Full Transcript

Welcome to Share the Word. If you’re new to Share the Word, we’re glad you’re here. This is episode 206 and features the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 3. In this episode, Pastor Paul Nitz dives into the ministry of John the Baptist and the purpose of baptism, as well as the differences. Yes, differences. Pay attention.

Matthew chapter 3. Prepare the way. As chapter 3 opens, Matthew has skipped ahead in Jesus’ life to near the outset of his public ministry, so when he was about 30 years old. All four of the Gospels introduce the outset of Jesus’ public ministry by introducing first the one who would introduce him. What? By introducing us first to a character named John the Baptist, whose job it was to introduce Jesus.

Well, John really was his name. He got the nickname the Baptist, notice not the Lutheran or the Presbyterian or the Catholic, but the Baptist. Just kidding. Obviously, those denominations didn’t exist then, but John got the nickname because that’s what he became famous for, baptizing people. He was chosen by God to be a prophet from before his birth, according to Luke, and he’s considered the last of the Old Testament prophets, people specially commissioned to speak directly for God. Their messages didn’t always foretell something in the future, by the way, although they could.

The root idea is someone who was called to be God’s mouthpiece to their generation. John the Baptist was actually Jesus’ first cousin, and he was something of an eccentric character. I won’t say unique, because it seems that he, on purpose, was living and dressing and eating and acting in ways to emulate a great prophet of Israel’s past named Elijah. Someone told about in the Old Testament books of Kings. John had withdrawn from society largely and was living alone in the wilderness, as Elijah had been forced to do. As Elijah was a vocal critic of Israel’s wicked king Ahab and his wife Jezebel, John was also a vocal critic of many things in his society, including its leaders, both religious and political.

Elijah is described in the Old Testament as wearing rough clothing made of camel hair cinched with a leather belt. Sounds pretty itchy to me. But here in Matthew 3, guess what? John the Baptist is dressing in the very same way. He lived off the grid, as we’d say. His food often consisted only of grasshoppers dipped in honey.

Mmm. But in any case, my point is, it seems like John the Baptist was intentionally copying the Old Testament prophet Elijah. He identified with him, and there’s good reason why. There’s a prophecy in the last Old Testament book, Book of Malachi, where God says, Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord. Well, Elijah was long dead by Malachi’s time and 700 years before John the Baptist’s time. And since reincarnation is baloney, apparently the prophecy means that God was going to send another prophet just like Elijah.

Some Jews in Jesus’ time imagined that meant God was going to resurrect Elijah before the Messiah came to judge the world and set up his kingdom. But that’s not who John was, because we also learn in chapter 1 of Luke, when his father is introduced in that account, he was told in a vision that his prayers for a son had been heard. And I’m quoting now. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will call his name John, for he will be great in the Lord’s sight, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit while yet in his mother’s womb. He will turn many of the sons of Israel back to the Lord their God, and he will go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers back to their children and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. In the spirit and power of Elijah.

So, yeah, John the Baptist had a divine calling just like the Old Testament prophet Elijah’s, calling Israel back to the Lord. I’m sure his parents told him this many times, and that’s probably why Elijah became his role model. Here’s an important aside. I never noticed this before. We always hear about John the Baptist being the forerunner of the Messiah, that is, the herald announcing the coming of Jesus. But that’s not exactly what Zechariah was told, or what Luke records here, is it?

It says, this is Luke 1, verses 16 and 17, He will turn many of the sons of Israel back to the Lord their God, and he will go before Him. Him, referring back to the Lord their God. And the next line repeats, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. As the narrative proceeds, it’s really clear John the Baptist was trying to get people ready for the coming of Jesus. What I never noticed before is that Jesus is referred to by the angel to John’s father as the Lord our God. How would those who deny that Jesus is God explain that?

Anyway, in our chapter here, also were quoted the prophet Isaiah about someone who would prepare the way for the Messiah. Isaiah spoke of a voice of one calling out in the wilderness, Prepare the way for the Lord, make his paths straight. All the gospel writers identify that someone as John the Baptist. As John himself knew these prophecies, he accepted this was his role. This is why he was doing what he was doing, calling Israel to repentance, as the coming of the Messiah was near. John was holding open-air meetings, as we might call them, at the Jordan River, near where it empties into the Dead Sea.

This was a remote wilderness area. Nevertheless, lots of people were coming out there to listen to him, even from Jerusalem, which was at least a day’s travel away. John was calling on his audiences to spiritually ready themselves for something big that was coming. Repent, he called out, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. To repent means to have a change of mind and heart. In a spiritual context, it means confessing and showing contrition for your sin.

The kingdom of heaven meant, to his audience anyway, the messianic kingdom that all the Jews had been looking for and praying for. And at hand means close, within reach. I don’t think John understood clearly at this point what Jesus would mean when he spoke about his kingdom, but he did understand that Jesus was the long-promised Messiah. And since the Messiah was now present, to him that meant the literal messianic kingdom on earth must be close. No message would have excited a Jewish crowd more than that one. According to the fourth Gospel in the New Testament, when people from the temple heard about John’s meetings and the large number of people coming out there to hear him, representatives were sent of the Jewish establishment.

They came out and they were asking John, essentially, Who do you think you are? Do you think you’re the Messiah yourself, or do you think you’re some special prophet? John’s answer to them was, I’m no one special. I’m just the voice of one calling out in the wilderness, as Isaiah the prophet said, Clear the obstacles out of the Messiah’s way. Anything that might keep you from receiving and following him, ready yourselves for the kingdom of God. Matthew also says that members of the Pharisees and Sadducees were among the crowd at his meeting, the highlight of which was when John went down into the river and invited those to be baptized who were ready to turn away from sin and receive the Messiah.

When those religious types got in line, John refused them. He didn’t believe they were sincere. He called them the offspring of vipers, a bunch of snakes, and he asked, Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Produce fruit consistent with repentance, and do not assume you can say, We have Abraham as our father, for I tell you, God is able to raise up from these stones, pointing to the rocks along the riverbank, children for Abraham. I baptize with water for repentance, John thundered, but he who is coming after me is mightier than me. I am not fit to remove his sandals.

He will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. Then the warning: His winnowing fork is in his hand. He will thoroughly clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn up with unquenchable fire. Hellfire and brimstone approach, as we’d say. This is how John imagined it was going to happen. The Messiah would soon reveal himself, and he would clean house in Israel, as we’d say.

The winnowing fork metaphor pictures a farmer pitching wheat up into the air to separate the good seed from the husk, from the chaff. He said when the Messiah takes control, he’s going to separate the real from the false, those who are sincere from those who are pretenders. And warned the spiritual pretenders their judgment was impending. Yikes! People couldn’t get into the water fast enough. As I’ve explained recently, Jesus was not about to do all that at his first coming.

But John, nor anybody else, understood that yet. What became apparent in time is that in God’s plan, the Messiah’s kingdom was going to come in two phases. First, a spiritual kingdom, growing over time of all those who would accept Jesus as Savior and make him King in their lives. But then, at some point in the future, the Messiah would return and establish the literal kingdom of God on earth the Jewish people were promised. So, this was the scene as Jesus prepared to go public. What I’d like to zero in on from this section is the whole subject of baptism.

Pretty big idea in the New Testament. Or actually, baptisms, because there are a few different baptisms talked about in the New Testament, and it can get kind of confusing. What John the Baptist was doing, he called a baptism of repentance. He was using water baptism as a way for people to express they were repentant toward God and were ready for the Messiah and his rule. Dunking someone under the water in the Jordan was a way of illustrating their personal spiritual cleansing and their new attitude toward God. And yes, the Greek word used in the New Testament translated baptize here, its first meaning, its literal meaning, is to submerge, to dunk.

What was unusual about John’s call to repent and be baptized is that the Jews did not practice that in their religion. Gentiles who wanted to convert to Judaism, proselytes as we call them, they had to undergo baptism as one step in the process. But this is not something Jews did. That John was calling on Jewish people to do this was to some offensive. We’re God’s chosen people, for heaven’s sakes. But John’s rebuke of that attitude was, Don’t imagine that just because you’re descended from Abraham, you’re right with God.

Being right with God has always been a heart issue, a personal issue. Being baptized in the Jordan River didn’t make anyone right with God either. No ritual can. But it was an outward way a sincere person could show their heart’s intention, their desire to be right with God, we would say, and their readiness for the Messiah’s rule. This brings up something significant that you may have wondered about. Many denominations to this day practice infant baptism, although we don’t see that anywhere practiced in the New Testament.

John was not sprinkling babies, nor were any of the apostles later as they administered Christian baptism. It was always people old enough to be expressing their personal heart intentions. Always. There at the Jordan, it symbolized someone’s repentance toward God and intention to follow the Messiah. Later, after Jesus’ death and resurrection, Christian baptism became the way someone who believed in Jesus as Savior and Lord testified publicly to their faith in Christ and their intention to follow Him in a new life of obedience to God. So, think about this.

John the Baptist insisted, Don’t imagine that because you are descendants of Abraham that means you’re right with God. But doesn’t the concept behind infant baptism suggest exactly that, that your parents, those before you, can determine that you’re right with God, that you’re a Christian? I’m sorry if that’s something you’ve been taught, but it’s just not supportable by Scripture. And John the Baptist was absolutely right in calling out those in his society that assumed they inherited a right relationship with God based on their ancestry, because that’s not how it works. Being in a right relationship with God is personal. No one can make that decision for you, not your parents or anyone else.

You can’t inherit it. It’s a decision each one of us must make for ourselves. Have you personally realized you need Jesus and what He did on Calvary to atone for your sins? Have you asked for His forgiveness and put your faith in Him as your Savior and Lord? Repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, that’s the salvation formula. No one can make that decision for you.

It’s personal. But if you have sincerely made that decision and have not been baptized, that’s what the New Testament calls for. Baptism is the first act of obedience to Christ as Lord of your life, to publicly confess Him and your intention to follow Him before others. It won’t be John the Baptist, but some other spiritual leader can baptize you to symbolize your identification with Christ’s death for your sins and raise you back up, showing your intention to live a new kind of life, one of obedience to God now. If you’ve made the all-important decision to believe in and follow Christ, ask to be baptized if you haven’t already done that. Take that public step and invite your friends and family to come as witnesses.

It will be a milestone for you and a step of obedience that will strengthen your faith. So, getting back to what John the Baptist was doing out there at the Jordan River. Although Jesus had not even been revealed yet, nor obviously done what He needed to do to become our Savior yet, what John was challenging people to do is not very different from what I’ve just challenged you to do. He was calling on people to make a public visual testimony of their heart change toward God and their intention to receive the Messiah and live in submission to Him. But if you noticed, there is another kind of baptism mentioned in this passage as well. John said, When the Messiah comes, who is much greater than me, He will baptize in the Holy Spirit and with fire.

What in the world does that mean? I’ll be honest, there’s some debate about what that means. But I’ll explain how I understand it. Put on your thinking cap here for a minute, and let’s see if you can follow this. I believe baptism in the Holy Spirit is something that takes place in the spiritual unseen dimension. With spiritual baptism, Jesus is the baptizer.

The Holy Spirit is the medium, like the water is when we are physically baptized. When we accept Jesus as our Savior and Lord, He baptizes us in the Holy Spirit. This is the act that cleanses us from sin and regenerates us into new creations in God’s eyes. It also joins us permanently to the body of Christ, the universal church. I should say that again. Spiritual baptism is the act that cleanses us from sin and regenerates us into new creations in God’s eyes.

It also joins us permanently to the body of Christ, the universal church. So baptism in the Holy Spirit, it’s our metamorphosis in a way. It’s the way in the spiritual realm we are changed before God. We’re transformed in the way God sees us. It’s the action by which we’re taken out of the world and placed into the body of Christ. This is what Jesus was talking about when He told Nicodemus that he had to be born of the Spirit.

Something had to happen to him in the invisible world, in the spiritual dimension, to change who he was before God and to make him fit for the kingdom of God. And it’s what the Apostle Paul was referring to when he wrote in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body. Referring to the spiritual body of Christ, the universal church as we call it. This is something that happens to all true believers in the spiritual, unseen, but very real dimension. I realize that many people teach that baptism in the Holy Spirit is an experience beyond salvation a believer should seek for. Some of those say it must be accompanied by phenomena like speaking in tongues or something else.

I disagree with that. They base that teaching on a couple experiences described in the Book of Acts, which, remember, was a transitional time. There are a couple cases in the Book of Acts where visible phenomena did occur to prove to skeptical apostles that Jesus was in fact accepting someone unexpected into his family, like the Samaritans who accepted Christ at Philip’s preaching in Samaria, or the first Gentile converts at the Roman officer Cornelius’s house. But don’t be confused. When someone asks you if you’ve been baptized in the Spirit as if it’s something you’re lacking, some kind of mystical experience you need to have, what’s normal in church age is what I’ve described. Baptism by Jesus in the Holy Spirit is what happens in the spiritual dimension to every believer.

It’s the actual transformation inside you which cleanses you of sin, regenerates you spiritually, and connects you permanently to the body of Christ. Every Christian has been baptized in the Holy Spirit, according to 1 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 13. That’s not to say that every Christian lives a Spirit-filled life, as we call it, under the Spirit’s control and in His power. Whether that is true will depend on our individual responses to God, day by day, moment by moment even. Will we yield to what the Holy Spirit convicts us about? Will we obey what the Holy Spirit impresses on us from God’s Word?

Will we rely on His power to be bold when we need to be bold? These are examples of what the New Testament means by walking in the Spirit or being filled with the Spirit. Every believer is indwelt by the Spirit of God from the moment we receive Christ. That’s God’s promise. But how much we allow the Holy Spirit to control our lives, that is up to us. How ready we are to yield our will to God’s will determines how fast we will grow up in our faith and how fully the fruit of the Spirit will become evident in our lives.

Man, a lot more could be said on this point, but we’re about out of time today. But let me say just a word about the fire part. When John said Jesus will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and with fire, throughout this passage, fire has to do with judgment. So I can’t think of any good reason to imagine it means otherwise in that verse. John’s meaning then would be, the Messiah is coming, and those who respond to Him rightly, who receive Him, will be baptized in the Holy Spirit and become a part of God’s eternal family. Those who don’t, those who reject Him, can only expect judgment because Jesus is the only possible Savior, the only way to be reconciled to God.

To reject Him is to condemn yourself. The time is coming when the wheat will be gathered into His barns, but the chaff will be burnt up. I think that was John’s message, and he was just as straightforward as the prophet Elijah himself would have been. The last verses in this chapter say that into the midst of this scene, Jesus himself showed up one day and asked to be baptized, which John was completely reluctant to do. But Jesus insisted. He was not repenting of anything.

He was showing himself ready to fulfill all righteousness, to obey God’s will for his life. So John baptized him. And when Jesus came up out of the water, God the Father spoke from heaven, This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. That moment was the inauguration of Jesus’ public ministry. As he stepped out of the water onto the bank, he was taking his first step toward the cross. Come back for more of the story next time.

This is Paul for Share the Word. Thanks, Paul. As always, there’s a mountain of insights and great information. I’ve used these podcasts as Bible studies, and I encourage you to do the same. I find that each and every episode, whoever is sitting behind this microphone digs deeply not only to bring you the big idea of the chapter, but also so much more in insights, culture, history, and today’s no different. What’s your belief when it comes to baptism?

Throughout history, I’ve noticed that different denominations have different variations of how baptisms are to be performed. But what’s important is understanding the purpose of John the Baptist, a voice in the wilderness making the way. Have you recognized the way? Scripture is clear that when we accept Christ as Lord and Savior, we’re called to demonstrate our faith by being baptized. If you don’t know where to turn, simply find a church and call them and tell them you want to be baptized. Or email us at info at sharetheword.org, and we’ll see about helping.

Last thing, are you the wheat or the chaff? Think about it. But if you don’t understand that question, I think you need to go back and re-listen to the episode. Just saying.