Christ when He was baptized only directed attention to His own Sacrament, and its matter, water; but that He instituted it shortly afterwards, when He began to preach publicly. For He does not seem to have instituted Baptism publicly at the time He said to Nicodemus coming to Him privately and by night, "Except any one be born of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." And this is the opinion of S. Chrysostom, S. Augustine ( Serm. 36 & 37, de Tempore ) S. Gregory Nazianzen ( Orat. in S. Nativit.), and others, who at the same time assert that Christ by His Baptism sanctified all water, and by His corporeal contact with it endued it with regenerating power, not as though He infused into water any physical, but only a moral quality, because water was then, ipso facto, by the intention of Christ, designed for the sanctification of men by washing them in the Sacrament of Baptism.

Tropologically, Christ by His Baptism at this time wished to teach us that a holy and perfect life must begin with baptism, and that this should be the great object of all who teach others, such as doctors and preachers.

But John forbad him. John recognized Christ by a secret instinct and revelation of God, by which he knew Him as to his face, which he had seen and known thirty years before, when he leapt in his mother's womb for joy. You may ask, "Why then was there a sign given to the Baptist (John i. 33) by which he was to recognize Christ, viz., the descending and abiding of the Holy Ghost upon Him?" I reply, This sign was given to the Baptist, not that he should for the first time know Christ, but that it should more fully confirm him in that faith and knowledge, and that by the same, as by a sure testimony of God, he should point out and commend Christ to the people.

I have need to be baptized, &c. That is, to be spiritually washed from my sins, and perfected by the Spirit of Thy grace. Have need here does not signify an obligation of precept, as though the Baptist was obliged to receive the baptism of Christ. For this precept of baptism was given and promulged by S. Peter on the Day of Pentecost, and therefore after John's death. Some gather from this place that John was soon afterwards baptized by Christ Himself, as were also the Blessed Virgin Mary, SS. Peter, James, and John, and the rest of the Apostles. This is stated by S. Evodius, who succeeded S. Peter in the Chair of Antioch, in an Epistle of his, entitled פן̀ צ‏ע.

In favour of this idea are also Nazian. ( Orat. 39 towards the end); "Christ knew," he says, "that He would Himself shortly afterwards baptize the Baptist;" also S. Chrysostom, who says, "John baptized Christ with water, but Christ baptized John with the Spirit." Whence the author of the Imperfect Comment. says, "It is plainly written in apocryphal writings, that John baptized Christ with water, but He baptized John with the Spirit."

Abulensis thinks, on the other hand, that John was not baptized by Christ. And he proves it by the marvelling of John's disciples, who soon afterwards told John that Christ, whom he had baptized, was Himself baptizing, and that all men were coming unto Him. For this would have been needlessly told to John if he had been baptized by Christ, and he would have given this reply to his disciples. So that it is a doubtful point whether John was baptized by Christ or not.

And Jesu

Commentary -- Other

Evidence: Mat 3:1

Open-air preaching . John the Baptist was an open-air preacher. Jesus was an open-air preacher. He preached the greatest sermon of all time, the " Sermon on the Mount" in the openair. Peter preached in the open-air at Pentecost and Paul chose to stand on Mars Hill and preach open-air to the Athenians.

If we are serious about reaching this world, let us follow in the footsteps of Jesus and the apostles and preach where sinners gather. In thirty minutes, a good open-air preacher can reach more sinners than the average church does in twelve months.

Thank God that the disciples didn’t stay in the upper room. They didn’t carpet the building, pad the pews then put a notice outside the front door saying, " Tonight: Gospel outreach service, 7 P.M. —all welcome." They went into the open air.

The gospel is for the world, not the Church. One-third of the word " gospel" is " go." Twothirds of " God" is " go" ; but like King Og, we seem to have it backwards. We take sinners to meetings rather than meetings to sinners. The Church prefers to fish on dry land rather than get its feet wet. Charles Finney put his finger on the reason why: " It is the great business of every Christian to save souls. People complain that they do not know how to take hold of this matter. Why, the reason is plain enough; they have never studied it. They have never taken the proper pains to qualify themselves for the work. If you do not make it a matter of study, how you may successfully act in building up the kingdom of Christ, you are acting a very wicked and absurd part as a Christian." He who loves his neighbor as himself will be concerned for his eternal welfare. He who couldn’t care less that every day multitudes of living people are being swallowed by the jaws of hell has a heart of stone indeed.

Evidence: Mat 3:2

Repentance—its necessity for salvation . The first word John the Baptist preached to Israel was " repent." However, it must be remembered that Israel had the Law and therefore had the " knowledge of sin" ( Rom 7:7 ). Unregenerate humanity needs the Moral Law to show them what sin is ( 1Jo 3:4 ). Without the knowledge that the " schoolmaster" brings, they remain in ignorance about sin’s true nature and therefore their need for biblical repentance. See Luk 13:2 .

Introduction / Outline

Robertson: Matthew (Book Introduction)

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW

By Way of Introduction

The passing years do not make it any plainer who actually wrote our Greek Matthew. Papias records, as quoted by Eusebius, that Matthew wrote the Logia of Jesus in Hebrew (Aramaic). Is our present Matthew a translation of the Aramaic Logia along with Mark and other sources as most modern scholars think? If so, was the writer the Apostle Matthew or some other disciple? There is at present no way to reach a clear decision in the light of the known facts. There is no real reason why the Apostle Matthew could not have written both the Aramaic Logia and our Greek Matthew, unless one is unwilling to believe that he would make use of Mark’s work on a par with his own. But Mark’s book rests primarily on the preaching of Simon Peter. Scholfield has recently (1927) published An Old Hebrew Text of St. Matthew’s Gospel . We know quite too little of the origin of the Synoptic Gospels to say dogmatically that the Apostle Matthew was not in any real sense the author.

If the book is genuine, as I believe, the date becomes a matter of interest. Here again there is nothing absolutely decisive save that it is later than the Gospel according to Mark which it apparently uses. If Mark is given an early date, between a.d. 50 to 60, then Matthew’s book may be between 60 and 70, though many would place it between 70 and 80. It is not certain whether Luke wrote after Matthew or not, though that is quite possible. There is no definite use of Matthew by Luke that has been shown. One guess is as good as another and each decides by his own predilections. My own guess is that a.d. 60 is as good as any.

In the Gospel itself we find Matthew the publican (Mat_9:9; Mat_10:3) though Mark (Mar_2:14) and Luke (Luk_5:27) call him Levi the publican. Evidently therefore he had two names like John Mark. It is significant that Jesus called this man from so disreputable a business to follow him. He was apparently not a disciple of John the Baptist. He was specially chosen by Jesus to be one of the Twelve Apostles, a business man called into the ministry as was true of the fishermen James and John, Andrew and Simon. In the lists of the Apostles he comes either seventh or eighth. There is nothing definite told about him in the Gospels apart from the circle of the Twelve after the feast which he gave to his fellow publicans in honor of Jesus.

Matthew was in the habit of keeping accounts and it is quite possible that he took notes of the sayings of Jesus as he heard them. At any rate he gives much attention to the teachings of Jesus as, for instance, the Sermon on the Mount in chapters Matthew 5-7, the parables in Matthew 13, the denunciation of the Pharisees in Matthew 23, the great eschatological discourse in Matthew 24 and 25. As a publican in Galilee he was not a narrow Jew and so we do not expect a book prejudiced in favor of the Jews and against the Gentiles. He does seem to show that Jesus is the Messiah of Jewish expectation and hope and so makes frequent quotations from the Old Testament by way of confirmation and illustration. There is no narrow nationalism in Matthew. Jesus is both the Messiah of the Jews and the Saviour of the world.

There are ten parables in Matthew not in the other Gospels: The Tares, the Hid Treasure, the Net, the Pearl of Great Price, the Unmerciful Servant, the Labourers in the Vineyard, the Two Sons, the Marriage of the King’s Son, the Ten Virgins, the Talents. The only miracles in Matthew alone are the Two Blind Men, the Coin in the Mouth of the Fish. But Matthew gives the narrative of the Birth of Jesus from the standpoint of Joseph while Luke tells that wonderful story from the standpoint of Mary. There are details of the Death and Resurrection given by Matthew alone.

The book follows the same general chronological plan as that in Mark, but with various groups like the miracles in Matthew 8 and 9, the parables in Matthew 13.

The style is free from Hebraisms and has few individual peculiarities. The author is fond of the phrase the kingdom of heaven and pictures Jesus as the Son of man, but also as the Son of God. He sometimes abbreviates Mark’s statements and sometimes expands them to be more precise.

Plummer shows the broad general plan of both Mark and Matthew to be the same as follows:

Introduction to the Gospel Mar_1:1-13 Matthew 3:1-4:11. Ministry in Galilee Mark 1:14-6:13 Matthew 4:12-13:58. Ministry in the Neighborhood Mark 6:14-9:50 Matthew 14:1-18:35. Journey through Perea to Jerusalem Mark 10:1-52 Matthew 19:1-20:34. Last week in Jerusalem Mark 11:1-16:8 Matthew 21:1-28:8. The Gospel of Matthew comes first in the New Testament, though it is not so in all the Greek manuscripts. Because of its position it is the book most widely read in the New Testament and has exerted the greatest influence on the world. The book deserves this influence though it is later in date than Mark, not so beautiful as Luke, nor so profound as John. Yet it is a wonderful book and gives a just and adequate portraiture of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. The author probably wrote primarily to persuade Jews that Jesus is the fulfilment of their Messianic hopes as pictured in the Old Testament. It is thus a proper introduction to the New Testament story in comparison with the Old Testament prophecy.

The Title

The Textus Receptus has " The Holy Gospel according to Matthew" ( to kata Matthaion hagion Euaggelion ), though the Elzevirs omit " holy," not agreeing here with Stephanus, Griesbach, and Scholz. Only minuscules (cursive Greek manuscripts) and all late have the adjective. Other minuscules and nine uncials including W (the Washington Codex of the fifth century), C of the fifth century (the palimpsest manuscript) and Delta of the ninth together with most Latin manuscripts have simply " Gospel according to Matthew" ( Euaggelion kata Matthaion ). But Aleph and B the two oldest and best Greek uncials of the fourth century have only " According to Matthew" ( Kata Maththaion ) (note double th) and the Greek uncial D of the fifth or sixth century follows Aleph and B as do some of the earliest Old Latin manuscripts and the Curetonian Syriac. It is clear, therefore, that the earliest form of the title was simply " According to Matthew." It may be doubted if Matthew (or the author, if not Matthew) had any title at all. The use of " according to" makes it plain that the meaning is not " the Gospel of Matthew," but the Gospel as given by Matthew, secundum Matthaeum , to distinguish the report by Matthew from that by Mark, by Luke, by John. Least of all is there any authority in the manuscripts for saying " Saint Matthew," a Roman Catholic practice observed by some Protestants.

The word Gospel ( Euaggelion ) comes to mean good news in Greek, though originally a reward for good tidings as in Homer’s Odyssey XIV. 152 and in 2Ki_4:10. In the New Testament it is the good news of salvation through Christ. The English word Gospel probably comes from the Anglo-Saxon Godspell, story or narrative of God, the life of Christ. It was early confused with the Anglo-Saxon godspell, good story, which seems like a translation of the Greek euaggelion . But primarily the English word means the God story as seen in Christ which is the best news that the world has ever had. One thinks at once of the use of " word" ( Logos ) in Joh_1:1, Joh_1:14. So then it is, according to the Greek, not the Good News of Matthew, but the Good News of God, brought to us in Christ the Word, the Son of God, the Image of the Father, the Message of the Father. We are to study this story first as presented by Matthew. The message is God’s and it is as fresh to us today in Matthew’s record as when he first wrote it.

JFB: Matthew (Book Introduction)

THE author of this Gospel was a publican or tax gatherer, residing at Capernaum, on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. As to his identity with the "Levi" of the second and third Gospels, and other particulars, see on Mat 9:9. Hardly anything is known of his apostolic labors. That, after preaching to his countrymen in Palestine, he went to the East, is the general testimony of antiquity; but the precise scene or scenes of his ministry cannot be determined. That he died a natural death may be concluded from the belief of the best-informed of the Fathers--that of the apostles only three, James the Greater, Peter, and Paul, suffered martyrdom. That the first Gospel was written by this apostle is the testimony of all antiquity.

For the date of this Gospel we have only internal evidence, and that far from decisive. Accordingly, opinion is much divided. That it was the first issued of all the Gospels was universally believed. Hence, although in the order of the Gospels, those by the two apostles were placed first in the oldest manuscripts of the Old Latin version, while in all the Greek manuscripts, with scarcely an exception, the order is the same as in our Bibles, the Gospel according to Matthew is "in every case" placed first. And as this Gospel is of all the four the one which bears the most evident marks of having been prepared and constructed with a special view to the Jews--who certainly first required a written Gospel, and would be the first to make use of it--there can be no doubt that it was issued before any of the others. That it was written before the destruction of Jerusalem is equally certain; for as HUG observes [Introduction to the New Testament, p. 316, FOSDICK'S translation], when he reports our Lord's prophecy of that awful event, on coming to the warning about "the abomination of desolation" which they should "see standing in the holy place," he interposes (contrary to his invariable practice, which is to relate without remark) a call to his readers to read intelligently--"Whoso readeth, let him understand" (Mat 24:15) --a call to attend to the divine signal for flight which could be intended only for those who lived before the event. But how long before that event this Gospel was written is not so clear. Some internal evidences seem to imply a very early date. Since the Jewish Christians were, for five or six years, exposed to persecution from their own countrymen--until the Jews, being persecuted by the Romans, had to look to themselves--it is not likely (it is argued) that they should be left so long without some written Gospel to reassure and sustain them, and Matthew's Gospel was eminently fitted for that purpose. But the digests to which Luke refers in his Introduction (see on Luk 1:1) would be sufficient for a time, especially as the living voice of the "eye-witnesses and ministers of the Word" was yet sounding abroad. Other considerations in favor of a very early date--such as the tender way in which the author seems studiously to speak of Herod Antipas, as if still reigning, and his writing of Pilate apparently as if still in power--seem to have no foundation in fact, and cannot therefore be made the ground of reasoning as to the date of this Gospel. Its Hebraic structure and hue, though they prove, as we think, that this Gospel must have been published at a period considerably anterior to the destruction of Jerusalem, are no evidence in favor of so early a date as A.D. 37 or 38--according to some of the Fathers, and, of the moderns, TILLEMONT, TOWNSON, OWEN, BIRKS, TREGELLES. On the other hand, the date suggested by the statement of IRENÆUS [Against Heresies, 3.1], that Matthew put forth his Gospel while Peter and Paul were at Rome preaching and founding the Church--or after A.D. 60--though probably the majority of critics are in favor of it, would seem rather too late, especially as the second and third Gospels, which were doubtless published, as well as this one, before the destruction of Jerusalem, had still to be issued. Certainly, such statements as the following, "Wherefore that field is called the field of blood unto this day" (Mat 27:8); "And this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day" (Mat 28:15), bespeak a date considerably later than the events recorded. We incline, therefore, to a date intermediate between the earlier and the later dates assigned to this Gospel, without pretending to greater precision.

We have adverted to the strikingly Jewish character and coloring of this Gospel. The facts which it selects, the points to which it gives prominence, the cast of thought and phraseology, all bespeak the Jewish point of view from which it was written and to which it was directed. This has been noticed from the beginning, and is universally acknowledged. It is of the greatest consequence to the right interpretation of it; but the tendency among some even of the best of the Germans to infer, from this special design of the first Gospel, a certain laxity on the part of the Evangelist in the treatment of his facts, must be guarded against.

But by far the most interesting and important point connected with this Gospel is the language in which it was written. It is believed by a formidable number of critics that this Gospel was originally written in what is loosely called Hebrew, but more correctly Aramaic, or Syro-Chaldaic, the native tongue of the country at the time of our Lord; and that the Greek Matthew which we now possess is a translation of that work, either by the Evangelist himself or some unknown hand. The evidence on which this opinion is grounded is wholly external, but it has been deemed conclusive by GROTIUS, MICHAELIS (and his translator), MARSH, TOWNSON, CAMPBELL, OLSHAUSEN, CRESWELL, MEYER, EBRARD, LANGE, DAVIDSON, CURETON, TREGELLES, WEBSTER and WILKINSON, &c. The evidence referred to cannot be given here, but will be found, with remarks on its unsatisfactory character, in the Introduction to the Gospels prefixed to our larger Commentary, pp. 28-31.

But how stand the facts as to our Greek Gospel? We have not a title of historical evidence that it is a translation, either by Matthew himself or anyone else. All antiquity refers to it as the work of Matthew the publican and apostle, just as the other Gospels are ascribed to their respective authors. This Greek Gospel was from the first received by the Church as an integral part of the one quadriform Gospel. And while the Fathers often advert to the two Gospels which we have from apostles, and the two which we have from men not apostles--in order to show that as that of Mark leans so entirely on Peter, and that of Luke on Paul, these are really no less apostolical than the other two--though we attach less weight to this circumstance than they did, we cannot but think it striking that, in thus speaking, they never drop a hint that the full apostolic authority of the Greek Matthew had ever been questioned on the ground of its not being the original. Further, not a trace can be discovered in this Gospel itself of its being a translation. MICHAELIS tried to detect, and fancied that he had succeeded in detecting, one or two such. Other Germans since, and DAVIDSON and CURETON among ourselves, have made the same attempt. But the entire failure of all such attempts is now generally admitted, and candid advocates of a Hebrew original are quite ready to own that none such are to be found, and that but for external testimony no one would have imagined that the Greek was not the original. This they regard as showing how perfectly the translation has been executed; but those who know best what translating from one language into another is will be the readiest to own that this is tantamount to giving up the question. This Gospel proclaims its own originality in a number of striking points; such as its manner of quoting from the Old Testament, and its phraseology in some peculiar cases. But the close verbal coincidences of our Greek Matthew with the next two Gospels must not be quite passed over. There are but two possible ways of explaining this. Either the translator, sacrificing verbal fidelity in his version, intentionally conformed certain parts of his author's work to the second and third Gospels--in which case it can hardly be called Matthew's Gospel at all--or our Greek Matthew is itself the original.

Moved by these considerations, some advocates of a Hebrew original have adopted the theory of a double original; the external testimony, they think, requiring us to believe in a Hebrew original, while internal evidence is decisive in favor of the originality of the Greek. This theory is espoused by GUERICKS, OLSHAUSEN, THIERSCH, TOWNSON, TREGELLES, &c. But, besides that this looks too like an artificial theory, invented to solve a difficulty, it is utterly void of historical support. There is not a vestige of testimony to support it in Christian antiquity. This ought to be decisive against it.

It remains, then, that our Greek Matthew is the original of that Gospel, and that no other original ever existed. It is greatly to the credit of DEAN ALFORD, that after maintaining, in the first edition of his Greek Testament the theory of a Hebrew original, he thus expresses himself in the second and subsequent editions: "On the whole, then, I find myself constrained to abandon the view maintained in my first edition, and to adopt that of a Greek original."

One argument has been adduced on the other side, on which not a little reliance has been placed; but the determination of the main question does not, in our opinion, depend upon the point which it raises. It has been very confidently affirmed that the Greek language was not sufficiently understood by the Jews of Palestine when Matthew published his Gospel to make it at all probable that he would write a Gospel, for their benefit in the first instance, in that language. Now, as this merely alleges the improbability of a Greek original, it is enough to place against it the evidence already adduced, which is positive, in favor of the sole originality of our Greek Matthew. It is indeed a question how far the Greek language was understood in Palestine at the time referred to. But we advise the reader not to be drawn into that question as essential to the settlement of the other one. It is an element in it, no doubt, but not an essential element. There are extremes on both sides of it. The old idea, that our Lord hardly ever spoke anything but Syro-Chaldaic, is now pretty nearly exploded. Many, however, will not go the length, on the other side, of HUG (in his Introduction to the New Testament, pp. 326, &c.) and ROBERTS ("Discussions of the Gospels," &c., pp. 25, &c.). For ourselves, though we believe that our Lord, in all the more public scenes of His ministry, spoke in Greek, all we think it necessary here to say is that there is no ground to believe that Greek was so little understood in Palestine as to make it improbable that Matthew would write his Gospel exclusively in that language--so improbable as to outweigh the evidence that he did so. And when we think of the number of digests or short narratives of the principal facts of our Lord's history which we know from Luke (Luk 1:1-4) were floating about for some time before he wrote his Gospel, of which he speaks by no means disrespectfully, and nearly all of which would be in the mother tongue, we can have no doubt that the Jewish Christians and the Jews of Palestine generally would have from the first reliable written matter sufficient to supply every necessary requirement until the publican-apostle should leisurely draw up the first of the four Gospels in a language to them not a strange tongue, while to the rest of the world it was the language in which the entire quadriform Gospel was to be for all time enshrined. The following among others hold to this view of the sole originality of the Greek Matthew: ERASMUS, CALVIN, BEZA, LIGHTFOOT, WETSTEIN, LARDNER, HUG, FRITZSCHE, CREDNER, DE WETTE, STUART, DA COSTA, FAIRBAIRN, ROBERTS.

On two other questions regarding this Gospel it would have been desirable to say something, had not our available space been already exhausted: The characteristics, both in language and matter, by which it is distinguished from the other three, and its relation to the second and third Gospels. On the latter of these topics--whether one or more of the Evangelists made use of the materials of the other Gospels, and, if so, which of the Evangelists drew from which--the opinions are just as numerous as the possibilities of the case, every conceivable way of it having one or more who plead for it. The most popular opinion until recently--and perhaps the most popular still--is that the second Evangelist availed himself more or less of the materials of the first Gospel, and the third of the materials of both the first and second Gospels. Here we can but state our own belief, that each of the first three Evangelists wrote independently of both the others; while the fourth, familiar with the first three, wrote to supplement them, and, even where he travels along the same line, wrote quite independently of them. This judgment we express, with all deference for those who think otherwise, as the result of a close study of each of the Gospels in immediate juxtaposition and comparison with the others. On the former of the two topics noticed, the linguistic peculiarities of each of the Gospels have been handled most closely and ably by CREDNER [Einleitung (Introduction to the New Testament)], of whose results a good summary will be found in DAVIDSON'S Introduction to the New Testament. The other peculiarities of the Gospels have been most felicitously and beautifully brought out by DA COSTA in his Four Witnesses, to which we must simply refer the reader, though it contains a few things in which we cannot concur.

JFB: Matthew (Outline)

• GENEALOGY OF CHRIST. ( = Luke 3:23-38). (Mat. 1:1-17)
• BIRTH OF CHRIST. (Mat 1:18-25)
• VISIT OF THE MAGI TO JERUSALEM AND BETHLEHEM. (Mat 2:1-12)
• THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT--THE MASSACRE AT BETHLEHEM--THE RETURN OF JOSEPH AND MARY WITH THE BABE, AFTER HEROD'S DEATH, AND THEIR SETTLEMENT AT NAZARETH. ( = Luk 2:39). (Mat 2:13-23)
• PREACHING AND MINISTRY OF JOHN. ( = Mar 1:1-8; Luke 3:1-18). (Mat 3:1-12)
• BAPTISM OF CHRIST AND DESCENT OF THE SPIRIT UPON HIM IMMEDIATELY THEREAFTER. ( = Mar 1:9-11; Luk 3:21-22; Joh 1:31-34). (Mat 3:13-17)
• TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. ( = Mar 1:12-13; Luk 4:1-13). (Mat 4:1-11)
• CHRIST BEGINS HIS GALILEAN MINISTRY--CALLING OF PETER AND ANDREW, JAMES AND JOHN--HIS FIRST GALILEAN CIRCUIT. ( = Mar 1:14-20, Mar 1:35-39; Luk 4:14-15). (Mat 4:12-25)
• THE BEATITUDES, AND THEIR BEARING UPON THE WORLD. (Mat. 5:1-16)
• IDENTITY OF THESE PRINCIPLES WITH THOSE OF THE ANCIENT ECONOMY; IN CONTRAST WITH THE REIGNING TRADITIONAL TEACHING. (Mat. 5:17-48)
• FURTHER ILLUSTRATION OF THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF THE KINGDOM--ITS UNOSTENTATIOUSNESS. (Mat. 6:1-18)
• CONCLUDING ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF THE KINGDOM--HEAVENLY-MINDEDNESS AND FILIAL CONFIDENCE. (Mat. 6:19-34)
• MISCELLANEOUS SUPPLEMENTARY COUNSELS. (Mat 7:1-12)
• CONCLUSION AND EFFECT OF THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. (Mat. 7:13-29)
• HEALING OF A LEPER. ( = Mar 1:40-45; Luk 5:12-16). (Mat 8:1-4) When he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him.
• INCIDENTS ILLUSTRATIVE OF DISCIPLESHIP. ( = Luk 9:57-62). (Mat 8:18-22) And a certain scribe came, and said unto him, Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest.
• MATTHEW'S CALL AND FEAST. ( = Mar 2:14-17; Luk 5:27-32). (Mat 9:9-13)
• TWO BLIND MEN AND A DUMB DEMONIAC HEALED. (Mat 9:27-34)
• THIRD GALILEAN CIRCUIT--MISSION OF THE TWELVE APOSTLES. (Mat. 9:35-10:5)
• MISSION OF THE TWELVE APOSTLES. ( = Mar 6:7-13; Luk 9:1-6). (Mat 10:1-5)
• THE TWELVE RECEIVE THEIR INSTRUCTIONS. (Mat. 10:5-42)
• THE IMPRISONED BAPTIST'S MESSAGE TO HIS MASTER--THE REPLY, AND DISCOURSE, ON THE DEPARTURE OF THE MESSENGERS, REGARDING JOHN AND HIS MISSION. ( = Luke 7:18-35). (Mat. 11:1-19)
• OUTBURST OF FEELING SUGGESTED TO THE MIND OF JESUS BY THE RESULT OF HIS LABORS IN GALILEE. (Mat 11:20-30) Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not.
• PLUCKING CORN EARS ON THE SABBATH DAY. ( = Mar 2:23-28; Luk 6:1-5). (Mat 12:1-8)
• THE HEALING OF A WITHERED HAND ON THE SABBATH DAY AND RETIREMENT OF JESUS TO AVOID DANGER. ( = Mar 3:1-12; Luk 6:6-11). (Mat 12:9-21)
• A BLIND AND DUMB DEMONIAC HEALED AND REPLY TO THE MALIGNANT EXPLANATION PUT UPON IT. ( = Mar 3:20-30; Luk 11:14-23). (Mat. 12:22-37)
• A SIGN DEMANDED AND THE REPLY--HIS MOTHER AND BRETHREN SEEK TO SPEAK WITH HIM, AND THE ANSWER. ( = Luk 11:16, Luk 11:24-36; Mar 3:31-35; Luk 8:19-21). (Mat 12:38-50)
• JESUS TEACHES BY PARABLES. ( = Mark 4:1-34; Luk 8:4-18; Luk 13:18-20). (Mat. 13:1-52) The same day went Jesus out of the house, and sat by the seaside.
• HOW JESUS WAS REGARDED BY HIS RELATIVES. ( = Mar 6:1-6; Luk 4:16-30). (Mat 13:53-58) And it came to pass, that, when Jesus had finished these parables, he departed thence.
• HEROD THINKS JESUS A RESURRECTION OF THE MURDERED BAPTIST--ACCOUNT OF HIS IMPRISONMENT AND DEATH. ( = Mark 6:14-29; Luk 9:7-9). (Mat 14:1-12)
• JESUS CROSSES TO THE WESTERN SIDE OF THE LAKE WALKING ON THE SEA--INCIDENTS ON LANDING. ( = Mar 6:45; Joh 6:15-24). (Mat 14:22-26)
• DISCOURSE ON CEREMONIAL POLLUTION. ( = Mar 7:1, Mar 7:23). (Mat. 15:1-20)
• THE WOMAN OF CANAAN AND HER DAUGHTER. (Mat 15:21-28)
• PETER'S NOBLE CONFESSION OF CHRIST AND THE BENEDICTION PRONOUNCED UPON HIM--CHRIST'S FIRST EXPLICIT ANNOUNCEMENT OF HIS APPROACHING SUFFERINGS, DEATH, AND RESURRECTION--HIS REBUKE OF PETER AND WARNING TO ALL THE TWELVE. ( = Mar 8:27; Mar 9:1; Luk 9:18-27). (Mat. 16:13-28)
• HEALING OF A DEMONIAC BOY--SECOND EXPLICIT ANNOUNCEMENT BY OUR LORD OF HIS APPROACHING DEATH AND RESURRECTION. ( = Mark 9:14-32; Luk 9:37-45). (Mat 17:14-23)
• THE TRIBUTE MONEY. (Mat 17:24-27)
• FURTHER TEACHING ON THE SAME SUBJECT INCLUDING THE PARABLE OF THE UNMERCIFUL DEBTOR. (Mat. 18:10-35)
• FINAL DEPARTURE FROM GALILEE--DIVORCE. ( = Mar 10:1-12; Luk 9:51). (Mat 19:1-12)
• PARABLE OF THE LABORERS IN THE VINEYARD. (Mat. 20:1-16)
• THE AUTHORITY OF JESUS QUESTIONED AND THE REPLY--THE PARABLES OF THE TWO SONS, AND OF THE WICKED HUSBANDMAN. ( = Mark 11:27-12:12; Luke 20:1-19). (Mat. 21:23-46)
• PARABLE OF THE MARRIAGE OF THE KING'S SON. (Mat 22:1-14)
• DENUNCIATION OF THE SCRIBES AND PHARISEES--LAMENTATION OVER JERUSALEM, AND FAREWELL TO THE TEMPLE. ( = Mar 12:38-40; Luk 20:45-47). (Mat. 23:1-39)
• PARABLE OF THE TEN VIRGINS. (Mat 25:1-13)
• PARABLE OF THE TALENTS. (Mat. 25:14-30)
• THE LAST JUDGMENT. (Mat. 25:31-46)
• JESUS LED AWAY TO PILATE--REMORSE AND SUICIDE OF JUDAS. ( = Mar 15:1; Luk 23:1; Joh 18:28). (Mat 27:1-10)
• GLORIOUS ANGELIC ANNOUNCEMENT ON THE FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK, THAT CHRIST IS RISEN--HIS APPEARANCE TO THE WOMEN--THE GUARDS BRIBED TO GIVE A FALSE ACCOUNT OF THE RESURRECTION. ( = Mar 16:1-8; Luk 24:1-8; Joh 20:1). (Mat 28:1-15)
• JESUS MEETS WITH THE DISCIPLES ON A MOUNTAIN IN GALILEE AND GIVES FORTH THE GREAT COMMISSION. (Mat 28:16-20)
• SIGNS AND CIRCUMSTANCES FOLLOWING THE DEATH OF THE LORD JESUS--HE IS TAKEN DOWN FROM THE CROSS, AND BURIED--THE SEPULCHRE IS GUARDED. ( = Mar 15:38-47; Luk 23:47-56; Joh 19:31-42). (Mat. 27:51-66)

TSK: Matthew (Book Introduction)

Matthew, being one of the twelve apostles, and early called to the apostleship, and from the time of his call a constant attendant on our Saviour, was perfectly well qualified to write fully the history of his life. He relates what he saw and heard. " He is eminently distinguished for the distinctness and particularity with which he has related many of our Lord’s discourses and moral instructions. Of these his sermon on the mount, his charge to the apostles, his illustrations of the nature of his kingdom, and his prophecy on mount Olivet, are examples. He has also wonderfully united simplicity and energy in relating the replies of his Master to the cavils of his adversaries." " There is not," as Dr. A. Clarke justly remarks, " one truth or doctrine, in the whole oracles of God, which is not taught in this Evangelist. The outlines of the whole spiritual system are here correctly laid down. even Paul himself has added nothing. He has amplified and illustrated the truths contained in this Gospel - under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, neither he, nor any of the other apostles, have brought to light one truth, the prototype of which has not been found in the words and acts of our blessed Lord as related by Matthew."

TSK: Matthew 3 (Chapter Introduction)

Overview

Mat 3:1, John preaches. his office, life, and baptism; Mat 3:7, He reprehends the Pharisees, Mat 3:13. and baptizes Christ in Jordan.

Poole: Matthew 3 (Chapter Introduction)

CHAPTER 3

MHCC: Matthew (Book Introduction)

Matthew, surnamed Levi, before his conversion was a publican, or tax-gatherer under the Romans at Capernaum. He is generally allowed to have written his Gospel before any other of the evangelists. The contents of this Gospel, and the evidence of ancient writers, show that it was written primarily for the use of the Jewish nation. The fulfilment of prophecy was regarded by the Jews as strong evidence, therefore this is especially dwelt upon by St. Matthew. Here are particularly selected such parts of our Saviour's history and discourses as were best suited to awaken the Jewish nation to a sense of their sins; to remove their erroneous expectations of an earthly kingdom; to abate their pride and self-conceit; to teach them the spiritual nature and extent of the gospel; and to prepare them for the admission of the Gentiles into the church.

MHCC: Matthew 3 (Chapter Introduction)

(Mat 3:1-6) John the Baptist, His preaching, manner of life, and baptism.

(Mat 3:7-12) John reproves the Pharisees and Sadducees.

(Mat 3:13-17) The baptism of Jesus.

Matthew Henry: Matthew (Book Introduction)

An Exposition, with Practical Observations, of The Gospel According to St. Matthew

We have now before us, I. The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ; so this second part of the holy Bible is entitled: The new covenant; so it might as well be rendered; the word signifies both. But, when it is (as here) spoken of as Christ's act and deed, it is most properly rendered a testament, for he is the testator, and it becomes of force by his death (Heb 9:16, Heb 9:17); nor is there, as in covenants, a previous treaty between the parties, but what is granted, though an estate upon condition, is owing to the will, the free-will, the good-will, of the Testator. All the grace contained in this book is owing to Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour; and, unless we consent to him as our Lord, we cannot expect any benefit by him as our Saviour. This is called a new testament, to distinguish it from that which was given by Moses, and was not antiquated; and to signify that it should be always new, and should never wax old, and grow out of date. These books contain, not only a full discovery of that grace which has appeared to all men, bringing salvation, but a legal instrument by which it is conveyed to, and settled upon, all believers. How carefully do we preserve, and with what attention and pleasure do we read, the last will and testament of a friend, who has therein left us a fair estate, and, with it, high expressions of his love to us! How precious then should this testament of our blessed Saviour be to us, which secures to us all his unsearchable riches! It is his testament; for though, as is usual, it was written by others (we have nothing upon record that was of Christ's own writing), yet he dictated it; and the night before he died, in the institution of his supper, he signed, sealed, and published it, in the presence of twelve witnesses. For, though these books were not written for some years after, for the benefit of posterity, in perpetuam rei memoriam - as a perpetual memorial, yet the New Testament of our Lord Jesus was settled, confirmed, and declared, from the time of his death, as a nuncupative will, with which these records exactly agree. The things which St. Luke wrote were things which were most surely believed, and therefore well known, before he wrote them; but, when they were written, the oral tradition was superseded and set aside, and these writings were the repository of that New Testament. This is intimated by the title which is prefixed to many Greek Copies, Tē kainēs Diathēkēs Hapanta - The whole of the New Testament, or all the things of it. In it is declared the whole counsel of God concerning our salvation, Act 20:27. As the law of the Lord is perfect, so is the gospel of Christ, and nothing is to be added to it. We have it all, and are to look for no more.

II. We have before us The Four Gospels. Gospel signifies good news, or glad tidings; and this history of Christ's coming into the world to save sinners is, without doubt, the best news that ever came from heaven to earth; the angel gave it this title (Luk 2:10), Euagnelizomai humin - I bring you good tidings; I bring the gospel to you. And the prophet foretold it, Isa 52:7; Isa 61:1. It is there foretold that in the days of the messiah good tidings should be preached. Gospel is an old Saxon word; it is God's spell or word; and God is so called because he is good, Deus optimus - God most excellent, and therefore it may be a good spell, or word. If we take spell in its more proper signification for a charm ( carmen ), and take that in a good sense, for what is moving and affecting, which is apt lenire dolorem - to calm the spirits, or to raise them in admiration or love, as that which is very amiable we call charming, it is applicable to the gospel; for in it the charmer charmeth wisely, though to deaf adders, Psa 58:4, Psa 58:5. Nor (one would think) can any charms be so powerful as those of the beauty and love of our Redeemer. The whole New Testament is the gospel. St. Paul calls it his gospel, because he was one of the preachers of it. Oh that we may each of us make it ours by our cordial acceptance of it and subjection to it! But the four books which contain the history of the Redeemer we commonly call the four gospels, and the inspired penmen of them evangelists, or gospel-writers; not, however, very properly, because that title belongs to a particular order of ministers, that were assistants to the apostles (Eph 4:11): He gave some apostles, and some evangelists. It was requisite that the doctrine of Christ should be interwoven with, and founded upon, the narrative of his birth, life, miracles, death, and resurrection; for then it appears in its clearest and strongest light. As in nature, so in grace, the most happy discoveries are those which take rise from the certain representations of matters of fact. Natural history is the best philosophy; and so is the sacred history, both of the Old and New Testament, the most proper and grateful vehicle of sacred truth. These four gospels were early and constantly received by the primitive church, and read in Christian assemblies, as appears by the writings of Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, who lived little more than a hundred years after the ascension of Christ; they declared that neither more nor fewer than four were received by the church. A Harmony of these four evangelists was compiled by Tatian about that time, which he called, To dia tessarōn - The Gospel out of the four. In the third and fourth centuries there were gospels forged by divers sects, and published, one under the name of St. Peter, another of St. Thomas, another of St. Philip, etc. But they were never owned by the church, nor was any credit given to them, as the learned Dr. Whitby shows. And he gives this good reason why we should adhere to these written records, because, whatever the pretences of tradition may be, it is not sufficient to preserve things with any certainty, as appears by experience. For, whereas Christ said and did many memorable things, which were not written (Joh 20:30; Joh 21:25), tradition has not preserved any one of them to us, but all is lost except what was written; that therefore is what we must abide by; and blessed by God that we have it to abide by; it is the sure word of history.

III. We have before us the Gospel according to St. Matthew. The penman was by birth a Jew, by calling a publican, till Christ commanded his attendance, and then he left the receipt of custom, to follow him, and was one of those that accompanied him all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out, beginning from the baptism of John unto the day that he was taken up, Act 1:21, Act 1:22. He was therefore a competent witness of what he has here recorded. He is said to have written this history about eight years after Christ's ascension. Many of the ancients say that he wrote it in the Hebrew or Syriac language; but the tradition is sufficiently disproved by Dr. Whitby. Doubtless, it was written in Greek, as the other parts of the New Testament were; not in that language which was peculiar to the Jews, whose church and state were near a period, but in that which was common to the world, and in which the knowledge of Christ would be most effectually transmitted to the nations of the earth; yet it is probable that there might be an edition of it in Hebrew, published by St. Matthew himself, at the same time that he wrote it in Greek; the former for the Jews, the latter for the Gentiles, when he left Judea, to preach among the Gentiles. Let us bless God that we have it, and have it in a language we understand.

Matthew Henry: Matthew 3 (Chapter Introduction)

At the start of this chapter, concerning the baptism of John, begins the gospel (Mar 1:1); what went before is but preface or introduction; this is " the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ." And Peter observes the same date, Act 1:22, beginning from the baptism of John, for then Christ began first to appear in him, and then to appear to him, and by him to the world. Here is, I. The glorious rising of the morning-star - John the Baptist (Mat 3:1). 1. The doctrine he preached (Mat 3:2). 2. The fulfilling of the scripture in him (Mat 3:3). 3. His manner of life (Mat 3:4). 4. The resort of multitudes to him, and their submission to his baptism (Mat 3:5, Mat 3:6). 5. His sermon that he preached to the Pharisees and Sadducees, wherein he endeavours to bring them to repentance (Mat 3:7-10), and so to bring them to Christ (Mat 3:11, Mat 3:12). II. The more glorious shining forth of the Sun of righteousness, immediately after: where we have, 1. The honour done by him to the baptism of John (Mat 3:13-15). 2. The honour done to him by the descent of the Spirit upon him, and a voice from heaven (Mat 3:16, Mat 3:17).

Barclay: Matthew (Book Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO SAINT MATTHEW

The Synoptic Gospels

Matthew, Mark and Luke are usually known as the Synoptic Gospels. Synoptic comes from two Greek words which mean to see together and literally means able to be seen together. The reason for that name is this. These three gospels each give an account of the same events in Jesusife. There are in each of them additions and omissions; but broadly speaking their material is the same and their arrangement is the same. It is therefore possible to set them down in parallel columns, and so to compare the one with the other.

When that is done, it is quite clear that there is the closest possible relationship between them. If we, for instance, compare the story of the feeding of the five thousand (Mat_14:12-21; Mar_6:30-44; Luk_9:10-17) we find exactly the same story told in almost exactly the same words.

Another instance is the story of the healing of the man who was sick with the palsy (Mat_9:1-8; Mar_2:1-12; Luk_5:17-26). These three accounts are so similar that even a little parenthesis--"he then said to the paralytic"--occurs in all three as a parenthesis in exactly the same place. The correspondence between the three gospels is so close that we are bound to come to the conclusion either that all three are drawing their material from a common source, or that two of them must be based on the third.

The Earliest Gospel

When we examine the matter more closely we see that there is every reason for believing that Mark must have been the first of the gospels to be written, and that the other two, Matthew and Luke, are using Mark as a basis.

Mark can be divided into 105 sections. Of these sections 93 occur in Matthew and 81 in Luke. Of Mark105 sections there are only 4 which do not occur either in Matthew or in Luke.

Mark has 661 verses: Matthew has 1,068 verses: Luke has 1,149 verses. Matthew reproduces no fewer than 606 of Markverses; and Luke reproduces 320. Of the 55 verses of Mark which Matthew does not reproduce Luke reproduces 31; so there are only 24 verses in the whole of Mark which are not reproduced somewhere in Matthew or Luke.

It is not only the substance of the verses which is reproduced; the very words are reproduced. Matthew uses 51 per cent of Markwords; and Luke uses 53 per cent.

Both Matthew and Luke as a general rule follow Markorder of events. Occasionally either Matthew or Luke differs from Mark; but they never both differ against him; always at least one of them follows Markorder.

Improvements On Mark

Since Matthew and Luke are both much longer than Mark, it might just possibly be suggested that Mark is a summary of Matthew and Luke; but there is one other set of facts which show that Mark is earlier. It is the custom of Matthew and Luke to improve and to polish Mark, if we may put it so. Let us take some instances.

Sometimes Mark seems to limit the power of Jesus; at least an ill-disposed critic might try to prove that he was doing so. Here are three accounts of the same incident:

Mar_1:34: And he healed many who were sick with various

diseases, and cast out many demons;

Mat_8:16: And he cast out the spirits with a word, and

healed all who were sick;

Luk_4:40: And he laid his hands on every one of them, and

healed them.

Let us take other three similar examples:

Mar_3:10: For he had healed many;

Mat_12:15: And he healed them all;

Luk_6:19: and healed them all.

Matthew and Luke both change Markmany into all so that there may be no suggestion of any limitation of the power of Jesus Christ.

There is a very similar change in the account of the events of Jesusisit to Nazareth. Let us compare the account of Mark and of Matthew.

Mk 6:5-6: And he could do no mighty work there... and

he marvelled because of their unbelief;

Mat_13:58: And he did not do many mighty works there,

because of their unbelief.

Matthew shrinks from saying that Jesus could not do any mighty works; and changes the form of the expression accordingly.

Sometimes Matthew and Luke leave out little touches in Mark in case they could be taken to belittle Jesus. Matthew and Luke omit three statements in Mark.

Mar_3:5: "He looked around at them with anger, grieved

at their hardness of heart."

Mar_3:21: And when his friends heard it, they went out to

seize him: for they said, He is beside himself;

Mar_10:14: He was indignant.

Matthew and Luke hesitate to attribute human emotions of anger and grief to Jesus, and shudder to think that anyone should even have suggested that Jesus was mad.

Sometimes Matthew and Luke slightly alter things in Mark to get rid of statements which might seem to show the apostles in a bad light. We take but one instance, from the occasion on which James and John sought to ensure themselves of the highest places in the coming Kingdom. Let us compare the introduction to that story in Mark and in Matthew.

Mar_10:35: James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came

forward to him, and said to him...

Mat_20:20: Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came

up to him, with her sons, and kneeling before him,

she asked him for something.

Matthew hesitates to ascribe motives of ambition directly to the two apostles, and so he ascribes them to their mother.

All this makes it clear that Mark is the earliest of the gospels. Mark gives a simple, vivid, direct narrative; but Matthew and Luke have already begun to be affected by doctrinal and theological considerations which make them much more careful of what they say.

The Teaching Of Jesus

We have seen that Matthew has 1,068 verses; and that Luke has 1,149 verses; and that between them they reproduce 582 of Markverses. That means that in Matthew and Luke there is much more material than Mark supplies. When we examine that material we find that more than 200 verses of it are almost identical. For instance such passages as Luk_6:41-42 and Mat_7:1, Mat_7:5; Luk_10:21-22 and Mat_11:25-27; Luk_3:7-9 and Mat_3:7-10 are almost exactly the same.

But here we notice a difference. The material which Matthew and Luke drew from Mark was almost entirely material dealing with the events of Jesusife; but these 200 additional verses common to Matthew and Luke tell us, not what Jesus did, but what Jesus said. Clearly in these verses Matthew and Luke are drawing from a common source-book of the sayings of Jesus.

That book does not now exist; but to it scholars have given the letter Q which stands for Quelle, which is the German word for "source." In its day it must have been an extraordinarily important book, for it was the first handbook of the teaching of Jesus.

MatthewPlace In The Gospel Tradition

It is here that we come to Matthew the apostle. Scholars are agreed that the first gospel as it stands does not come directly from the hand of Matthew. One who had himself been an eye-witness of the life of Christ would not have needed to use Mark as a source-book for the life of Jesus in the way Matthew does. But one of the earliest Church historians, a man called Papias, gives us this intensely important piece of information:

"Matthew collected the sayings of Jesus in the Hebrew tongue."

So, then, we can believe that it was none other than Matthew who wrote that book which was the source from which all men must draw, if they wished to know what Jesus taught. And it was because so much of that source-book is incorporated in the first gospel that Matthewname was attached to it. We must be for ever grateful to Matthew, when we remember that it is to him that we owe the Sermon on the Mount and nearly all we know about the teaching of Jesus. Broadly speaking, to Mark we owe our knowledge of the events of Jesusife; to Matthew we owe our knowledge of the substance of Jesuseaching.

Matthew The Taxgatherer

About Matthew himself we know very little. We read of his call in Mat_9:9. We know that he was a taxgatherer and that he must therefore have been a bitterly hated man, for the Jews hated the members of their own race who had entered the civil service of their conquerors. Matthew would be regarded as nothing better than a quisling.

But there was one gift which Matthew would possess. Most of the disciples were fishermen. They would have little skill and little practice in putting words together on paper; but Matthew would be an expert in that. When Jesus called Matthew, as he sat at the receipt of custom, Matthew rose up and followed him and left everything behind him except one thing--his pen. And Matthew nobly used his literary skill to become the first man ever to compile an account of the teaching of Jesus.

The Gospel Of The Jews

Let us now look at the chief characteristics of Matthewgospel so that we may watch for them as we read it.

First and foremost, Matthew is the gospel which was written for the Jews. It was written by a Jew in order to convince Jews.

One of the great objects of Matthew is to demonstrate that all the prophecies of the Old Testament are fulfilled in Jesus, and that, therefore, he must be the Messiah. It has one phrase which runs through it like an ever-recurring theme--"This was to fulfil what the Lord had spoken by the prophet." That phrase occurs in the gospel as often as 16 times. Jesusirth and Jesusame are the fulfillment of prophecy (Mat_1:21-23); so are the flight to Egypt (Mat_2:14-15); the slaughter of the children (Mat_2:16-18); Josephsettlement in Nazareth and Jesuspbringing there (Mat_2:23); Jesusse of parables (Mat_13:34-35); the triumphal entry (Mat_21:3-5); the betrayal for thirty pieces of silver (Mat_27:9); the casting of lots for Jesusarments as he hung on the Cross (Mat_27:35). It is Matthewprimary and deliberate purpose to show how the Old Testament prophecies received their fulfillment in Jesus; how every detail of Jesusife was foreshadowed in the prophets; and thus to compel the Jews to admit that Jesus was the Messiah.

The main interest of Matthew is in the Jews. Their conversion is especially near and dear to the heart of its writer. When the Syro-Phoenician woman seeks his help, Jesusirst answer is: "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Mat_15:24). When Jesus sends out the Twelve on the task of evangelization, his instruction is: "Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Mat_10:5-6). Yet it is not to be thought that this gospel by any means excludes the Gentiles. Many are to come from the east and the west to sit down in the kingdom of God (Mat_8:11). The gospel is to be preached to the whole world (Mat_24:14). And it is Matthew which gives us the marching orders of the Church: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations" (Mat_28:19). It is clear that Matthewfirst interest is in the Jews, but that it foresees the day when an nations will be gathered in.

The Jewishness of Matthew is also seen in its attitude to the Law. Jesus did not come to destroy, but to fulfil the Law. The least part of the Law will not pass away. Men must not be taught to break the Law. The righteousness of the Christian must exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees (Mat_5:17-20). Matthew was written by one who knew and loved the Law, and who saw that even the Law has its place in the Christian economy.

Once again there is an apparent paradox in the attitude of Matthew to the Scribes and Pharisees. They are given a very special authority: "The Scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moseseat; so practice and observe whatever they tell you" (Mat_23:2). But at the same time there is no gospel which so sternly and consistently condemns them.

Right at the beginning there is John the Baptistsavage denunciation of them as a brood of vipers (Mat_3:7-12). They complain that Jesus eats with tax collectors and sinners (Mat_9:11). They ascribe the power of Jesus, not to God, but to the prince of devils (Mat_12:24). They plot to destroy him (Mat_12:14). The disciples are warned against the leaven, the evil teaching, of the Scribes and Pharisees (Mat_16:12). They are like evil plants doomed to be rooted up (Mat_15:13). They are quite unable to read the signs of the times (Mat_16:3). They are the murderers of the prophets (Mat_21:41). There is no chapter of condemnation in the whole New Testament like Matt 23 , which is condemnation not of what the Scribes and the Pharisees teach, but of what they are. He condemns them for falling so far short of their own teaching, and far below the ideal of what they ought to be.

There are certain other special interests in Matthew. Matthew is especially interested in the Church. It is in fact the only one of the Synoptic Gospels which uses the word Church at all. Only Matthew introduces the passage about the Church after Peterconfession at Caesarea Philippi (Mat_16:13-23; compare Mar_8:27-33; Luk_9:18-22). Only Matthew says that disputes are to be settled by the Church (Mat_18:17). By the time Matthew came to be written the Church had become a great organization and institution; and indeed the dominant factor in the life of the Christian.

Matthew has a specially strong apocalyptic interest. That is to say, Matthew has a specially strong interest in all that Jesus said about his own Second Coming, about the end of the world, and about the judgment. Matt 24 gives us a fuller account of Jesus pocalyptic discourse than any of the other gospels. Matthew alone has the parables of the talents (Mat_25:14-30); the wise and the foolish virgins (Mat_25:1-13); and the sheep and the goats (Mat_25:31-46). Matthew has a special interest in the last things and in judgment.

But we have not yet come to the greatest of all the characteristics of Matthew. It is supremely the teaching gospel.

We have already seen that the apostle Matthew was responsible for the first collection and the first handbook of the teaching of Jesus. Matthew was the great systematizer. It was his habit to gather together in one place all that he knew about the teaching of Jesus on any given subject. The result is that in Matthew we find five great blocks in which the teaching of Jesus is collected and systematized. All these sections have to do with the Kingdom of God. They are as follows:

(a) The Sermon on the Mount, or The Law of the Kingdom (Matt 5-7).

(b) The Duties of the Leaders of the Kingdom (Matt 10 )

(c) The Parables of the Kingdom (Matt 13 ).

(d) Greatness and Forgiveness in the Kingdom (Matt 18 ).

(e) The Coming of the King (Matt 24-25).

Matthew does more than collect and systematize. It must be remembered that Matthew was writing in an age when printing had not been invented, when books were few and far between because they had to be hand-written. In an age like that, comparatively few people could possess a book; and, therefore, if they wished to know and to use the teaching and the story of Jesus, they had to carry them in their memories.

Matthew therefore always arranges things in a way that is easy for the reader to memorize. He arranges things in threes and sevens. There are three messages to Joseph; three denials of Peter; three questions of Pilate; seven parables of the Kingdom in Matt 13; seven woes to the Scribes and Pharisees in Matt 23.

The genealogy of Jesus with which the gospel begins is a good example of this. The genealogy is to prove that Jesus is the Son of David. In Hebrew there are no figures; when figures are necessary the letters of the alphabet stand for the figures. In Hebrew there are no written vowels. The Hebrew letters for David are D-W-D; if these letters be taken as figures and not as letters, they add up to 14; and the genealogy consists of three groups of names, and in each group there are 14 names. Matthew does everything possible to arrange the teaching of Jesus in such a way that people will be able to assimilate and to remember it.

Every teacher owes a debt of gratitude to Matthew, for Matthew wrote what is above all the teachergospel.

Matthew has one final characteristic. Matthewdominating idea is that of Jesus as King. He writes to demonstrate the royalty of Jesus.

Right at the beginning the genealogy is to prove that Jesus is the Son of David (Mat_1:1-17). The title, Son of David, is used oftener in Matthew than in any other gospel (Mat_15:22; Mat_21:9; Mat_21:15). The wise men come looking for him who is King of the Jews (Mat_2:2). The triumphal entry is a deliberately dramatized claim to be King (Mat_21:1-11). Before Pilate, Jesus deliberately accepts the name of King (Mat_27:11). Even on the Cross the title of King is affixed, even if it be in mockery, over his head (Mat_27:37). In the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew shows us Jesus quoting the Law and five times abrogating it with a regal: "But I say to you..." (Mat_5:21, Mat_5:27, Mat_5:34, Mat_5:38, Mat_5:43). The final claim of Jesus is: "All authority has been given to me" (Mat_28:18).

Matthewpicture of Jesus is of the man born to be King. Jesus walks through his pages as if in the purple and gold of royalty.

FURTHER READING

W. C. Allen, St. Matthew (ICC; G)

J. C. Fenton, The Gospel of St. Matthew (PC; E)

F. V. Filson, The Gospel According to St. Matthew (ACB; E)

A. H. McNeile, St Matthew (MmC; G)

A. Plummer, An Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to St. Matthew (E)

T. H. Robinson, The Gospel of Matthew (MC; E)

R. V. G. Tasker, The Gospel According to St. Matthew (TC; E)

Abbreviations

ACB: A. and C. Black New Testament Commentary

ICC: International Critical Commentary

MC: Moffatt Commentary

MmC: Macmillan Commentary

PC: Pelican New Testament Commentary

TC: Tyndale Commentary

E: English Text

G: Greek Text

Barclay: Matthew 3 (Chapter Introduction)

The Emergence Of John The Baptizer (Mat_3:1-6)

The Message Of John--The Threat (Mat_3:7-12)

The Message Of John--The Promise (Mat_3:7-12 Continued)

The Message Of John--The Promise And The Threat (Mat_3:7-12 Continued.)

The Message Of John--The Demand (Mat_3:7-12 Continued)

The Message Of John--The Demand (Mat_3:7-12 Continued)

Jesus And His Baptism (Mat_3:13-17)

Constable: Matthew (Book Introduction)

Introduction

The Synoptic Problem

The synoptic problem is intrinsic to all study of the Gospels, especially the first three. The word "synoptic" comes from two Greek words, syn and opsesthai, meaning "to see together." Essentially the synoptic problem involves all the difficulties that arise because of the similarities and differences between the Gospel accounts. Matthew, Mark, and Luke have received the title "Synoptic Gospels" because they present the life and ministry of Jesus Christ similarly. The content and purpose of John's Gospel are sufficiently distinct to put it in a class by itself. It is not one of the so-called Synoptic Gospels.

Part of the synoptic problem is the sources the Holy Spirit led the evangelists to use in producing their Gospels. There is internal evidence (within the individual Gospels themselves) that the writers used source materials as they wrote. The most obvious example of this is the Old Testament passages to which each one referred directly or indirectly. Since Matthew and John were disciples of Jesus Christ many of their statements represent eyewitness accounts of what happened. Likewise Mark had close connections with Peter, and Luke was an intimate associate of Paul as well as a careful historian (Luke 1:1-4). Information that the writers obtained verbally (oral tradition) and in writing (documents) undoubtedly played a part in what they wrote. Perhaps the evangelists also received special revelations from the Lord before and or when they wrote their Gospels.

Some scholars have devoted much time and attention to the study of the other sources the evangelists may have used. They are the "source critics" and their work constitutes "source criticism." Because source criticism and its development are so crucial to Gospel studies, a brief introduction to this subject follows.

In 1776 and 1779 two posthumously published essays by A. E. Lessing became known in which he argued for a single written source for the Synoptic Gospels. He called this source the Gospel of the Nazarenes, and he believed its writer had composed it in the Aramaic language. To him one original source best explained the parallels and differences between the Synoptics. This idea of an original source or primal Gospel caught the interest of many other scholars. Some of them believed there was a written source, but others held it was an oral source.

As one might expect, the idea of two or more sources occurred to some scholars as the best solution to the synoptic problem.¹ Some favored the view that Mark was one of the primal sources because over 90% of the material in Mark also appears in Matthew and or Luke. Some posited another primary source "Q," an abbreviation of the German word for source, quelle. It supposedly contained the material in Matthew and Luke that does not appear in Mark.

Gradually source criticism gave way to form criticism. The form critics concentrated on the process involved in transmitting what Jesus said and did to the primary sources. They assumed that the process of transmitting this information followed patterns of oral communication that are typical in primitive societies.² Typically oral communication has certain characteristic effects on stories. It tends to shorten narratives, to retain names, to balance teaching, and to elaborate on stories about miracles, to name a few results. The critics also adopted other criteria from secular philology to assess the accuracy of statements in the Gospels. For example, they viewed as distinctive to Jesus only what was dissimilar to what Palestinian Jews or early Christians might have said. Given the critics' view of inspiration it is easy to see how most of them concluded that the Gospels in their present form do not accurately represent what Jesus said and did. However some conservative scholars used the same literary method but held a much higher view of the Gospels.³

The next wave of critical opinion, redaction criticism, hit the Christian world shortly after World War II.⁴ Redaction critics generally accept the tenets of source and form criticism. However they also believe that the Gospel evangelists altered the traditions they received to make their own theological emphases. They viewed the writers not simply as compilers of the church's oral traditions but as theologians who adapted the material for their own purposes. They viewed the present Gospels as containing both traditional material and edited material. Obviously there is a good aspect and a bad aspect to this view. Positively it recognizes the individual evangelist's distinctive purpose for writing. Negatively it permits an interpretation of the Gospel that allows for historical error and even deliberate distortion. Redaction scholars have been more or less liberal depending on their view of Scripture generally. Redaction critics also characteristically show more interest in the early Christian community out of which the Gospels came and the beliefs of that community than they do in Jesus' historical context. Their interpretations of the early Christian community vary greatly as one would expect. In recent years the trend in critical scholarship has been conservative, to recognize more rather than less Gospel material as having a historical basis.

Some knowledge of the history of Gospel criticism is helpful to the serious student who wants to understand the text. Questions of the historical background out of which the evangelists wrote, their individual purposes, and what they simply recorded and what they commented on all affect interpretation. Consequently the conservative expositor can profit somewhat from the studies of scholars who concern themselves with these questions primarily.⁵

Most critics have concluded that one source the writers used was one or more of the other Gospels. Currently most source critics believe that Matthew and Luke drew information from Mark's Gospel. Mark's accounts are generally longer than those of Matthew and Luke suggesting that Matthew and Luke condensed Mark. To them it seems more probable that they condensed him than that he elaborated on them. There is no direct evidence, however, that one evangelist used another as a source. Since they were either personally disciples of Christ or very close to eyewitnesses of His activities, they may not have needed to consult an earlier Gospel.

Most source critics also believe that the unique material in each Gospel goes back to Q. This may initially appear to be a document constructed out of thin air. However the early church father Papias (80-155 A.D.) may have referred to the existence of such a source. Eusebius, the fourth century church historian, wrote that Papias had written, "Matthew composed the logia [sayings? Gospel?] in the hebraidi [Hebrew? Aramaic?] dialekto [dialect? language? style?]."⁶ This is an important statement for several reasons, but here note that Papias referred to Matthew's logia. This may be a reference to Matthew's Gospel, but many source critics believe it refers to a primal document that became a source for one or more of our Gospels. Most of them do not believe Matthew wrote Q. They see in Papias' statement support for the idea that primal documents such as Matthew's logia were available as sources, and they conclude that Q was the most important one.

Another major aspect of the synoptic problem is the order in which the Gospels appeared as finished products. This issue has obvious connections with the question of the sources the Gospel writers may have used.

Until after the Reformation, almost all Christians believed that Matthew wrote his Gospel before Mark and Luke wrote theirs; they held Matthean priority. From studying the similarities and differences between the Synoptics, some source critics concluded that Matthew and Luke came into existence before Mark. They viewed Mark as a condensation of the other two.⁷ However the majority of source critics today believe that Mark was the first Gospel and that Matthew and Luke wrote later. As explained above, they hold this view because they believe it is more probable that Matthew and Luke drew from and condensed Mark than that Mark expanded on Matthew and Luke.

Since source criticism is highly speculative many conservative expositors today continue to lean toward Matthean priority. We do so because there is no solid evidence to contradict this traditional view that Christians held almost consistently for the church's first 17 centuries.

While the game of deducing which Gospel came first and who drew from whom appeals to many students, these issues are essentially academic ones. They have little to do with the meaning of the text. Consequently I do not plan to discuss them further but will refer interested student to the vast body of literature that is available. I will, however, deal with problems involving the harmonization of the Gospel accounts at the appropriate places in the exposition that follows. The Bible expositor's basic concern is not the nature and history of the stories in the text but their primary significance in their contexts.

". . . it is this writer's opinion that there is no evidence to postulate a tradition of literary dependence among the Gospels. The dependence is rather a parallel dependence on the actual events which occurred."⁸

A much more helpful critical approach to the study of the Bible is literary criticism, the current wave of interest. This approach analyses the text in terms of its literary structure, emphases, and unique features. It seeks to understand the text as a piece of literature by examining how the writer wrote it.

Writer

External evidence strongly supports the Matthean authorship of the first Gospel. The earliest copies of the Gospel we have begin "KATA MATTHAION" ("according to Matthew"). Several early church fathers referred to Matthew as the writer including Clement of Rome, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and Origen.⁹ Papias' use of the term logia to describe Matthew's work, cited above, is not a clear attestation to Matthean authorship of the first Gospel. Since Matthew was a disciple of Jesus and one of the 12 Apostles, his work carried great influence and enjoyed much prestige from its first appearance. We might expect a more prominent disciple such as Peter or James to have written it. The fact that the early church accepted it as from Matthew further strengthens the likelihood that he indeed wrote it.

Internal evidence of Matthean authorship is also strong. As a tax collector for Rome, Matthew would have had to be able to write capably. His profession forced him to keep accurate and detailed records which skill he put to good use in composing his Gospel. There are more references to money and to more different kinds of money in this Gospel than in any of the others.¹⁰ Matthew humbly referred to himself as a tax collector, a profession with objectionable connotations in his culture, whereas the other Gospel writers simply called him Matthew. Matthew called his feast for Jesus a dinner (Matt. 9:9-10), but Luke referred to it as a great banquet (Luke 5:29). All these details confirm the testimony of the early church fathers.

Language

Papias' statement, cited above, refers to a writing by Matthew in the hebraidi dialekto (the Hebrew or possibly Aramaic language or dialect). This may not be a reference to Matthew's Gospel. Four other church fathers mentioned that Matthew wrote in Aramaic and that translations followed in Greek: Irenaeus (130-202 A.D.), Origen (185-254 A.D.), Eusebius (4th century), and Jerome (6th century).¹¹ However they may have been referring to something other than our first Gospel. These references have led many scholars to conclude that Matthew composed his Gospel in Aramaic and that someone else, or he himself, later translated it into Greek. This is the normal meaning of the fathers' statements. If Matthew originally wrote his Gospel in Aramaic, it is difficult to explain why he sometimes, but not always, quoted from a Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint. The Hebrew Old Testament would have been the normal text for a Hebrew or Aramaic author to use. A Greek translator might have used the LXX (Septuagint) to save himself some work, but if he did so why did he not use it consistently? Matthew's Greek Gospel contains many Aramaic words. This solution also raises some questions concerning the reliability and inerrancy of the Greek Gospel that has come down to us.

There are several possible solutions to the problem of the language of Matthew's Gospel.¹² The best seems to be that Matthew wrote a Hebrew document that God did not inspire that is no longer extant. He also composed an inspired Greek Gospel that has come down to us in the New Testament. Many competent scholars believe that Matthew originally wrote his Gospel in Greek. They do so mainly because of his Greek.¹³

Date and Place of Composition

Dating Matthew's Gospel is difficult for many reasons even if one believes in Matthean priority. The first extra-biblical reference to it occurs in the writings of Ignatius (c. 110-115 A.D.).¹⁴ However Matthew's references to Jerusalem and the Sadducees point to a date of compositions before 70 A.D. when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem. His references to Jerusalem assume its existence (e.g., 4:5; 27:53). Matthew recorded more warnings about the Sadducees than all the other New Testament writers combined, but after 70 A.D. they no longer existed as a significant authority in Israel.¹⁵ Consequently Matthew probably wrote before 70 A.D.

References in the text to the customs of the Jews continuing "to this day" (27:8; 28:15) imply that some time had elapsed between the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and the composition of the Gospel. Since Jesus died in 33 A.D. Matthew may have composed his Gospel perhaps a decade or more later. A date between 40 and 70 A.D. is very probable.¹⁶

Since Matthew lived and worked in Palestine we would assume that he wrote while living there. There is no evidence that excludes this possibility. Nevertheless scholars love to speculate. Other sites they have suggested include Antioch of Syria (because Ignatius was bishop of Antioch), Alexandria, Edessa, Syria, Tyre, and Caesarea Maratima. These are all guesses.

Distinctive Features

Compared with the other Gospels Matthew's is distinctively Jewish. He used parallelism as did many to the Old Testament writers, and his thought patterns and general style are typically Hebrew.¹⁷ Matthew's vocabulary (e.g., kingdom of heaven, holy city, righteousness, etc.) and subject matter (the Law, defilement, the sabbath, Messiah, etc.) are also distinctively Jewish. Matthew referred to the Old Testament 129 times, more than any other evangelist.¹⁸ Usually he did so to prove a point to his readers. The genealogy in chapter 1 traces Jesus' ancestry back to Abraham, the father of the Jewish race. Matthew gave prominent attention to Peter, the apostle to the Jews.¹⁹ The writer also referred to many Jewish customs without explaining them evidently because he believed most of his original readers would not need an explanation.

Another distinctive emphasis in Matthew is Jesus' teaching ministry. No other Gospel contains as many of Jesus' discourses and instructions. These include the Sermon on the Mount, the instruction of the disciples, the parables of the kingdom, the denunciation of Israel's leaders, and the Olivet Discourse.²⁰

Audience and Purposes

Several church fathers (i.e., Irenaeus, Origen, and Eusebius) stated what we might suppose from the distinctively Jewish emphases of this book, namely that Matthew wrote his Gospel primarily for his fellow Jews.²¹

He wrote, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, for a specific purpose or, more accurately, specific purposes. He did not state these purposes concisely as John did in his Gospel (John 20:30-31). Nevertheless they are clear from his content and his emphases.

"Matthew has a twofold purpose in writing his Gospel. Primarily he penned this Gospel to prove Jesus is the Messiah, but he also wrote it to explain God's kingdom program to his readers. One goal directly involves the other. Nevertheless, they are distinct."²²

"Matthew's purpose obviously was to demonstrate that Jesus Christ was the promised Messiah of the Old Testament, that He fulfilled the requirements of being the promised King who would be a descendant of David, and that His life and ministry fully support the conclusion that He is the prophesied Messiah of Israel. . . .

"As a whole, the gospel is not properly designated as only an apologetic for the Christian faith. Rather, it was designed to explain to the Jews, who had expected the Messiah when He came to be a conquering king, why instead Christ suffered and died, and why there was the resulting postponement of His triumph to His second coming."²³

Matthew presented three aspects to God's kingdom program. First, Jesus presented Himself to the Jews as the king that God had promised in the Old Testament. Second, Israel's leaders rejected Jesus as their king. This resulted in the postponement, not the cancellation, of the messianic kingdom that God had promised Israel. Third, because of Israel's rejection Jesus is now building His church in anticipation of His return to establish the promised messianic kingdom on the earth.

There are at least three wider purposes that Matthew undoubtedly hoped to fulfill with his Gospel. First, he wanted to instruct Christians and non-Christians concerning the person and work of Jesus.²⁴ Second, he wanted to provide an apologetic to aid his Jewish brethren in witnessing to other Jews about Christ. Third, he wanted to encourage all Christians to witness for Christ boldly and faithfully. It is interesting that Matthew is the only Gospel writer to use the Greek verb matheteuo, "to disciple" (13:52; 27:57; 28:19; cf. Acts 14:21 for its only other occurrence in the New Testament). This fact shows his concern for making disciples of Christ.²⁵

Carson identified nine major themes in Matthew. They are Christology, prophecy and fulfillment, law, church, eschatology, Jewish leaders, mission, miracles, and the disciples' understanding and faith.²⁶

Plan and Structure

Matthew often grouped his material into sections so that three, five, six, or seven events, miracles, sayings, or parables appear together.²⁷ Jewish writers typically did this to help their readers remember what they had written. The presence of this technique reveals Matthew's didactic (instructional) intent. Furthermore it indicates that his arrangement of material was somewhat topical rather than strictly chronological. Generally chapters 1-4 are in chronological order, chapters 5-13 are topical, and chapters 14-28 are again chronological.²⁸

Not only Matthew but the other Gospel writers as well present the life of Jesus Christ in three major stages. These stages are His presentation to the people, their consideration of His claims, and their rejection and its consequences.

A key phrase in Matthew's Gospel enables us to note the major movements in the writer's thought. It is the phrase "and it came about that when Jesus had finished" (7:28; 11:1; 13:53; 19:1; 26:1). This phrase always occurs at the end of one of Jesus' addresses. An address therefore concludes each major section of the Gospel, and it is climactic. Matthew evidently used the narrative sections to introduce Jesus' discourses, which he regarded as specially important in his book. Mark, on the other hand, gave more detailed information concerning the narrative material in his Gospel. In addition to each major section, there is a prologue and an epilogue to the Gospel according to Matthew.

Message²⁹

The four Gospels are foundational to Christianity because they record the life of Jesus Christ and His teachings. Each of the four Gospels fulfills a unique purpose. They are not simply four versions of the life of Jesus. If one wants to study the life of Jesus Christ, the best way to do that is with a harmony of the Gospels that correlates all the data chronologically. However if one wants to study only one of the Gospel accounts, then one needs to pay attention to the uniqueness of that Gospel. The unique material, what the writer included and excluded, reveals the purpose for which he wrote and the points he wanted to stress.

What is the unique message of Matthew's Gospel? How does it differ from the other three Gospels? What specific emphasis was Matthew wanting his readers to gain as they read his record of Jesus' life and ministry? I would put it this way.

Matthew wanted his readers to do what John the Baptist and Jesus called the people of their day to do, namely "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." This was the message of the King to His people and the message of the King's herald as he called the King's people to prepare for the King's coming.

This is not the final message of Christianity, but it is the message that Matthew wanted us to understand. When John the Baptist and Jesus originally issued this call, they faced a situation that is different from the situation we face today. They called the people of their day to trust in and follow Jesus because the messianic kingdom was immediately at hand. If the Jews had responded, Jesus would have established His kingdom immediately. He would have died on the cross, risen from the dead, ascended into heaven, ushered in the Tribulation, returned, and established His kingdom.

The messianic kingdom is at hand for you and me in a different sense. Jesus Christ has died and risen from the dead. The Tribulation is still future, but following those seven years Jesus will return and establish His messianic kingdom on earth. The commission that Jesus has given us as His disciples is essentially to prepare people for the King's return. To do this we must go into all the world and herald the gospel to everyone. We must call them to trust in and follow the King as His disciples.

Essentially the message of Matthew is "the kingdom of heaven is at hand." The proper response to this message is, "Repent." Let us look first at the message and then at the proper response. Note three things about the message.

First, "the kingdom of heaven is at hand" is the statement of a fact. The subject of this statement is the kingdom. The kingdom is the theme of Matthew's Gospel. The word "kingdom" occurs about 50 times in Matthew. Since "kingdom" is such a prominent theme it is not surprising to discover that this Gospel presents Jesus as the great King.

Matthew presents the kingship of Jesus. Kingship involves the fact that Jesus is the great King that the Old Testament prophets predicted would come and rule over all the earth in Israel's golden age. It points to the universal sovereignty of God's Son who would rule over all mankind. He was to be a Son of David who would also rule over Israel. The second smaller sphere of sovereignty lies within the first larger sphere.

The word "kingdom" refers to the realm over which the King reigns. This is usually what we think of when we think of Jesus' messianic kingdom, the sphere over which He will rule. However, it is important that we not stress the sphere to the detriment of the sovereignty with which He will rule. Both ideas are essential to the concept of the kingdom that Matthew presents, sphere and sovereignty.

The little used phrase in Matthew's Gospel "kingdom of God" stresses the fact that it is God who rules. The King is God, and He will reign over all of His creation eventually. The kingdom belongs to God and it will extend over all that God sovereignly controls.

Matthew of all the Gospel evangelists was the only one to use the phrase "kingdom of heaven." John the Baptist nor Jesus ever explained this phrase. Their audiences knew what they meant by it. Ever since God gave His great promises to Abraham the Jews knew what the kingdom of heaven meant. It meant God's rule over His people who lived on the earth. As time passed, God gave the Israelites more information about His rule over them. He told them that He would provide a descendant of David who would be their King. This king would rule over the Israelites who would live in the Promised Land. His rule would include the whole earth, however, and the Gentiles too would live under His authority. The kingdom of heaven that the Old Testament predicted was an earthly kingdom over which God would rule through His Son. It would not just be God's rule over His people from heaven. When the Jews in Jesus' day heard John the Baptist and Jesus calling them to repent for the kingdom of heaven was at hand, what did they think? They understood that the earthly messianic kingdom predicted in the Old Testament was very near. They needed to get ready for it by making some changes.

The simple meaning of "kingdom of heaven" then is God's establishment of heaven's order on earth. Every created being and every human authority would be in subjection to God. God would overturn everyone and everything that did not recognize His authority. It is the establishment of divine order on earth. It is the supremacy of God's will over human affairs. The establishment of the kingdom of heaven on earth then is the hope of humanity, and it will only transpire as people submit to God's King. It is impossible for people to bring in this kingdom. Only God can bring it in. People just need to get ready because it is coming.

Second, Matthew's Gospel interprets the kingdom. It does not just affirm the coming of the kingdom, but it also explains the order of the kingdom. Specifically it reveals the principle of the kingdom, the practice of the kingdom, and the purpose of the kingdom.

The principle of the kingdom is righteousness. This is one of the major themes in Matthew. Righteousness in Matthew refers to righteous conduct, righteousness in practice rather than positional righteousness. Righteousness is necessary to enter the kingdom and to serve in the kingdom under the King. The words of the King in Matthew constitute the law of the kingdom. They proclaim the principle of righteousness.

The practice of the kingdom is peace. Peace is another major theme in Matthew. When you think of the Sermon on the Mount you may think of these two major themes: righteousness and peace. The kingdom would come not by going to war with Rome and defeating it. It would come by peaceful submission to the King, Jesus. These two approaches to inaugurating the kingdom contrast starkly as we think of Jesus hanging on the cross between two insurrectionists. They tried to establish the kingdom the way most people in Israel thought it would come, by violence. Jesus, on the other hand, submitted to His Father's will, and even though He died He ratified the covenant by which the kingdom will come by dying. He secured the kingdom. Jesus' example of peaceful submission to God's will is to be the model for His disciples. Greatness in the kingdom does not come by self-assertion but by self-sacrifice. The greatest in the kingdom will be the servant of all. The works of the King in Matthew demonstrate the powers of the kingdom moving toward peace.

The purpose of the kingdom is joy. God will establish His kingdom on earth to bring great joy to mankind. This will be the time of greatest fruitfulness and abundance in earth's history. God's will has always been to bless mankind. It is by rebelling against God that man loses his joy. The essence of joy is intimate fellowship with God. This intimate fellowship will be a reality during the kingdom to a greater extent than ever before in history. The will of the King in Matthew is to bless mankind. The Beatitudes express this purpose very clearly (cf. 5:3-12).

Third, Matthew's Gospel stresses the method by which the King will administer the kingdom. It is a three-fold method.

In the first five books of the Old Testament, the Law or Torah, God revealed the need for a high priest to offer a final sacrifice for mankind to God. The last part of Matthew's Gospel, the passion narrative, presents Jesus as the Great High Priest who offered that perfect sacrifice.

In the second part of the Old Testament, the historical books, the great need and expectation is a king who will rule over Israel and the nations in righteousness. The first part of Matthew's Gospel presents Jesus as that long expected King, Messiah.

In the last part of the Old Testament, the prophets, we see the great need for a prophet who could bring God's complete revelation to mankind. The middle part of Matthew's Gospel presents Jesus as the prophet who would surpass Moses and bring God's final revelation to mankind.

God will administer His kingdom on earth through this Person who as King has all authority, as Prophet reveals God's final word of truth, and as Priest has dealt with sin finally. God's administration of His kingdom is in the hands of a King who is the great High Priest and the completely faithful Prophet.

The central teaching of Matthew's Gospel then concerns the kingdom of heaven. The needed response to this Gospel is, "Repent."

In our day Christians differ in their understanding of the meaning of repentance. This difference arises because there are two Greek verbs each of which means, "to repent." One of these is metamelomai. When it occurs, it usually describes an active change. The other word is metanoeo. When it occurs, it usually describes a contemplative change. Consequently when we read "repent" or "repentance" in our English Bibles, we have to ask ourselves whether a change of behavior is in view primarily or a change of mind. Historically the Roman Catholic Church has favored an active interpretation of the nature of repentance whereas Protestants have favored a contemplative interpretation. Catholics say repentance involves a change of behavior while Protestants say it involves a change of thinking essentially. One interpretation stresses the need for a sense of sorrow, and the other stresses the need for a sense of awareness.

The word John the Baptist and Jesus used when they called their hearers to repentance was metanoeo. We could translate it, "Think again." They were calling their hearers to consider the implications of the imminency of the messianic kingdom.

Consideration that the kingdom of heaven was at hand would result in a conviction of sin and a sense of sorrow. These are the inevitable consequences of considering these things. Conviction of a need to change is the consequence of genuine repentance.

Consideration leads to conviction, and conviction leads to conversion. Conversion describes turning from rebellion to submission, from self to the Savior. In relation to the coming kingdom it involves becoming humble and childlike rather than proud and independent. It involves placing confidence in Jesus rather than in self for salvation.

To summarize, we can think of the kind of repenting that John the Baptist, Jesus, and later Jesus' disciples were calling on their hearers to demonstrate as involving consideration, conviction, and conversion. Repentance begins with consideration of the facts. Awareness of these facts brings conviction of personal need. Feeling these personal needs leads to conversion or a turning from what is bad to what is good.

Now let us combine "repent" with "the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Matthew's Gospel calls the reader to consider the kingdom and the King. This should produce the conviction that one is not ready for such a kingdom nor is one ready to face such a King. Then we should submit our lives to the rule of the King and the standards of the kingdom.

Matthew's Gospel proclaims the kingdom. It interprets the kingdom as righteousness, peace, and joy. It reveals that a perfect King who is a perfect prophet and a perfect priest will administer the kingdom. It finally appeals to mankind to repent in view of these realities: to consider, to feel conviction, and to turn in conversion. As readers of this Gospel, we need to get ready, to think again, because the kingdom of heaven is coming.

The church now has the task of calling the world to repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. The church is Jesus' disciples collectively. The King is coming back to rule and to reign. People need to prepare for that reality. The church's job is to spread the good news of the King and the kingdom to those who have very different ideas about the ultimate ruler and the real utopia. We face the same problem that Jesus did in His day. Therefore Matthew's Gospel is a great resource for us as we seek to carry out the commission that the King has given us.

Individually we have a responsibility to consider the King and the kingdom, to gain conviction by what we consider, and to change our behavior. Our repentance should involve submission to the King's authority and preparation for kingdom service. We submit to the King's authority as we observe all that He has commanded us. We prepare for kingdom service as we faithfully persevere in the work He has given us to do rather than pursuing our own personal agendas. We can do this joyfully because we have the promise of the King's presence with us and the enablement of His authority behind us (28:18, 20).

Constable: Matthew (Outline)

Outline

I. The introduction of the King 1:1-4:11

A. The King's genealogy 1:1-17

B. The King's birth 1:18-25

C. The King's childhood 2:1-23

1. The prophecy about Bethlehem 2:1-12

2. The prophecies about Egypt 2:13-18

3. The prophecies about Nazareth 2:19-23

D. The King's preparation 3:1-4:11

1. Jesus' forerunner 3:1-12

2. Jesus' baptism 3:13-17

3. Jesus' temptation 4:1-11

II. The authority of the King 4:12-7:29

A. The beginning of Jesus' ministry 4:12-25

1. The setting of Jesus' ministry 4:12-16

2. Jesus' essential message 4:17

3. The call of four disciples 4:18-22

4. A summary of Jesus' ministry 4:23-25

B. Jesus' revelations concerning participation in His kingdom 5:1-7:29

1. The setting of the Sermon on the Mount 5:1-2

2. The subjects of Jesus' kingdom 5:3-16

3. The importance of true righteousness 5:17-7:12

4. The false alternatives 7:13-27

5. The response of the audience 7:28-29

III. The manifestation of the King 8:1-11:1

A. Demonstrations of the King's power 8:1-9:34

1. Jesus' ability to heal 8:1-17

2. Jesus' authority over His disciples 8:18-22

3. Jesus' supernatural power 8:23-9:8

4. Jesus' authority over His critics 9:9-17

5. Jesus' ability to restore 9:18-34

B. Declarations of the King's presence 9:35-11:1

1. Jesus' compassion 9:35-38

2. Jesus' commissioning of 12 disciples 10:1-4

3. Jesus' charge concerning His apostles' mission 10:5-42

4. Jesus' continuation of His work 11:1

IV. The opposition to the King 11:2-13:53

A. Evidences of Israel's opposition to Jesus 11:2-30

1. Questions from the King's forerunner 11:2-19

2. Indifference to the King's message 11:20-24

3. The King's invitation to the repentant 11:25-30

B. Specific instances of Israel's rejection of Jesus ch. 12

1. Conflict over Sabbath observance 12:1-21

2. Conflict over Jesus' power 12:22-37

3. Conflict over Jesus' sign 12:38-45

4. Conflict over Jesus' kin 12:46-50

C. Adaptations because of Israel's rejection of Jesus 13:1-53

1. The setting 13:1-3a

2. Parables addressed to the multitudes 13:3b-33

3. The function of these parables 13:34-43

4. Parables addressed to the disciples 13:44-52

5. The departure 13:53

V. The reactions of the King 13:54-19:2

A. Opposition, instruction, and healing 13:54-16:12

1. The opposition of the Nazarenes and Romans 13:54-14:12

2. The withdrawal to Bethsaida 14:13-33

3. The public ministry at Gennesaret 14:34-36

4. The opposition of the Pharisees and scribes 15:1-20

5. The withdrawal to Tyre and Sidon 15:21-28

6. The public ministry to Gentiles 15:29-39

7. The opposition of the Pharisees and Sadducees 16:1-12

B. Jesus' instruction of His disciples around Galilee 16:13-19:2

1. Instruction about the King's person 16:13-17

2. Instruction about the King's program 16:18-17:13

3. Instruction about the King's principles 17:14-27

4. Instruction about the King's personal representatives ch. 18

5. The transition from Galilee to Judea 19:1-2

VI. The official presentation and rejection of the King 19:3-25:46

A. Jesus' instruction of His disciples around Judea 19:3-20:34

1. Instruction about marriage 19:3-12

2. Instruction about childlikeness 19:13-15

3. Instruction about wealth 19:16-20:16

4. Instruction about Jesus' passion 20:17-19

5. Instruction about serving 20:20-28

6. An illustration of illumination 20:29-34

B. Jesus' presentation of Himself to Israel as her King 21:1-17

1. Jesus' preparation for the presentation 21:1-7

2. Jesus' entrance into Jerusalem 21:8-11

3. Jesus' entrance into the temple 21:12-17

C. Israel's rejection of her King 21:18-22:46

1. The sign of Jesus' rejection of Israel 21:18-22

2. Rejection by the chief priests and the elders 21:23-22:14

3. Rejection by the Pharisees and the Herodians 22:15-22

4. Rejection by the Sadducees 22:23-33

5. Rejection by the Pharisees 22:34-46

D. The King's rejection of Israel ch. 23

1. Jesus' admonition of the multitudes and His disciples 23:1-12

2. Jesus' indictment of the scribes and the Pharisees 23:13-36

3. Jesus' lamentation over Jerusalem 23:37-39

E. The King's revelations concerning the future chs. 24-25

1. The setting of the Olivet Discourse 24:1-3

2. Jesus' warning about deception 24:4-6

3. Jesus' general description of the future 24:7-14

4. The abomination of desolation 24:15-22

5. The second coming of the King 24:23-31

6. The responsibilities of disciples 24:32-25:30

7. The King's judgment of the nations 25:31-46

VII. The crucifixion and resurrection of the King chs. 26-28

A. The King's crucifixion chs. 26-27

1. Preparations for Jesus' crucifixion 26:1-46

2. The arrest of Jesus 26:47-56

3. The trials of Jesus 26:57-27:26

4. The crucifixion of Jesus 27:27-56

5. The burial of Jesus 27:57-66

B. The King's resurrection ch. 28

1. The empty tomb 28:1-7

2. Jesus' appearance to the women 28:8-10

3. The attempted cover-up 28:11-15

4. The King's final instructions to His disciples 28:16-20

Constable: Matthew

Matthew

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Copyright 2003 by Thomas L. Constable

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Haydock: Matthew (Book Introduction)

THE

HOLY GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST,

ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW

INTRODUCTION.

THIS and other titles, with the names of those that wrote the Gospels, are not the words of the Evangelists themselves. The Scripture itself nowhere teacheth us, which books or writings are to be received as true and canonical Scriptures. It is only by the channel of unwritten traditions , and by the testimony and authority of the Catholic Church, that we know and believe that this gospel, for example of St. Matthew, with all contained in it, and that the other books and parts of the Old or New Testament, are of divine authority, or written by divine inspiration; which made St. Augustine say, I should not believe the gospel, were I not moved thereunto by the authority of the Catholic Church: Ego evangelio non crederem, nisi me Ecclesiæ Catholicæ commoveret auctoritas. ( Lib. con. Epist. Manichæi, quam vocant fundamenti. tom. viii. chap. 5, p. 154. A. Ed. Ben.) (Witham)

S. MATTHEW, author of the gospel that we have under his name, was a Galilean, the son of Alpheus, a Jew, and a tax-gatherer; he was known also by the name of Levi. His vocation happened in the second year of the public ministry of Christ; who, soon after forming the college of his apostles, adopted him into that holy family of the spiritual princes and founders of his Church. Before his departure from Judea, to preach the gospel to distant countries, he yielded to the solicitations of the faithful; and about the eighth year after our Saviour's resurrection, the forty-first of the vulgar era, he began to write his gospel: i.e., the good tidings of salvation to man, through Christ Jesus, our Lord. Of the hagiographers, St. Matthew was the first in the New, as Moses was the first in the Old Testament. And as Moses opened his work with the generation of the heavens and the earth, so St. Matthew begins with the generation of Him, who, in the fullness of time, took upon himself our human nature, to free us from the curse we had brought upon ourselves, and under which the whole creation was groaning. (Haydock) ---This holy apostle, after having reaped a great harvest of souls in Judea, preached the faith to the barbarous nations of the East. He was much devoted to heavenly contemplation, and led an austere life; for he eat no flesh, satisfying nature with herbs, roots, seeds, and berries, as Clement of Alexanderia assures us, Pædag. lib. ii. chap. 1. St. Ambrose says, that God opened to him the country of the Persians. Rufinus and Socrates tell us, that he carried the gospel into Ethiopia, meaning probably the southern or eastern parts of Asia. St. Paulinus informs us, that he ended his course in Parthia; and Venantius Fortunatus says, by martyrdom.--- See Butler's Saints' Lives, Sept. 21 st.

Gill: Matthew (Book Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO MATTHEW

The subject of this book, and indeed of all the writings of the New Testament, is the Gospel. The Greek word ευαγγελιον signifies a joyful message, good news, glad tidings of good things; such as Christ was anointed to preach, the Angels brought to the shepherds, and the Evangelists, Apostles, and Ministers of Christ published to the world. Isa 61:1. And such is the account given by this inspired writer, of the incarnation, life, actions, ministry, miracles, sufferings, and death of Jesus Christ; whereby peace and reconciliation, pardon and righteousness, atonement and redemption, life and salvation, are obtained for lost, perishing sinners. The Jews, to whom the message of grace was first sent, and among whom the Gospel was first preached, having despised and rejected it; they and their posterity, in allusion to the word "Evangelion", most wickedly and blasphemously call the whole New Testament, און גליון or וצן גליון "Aven Gilion" ^a, a "revelation", or "volume of iniquity and vanity"; but "blessed are the people that know the joyful sound", see Psa 89:15. The writer of this Gospel, Matthew, who also was called Levi in Luk 5:27 was by occupation a publican, or tax-gatherer, and was in his employ when Christ called him by his grace. He was one of the twelve Apostles sent forth by Christ to preach the Gospel of the kingdom, Mat 10:3 and was honoured to be the first of the writers of the New Testament, and to be the first publisher therein of the good news of the incarnate Saviour; and was a wonderful instance of the rich and sovereign grace of God. Though he was employed in collecting the Roman tax, yet he was of Jewish extract; as appears from his being called the son of Alphaeus, Mar 2:14 and from his name Matthew Levi; for as the latter, so the former is an Hebrew name. The Jews say ^b one of the disciples of Jesus was called yatm, Matthai or Matthew: his name signifies a "gift" or "given"; he was one of those the Father had given to Christ, and was kept by him, when the son of perdition was lost, Joh 17:6. It may not be improper to inquire in what language this Gospel was written. The ancient Christian writers were generally of opinion, that Matthew wrote it in Hebrew; Papias and ^c Pantaenus were of this mind, as also Irenaeus ^d, Origen ^e Eusebius ^f, Athanasius ^g, Epiphanius ^h, and Jerom ⁱ; and it is asserted in the titles of the Arabic and Persic versions, and at the end of the Syriac version of this Gospel, that it was written in that language; and this opinion is espoused by Grotius and Hammond, though justly exploded by others; for what has been published by Munster, Mercer, Hutter, and Robertson, are translations, made by themselves or others, and of no antiquity: and since Hebrew and Syriac words are interpreted in this Gospel, see Mat 1:23 which would not have been done, had it been written in either language; and since Matthew generally follows the Septuagint version in the passages cited by him out of the Old Testament; and since the Hebrew language was not generally known at that time to the common people, only to the learned; for the law and the prophets, when read in the synagogues in that language, required an interpreter; and since the Greek tongue was the language more commonly spoken, and the rest of the Evangelists wrote in Greek, and the Gospel was designed for the Gentiles as well as the Jews; it is most reasonable to conclude that this Gospel also was wrote in Greek; whereby that ancient prophecy was fulfilled, at least in part, "God shall enlarge" or "persuade Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem", Gen 9:27 the Gospel being published in the language of Japheth, the Greek language, which the Jews, the posterity of Shem, now understood; agreeably to which the Palmudic writers interpret the prophecy; says ^k Bar Kaphra, mentioning the above words,

"They shall speak tpy lv wnwvlb in the language of Japheth, in the tents of Shem;''

or,

"the words of the law shall be spoken in the language of Japheth, in the midst of the tents of Shem ^l.''

R. Jochanan ^m explains them thus:

"tpy lv wyrbr "the words of Japheth" shall be in the tents of Shem; and says R. Chiya ben Aba, the sense of it is, The beauty of Japheth shall be in the tents of Shem.''

Which the gloss interprets thus:

"The beauty of Japheth is the language of Javan, or the Greek language, which language is more beautiful than that of any other of the sons of Japheth.''

The time when this Gospel was written is said ⁿ by some to be in the eighth or ninth, by others, in the fifteenth year after the ascension of Christ, when the Evangelist had received the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, among which was the gift of tongues; and when the promise of Christ had been made good to him, Joh 14:26.

College: Matthew (Book Introduction)

INTRODUCTION

HISTORY OF INTERPRETATION

It may surprise the modern reader to realize that for the first two centuries of the Christian era, Matthew's Gospel prevailed as the most popular of the Gospel accounts. Not only was Matthew's text the most frequently quoted NT book among second century Christians, in virtually all textual witnesses and canonical lists Matthew is placed first.

Several factors may have contributed to the premier position assigned Matthew's Gospel. Certainly its comprehensive detail and the systematic structuring of ethical and pastoral material contributed to the Gospel's favored place in the church. In addition, the Gospel's popularity was undoubtedly based upon its explicit Jewish tendencies that enabled the church to affirm its Jewish roots while at the same time distancing the Christian movement from the synagogue. In short, both in form and content, Matthew's Gospel provided second century Christianity with an eminently practical and useful compendium of what was foundational to the Christian faith.

The priority and dominance extended Matthew's Gospel prevailed as the consensus for roughly 1700 years, until the early decades of the nineteenth century. With the development of an historical consciousness, and the refinement of literary methodology, questions of historical reliability and Synoptic relationships dominated post-Enlightenment Gospel research. While the chronological priority of Matthew was not immediately challenged, the privileged position given Matthew began to erode as scholarship presupposed that Gospel composition demanded a movement from the "more primitive" to the "more advanced." Mark's size, inferior quality, and seemingly "primitive theology," suggested to many that it was Mark not Matthew that should be regarded as the oldest Gospel, and hence the most reliable for a reconstruction of the life and teachings of Jesus. As a result, Matthew was gradually dismissed by many (esp. German scholarship), as a secondary development, being permeated by late and legendary additions (e.g., birth and infancy stories), representing more church tradition than a factual record of the life and teachings of Jesus.

The emerging nineteenth century consensus of the secondary character of Matthew received its most substantial endorsement in 1863 from H.J. Holtzmann, who argued that Mark wrote first and was used independently by Matthew and Luke. While subsequent defenders of Marcan priority have supplemented the theory with additional sources (e.g., Q, L, and M) to explain Synoptic relationships, the hypothesis that Mark is the earliest of the Gospel narratives has remained the dominant scholarly opinion for the past 100 years.

The initial result of the emergence of Mark as the pivotal document to explain Synoptic relationships was a decline of interest in Matthew in the early decades of this century. It was to Mark, rather than Matthew that scholarship turned either to find raw materials from which to reconstruct the life and teachings of Jesus, or to penetrate to the earliest form of the tradition in order to elucidate the possible factors within the Christian communities that generated the rise and preservation of certain text-forms (Form Criticism). As long as the scholarly agenda was preoccupied with penetrating behind the Gospels to isolate sources or to reconstruct early Christian communities, Matthew's Gospel would remain only of secondary interest.

Graham Stanton singles out the date of 1945 as marking a new phase in Matthean studies. The first two decades after 1945 witness a number of studies addressing Matthean themes or sections of the Gospel that begin to call attention to the editorial skills and theological concerns of the Gospel's author. The shift to an emphasis on the role of the evangelist in his selection, arrangement, and modification of the material he received, brought renewed interest in Matthew as an effective communicator and sophisticated theologian (Redaction Criticism). However, such an assessment was ultimately grounded in the hypothesis of Marcan priority and the subsequent evaluation of how Matthew used Mark as his primary literary source. The result has been an exegetical method overly preoccupied with slight literary deviations from Mark, with little sensitivity to the interconnected sequence of events, and their contribution to the whole Gospel.

Recent years have witnessed a resurgence of studies on Matthew, with many books and articles concerned to elucidate Matthew's Gospel as a "unified narrative" or "story" told by a competent story-teller who organizes his thought into a coherent sequence of events. The new concern for the Gospels as literary masterpieces demands that the reader be attentive to how Matthew develops his themes and focuses his account on a retelling of the story of Jesus in a way that does not merely rehearse the past, but speaks meaningfully as a guide for Christian discipleship.

Rather than reading Matthew through the lens of other Gospels or a hypothetical reconstruction of the evangelist's sources, priority has shifted to the whole Gospel as a unified coherent narrative. It follows that whatever written or oral sources the evangelist may have had access to, the writer has so shaped his composition that it has a life of its own, discernable only by attention to the structure of the parts and their contribution to the whole.

In order to read and appreciate Matthew's story of Jesus one must be attentive to the codes and conventions that govern the literary and social context of the first century. A coherent reading of any document demands an awareness of the literary rules that govern the various types of literature. Knowing the general category of literary genre of a text enables the reader to know what types of questions can legitimately be asked of the material. For example, if one is reading poetry, questions of factual accuracy or scientific precision may not be the most relevant inquiry for ascertaining a text's meaning. Knowing the genre of a writing enables one's understanding to be informed by the features and intentions that characterize the writing, and not by our modern expectations and concerns we may impose upon the text.

While Matthew's Gospel has certain affinities with the literary genres of biography and historiography, the Gospel is not strictly an historical biography. No Gospel writer was driven by an impulse simply to record the facts of what happened with strict chronological precision. In fact, one need only to read the Gospels side by side to see the freedom and creative manner with which each writer communicated his message. The authors have selected, arranged, and interpreted events, characters, and settings in the best way to communicate with their respective audiences. The result is four unique accounts of Jesus' life and teachings told from a particular "point of view," informed both by the primary events and the theological concerns and needs of the expanding church.

Matthew's Gospel builds reflectively upon the primary events to capture the significance of what happened in story form. An appreciation of the literary and communicative skills of the author enables one to recognize in the dramatic sequence of events a carefully constructed "plot." In this way the storyteller communicates his values and theological commitment and seeks to persuade the reader to accept his perspective.

COMPOSITION OF THE GOSPEL

Some issues and questions that may be extremely important for understanding one category of literature may contribute little to the understanding of another. For example, an informed interpretation of Paul's letters necessitates a reconstruction of the world that produced the text. The modern reader would need to know as much as possible about the author, destination of the letter, and the factors that gave rise to the text. The letter itself will constitute a prime source for acquiring such information.

However, when one approaches Gospel narratives with the same concerns the matter is complicated by the lack of information afforded by the text. The anonymity of the Gospels, alongside their silence concerning the place, time, and circumstances that may have generated their writings, necessitates that such historical inquiries be answered in terms of probability. What this means is that there is no direct access, via the text, to the historical author or primary recipients of his document. The difficulty is centered in the fact that the text is not primarily designed to function as a "window" through which to gain access into the mind and environment of the author and original readers. The author does not purport to tell his own story or that of his readers, but the story of Jesus of Nazareth. Fortunately, following the sequential development and sense of Matthew's story of Jesus does not depend on identifying with certainty the author or the historical and social matrix that may have prompted his writing.

In what follows, traditional introductory questions will be briefly discussed, alongside important insights afforded by literary theorists who focus on the Gospels as narratives.

A. AUTHORSHIP

The anonymity of the canonical Gospels necessitates heavy reliance on external evidence as a point of departure to establish Gospel authorship. The external testimony from the second century is virtually unanimous that Matthew the tax collector authored the Gospel attributed to him. Even before explicit patristic testimony regarding Gospel authorship there is convincing evidence that no Gospel ever circulated without an appropriate heading or title (e.g., KATA MAQQAION, "according to Matthew"), identifying the person thought to be the author. The common assumption that the Gospels circulated anonymously until the mid-second century when titles were finally affixed to them has been seriously challenged by Martin Hengel. While certain details of Hengel's theory regarding the origins of Gospel headings have been challenged, the lack of variation in the second-century tradition regarding Matthean authorship could well owe its origin to the time when the Gospels first began to circulate among the Christian communities.

The earliest patristic source addressing Gospel authorship comes from Papias, the Bishop of Hierapolis (ca. 60-130), whose comments are available only in quotations preserved by Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea (ca. 260-340, H.E. 3.39.14-16). Eusebius' citation of Papias regarding Matthean authorship has been subject to various interpretations dependent upon the translation of key terms. The citation reads:

Matthew collected (sunetavxato, synetaxato , "composed," "compiled," "arranged") the oracles (taÉ lovgia, ta logia , "sayings," "gospel") in the Hebrew language (dialevktw/, dialektô, "Hebrew or Aramaic language," "Semitic style") and each interpreted (hJrmhvneusen, hçrmçneusen, "interpreted," "translated," "transmitted") them as best he could (Eusebius, H.E. 3.39.16).

It appears that patristic testimony subsequent to Papias was dependent upon his testimony and thus perpetuated the tradition of Matthean authorship alongside the notion of an original Semitic version. The testimonies of Irenaeus ( Adv. Haer. 3.1.1), Pantaenus (quoted in H.E. 5.10.3), Origen (quoted in H.E. 6.25.4), Eusebius himself ( H.E. 3.24.6), Epiphanius (quoted in Adv. Haer. 29.l9.4; 30.3.7), Cyril of Jerusalem ( Catecheses 14.15), Jerome ( DeVir. III.3), as well as Gregory of Nazianzus (329-389), Chrysostom (347-407), Augustine (354-430), and Syrian and Coptic authorities are all unanimous in affirming that Matthew authored the first Gospel originally in a Semitic language. However, since the tradition seems ultimately to rest upon the view of Papias, as cited by Eusebius, the accumulated evidence of patristic testimony, in the view of some, has very little independent worth. Especially since the idea of an original Semitic Matthew, from which our Greek Matthew has been translated has been challenged on textual and linguistic grounds. Matthew simply does not read like translated Greek. These and other difficulties with the view of Papias have resulted in many dismissing all patristic testimony concerning Matthean authorship.

While much critical opinion has assumed that Papias' errant view of an original Semitic Matthew discounts his testimony about Matthew being the author, in recent times the evidence afforded by the testimony of Papias has been reassessed. On the one hand, some scholars have argued that the terms Ebrai?di dialevktw/ (Ebraidi dialektô), do not refer to the Hebrew or Aramaic language, but rather to a Jewish style or literary form. In this view, Papias would be referring to Matthew's penchant for Semitic themes and devices, not an original Semitic Gospel. Others have rejected such an interpretation as an unnatural way to read the passage from Papias, and prefer to acknowledge that Papias was simply wrong when he claimed that Matthew was originally written in a Semitic language. However, such an admission does not warrant the complete dismissal of the testimony of Papias concerning the authorship of Matthew. One must still explain how Matthew's name became attached to the first Gospel. The obscurity and relative lack of prominence of the Apostle Matthew argues against the view that the early church would pseudonymously attribute the Gospel to Matthew. Surely, patristic tradition had some basis for attributing the Gospel to Matthew. Therefore, as noted by Davies and Allison, "the simplistic understanding of Papias which dismisses him out of hand must be questioned if not abandoned."

There is nothing inherent in the Gospel itself that convincingly argues against Matthean authorship. Contrary to the view of a few, the decided Jewish flavor of the Gospel argues decisively for the author of the first Gospel being a Jew. Other scholars have noted that Matthew's background and training as a "tax collector" along with other professional skills offers a plausible explanation for the Gospel's sophisticated literary form and attention to detail. Certainly the combined weight of external and internal considerations make the traditional view of Matthean authorship a reasonable, if not a most plausible position. However, in the words of R.T. France there is "an inevitable element of subjectivity in such judgments." Not only is hard data difficult to come by to establish the authorship of any of the Gospels, what is available is often subject to diverse but equally credible explanations. It follows that while the issue of authorship is an intriguing historical problem, it is extremely doubtful that any consensus will ever emerge given the nature of the available evidence.

The question must be raised whether the veracity of the first Gospel or its interpretation are ultimately dependent upon one's verdict concerning authorship. While one's theological bias concerning authorship may influence how the text is evaluated, the two issues are not integrally connected. Since the first Gospel offers very little (if any) insight into the identity of its historical author, recreating the figure behind the Gospel is neither relevant or particularly important for understanding Matthew's story of Jesus. Thus, while I see no compelling reason to abandon the traditional attribution of Matthean authorship to the first Gospel, no significant exegetical or theological concern hangs on the issue.

B. NARRATION OF THE STORY

Of much greater importance than deciding the identity of the author, is an evaluation of the way the author has decided to present his story of Jesus. In literary terms the way a story gets told is called "point of view." A storyteller may tell his story in the first person (i.e., "I"), and portray himself as one of the characters in the story. From a first person point of view the storyteller would necessarily be limited to what he personally has experienced or learned from other characters. Matthew's story is told in a third person narration, wherein the storyteller is not a participant in the story, but refers to characters within the story as "he," "she," or "they." From such a vantage point the Matthean narrator provides the reader with an informational advantage over story characters, and thereby, situates the reader in an advantageous position for evaluating events and characters in the story.

Perhaps the most prominent characteristic of a third person narration is the storyteller's ability to provide the reader with insights which are not normally available to one in real life. His ability to move inside his characters to reveal their innermost thoughts, feelings, emotions, and motivations, enables the reader to use these insights to form evaluations and opinions about characters and events within the story. For example, the narrator reveals when the disciples are amazed (8:29; 21:20), fearful (14:30; 17:6), sorrowful (26:22), filled with grief (17:23), and indignant (26:8). He knows when they understand (16:12; 17:13), and when they doubt (28:17). The overall impact of these insights enables the reader to better evaluate the traits exhibited by the disciples.

Similar insights are provided into the thoughts, emotions, and motivations of minor characters in the story. The inner thoughts of Joseph (1:19), Herod (2:3), the crowds (7:28; 22:33; 9:8; 12:13; 15:31), the woman (9:21), Herod the tetrarch (14:59), Judas (27:3), Pilate (27:14,18), the centurion (27:54), and the reaction of the women at the tomb (28:4,8) are all accessible to the Matthean narrator. The narrator even supplies the reader with inside information about the thoughts and motivations of the Jewish leaders (2:3; 9:3; 12:14; 21:45-46; 26:3-5; 12:10; 16:1; 19:3; 22:15). These insights function to establish in the mind of the reader the antagonist of the story.

The Matthean narrator is also not bound by time or space in his coverage of the story. Matthew provides the reader access to private conversations between Herod and the Magi (2:3-8), John and Jesus (3:13-15), Jesus and Satan (4:1-11), the disciples (16:7), Peter and Jesus (16:23), Judas and the chief priest (26:14-16; 26:40), and Pilate and the chief priest (27:62-64). He makes known to the reader the private decisions made by the chief priest and the Sanhedrin (26:59-60), and the plan of the chief priest and elders concerning the disappearance of the body (28:12-15). The narrator is present when Jesus prays alone, while at the same time he knows the difficulties of the disciples on the sea (14:22-24). He easily takes the reader from the courtroom of Pilate to the courtyard of Peter's denial (26:70f.), and eventually to the scene at the cross (27:45). For the most part, the narrator in Matthew's story stays close to Jesus, and views events and characters in terms of how they affect his main character.

Whoever the actual historical author may be, it is clear that the Matthean storyteller narrates his Gospel in a way to reliably guide his readers through the story so as to properly evaluate events and characters. On occasion the narrator will interrupt the flow of the story in order to provide the reader with an explicit comment or explanation. These intrusions may take the form of various types of descriptions (e.g., 3:4; 17:2; 28:3-4; 27:28-31), summaries (e.g., 4:23-25; 9:35-38; 12:15-16; 14:14; 15:29-31), or explicit interpretive commentary (1:22-23, 2:15, 17-18, 23; 4:15-16; 8:17; 12:17-21; 13:35; 21:4-5; 27:9-10). Detecting the narrator's voice in the story enables the reader to be sensitive to the manner in which Matthew instructs, leads, and encourages the reader to adopt a particular point of view.

SETTING OF THE GOSPEL

Traditional approaches to Gospel introduction usually treat under the heading of "setting" such issues as the date and place of the Gospel's writing, alongside the identity and problems confronting the community addressed. It is important to remember that practically speaking our exclusive source for information about the time and circumstantial factors generating the Gospel's production come only from the Gospel itself. No explicit outside information speaks directly to the issue of the social and historical conditions of the Gospel's primary readers. Essentially, scholarly efforts to establish a life-setting for the writing of the Gospel must search the Gospel for possible clues that hint at the time and circumstances of the writing. The fact that, although reading the same evidence, scholarly proposals for the setting of Matthew's Gospel have resulted in reconstructions that are opposed to one another should give one caution about dogmatic claims in such areas.

A. DATE

Efforts to recover the environmental setting that best explains the form and content of Matthew's Gospel have not resulted in a scholarly consensus. Concerning the date of the Gospel's composition scholars are divided into two broad proposals. The majority view is that Matthew was written after Mark sometime between the dates of A.D. 80-100. However, the arguments adduced to establish such a dating scheme are largely based upon prior judgments concerning the order of Gospel composition or hypothetical reconstructions of developments in the first century. Pivotal to the post-70 dating of Matthew is the contention that Matthew knew and used Mark as a major source for the writing of his Gospel. Since the consensus of scholarly judgment dates Mark in the 60s, it is therefore likely that Matthew composed his Gospel sometime after A.D. 70. Of course, if one rejects Marcan priority or the suggested date for Marcan composition, the argument fails to be convincing.

A post-70 date has also been assumed based upon Matthew's explicit language concerning the destruction of Jerusalem and his references to the "church" (16:18; 18:17). Such language is thought to be anachronistic and therefore indicative of a post-70 composition. The reference to a "king" in the parable of the wedding feast who "sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city" (22:7), appears to reflect historical knowledge of Jerusalem's destruction retrojected into Jesus' ministry as prophecy. However, apart from the fact of whether Jesus could predict Jerusalem's fall, the wording of 22:7, as France observes, "is precisely the sort of language one might expect in a genuine prediction of political annihilation in the Jewish context, and does not depend on a specific knowledge of how things in fact turned out in A.D. 70." There also is no need to read a developed ecclesiology into Jesus' references to the "church." The term ejkklhsiva (ekklçsia) in Matthew says nothing about church order, and with the communal imagery attached to the term in Jewish circles (cf. Qumran), it becomes entirely credible that Jesus could speak of his disciples as constituting an ekklçsia.

Perhaps the most heavily relied upon argument for dating Matthew in the last decades of the first century is the decided Jewish polemic that seemingly dominates the first Gospel. It is thought that formative Judaism in the post-70 period provides the most suitable background for Matthew's portrayal of the Jewish leaders and his underlying view of Israel. After the destruction of the temple in A.D. 70 it was the Pharisaic movement that emerged as the normative form of Judaism. Pharisaism was particularly suited to bring stability and a renewed sense of Jewish identity after the tragedy of A.D. 70. The Pharisees saw themselves as "the most accurate interpreters of the law" (see Josephus, JW 1.5.1; 2.8.14; Life 38.191), and definers of both the social and cultic boundaries delimiting the covenanted people of God. The community addressed by Matthew's Gospel is thought to be a rival to a post-70 formative Judaism, having endured severe hostility and rejection by official Judaism.

However, the evidence does not warrant the supposition that Matthew's community has severed all contact with the Jewish community. Furthermore, not enough is known about pre-70 Pharisaism to emphatically deny a setting for Matthew's Gospel before Jerusalem's destruction. Indeed, an impressive list of scholars have cogently argued for a pre-70 dating of Matthew. Not only does such a view have solid patristic evidence, some passages in Matthew may be intended to imply that the temple was still standing at the time of the Gospel's writing (cf. Matt 5:23-29; 12:5-7; 17:23; 16:22; 26:60-61). It appears that the evidence is not sufficiently decisive so as to completely discredit all competitive views. Fortunately, understanding Matthew's story of Jesus is not dependent upon reconstructing the historical context from which the Gospel emerged.

B. PLACE OF ORIGIN

Even less important for a competent reading of the first Gospel involves the effort to decide the Gospel's precise place of origin. Because of its large Jewish community and strategic role in the Gentile mission most Matthean scholars have opted for Antioch of Syria as the Gospel's place of origin. Other proposals have included Jerusalem, Alexandria, Caesarea, Phoenicia, and simply "east of the Jordan." While certain evidence may tend to weigh in favor of one provenance over another, in the final analysis we cannot be certain where Matthew's Gospel was composed. Nevertheless, as observed by France, deciding "the geographical location in which the Gospel originated is probably the least significant for a sound understanding of the text." Much more relevant to the interpretation of the gospel is the dimension given the discussion of "setting" by a literary reading of the first Gospel.

C. NARRATIVE WORLD

In literary terms the discussion of "setting" does not involve the delineation of factors generating the text, but rather the descriptive context or background in which the action of the story transpires. Settings, as described by the narrator, are like stage props in a theatrical production. Oftentimes, the narrator's description of the place, time, or social conditions in which action takes place is charged with subtle nuances that may generate a certain atmosphere with important symbolic significance. For example, early in Matthew's story the narrator relates places and events to create a distinct atmosphere from which to evaluate his central character, Jesus. The story opens with a series of events that are calculated to evoke memories of Israel's past, and thereby to highlight the significance of the times inaugurated by Jesus. By means of a genealogy, cosmic signs, dream-revelations, the appearance of the "angel of the Lord," and the repeated reference to prophetic fulfillment, the narrator highlights God's renewed involvement with his people and the climactic nature of the times realized in Jesus. The locations of Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Egypt evoke feelings of continuity between Jesus' history and that of Israel's. Other locations such as the "desert" and "mountain" function to create a certain aura around events and characters in the story. Later in the story specific locations such as "synagogue," the "sea," and the "temple" all contribute to a distinct atmosphere from which to evaluate the course of events. While real-life settings of the author and his readers can only be reproduced in terms of probability, the temporal and spatial settings established in the story provide an integral context for interpreting Matthew's story.

THE LITERARY CHARACTER OF MATTHEW

A. LITERARY AND RHETORICAL SKILL

Since Matthew's text would have been handwritten without systematic punctuation or modern techniques for delineating structural features such as bold print, underlining, paragraph indention, or chapter headings, any clues for discerning the structure and nature of the composition is dependent upon "verbal clues" within the narrative itself. Within both Hebrew and classical traditions communication on a literary level assumed a level of competency in conventional communicative techniques. While NT authors may not have been formally trained in rhetoric, an effective exchange of ideas demands some awareness of conventional patterns for communication. A study of Matthew's literary style puts emphasis on the literary devices he employs to lead the reader to experience his story in a certain way.

Reading Matthew's story (whether orally before an audience, or in private), would have demanded that the reader attend to the various structural features which might illumine the meaning and flow of the narrative. Some of these literary strategies function on a broader structural level providing the text with a sense of progression and cohesion (e.g., Matt see the formulaic phrases in 7:28; 11:1; 13:53; 19:1; 26:1; and 4:17; 16:21). However, most structural features primarily contribute to a sense of cohesion within smaller textual units. These features may highlight or bracket unifying themes by opening and closing distinct units with similar words or phrases (see, e.g., 4:23-24 and 9:35); build anticipation by foreshadowing subsequent events (e.g., ch. 2 foreshadows the passion narrative); or stimulate reflection and a sense of development in the story by verbal repetition and episodic similarities (cf. 8:23-27/14:22-33; 9:27-31/20:29-34; 9:32-34/12:22-34; 14:13-21/15:32-38). These elements along with Matthew's fondness for grouping materials according to a thematic or even numerical scheme, are indicative of an environment largely educated through oral proclamation not the written word. Matthew's compositional scheme greatly facilitated learning by providing the listener (or reader) with a coherent and orderly presentation that aided comprehension and memorization.

The meticulous structural concerns, both in the whole and the smaller details of Matthew, have been widely recognized by scholarship. However, as we shall see in the next section, there is great diversity with respect to the overall structural pattern of the first Gospel. The difficulty lies with going from clearly delineated structural features in the smaller units of text, to the use of the same devices to explain the total composition. Often the analysis seems forced and unable to fit the details into a single coherent pattern. It may not always be easy to identify the precise contribution that a particular literary device makes to the overall composition of a literary work, and certainly there always exists the danger of reading too much into a text by artificially imposing symmetrical patterns where none exist. However, these problems are overcome by a greater sensitivity to the nature and function of literary devices, and not by ignoring these features of a text. The question remains concerning what features might provide clues to the overall structure of Matthew's Gospel.

B. STRUCTURAL-PLOT

Consideration of Matthew's skill in the smaller portions of his text has stimulated numerous efforts to locate structural indications that may provide the organizing pattern for the entire Gospel. Structural appraisals of Matthew's Gospel usually begin with the discovery of a literary device or formulaic expression that appears to be unique to the evangelist. However, while scholars may agree on the existence of a literary device or formula, they may diverge widely concerning the function or theological significance of a literary feature. For example, although the expressions kaiÉ ejgevneto o{te ejtevlesen oJ =Ihsou'" (kai egeneto hote etelesen ho Içsous, "and when Jesus had finished;" 7:28; 11:1; 13:53; 19:1; 26:1), and ajpoÉ tovte h[rxato oJ =Ihsou'" (apo tote erxato ho Içsous, "from that time Jesus began," 4:17; 16:21) are recognized to be structurally significant, it is difficult to establish that Matthew consciously adopted these expressions as the organizational key to his entire Gospel. As helpful as these phrases are for marking off the major discourses of Jesus or highlighting major new developments in the story, neat structural schemes based upon repeated formulae cannot do justice to the subtle twists and turns of the dramatic flow of Matthew's story.

Several scholars have centered on Matthew's use of Mark to determine the structure of his Gospel. Attention has been called to the peculiar Matthean organization of 4:12-13:58 in contrast to the faithful following of Marcan order in 14:1-28:20. Certainly a source-critical study of Matthew must account for the seemingly independent structural form and sequence in the first half of the Gospel as opposed to the latter half. However, it is doubtful that Matthew intended his readers to compare his Gospel with Mark in order to understand his structural scheme. If Matthew could clearly structure patterns on a smaller scale, independent of Mark, why not on a larger scale? Furthermore, there are too many structural peculiarities even in the second half of the Gospel to assume that Matthew merely succumbed to a slavish reproduction of Mark in the second half of his Gospel.

More recent investigations have delineated the Gospel's structure in terms of how the individual events or episodes connect sequentially to form a discernable plot. It is the organizing principle of plot which determines the incidents selected, their arrangement, and how the sequence of events or episodes are to impact the reader. Given the episodic and thematic flavor of Matthew's narrative, his plot development does not exhibit a linear tightness or the flair for the dramatic found in other narratives (cf. Mark). Nevertheless, Matthew does tell a story, and thus the various episodes are carefully interrelated by causal and thematic developments. There are definite major and minor story lines and character development, with certain episodes marking key turning points in the unfolding drama. An analysis of plot has the advantage of moving the discussion away from isolated literary devices or contrived symmetrical patterns, to a consideration of how the sequence of events and portrayal of characters connect meaningfully to tell a continuous and coherent story.

Matthew's story is organized around several narrative blocks comprised of events that are interconnected according to a particular emphasis or theme. The unifying factor giving coherence to the overall sequence of events is the explicit and implicit presence of the central character Jesus in virtually every episode. Within this story-form events of similar nature are often clustered or repeated for their accumulative impact, as various themes are reinforced and developed. An analysis of the sequence and function of Matthew's major narrative blocks enables the reader to discern an overall progression of events according to a consciously constructed plot. The following seven narrative blocks provide the story with a clear sense of dramatic progression:

1:1-4:16 Establishing the identity and role of Jesus, the protagonist of the story.

4:17-11:1 Jesus embarks upon a ministry of teaching and healing to manifest God's saving presence in Israel.

11:2-16:20 While faulty interpretations of Jesus' ministry lead to misunderstanding and repudiation, the disciples, through divine revelation, are provided special insight into Jesus' person and mission.

16:21-20:34 During Jesus' journey to Jerusalem he engages his disciples in explicit discussion concerning the ultimate values, priorities, and intentions of his messianic mission.

21:1-25:46 Upon entering Jerusalem Jesus' actions and teachings lead to conflict and rejection by the Jewish authorities.

26:1-27:50 While hostility and misunderstanding coalesce in betrayal, desertion, and death, Jesus is resolved to consciously and voluntarily fulfill the divine plan.

27:51-28:20 God ultimately vindicates his Son as evidenced by cosmic signs and by raising him from the dead and giving him authority to commission his disciples to a worldwide mission.

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

BIBLIOGRAPHY

SELECTED COMMENTARIES:

Albright, W.F. and C.S. Mann. Matthew . AB. Garden City: Doubleday, 1971.

Beare, Francis Wright. The Gospel According to Matthew . San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1981.

Blomberg, Craig L. Matthew. New American Commentary 22. Nashville: Broadman, 1992.

Carson, D.A. "Matthew." In The Expositor's Bible Commentary , 8:3-599. Edited by Frank Gaebelein. 12 vols. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984.

Davies, Margaret. Matthew Readings: A New Biblical Commentary . Sheffield, U.K.: JSOT Press/Sheffield Academic Press, 1993.

Davies, W.D. and Dale C. Allison. Introduction and Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew I-VII . Vol. 1 of A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew. International Critical Commentaries. 3 vols. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988.

. Introduction and Commentary on Matthew VIII-XVIII . Vol. 2 of A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew . International Critical Commentaries. 3 vols. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991.

France, R.T. Matthew. Tyndale New Testament Commentaries. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985.

Gardner, Richard B. Matthew. Believers Church Bible Commentary. Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1991.

Garland, David. Reading Matthew: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the First Gospel . New York: Crossroad, 1993.

Gundry, Robert. Matthew: A Commentary on His Literary and Theological Art . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982.

Hagner, Donald. Matthew 1-13 . Word Biblical Commentary 33A. Dallas: Word, 1993.

. Matthew 14-28. Word Biblical Commentary 33B. Dallas: Word, 1995.

Harrington, D.J. The Gospel of Matthew . Sacra Pagina 1. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 1991.

Hill, David. The Gospel of Matthew . New Century Bible. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972.

Keener, Craig S. Matthew . The IVP New Testament Commentary Series. Ed. Grant R. Osborne. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1997.

Luz, U. Matthew 1-7 . Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989.

Malina, Bruce J. and Richard L. Rohrbaugh. Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels . Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1992.

Meier, J.P. The Vision of Matthew . New York: Crossroad, 1979, 1991.

Morris, Leon. The Gospel According to Matthew . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992.

Patte, Daniel. The Gospel According to Matthew: A Structural Commentary on Matthew's Faith . Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987.

Schweizer, Eduard. The Good News According to Matthew . Translated by David E. Green. Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1975.

SELECTED STUDIES:

Allison, Dale C. The New Moses: A Matthean Typology . Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993.

Bauer, D.R. The Structure of Matthew's Gospel: A Study in Literary Design . JSNTSup 31. Sheffield: Almond, 1988.

Borg, Marcus. Conflict, Holiness, and Politics in the Teachings of Jesus . New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1984.

France, R.T. Matthew: Evangelist and Teacher . Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1989.

Hill, David. "Son and Servant: An Essay on Matthean Christology." JSNT 6 (1980) 2-16.

Kingsbury, Jack D. Matthew As Story. 2d ed. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988.

Lohr, C. "Oral Techniques in the Gospel of Matthew." CBQ 23 (1961): 339-352.

Luz, U. The Theology of the Gospel of Matthew . Translated by J. Bradford Robinson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

Matera, Frank. "The Plot of Matthew's Gospel." CBQ 49 (1987): 233-253.

. Passion Narratives and Gospel Theologies . New York: Paulist, 1986.

Powell, M.A. God With Us: A Pastoral Theology of Matthew's Gospel . Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995.

Senior, D. The Passion of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew . Wilmington: Michael Glazier, 1985.

. What Are They Saying About Matthew? Revised and Expanded Edition. New York: Paulist Press, 1996.

Stanton, Graham. A Gospel For a New People: Studies in Matthew . Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1992.

. "The Origin and Purpose of Matthew's Gospel: Matthean Scholarship from 1945 to 1980." In ANRW II.25.3. Edited by W.Haase. Pages 1889-1895. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1985.

Verseput, Donald J. "The Title Son of God in Matthew's Gospel." NTS 33 (1987): 532-556.

Westerholm, Stephen. Jesus and Scribal Authority . ConNT 10. Lund, Sweden: CWK Gleerup, 1978.

Wilkens, M.J. The Concept of Discipleship in Matthew's Gsopel as Reflected in the Use of the Term Mathçtçs. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1988.

Witherup, Ronald D. "The Death of Jesus and the Rising of the Saints: Matthew 27:51-54 in Context." SBLASP. Pages 574-585. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987.

Wright, N.T. Jesus and the Victory of God. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996.

. The New Testament and the People of God . Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992.

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

ABBREVIATIONS

ABD Anchor Bible Dictionary

AnBib Analecta Biblica

ANTJ Arbeiten zum Neuen Testament und zum Judentum

BAGD A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament by Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich, and Danker

BETL Bibliotheca ephemeridum theologicarum lovaniensium

Bib Biblica

BibRev Bible Review

BSac Bibliotheca Sacra

BZNW Beheifte zur ZNW

CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly

ConBNT Coniectanea biblica, New Testament

ConNT Coniectanea neotestamentica

DJG Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels

ETL Ephemerides theologicai lovanienses

ExpTim The Expository Times

HTR Harvard Theological Review

ICC International Critical Commentary

IDB Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible

Int Interpretation

ISBE International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

JBL Journal of Biblical Literature

JETS Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society

JSNT Journal for the Study of New Testament Theology

LXX Septuagint

NIDNTT New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology

NIGTC New International Greek Testament Commentary

NIV New International Version

NovT Novum Testamentum

NT New Testament

NTM New Testament Message

NTS New Testament Studies

OT Old Testament

RevQ Revue de Qumran

RQ Restoration Quarterly

SBLASP Society of Biblical Literature Abstracts and Seminar Papers

SBLDS SBL Dissertation Series

SBLMS SBL Monograph Series

SJT Scottish Journal of Theology

SNTSMS Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series

Str-B Kommentar zum Neuen Testament by Strack and Billerbeck

TDNT Theological Dictionary of the New Testament by Kittel and Friedrich

TIM Tradition and Interpretation in Matthew by Bornkamm, Barth, and Held

TrinJ Trinity Journal

TynBul Tyndale Bulletin

UBSGNT United Bible Society Greek New Testament

USQR Union Seminary Quarterly Review

WUNT Wissenschaftliche untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament

ZNW Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

College: Matthew (Outline)

OUTLINE

I. ESTABLISHING THE IDENTITY AND ROLE OF JESUS THE CHRIST - Matt 1:1-4:16

A. Genealogy of Jesus - 1:1-17

B. The Annunciation to Joseph - 1:18-25

C. The Infancy of Jesus - 2:1-23

1. The Gentile Pilgrimage - 2:1-12

2. The Messiah's Exile and Exodus - 2:13-23

D. The Mission and Message of John the Baptist - 3:1-12

E. The Baptism and Commission of Jesus - 3:13-17

F. The Testing of the Son - 4:1-11

G. Introducing the Ministry of Jesus - 4:12-16

II. GOD'S SAVING PRESENCE IN THE MIDST OF HIS PEOPLE - 4:17-10:42

A. Programmatic Heading: Proclamation of the Kingdom - 4:17

B. Call of the Disciples - 4:18-22

C. Programmatic Summary - 4:23-25

D. Sermon on the Mount: Ministry in Word - 5:1-7:29

1. The Setting - 5:1-2

2. The Beatitudes - 5:3-12

3. Salt and Light - 5:13-16

4. Jesus and the Law - 5:17-20

5. Practicing Greater Righteousness Toward One's Neighbor - 5:21-48

a. Murder - 5:21-26

b. Adultery - 5:27-30

c. Divorce - 5:31-32

d. Oaths - 5:33-37

e. An Eye for an Eye - 5:38-42

f. Love Your Enemies - 5:43-48

6. Practicing Greater Righteousness Before God - 6:1-18

a. Summary - 6:1

b. Giving to the Needy - 6:2-4

c. Prayer - 6:5-15

d. Fasting - 6:16-18

7. The Priorities and Values of the GreaterRighteousness - 6:19-34

a. Treasures in Heaven - 6:19-24

b. Worry - 6:25-34

8. The Conduct of Greater Righteousness - 7:1-12

a. Judging Others - 7:1-5

b. Honor What Is Valuable - 7:6

c. Ask, Seek, Knock - 7:7-11

d. The Golden Rule - 7:12

9. The Call for Decision - 7:13-27

a. The Narrow and Wide Gates - 7:13-14

b. A Tree and Its Fruit - 7:15-23

c. The Wise and Foolish Builders - 7:24-27

10. Conclusion - 7:28-29

E. Ministry in Deed - 8:1-9:34

1. Cleansing of a Leper - 8:1-4

2. Request of a Gentile Centurion - 8:5-13

3. Peter's Mother-in-Law - 8:14-15

4. Summary and Fulfillment Citation - 8:16-17

5. Two Would-Be Followers - 8:18-22

6. Stilling of the Storm - 8:23-27

7. The Gadarene Demoniacs - 8:28-34

8. Healing of the Paralytic - 9:1-8

9. Jesus' Association with Tax Collectors and Sinners - 9:9-13

10. Question on Fasting - 9:14-17

11. Raising the Ruler's Daughter and Cleansing the Unclean Woman - 9:18-26

12. Healing Two Blind Men - 9:27-31

13. Healing of a Deaf Mute - 9:32-34

F. A Call to Mission - 9:35-10:4

G. The Missionary Discourse - 10:5-42

1. Instructions for Mission - 10:5-15

2. Persecution and Response - 10:16-23

3. The Disciples' Relationship to Jesus - 10:24-42

III. ISRAEL'S MISUNDERSTANDING AND REPUDIATION OF JESUS - 11:1-14:12

A. John's Question from Prison - 11:1-6

B. The Person and Mission of John - 11:7-19

1. Identification of John by Jesus - 11:7-15

2. Rejection of John and Jesus - 11:16-19

C. Unrepentant Cities - 11:20-24

D. Jesus' Response and Invitation - 11:25-30

E. Sabbath Controversy: Incident in the Grainfield - 12:1-8

F. Sabbath Controversy: Healing in the Synagogue - 12:9-14

G. The Character and Mission of God's Servant - 12:15-21

H. The Beelzebub Controversy - 12:22-37

I. The Request for a Sign - 12:38-42

J. A Concluding Analogy - 12:43-45

K. Jesus' True Family - 12:46-50

L. The Parables of the Kingdom - 13:1-52

1. The Parable of the Four Soils - 13:1-9

2. The Purpose of the Parables - 13:10-17

3. The Interpretation of the Parable ofthe Soils - 13:18-23

4. Parable of the Weeds - 13:24-30

5. Parable of the Mustard Seed - 13:31-32

6. Parable of the Leaven - 13:33

7. The Purpose of Parables - 13:34-35

8. The Interpretation of the Parable of the Weeds - 13:36-43

9. Parables of the Hidden Treasure and the Pearl - 13:44-46

10. Parable of the Dragnet - 13:47-50

11. Trained in the Kingdom - 13:51-52

M. Rejection at Nazareth - 13:53-58

N. The Death of John the Baptist - 14:1-12

IV. EDUCATING THE DISCIPLES: IDENTITY AND MISSION - 14:13-16:20

A. Feeding of the Five Thousand - 14:13-21

B. Walking on the Water - 14:22-33

C. Summary: Healings at Gennesaret - 14:34-36

D. Jesus and the Teachings of the Pharisees - 15:1-20

E. The Canaanite Woman - 15:21-28

F. Feeding of the Four Thousand - 15:29-39

G. Request for a Sign - 16:1-4

H. The Leaven of the Pharisees and Saducees - 16:5-12

I. Confession at Caesarea Philippi - 16:13-20

V. THE WAY OF THE CROSS - 16:21-20:34

A. The Things of God Versus the Things of Men - 16:21-28

B. Transfiguration - 17:1-8

C. The Coming Elijah - 17:9-13

D. The Power of Faith - 17:14-21

E. The Second Passion Prediction - 17:22-23

F. Jesus and the Temple Tax - 17:24-27

G. Fourth Discourse: Life in the Christian Community - 18:1-35

1. Becoming Like a Child - 18:1-5

2. Avoiding Offense - 18:6-9

3. Value of the "Little Ones" - 18:10-14

4. Reconciling an Offending Brother - 18:15-20

5. Importance of Forgiveness - 18:21-35

H. Transition from Galilee to Judea - 19:1-2

I. Marriage and Divorce - 19:3-9

J. The Bewildered Response of the Disciples - 19:10-12

K. The Little Children - 19:13-15

L. The Rich Young Man - 19:16-22

M. Wealth, Reward and Discipleship - 19:23-30

N. The Generous Landowner - 20:1-16

O. Third Passion Prediction - 20:17-19

P. Requests on Behalf of the Sons of Zebedee - 20:20-28

Q. Two Blind Men Receive Sight - 20:29-34

VI. CONFLICT IN JERUSALEM - 21:1-25:46

A. Jesus' Entry into Jerusalem - 21:1-11

B. Demonstration in the Temple - 21:12-17

C. The Fig Tree - 21:18-22

D. The Authority Question - 21:23-27

E. Parable of the Two Sons - 21:28-32

F. Parable of the Tenants - 21:33-46

G. Parable of the Wedding Feast - 22:1-14

H. Confrontations with the Religious Leaders - 22:15-46

1. Paying Taxes to Caesar - 22:15-22

2. Marriage in the Afterlife - 22:23-33

3. The Greatest Commandment - 22:34-40

4. The Son of David - 22:41-46

I. Denunciation of the Scribes and Pharisees - 23:1-39

1. Do Not Practice What They Preach - 23:1-12

2. Woes against the Teachers of the Law andthe Pharisees - 23:13-36

3. Lament over Jerusalem - 23:37-39

J. Fifth Discourse: Judgment to Come - 24:1-25:46

1. Introduction - 24:1-3

2. Warnings Not to Be Deceived - 24:4-14

3. The Coming Tribulation in Judea - 24:15-28

4. The Climactic Fall of Jerusalem within "This Generation" - 24:29-35

5. The Coming Judgment of the Son ofMan - 24:36-25:46

a. The Coming Son of Man~ - 24:36-51

b. The Ten Virgins - 25:1-13

c. Parable of the Talents - 25:14-30

d. Judgment of the Son of Man - 25:31-46

VII. THE PASSION AND RESURRECTION OF JESUS - 26:1-28:20

A. The Plot to Arrest and Execute Jesus - 26:1-5

B. Anointing in Bethany - 26:6-13

C. Judas' Betrayal - 26:14-16

D. Preparation for Passover - 26:17-19

E. The Last Supper - 26:20-30

F. Jesus Predicts the Disciples' Desertion and Denial - 26:31-35

G. The Gethsemane Prayer - 26:36-46

H. The Arrest of Jesus - 26:47-56

I. The Hearing Before Caiaphas - 26:57-68

J. The Denial of Peter - 26:69-75

K. Transition to the Roman Authorities - 27:1-2

L. The Suicide of Judas - 27:3-10

M. The Trial Before Pilate - 27:11-26

N. Mockery and Abuse of Jesus - 27:27-31

O. The Crucifixion - 27:32-44

P. The Death of Jesus - 27:45-56

Q. The Burial of Jesus - 27:57-61

R. Keeping Jesus in the Tomb - 27:62-66

S. The Empty Tomb - 28:1-7

T. The Appearance of Jesus to the Women - 28:8-10

U. The Bribing of the Guards - 28:11-15

V. The Great Commission - 28:16-20

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

Lapide: Matthew (Book Introduction)

PREFACE.

——————

IN presenting to the reader the Second Volume [Matt X to XXI] of this Translation of the great work of Cornelius à Lapide, I desire to mention that it has not been within my purpose to give an equivalent for every word of the original. This ought to have been stated at the commencement of the first volume, and I greatly regret the omission.

The stern exigencies of publication have compelled me to compress the translation of the Commentary upon the Gospels within five octavo volumes, when a reproduction of the Latin original, verbatim et literatim , would have probably necessitated seven.

The matter standing thus, I have had to exercise my own judgment as to the character of the necessary omissions and compression. I am perfectly aware that in omitting or compressing anything at all, I expose myself to the full fury of the blasts of unkind, bitter, or unscrupulous criticism; though criticism of this kind has, I am thankful to say, been confined to a single print.

I have no fault whatever to find with the criticism of the R. Catholic Tablet . It was dictated by a thoroughly honest and commendable, but certainly mistaken fear, that I had made omissions for controversial purposes. Of this, I hope I am incapable.

With regard to the other adverse criticism to which I have alluded, I am sorry that I cannot regard it as either just or righteous. One reason is this; the reviewer in question concludes his remarks by saying—"Those who are familiar with Cornelius' work are aware of the terseness and pungency of the author's style. Whether it would be possible to give this in English we cannot say, but the present translators do not appear to have even attempted the task, either in their literal rendering, or in their paraphrased passages, so that much of the sententiousness of the original has evaporated."

It would be almost impossible to single out from the whole range of the history of criticism a more telling example of its frequent utter worthlessness and disregard of a strict adherence to truth. In the first place, with regard to Cornelius himself, those who are best acquainted with him—his greatest lovers and admirers—are aware that if there is one thing more than another which they are disposed to regret, it is his great prolixity, and the inordinate length of his sentences.

Secondly, if the hostile reviewer had examined my translation solely for the purposes of an honest criticism, he could not have helped becoming aware of the fact that there is scarcely a page in which I have not broken up what is a single sentence in the Latin into two, three, and sometimes even more sentences in the English.

Lastly, I need not tell scholars that it would be far more easy and pleasant to myself to translate literally, without any omission whatever, than to have continually to be, as it were, upon the stretch to omit or compress what must be omitted, when very often all seems valuable. I can truly say I have often spent as much time in deliberating what to omit, or how to compress a passage, as would have sufficed to have written a translation of it in full twice over.

About two-thirds of the twenty-first chapter of S. Matthew, the last in this second volume, have been translated without any omission, or compression whatever. A note is appended to the place where this unabridged translation begins. This will enable any one who cares to do so, to compare the abridged portion with the unabridged, and both with the original.

T. W. M.