rc sproul john the baptist

JOHN THE BAPTIST

Matthew 3:1–12

After two thousand years of redemptive history, recorded for us in the prophecies of the Old Testament, the voice of God became silent, and there was not a single word from God in prophetic utterance for a period of four hundred years. The last prophecy in the Old Testament is found in the book of Malachi: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord, and he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse” (Mal. 4:5–6). Here at the end of the Old Testament God is saying that instead of bringing a curse upon the world, He is going to bring back the voice of Elijah the prophet. Four hundred years later that prophecy was fulfilled, according to Jesus, in the person of John the Baptist. Our Lord declared that John came in the spirit and power of Elijah (Luke 1:17).

John’s Message

Turning to Matthew’s account we read: In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea (v. 1). The fact is that the one anointed by God to restore the voice of prophecy to the land did so with the vocation of preaching. This reminds us that it is through preaching that God has chosen to save the world. God traditionally met with His prophets in the desert or wilderness, places removed from the frenetic activity of the city, where God could whisper in a still small voice to those whom He anointed to be agents of revelation. Just like the Old Testament prophets, this new prophet comes out of the wilderness, and his message is simple: “Repent! For the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” (v. 2).

The other Gospels record John as saying, “Repent! For the kingdom of God is at hand.” Some have seen the difference between the language of Matthew and that of the other Gospel writers as indicating that there are two different kingdoms under God’s reign—a heavenly kingdom and an earthly one. That is wrong, however. We must remember that Matthew is a Jew writing for Jews using the customary literary form of circumlocution. The Jews, who were loathe to pronounce the name of God, found substitute expressions, so instead of saying “kingdom of God,” Matthew says “kingdom of heaven.”

John was sent to Israel, and he called upon them to repent and be baptized. His message would have scandalized the Jews, because the only people baptized prior to this time were those converting from paganism to Judaism. These converts, Gentiles, were considered unclean, so they were required to participate in a symbolic washing of their filth so as to become worthy to join the community of Israel. The convert baptized himself, as if he were taking a bath before he could join the community of Israel.

Then out of the desert came John, who resembled Elijah in dress and manner, telling the Jews that they needed to be baptized. His message was clear: the Jews too were unclean. God’s own people were not ready for His coming, and they needed to repent. The force of that verb, repent, is no mere hat tip to the holiness of God with a mere acknowledgment of one’s sin. The call here is to radical conversion—to turn from sin and intoxication with this world and direct one’s soul and heart to the things of God. And there is no inclusion for anyone in the kingdom of God who has not done that. That is as true today as it was when John made that announcement by the Jordan. John speaks with a sense of urgency. Something new and radical is about to happen—the breakthrough of God’s kingdom is at hand.

John’s Role

This is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah saying: “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord. Make His paths straight’ ” (v. 3). The language of heraldry is used when the New Testament speaks about Christ’s coming, even when it speaks of the rapture. Such fanfare happened in the Middle Ages when a king came into a village. The trumpeters gave a blast of the trumpet indicating that the king was about to appear. That was the role of John the Baptist. John’s entire function, the purpose for which he was made and raised up, was to herald the kingdom of God, because the kingdom of God was made manifest by the appearance of the King. Just as trumpeters would blow their trumpets to announce the visitation of the king, so the purpose of John the Baptist was to cry in the wilderness to prepare the pathway of the Lord.

Now John himself was clothed in camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist; and his food was locusts and wild honey (v. 4). The camel hair that John wore was not the sort we find today in expensive outer garments. It was one of the roughest, most crude, and cheapest forms of outer garment of the ancient world. John was not adorned with suede but with the roughhewn skin of the camel. The honey he ate to survive was not the sort cultivated by beekeepers. It was the wild honey obtained only at the risk of a thousand bee stings.

Then Jerusalem, all Judea, and all the region around the Jordan went out to him and were baptized by him in the Jordan, confessing their sins (vv. 5–6). The Jews referred to common people as ‘am hā’āretz. The Greeks used the expression hoi polloi. These were the people of the land in contrast to those titled with nobility. The ‘am hā’āretz, the common folk, heard John gladly and were obedient to his word, whereas the clergy, the professional religious people, were absolutely outraged that this strange man would come out of the wilderness and tell them they were unclean and unready for the coming kingdom. How would we have responded if we had heard John? Would we have gone to the Jordan River for cleansing, or would we have refused to participate in the humbling ritual?

But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” (v. 7). The Pharisees and Sadducees were not coming to be baptized but merely to examine what John was doing so that they could report it to the authorities in Jerusalem. John knew what was in their minds, which is why he rebuked them sharply. We see here an important part of John’s message—impending judgment.

The Greek word translated “judgment” is krisis, from which we get the English word crisis. John is saying that his baptism is not a meaningless ritual; it is a moment of supreme crisis, because the kingdom of God is at hand. It will be heaven for those who receive it but wrath for those who do not.

“Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not think to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones” (vv. 8–9). The Pharisees and Sadducees must not think that circumcision or their pedigree as descendants of Abraham will save them. God can make people children of Abraham who were not children of Abraham. God can make people living stones, who before were nothing but recalcitrant sinners. I am a child of Abraham, and I once had a heart of stone. I had no more spiritual life in me than the stones along the Jordan River, but God changed my heart of stone to a heart of flesh, which He has done for every person who is in Christ.

“Even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees” (v. 10). Do you see the urgency? The kingdom of God is not going to come in some distant time. The woodsman has penetrated that tree down to its very core, the root, so that one more swing of that ax and the tree will come crashing down. That is how close things are, John is saying.

“Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (v. 10). Our Lord gave this same metaphor: “If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned” (John 15:6). If you profess to be a Christian and do not bring forth the fruit of repentance, you will be like the branches that are cast off and are thrown into the fire. Have you thought about that? We live in a culture where no one is afraid of the judgment of God, but the biblical portrait is of a God who will judge the earth, a God who will call every living creature to account. If we do not bring forth fruits worthy of repentance, we will be cast into the fire, where we belong.

“I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (v. 11). Every Christian is united to Christ in His suffering, humiliation, death, and resurrection, and we have been baptized by His Spirit, and that baptism is a baptism of fire. This fire cleanses us, it purges and purifies us, and it produces what the crucible was designed to produce—the pure gold of sanctification. Think not that you come to a Savior who will keep you out of the fire. He will keep you out of the eternal fire, but in the meantime you stand in the furnace like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

“His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (v. 12). The fan John mentions here is the winnowing fork that Jewish farmers used to separate the good wheat from the chaff. With the fork farmers tossed the wheat into the air. The chaff was so light that even the slightest current of wind would carry it away, but the good wheat would fall to the floor. That is the metaphor John is using here, and the fork is already in the hands of the farmer. That time of separation, that time of division between the wheat and the chaff, is right now.

Do you see the crisis? The visible church is always made up of both wheat and chaff. At the last day Jesus will separate true church members from false. He will gather His wheat into His Father’s house, and the rest will be burned with unquenchable fire.

To which group do you belong? That is the question we all have to answer at some point. Am I part of the wheat or the chaff? Is my destiny my Father’s house or my Father’s wrath? I pray that we will have nothing to fear from the future judgment of God. But if I assume that about each of us, I would be absolutely foolish. Statistically there have to be those among us who are not in Christ, who have nothing to face in the future except the punishment of God. If that is you, you need to flee to the Savior and to the cross so that He will clean you, and change you, and make you His own.¹

3:1 As Christ’s forerunner, John the Baptist preceded the Lord Jesus in birth, ministry, and death. Luke describes John’s birth (see Luke 1), but Matthew jumps directly into the account of John’s proclamation of the coming of the kingdom of heaven. John is called “the Baptist” because he baptized people. Unlike the common practice of proselytes and Jews administering ceremonial cleansings to themselves, John baptized those who came to him professing repentance and identifying with his message.

3:2 The Greek verb translated repent indicates a change of attitude and outlook which well may result in sorrow for sins. But the basic idea is a reversal of thinking which changes one’s life (see v. 8). The kingdom of heaven is most likely synonymous with “the kingdom of God.” Both terms seem to be used consistently throughout the New Testament to refer to God’s heavenly kingdom coming to earth in the person of Jesus Christ. This kingdom begins with the incarnation of Christ, continues with the inception of the church, and will be fully manifested when Christ returns. The kingdom was at hand because it was being offered to Israel in the person of the Messiah. John’s preaching assumed that judgment would precede the coming of the kingdom, a fact that was taught by the Old Testament prophets (see Is. 4:4, 5; 5:15, 16; 42:1; Jer. 33:14–16; Ezek. 20:33–38; Dan. 7:26, 27; Joel 1:14, 15; 3:12–17; Zeph. 1:2–18; 3:8–13; Zech. 13:2, 9; Mal. 3:1–5; 4:1–6). At this point, John assumed that the nation of Israel would repent and the kingdom would come. John was telling the Jews of his generation to repent in order to gain entrance into Christ’s kingdom.²

1 Sproul, R. C. (2013). Matthew (pp. 39–44). Wheaton, IL: Crossway.

2 Radmacher, E. D., Allen, R. B., & House, H. W. (1997). The Nelson Study Bible: New King James Version (Mt 3:1–2). Nashville: T. Nelson Publishers.