One of the exciting things about Matthew’s gospel is how tied this book is to so many threads that run through the Old Testament. We obviously see this in his opening lines as he introduces Jesus to us as the son of David and son of Abraham, something that only makes sense with a good knowledge of the Old Testament. And that continues into this week’s text, Matthew 3:1-12, as Matthew continues to show us who Jesus is, what he has come to do, and how we should respond, through different lenses. He’s used Joseph’s labors in a few different ways to show this, and this morning, we are going to look at John the Baptist.
Interestingly, though the four gospels differ in a number of ways, all four of them include reference to the ministry of John the Baptist as the forerunner of the Messiah. Now, why is that? After all, John’s ministry is brief in each of them. He speaks of Jesus coming, baptizes him, and then pretty much drops off the scene. Why then is the brief mention of his ministry so crucial that all four gospel writers must make note of it?
The answer is found in the Old Testament. Throughout the Old Testament, as the author of Hebrews says, “God spoke to our fathers by the prophets” (Heb. 1:1). And indeed he did. The Lord would raise up one whom he would call to be a prophet and speak to the people on behalf of God. The prophet’s words to the people were God’s very words. In fact, we saw this in Matthew 2:15, as Matthew quotes Hosea saying, “This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I called my son.” Do you see? It’s not just what the prophet spoke but what the Lord spoke by the prophet. The prophet spoke as the mouthpiece of God.
And one of the high points of the prophetic ministry was found in the ministry of Elijah. He is a crucial figure. In fact, later in this book we will see that on the mount of transfiguration, it is Moses and Elijah who will appear from heaven to speak with Jesus. But Elijah wasn’t a normal kind of figure in a number of ways. One of those oddities was his wardrobe. We are told in 2 Kings 1:8 that Elijah “wore a garment of hair, with a belt of leather about his waist.” Now, I have no idea what it means to wear a garment of hair, but let’s just hold in our minds for a second that note about Elijah’s odd clothing.
Well, anyway, the Lord was speaking to his people by the prophets, and then the last prophet whose words we have recorded in the Old Testament were Malachi’s. That’s why that’s the last book in our Old Testament.1 So, what were Malachi’s last words? Speaking on behalf of the Lord, he wrote, “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction” (Mal. 4:5-6).
And after that there was 400 years of prophetic silence. That’s right—400 years! Then, all of the sudden, you’ve got a guy in the wilderness preaching, wearing a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist named John (the Baptist), calling people to prepare for the coming of the Lord’s kingdom. You can see why every gospel writer includes his ministry. It’s hard to overestimate the level of excitement that should have (and seemingly did) accompany John the Baptist’s ministry, as Matthew mentions that “Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him” (v. 5). But what does this brief record of John’s ministry teach us? This is what I want us to see this morning. First,
John is clearly the Elijah to come that Malachi prophesied. Matthew makes that clear by identifying his strange clothing. And Jesus will make it explicit later in Matthew 11:14 when he says, “If you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come.” But Malachi wasn’t the only prophet who prophesied of this forerunner to the Messiah to come. Isaiah had written about the same thing. In fact, this is what Matthew first focuses us on in chapter 3.
He tells us that John came preaching in the wilderness, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (v. 2) and was baptizing individuals in the Jordan as they confessed their sins. Now, we’ll look more at John’s message and ministry more in a second, but let’s continue to note his identity.
After mentioning the message John was proclaiming, Matthew tells us, “For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, ‘The voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight”’” (v. 3).
So, we’ve seen that Matthew has identified John the Baptist as the Elijah to come (by his dress), and now he identifies him as this voice crying, “Prepare the way of the Lord.” What then is this about? Well, if we turn back to Isaiah 40, where this quotation is found, we will see that Isaiah 40 begins a section of Isaiah where after thirty-nine chapters of the Lord pronouncing coming judgment on Judah because of their sin, he now is looking ahead in chapter 40 to a time when that punishment had already happened. Jerusalem has already been conquered by the Babylonians and the residents taken into exile in Babylon. And the Lord begins to speak a word of comfort to his people because he, the Lord himself, is going to come to them.
And if the Lord is going to come, then everything needs to be made ready for his arrival. Valleys should be raised up and mountains be made low for his arrival. This is metaphorical, of course, but the message is, “Let’s get everything lined up for the Lord’s arrival.” This is what this voice cries that we see in Isaiah 40:3-5, “A voice cries: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.’”
Now, if John the Baptist is identified as this voice preparing the people for the coming of God himself and as Elijah, who come before the day of the Lord (that is, the Lord’s arrival), then I think it’s pretty clear to us who Jesus of Nazareth is. He is God the Son incarnate. That is, he is God the Son who has become man. That’s why we call him the God-man.
Now, think of this, in back-to-back chapters, Matthew reminds us that Jesus is a man—born of the virgin and adopted by Joseph so that he is rightly identified as the son of David, the human king who would reign over the world—and he reminds us that he is God. He is God the Son. Thus, Jesus is the God-man. This is the identity of the one Matthew is writing about. Jesus is God the Son incarnate.
And both of these natures—his divine and human nature—are necessary because if he is not God then he cannot save, for only God can save; and if he is not man, then he cannot save, for we need one like us to represent us before God. This is what Jesus does. The Son comes, as the God-man to live a perfect life of obedience as our representative, die on the cross to bear the penalty for our sins, and be raised from the dead on the third day so that we might repent, believe in him, and have eternal life. John’s identity reminds us that Jesus is God the Son incarnate. Second:
We will look more at his ministry of calling for repentance and baptizing more in a second, but I want to note John’s ministry of warning about the Lord’s coming. That is to say, John’s message wasn’t simply one of happiness and smiles. The coming day of the Lord is presented in the Old Testament as a day of salvation for the Lord’s people but also (and this seems to be emphasized more at times) as a day of judgment for those who fail to turn to the Lord in faith, repenting of their sins.
And the same reality is found in the declaration of the kingdom. John preached that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. By “kingdom of heaven” Matthew means the same thing as the other gospel writers when they speak of the kingdom of God. And the idea is simply the reign of God. That is, God declares throughout the Old Testament that he himself is coming to reign. In that day all will be made perfect. God will bring his people salvation and will bring judgment to his enemies so that they might no longer cause heartache for his people.
John clearly understands this note of coming judgment, of wrath, for as he is baptizing Matthew tells us that some Pharisees and Sadducees come to him. These groups didn’t get along with each other, but they were both the religious leaders of the day. These are groups who thought much of themselves, considered themselves righteous, and in no need of repenting. In fact, other people needed to repent and be like them in their minds.
And these men come to John’s baptism. Now, I don’t think we’re to understand that they were coming to be baptized by John because Matthew simply says in verse 7 that they were “coming to his baptism.” It seem then that they were simply coming to observe and perhaps judge. But John is the one who begins judging. We’re told, “But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, ‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (vv. 7-10). Then, in verse 12, he says of the Lord, “His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the bar, but het chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
Now, one thing is clear, here, John fully expects judgment to come. Salvation as well, yes, the wheat will be gathered, but the chaff being burned with unquenchable fire is clearly a note of coming judgment.
John knew the Pharisees and Sadducees saw no need to repent. They thought it was enough that they were physical descendants of Abraham, since the Lord promised to bless Abraham’s offspring. What they didn’t understand was that Abraham’s true offspring who will be blessed is anyone (Jew or Gentile) who’ll repent and trust in Jesus who lived, died, and was raised. So, John has no time for them to come in their self-righteousness. He warns of the kingdom of heaven (which entailed judgment), of wrath of come, of the axe being laid at the base of the tree, and of an unquenchable fire.
Now, yes, John might have thought that with the coming of Jesus it would mean final judgment as well, and instead Jesus came to bring salvation, delaying judgment until he comes again. But don’t be deceived, the second coming of Jesus, which could be any time, is the coming of judgment, wrath, of the axe, and the unquenchable fire. God’s final judgment will be merciless. And we need to realize that this day of final salvation and final judgment is coming and is on the horizon. John knew that, and it is even truer today. And this has implications for us, which is where I want to conclude:
Let’s look more now at John’s ministry. If he is the voice crying in the wilderness and the Elijah who was to prepare people for the day of the Lord by turning people’s hearts to him, then his ministry is clear; he is preparing people for the Lord’s coming. And that’s what he was doing, declaring, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (v. 2).
But what about this act of baptizing people? Well, the idea of baptizing people isn’t a word or act found in the Old Testament. The word itself that we translate “baptize” means “to plunge, dip, or immerse.” So, John was plunging or immersing people into water (and bringing them back up again, of course). This is why he’s in the Jordan River to perform this act. This is why next week we’ll see that Jesus goes down into the water and comes back out of it as he is baptized by John. Also, we know from John 3:23 that John was baptizing in a certain place “because water was plentiful there.”
But what’s odd is that it’s nearly impossible to find precisely where John got this idea. Commentators suggest that there was a community known as the Qumran community that did something like this. But when you look into what they were doing, it seems to be daily, repeated, cleansing rituals of washings. And John’s baptism is a one-time act, so it’s hard to see these paralleled. Others say it could come from a practice the Jews did where they baptized Gentiles who wanted to become Jews, but it seems that this practice only developed after John started baptizing, so that doesn’t seem to work well. Probably the best guess is that John was doing something new. And this kind of makes sense since he is called “John the Baptist” or better “John the Baptizer.” I mean, if he’s doing something that everyone else is doing, it’s difficult to see why he’d be the only one known as the “baptizer.” No one person in our day is known as the coffee drinker, and rightly so since a bunch of others drink coffee.
Now, whether John made it up or adapted it from a similar practice around him, the idea was clear. In light of John’s ministry to prepare people for the coming day of the Lord, he called on them to confess their sins and then symbolize this in a public symbol of baptism. And eventually we know that Jesus’ disciples start baptizing people as well, no doubt as people confess their sins, since John 3 mentions that crowds start going to be baptized by Jesus (i.e., by his disciples) instead of John the Baptist, though both are baptizing, and John famously answers, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (Jn. 3:30). Then, Matthew’s gospel ends with Jesus telling us to make disciples, calling upon them to turn from their sins and identify with him by undergoing baptism.
And the church has been doing this ever since. But it starts here, it seems, with John the Baptist. We didn’t come up with this practice of baptism, John did. And I do want to note briefly since we all know of a number of dear paedobaptist brothers who baptize infants who are the children of believing parents that Matthew 3:1-12 is one more reason why I (and we as a church) believe that baptism should only be applied to individuals who are willing to confess their sins and profess their faith in Christ. I mean, this is the start of the practice of baptism for the church and John makes two things clear: 1) the one baptized must be willing to confess his or her sins, and 2) the one thing that has nothing to do with this act of baptism is one’s family connection. He gets after the Pharisees and Sadducees, after all, because they’re not coming to confess their sins, and they think that merely having familial connections with believing Abraham sets them apart. Therefore, we as a church do not apply baptism to an infant who is unable to confess sins on the basis that this infant has a Christian parent. Rather, we call upon people to be baptized who are willing to confess their sins and publicly testify to their faith in Christ, and we tell everyone that all are required to repent and be baptized, even as Peter declared in Acts 2:38, saying to the crowds on the day of Pentecost, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and you’ll receive the Holy Spirit.”
And this reception of the Holy Spirit is precisely what baptism mirrors. John acknowledged that Jesus, whom he was preparing the way for, was so much greater than him that John wasn’t worthy to carry Jesus’ sandals. This is a big statement since this was the task of a slave. Then, John also set apart his baptism from the spiritual baptism that Jesus would bring. John would immerse people in water as they confessed their sins, but Jesus would immerse people in the Holy Spirit and fire (v. 11).
Now, what does that mean? Well, the reference to the Holy Spirit is no doubt a reference to the reality that Jesus would pour out the Spirit on his people so that anyone who believes has the Holy Spirit of God dwelling within us. And the reference to fire is probably a reference to judgment. That is, unbelievers will face the unquenchable fires of hell, but believers pass through final judgment in this life as they believe, and instead of being destroyed, they come out on the other side purified. Fire can have a destructive or purifying role, and for the believer, it is a means of purification.
I think this is what John is saying. His baptism will be a symbol of the reality that one has been baptized with the Spirit and fire, having God’s Spirit indwelling them and being purified before the Lord.
And it shouldn’t be lost on us that the task of baptizing that John was engaged in, preparing people for the coming of the Lord, is the task Jesus gave to us when he said, “Go . . . and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:18-20). That is, we’ve been given a task much like John the Baptist. We are to prepare people for the arrival of the day of the Lord, for the kingdom which will come in all its fullness, for the return of Christ, which will bring final salvation and final judgment.
As a church, we don’t want to lose sight of this mission. As we’ve said a number of times, there are so many good things that believers can do and devote time and resources toward. But the mission of the corporate body, of the local church, is to fulfill this commission of making disciples, baptizing and teaching them to obey all that Christ has commanded.
And I just want to hold up a key piece of how we see that vision being fulfilled once more as a church. We have all kinds of students who come to Jackson interested in pastoral ministry and planting churches, and we want to train, equip, send them out, and support them in the task of planting churches. The reason we want them to focus on planting churches is because discipleship is done best within the context of a local church. Even better than one-on-one discipleship is the blessing of walking through life with a people who make up a local church, learning from their way of life, taking in the teaching, etc. And upon training these individual so that we might confidently lay hands on them and send them out, we want to send them to areas desperately in need of a church. The North American Mission Board has identified thirty-plus cities in North America, containing about 80% of our continent’s population in desperate need of churches. Timothy and Haley O’Day went out this summer to Salt Lake City where Timothy has already identified numerous areas around him in need of churches. He noted a neighboring, growing town called Lehigh with 50,000-60,000 thousand people and growing incredibly rapidly and according to the North American Mission Board it has no evangelical church, period! None. No gospel preaching church is there, and this is the U.S.
So, we see ourselves in a prime spot and with a responsibility of bringing in this pastorally-minded, church planting-minded students in, training them, equipping them, sending them out, and supporting them. And we hope to do that all over the U.S. and around the world. Timothy and Haley are just one example of this.
However, there are a number of other students (in fact, most other students at Union and most of you all) who are planning careers in engineering, teaching, nursing, business, journalism, and on and on who are coming from all parts of the nation to Jackson, TN as well because of Union. And what we would like to do is to pour into you all as well and bring more and more into our church and pour into them. Then, when it comes time for them to go start their careers, we’d like to send them to these areas where we’ve sent out church planters so that they can labor to support them in this task of planting churches, spreading the gospel, baptizing, and teaching people to obey all that Christ has commanded us. We want to send teams of supporters and encouragers with our church planters. So, I want you students, even if you are freshman, to already be praying that God might identify for you where you can serve in his task of obeying the Great Commission upon your graduation.
We will need a solid, growing support base here, and we will need to send out many (I hope hundreds), and we pray that the Lord will enable us to do this in light of the mission he’s called us to, like John the Baptist, to prepare all we can for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, the God-man, who will come and bring final salvation and final judgment upon his return when he comes to usher in God’s kingdom, God’s reign, over the earth in all its fullness. Let us long for that day and be diligent in our task of obeying the Great Commission until he comes. May we even now profess our desire to obey our Lord in this way even as we come to the table. Amen.