In chapter 3, Matthew jumps ahead in his narrative
concerning Jesus Christ from His childhood home in Nazareth to the beginning of
His adult ministry at about age 30. He
first comes to public attention at His baptism by John the Baptist. Matthew begins by pointing to some rather
striking highlights of John’s ministry.
First, his message: “Repent,
for the kingdom of heaven is within reach!”
Matthew links John and his ministry with another prophecy of Isaiah
(Isa. 40:3). He says John was the one
spoken of when the prophet wrote: “The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
Prepare the way of the LORD, Make His paths straight.” The way of Almighty God needed to be
prepared not because God needed help but because the people needed to be ready
for Him. They
need to pay attention to God’s messenger.
Matthew notes that John was indeed preaching in the
wilderness of Judea—the desert area to the west of the Dead Sea. And his mission was to prepare the way for
the Messiah. His food, appearance, and
message of repentance in light of an imminent appearance of the kingdom of heaven
echoed that of the Old Testament prophets.
And Matthew notes that John’s ministry sparked a revival on a national
level. Crowds came from all around the
region to be baptized as a sign of repentance from their sins to prepare for
the coming of the kingdom of heaven.
But some came as opportunists—to take advantage of the
spiritual climate, including the larger religious sects called Pharisees and
Sadducees. The former were quite
conservative in their message and the latter quite liberal but both of them
equated righteousness with externals alone.
And John gave them a public tongue lashing as they also lined up to be
baptized.
He called them “offspring of serpents” and asked them
derisively, “Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” The Sadducees didn’t believe in any such
thing and the Pharisees thought they were immune from it.
John called them to “bear fruits worthy of
repentance.” Not that they could save
themselves by good works—quite the opposite.
Nor could they trust in their Abrahamic blood to save them. Yes, God promised to bless the heirs of
Abraham but many of his descendants perished in their sins. And even if every single descendant failed to
trust in God and perished, still God was able to raise up descendants from
“these stones.”
Many of these same themes, Jesus would later amplify
in his own debates with these same leaders.
John’s message would become Jesus’ message. Matthew only introduces these themes
here. He does not amplify them beyond
pointing out the root of dissension that would grow to eventually kill both
John and Jesus.
These leaders disbelieved or ignored the two possible
futures looming before all mankind: the
kingdom of heaven and the wrath of God. They
spoke of the “kingdom of heaven” but only saw it in terms of their own
leadership in it.
What then is this “fruit” that is connected to fleeing
the wrath of God? John called it fruit “worthy
of repentance.” Somehow repentance was
seen as fleeing the wrath of God to enter the kingdom. Those who enter the kingdom are somehow “worthy.” So, a change from unworthy to worthy was
necessary. Matthew does not settle this
enigma yet. He is tantalizing his
readers. All we know at this point is
that they were to prepare for the kingdom by recognizing that they are not
worthy and thus need a Redeemer. So here
repentance was a recognition of this need because of their sin that made them
unworthy of the kingdom of heaven. The
religious leaders denied their need of a redeemer.
Their lives showed that they still trusted in their
own righteousness assumed to be inherited from Abraham. They didn’t really believe they were sinners
in need of salvation. God knows those
who are trusting in Him alone and those who are trusting in their own
efforts. Your trust must be in God who
is calling for obedience in the heart as well as the body.
Repentance would also be a prominent part of Jesus’
own proclamation of the gospel to Israel.
We will examine it further at that point. For now, notice that repentance does not make
them worthy of the kingdom but rather their actions demonstrate that they
acknowledge their need for change and for forgiveness. These will be two major obstacles to entering
the kingdom that must be removed before they can enter. In this way, John prepares the way of
the Lord.
John’s baptism, then, had no meaning apart from an
inner heart change. It was a sign of
identification with a message that the kingdom of heaven was within reach and
only those whose trust was in God to rescue them from the wrath to come could
expect to enter the kingdom.
John, in all humility, also preached about the Messiah
who would come after him to bring this kingdom.
John emphasized the deity of this One when he stated he wasn’t even
worthy of being the Messiah’s house servant in charge of taking off His
shoes. This Messiah, would do much more
than John who preached and baptized with water.
The Messiah would baptize with the Holy Spirit and
fire. He would bring about the spiritual
reality of Spirit baptism that corresponded to the symbol of water baptism. The fire Matthew mentions could refer to the tongues
of fire that accompanied the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 2) but
since that seems to be a one-time experience, it more likely ought to be seen
in contrast to the baptism of the Spirit and here refers to the dual role of
the Messiah: to judge the world and to restore the remnant. He is Isaiah’s sanctuary and also the stone
of stumbling (Isa. 8). So, John
visualizes the Messiah as a farmer in his dual role of threshing the harvest
with a winnowing implement which separates the kernels of grain from the remaining
husks. The illustration comes to a
shocking finale as the grain is placed in the barn but the chaff is burned up
“with unquenchable fire.”
It is at this point that Matthew has Jesus re-enter
the narrative. He had been in Galilee
where His hometown was located but had now come to be baptized by John in the
Jordan River. Matthew lets us know that
it is not because Jesus was a sinner and needed to repent that He came. John was very pointed in his initial
refusal. “I need to be baptized by
you. Why are you coming to me?”
Apparently, John already knew that Jesus was the
Messiah. According to Luke, their
mothers were related to one another so they may have already met at family
gatherings. The miraculous nature of
both of their births had likely been rehearsed for them over and over
again. But here Matthew focuses on the
pronouncement of this nationally prominent prophet who declares that Jesus is
the promised Messiah.
Jesus, in turn, acknowledged that John was right on
that score but it needed to be done to “fulfill all righteousness.” As we have seen, Matthew uses the word “fulfill”
as a way of linking the message of the Old Testament prophets with the events
of Jesus life. Jesus’ actions reflected and
gave full expression to Old Testament themes and expectations and here the theme
that must be fulfilled was that none were righteous but the Messiah like an
innocent lamb had all of our iniquity placed on Him that He might suffer in our
place and heal us of all our unrighteousness (Isa. 53). Jesus, too, was trusting God as He faced the
task of redeeming the unrighteous. All
those being baptized here clung to this confident expectation that God Himself
would provide righteousness and worthiness.
As Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens were
opened and the Spirit of God descended on Him in the form of a dove and a voice
from heaven was heard declaring, “This is My Beloved Son, in Whom I am well
pleased.” This is a reflection from
Isaiah 42:1 where the Lord describes the Messiah: “Behold My Servant, Whom I
uphold, My Chosen, in Whom My soul delights: I have put My Spirit upon Him; He
will bring forth justice to the nations.”
So, Jesus is announced to Israel as the Messiah by the
testimony of the Scripture, of John the Baptist, and finally by the Father’s
voice from heaven accompanied by the appearance of the Spirit. The kingdom of heaven is within reach.
© Eric Thimell 2018
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