Matthew 3:11

11. He that cometh after me is mightier This entire speech of John’s is mainly founded on the closing two chapters of the Old Testament, to which we have already referred, where is predicted the day of Christ’s coming, preceded by his harbinger, and attended by all the terrors of searching scrutiny, divine blessing, and fiery judgment. In this expression John alludes to Malachi 3:1: Behold, I will send my messenger and he shall prepare the way before me; and the Jehovah whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his temple. (We may here remark that LORD, in capitals, in the Old Testament, means Jehovah, the incommunicable name of God.) The one to come after John was, indeed, mightier than he, being no other than Jehovah incarnate. Shoes Whenever a Jew entered a respectable house he left his sandals at the door. Orientals of rank are attended by a servant, who takes them in charge; and this is a very menial duty. But so humble is John the Baptist in comparison with his Lord, that the service which is too disgraceful to be performed for any man by anybody but the lowest servants, is too honorable for him to perform. This menial duty was sometimes performed in reverence by disciples for the rabbi. Baptize you with the Holy Ghost God’s holy Spirit had been at various times bestowed in sanctifying, regenerating, and miracle-working power under the old dispensation. Since the close of the Old Testament books, miracles had ceased; but Christ came preceded, attended, and succeeded by a stupendous display of divine powers. The baptism of the Holy Spirit in its sanctifying, quickening, and even wonder-working power, was one of these displays. It was even made visible in the memorable season of Pentecost. Acts 2:0.

This text is the fundamental passage for showing, from the very nature of the rite, what is the true mode of performing baptism. This I have shown at fuller length than is here possible, in my two sermons on The Double Baptism, in the Methodist Episcopal Pulpit. We may here remark:

1 . The baptism of the Holy Spirit was not by immersion but affusion. At the Pentecost, where the Spirit baptism was made visible, the tongues of fire descended and sat upon them. When our Lord was baptized the Holy Spirit descended and lighted upon him. On Cornelius and his company it was poured out. So Titus 3:5-6. The washing of regeneration is shed on us. Baptism by the Holy Ghost is always by affusion.

2 . If so, then the word baptizo, as a religious rite, does not necessarily or properly signify immersion. It is the descent of the element upon the person, not of the person into the element. For if baptism by the element spirit is affusion, then baptism by the element water is affusion. The meaning of the word is the same whatever be the element.

3 . We have here a principle of interpretation. The symbol ought always to conform to and picture its original. Now, spirit baptism is the original of which water baptism is the symbol. If spirit baptism be by affusion, certainly water baptism must also be affusion. Spiritual affusion cannot be symbolized by immersion in water. Hence immersion fundamentally fails to be a picture of the original. It is symbol without a reality, a shadow without a substance.

4 . The baptism by fire is a case equally clear. Its process was made visible at the Pentecost, when the fiery tongues sat upon the apostles. Baptismal fire is by affusion; the fire of hell is by immersion. So, Matthew 3:10, the fruitless tree is cast into the fire. So, Revelation 20:15, cast into the lake of fire.

And with fire The baptism of spirit and of fire are no doubt different parts or phases of the same process. To understand the difference between the two phases we must reduce the idea of spirit back to its simple idea of a breathing. “He breathed upon them and said, Receive ye the Holy Ghost.” John 20:22. Hereby was effected the gentle impartation of holy tempers, consecrating unction, and comforting grace. The baptism of fire, manifested in the fiery tongues at Pentecost, is the severer purgation, burning sin away by sharper agonies, imparting a severer spiritual purity and energy, and qualifying the preacher for the performance of sterner rebuke toward a wicked world.