Matthew 3:11,12

John defines his relation to the Messiah (Mark 1:7-8; Luke 3:15-17). This prophetic word would come late in the day when the Baptist's fame was at its height, and men began to think it possible he might be the Christ (Luke 3:15). His answer to inquiries plainly expressed or hinted was unhesitating. No, not the Christ, there is a Coming One. He will be here soon. I have my place, important in its own way, but quite secondary and subordinate. John frankly accepts the position of herald and forerunner, assigned to him in Matthew 3:3 by the citation of the prophetic oracle as descriptive of his ministry. ἐγὼ μὲν, etc. ἐγὼ emphatic, but with the emphasis of subordination. My function is to baptise with water, symbolic of repentance. ὁ δὲ ό. μ. ἐρχόμενος. He who is just coming (present participle). How did John know the Messiah was just coming? It was an inference from his judgment on the moral condition of the time. Messiah was needed; His work was ready for Him; the nation was ripe for judgment. Judgment observe, for that was the function uppermost in his mind in connection with the Messianic advent. These two verses give us John's idea of the Christ, based not on personal knowledge, but on religious preconceptions. It differs widely from the reality. John can have known little of Jesus on the outer side, but he knew less of His spirit. We cannot understand his words unless we grasp this fact. Note the attributes he ascribes to the Coming One. The main one is strength ἰσχυρότερος fully unfolded in the sequel. Along with strength goes dignity οὗ οὐκ εἰμὶ, etc. He is so great, august a personage, I am not fit to be His slave, carrying to and from Him, for and after use, His sandals (a slave's office in Judaea, Greece and Rome). An Oriental magnificent exaggeration. αὐτὸς ὑμᾶς βαπτίσει : returns to the Power of Messiah, as revealed in His work, which is described as a baptism, the better to bring out the contrast between Him and His humble forerunner. ἐν πνεύματι ἁγίῳ καὶ πυρί. Notable here are the words, ἐν πνεύματι ἁγίῳ. They must be interpreted in harmony with John's standpoint, not from what Jesus proved to be, or in the light of St. Paul's teaching on the Holy Spirit as the immanent source of sanctification. The whole baptism of the Messiah, as John conceives it, is a baptism of judgment. It has been generally supposed that the Holy Spirit here represents the grace of Christ, and the fire His judicial function; not a few holding that even the fire is gracious as purifying. I think that the grace of the Christ is not here at all. The πνεῦμα ἅγιον is a stormy wind of judgment; holy, as sweeping away all that is light and worthless in the nation (which, after the O. T. manner, is conceived of as the subject of Messiah's action, rather than the individual). The fire destroys what the wind leaves. John, with his wild prophetic imagination, thinks of three elements as representing the functions of himself and of Messiah: water, wind, fire. He baptises with water, in the running stream of Jordan, to emblem the only way of escape, amendment. Messiah will baptise with wind and fire, sweeping away and consuming the impenitent, leaving behind only the righteous. Possibly John had in mind the prophetic word, “our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away,” Isaiah 64:6; or, as Furrer, who I find also takes πνεῦμα in the sense of “wind,” suggests, the “wind of God,” spoken of in Isaiah 40:7 : the strong east wind which blights the grass (Zeitschrift für Missionskunde und Religionswissenschaft, 1890). Carr, Cambridge G. T., inclines to the same view, and refers to Isaiah 41:16 : “Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away”. Vide also Isaiah 4:4.