Matthew 3:1-17. The Voice in the Wilderness: John the Baptist
Crying in the wilderness, v.1-4. God again visited His people. Thirty years or more had passed since John was born into a family of the priesthood. John, however, did not follow the ministry of a priest but after spending time in the wilderness became the long-awaited prophet who would prepare the way of the Lord. This was not an obscure man who walked out of the wilderness with the warning words of a prophet. John was a man of prophecy, doing the work of a prophet; declaring the message of a prophet. After four hundred years of silence from the voice of God to the nation; John, the man as he appeared looked like a prophet, spoke like a prophet, and dressed as a prophet similar to Elijah. That attracted a lot of people to travel to the Jordan River because his preaching was like Elijah, he acted like Elijah and he came out of the wilderness like an ascetic who had a message burning in his heart. He was burdened with the sins of his times and he spoke with authority to how people were to live in those times. The message of the man was open and frank. He was the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy. He had faith in God’s message. He was a voice of hope in dark days; daring to say what needed to be said.
Josephus, a secular historian who lived at the time of Christ, and who was not a believer in Christ as the Messiah; had submitted himself to his patron Vespasian. He had committed himself at least in words, to the foolish, self-serving statement that Vespasian was the Jewish Messiah. However, he wrote these words regarding John the Baptist: “John, who was surnamed Baptist… a good man, and one who bade the Jews in the exercise of virtue, and in the practice of righteousness towards one another and piety towards God, to come to baptism, for that so would the baptism also appear acceptable to him if they used it, not for the forgiveness of certain sins, but for the purification of the body, it being supposed that the soul had also been cleansed by righteousness.”
Repentance is not some casual act of feeling sorry for what one has done that is wrong. Rather, repentance is a radical change of mind, will, emotions, and actions. The change of mind has to do with what we think of God and the sacrifice of Christ for our since. The change of the will is when we are willing to admit “I am wrong.” Wrong in thoughts, wrong in words, and wrong in deeds. Wrong about what I think about myself, and wrong in my attitude toward God. True repentance brings real sorrow for sins and a sense of guilt that cannot be alleviated by any actions I take or penance I am either inclined to or am told by others to do. Repentance in actions will bring about a 180-degree turn from sin and my own way, to the Savior and God’s way of salvation. Repentance is the admission of guilt in every way.
The kingdom of heaven was another part of John’s prophetic message. After centuries of silence, the kingdom of heaven started with the first advent of Christ and will come to completion when He appears here on earth again. The new birth is required to be a part of this kingdom. That kingdom involves the establishment of God’s rule in the hearts and minds of His people. That will overcome the powers of evil and the consequences of sin. It even overcomes a wasted life and death as a result of sin. John’s message was, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand (almost here),” and then into the life of the nation of Israel, Jesus stepped into the open. Following the voice of inspiration of the Holy Spirit and repentance towards God, came John’s message of conviction, of challenge, and of change. Matthew’s Gospel mentions the kingdom fifty times, so it would have been a strong influence on those who read it the first time. They would be able to identify where they were themselves in the plans of God when they were born again, and what was going to follow in the kingdom of God.
Crying in the Wilderness, v.5-10. Produce fruits suitable to repentance. People traveled miles to hear John the Baptist preach because he had every evidence of being an Old Testament prophet, who they would have read about, or heard about in the Old Testament. It struck a chord in their national conscience because they knew they deserved to hear some stern words from a prophet because of what was going on in their country. The first response seemed to be what they thought they should do as a people. Then some came to recognize the fact that repentance begins with us as individuals. Repentance only has meaning and is effective when it is a testimony of an inward change of attitude that leads to a changed life. Baptism is an outward sign of that inward change and is only meaningful when true commitment to God is evident in a changed and consistent life for God.
John’s preaching challenged their sincerity by changing inwardly and personally. Then they could testify to their repentance openly. In His preaching, he touched the moral nerve of the people, when he told them a new day had arrived. The kingdom of heaven was almost here. The reality was about to expose the vague religious formalism they had all become used to. Imagine a man dressed in a camel’s skin, with a loud voice calling upon people to prepare for the coming Messiah and make straight the way of the Lord. Make sure the way of the Lord is without the curves of human opinion and convenience. John was a man who practiced what he preached and he was very different from the smug complacency of the Pharisees and Sadducees who came to check him out.
There was no question John was a very different kind of religious leader, and those who followed him like Andrew and John could see that. He lived what he preached. He wanted the praise of the Lord not the praise of men. He spoke openly about the prevalent sins of those who came to hear him preach. Pharisees and Sadducees were like a bunch of snakes crawling out from under rocks and spreading their poison to others. With the coming kingdom of heaven, that kind of shame would result in a similar way to an unproductive fruit tree. It would be cut down by the owner who was expecting fruit from the tree. In other words, God has kept you alive but has got nothing from you all these years. Now you are coming down. Good fruit is doing God’s will and God’s work in God’s way and in God’s time.
Describing the Messiah, v.11-12. The harvest Baptizer. John was like a mind-reader who could almost certainly know those religious national representatives would have been thinking, “Who does he think he is? Doesn’t he know we are the children of Abraham? We are the chosen people! God wouldn’t cut us down.” To expose their thoughts, he told them God could make Jews out of stones in the river if He wanted to, so they were not special to God in that way. Being a descendant of Abraham wasn’t what was important. It was the kind of faith Abraham had that made him special to God. Those who remain unchanged in their sins will be brought into judgment like a fruitless tree or the chaff left over after the wheat is beaten out. His description of the One who was coming was that of a harvester who is coming to separate the chaff from the wheat. John wouldn’t accept the flattery of the people, and neither would the coming Messiah. John was limited in his authority to basically declare the message he had received from God.
The Messiah described as one with a winnowing fork in His hand, would be the One who could and would judge what is wheat and what is chaff. Chaff is useless and is to be discarded, cast out, and burned. The listeners would have been aware at least to a degree of the work of the Holy Spirit who came upon people in Old Testament times to empower them to do specified work. The baptism of the Holy Spirit happens as believers in the Messiah as Savior and Lord are given life from God and are immersed into the body of Christ. The baptism of fire is the baptism of death and eternal judgment. The Messiah, our Lord Jesus Christ, is the One who is the Judge of all the earth. The Father has given all judgment to the Son.
John’s description of the Messiah would have answered all the questions his hearers would have had regarding the Coming One. He described the might of the Messiah and the authority of the Messiah. He also referred to the justice of the Messiah in judging and the hope that is in the Messiah who will come to reign and make just judgments. There was no question to the readers of the book of Matthew in the past day nor is there today. Jesus is Supreme in His Person, and Jesus is Supreme in His work.
Baptizing Jesus, v.13-17. The Testimony of the Trinity. John had been looking for Jesus to come and surely would have been glad to see Him. When Jesus asked to be baptized and John saw the dove light upon Him, He knew for sure He was the Messiah, the Son of God, the Lamb of God. There was nothing in the Lord Jesus that responded in any way to sin, so His baptism had nothing to do with sin or any sinful matters. It was His way of identifying with the nation of which He was the King. His baptism would have shown the rightness of John’s message, and it opened the door to His own public ministry. He also was able to identify Himself with those who had sincerely repented. It indicated His consecration to the work set before Him by God to be His chosen God-Man on earth who would bear away the sin of the world.
John announced Him as the Messiah whom they had been longing for as a nation of suffering people. Jesus identified Himself with His humanity and also as a Jewish man who could represent the nation. “He came to His own.” God then declared His approval of Him as His “Well Beloved Son!” God’s audible voice authenticated Jesus as God’s Son. It also identified Him as the Suffering Servant of whom Isaiah had written. His voice gave the divine support of the Father for Jesus in His work here on earth. The vision of the dove was not that of mighty power being poured out but of the gentle appealing work by the Lord Jesus Christ that was evident when He was here ministering to the people and fulfilling the plans of God for our benefit. The voice of the Father, the vision of the dove, and the visibility of the Son were all there as public declarations that “the fullness of the time” had come to which the unity of the trinity bore witness. They were all there in testimony that “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself.” God’s Beloved Son began His public work that day restoring fallen and straying people to God.