Matthew 3:11 - Exposition

(Cf, especially John 1:27 ; Acts 13:25 ; also Acts 19:4 .) After our Matthew 3:10 St. Luke inserts details of the various kinds of fruit that repentance ought to produce, suggested by the questions of different portions of the Baptist's audience; and then, with an explanatory note that John's words were due to a misconception having arisen that he was himself the Messiah, he adds what we have in verses 11, 12. But even if verses 10-12 were, in fact, not said consecutively, yet their juxtaposition here may be defended by the real connexion between the statements. In verse 10 John has spoken of the present danger of his audience; he therefore now urges repentance, and that in view of the coming of One who will sift them to the uttermost. With water ; in , Revised Version margin ( ἐν ), and so in the second part of the verse. The thought is not of the instrument by which the baptism is effected, but of the element in which it takes place. "In" suggests more complete submergence of the personality. But he that cometh after me . The expression would recall the thought of" the Coming One"—a common designation of Messiah ( Matthew 11:3 ; Matthew 21:9 ). Is mightier than I . Not in authority (the next clause), nor in honour ( John 1:30 ), but in inherent strength and power. Whose shoes . Though shoes or boots were usual in the winter, at all events later, and probably also now (cf. Edersheim, 'Life,' 1.621), yet sandals are doubtless meant. "In the LXX . and Josephus σανδάλιον ( Mark 6:9 ; Acts 12:8 ) and ὑπόδημα [here] are used indiscriminately" (Thayer). Worthy . In moral sufficiency ( ἱκανός ) , and so in the parallels, but ( ἄξιος ) in moral desert in John 1:27 . To bear ; complementary to "loosen" in the parallel passages. The duty of slaves of the lowest rank. The distance of superiority here attributed by John to "him that cometh after me," must be reckoned even greater than it usually is; for most of the slaves then held by Jewish masters would not be Jews, but Gentiles. The thought is, "I am further removed from my successor than the meanest Gentile slave is from his Jewish master." Some have seen in this expression a reference to the practice of disciples carrying the shoes of their teachers (Edersheim, 'Life,' 1.272), but this can hardly have been general so early. He . The emphasis is made the more evident by the absence of any connecting particle. Shall baptize you . "The transference of the image of baptism to the impartment of the Holy Spirit was prepared by such passages as Joel 2:28 ( Acts 2:17 )" (Bishop Westcott, on John 1:33 ); camp. also Ezekiel 36:25-27 , where the symbol of cleansing by water and the gift of the Holy Spirit are closely connected. With the Holy Ghost, and with fire ( ἐν πνεύματιυ ἁγίῳ καὶ πυρί ). To the visible John contrasts the invisible, to the symbol of water the reality of the Spirit; adding (here and in the parallel passage in Luke) to this, which forms the main point of the contrast, the thought of Malachi 3:2 , purification as by fire; and, by not placing it under the government ,of another preposition (which would have necessitated the conception of it as a distinct element) implying that it is only another aspect of one and the same baptism. It has been questioned, indeed, whether "fire" here refers to the purification of the godly who truly accept the baptism of the Spirit, or to the destruction of the wicked, as in Malachi 3:10 , Malachi 3:12 . But the thought is one. The Divine presence will in fact, as is recognized by Isaiah ( Isaiah 33:14 ; Isaiah 31:9 ), be twofold in its working, according as it is yielded to or the reverse. It burns away sin out of the godly, and it consumes the ungodly if they cleave to their sin.