LESSON III.--JULY 17.

JOHN THE BAPTIST.--MATT. 3:1-12.

      GOLDEN TEXT.--Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance.--MATT. 3:8.
      TIME.--A. D. 25. Tiberius Cæsar emperor of Rome; Judea a Roman province with Pontius Pilate as governor; Jesus Christ between twenty-nine and thirty years old.
      PLACE.--The Wilderness of Judea on the Jordan.
      HELPFUL READINGS.--Mark 1:1-13; Luke 3:1-18; John 1:15-28.
      LESSON ANALYSIS.--l. The Coming Kingdom; 2. The King's Messenger; 3. The Holy Spirit and Fire.

INTRODUCTION.

      A period of uncertain duration, but from the settlement of Nazareth to the beginning of John's ministry, somewhere between twenty-five and thirty years, intervenes between this and the last lesson. The silence of the sacred history is only once broken during this period, in the account of the visit of Jesus to Jerusalem when he was twelve years old, given by Luke.

      At the period we have reached Augustus Cæsar and Herod the Great had given way to other rulers. Tiberius Cæsar was disgracing the imperial throne by his cruelties and crimes; Pontius Pilate was ruling Judea with insolence, rapacity and iniquity; Annas and Caiaphas were sharing in the honors and spoils of the high priesthood; and the people, oppressed and troubled, were hungering for the word of life. Suddenly the silence of prophecy, which had lasted more than four hundred years, since the day of Malachi, is at length broken. A young man of priestly lineage, clad in mantle of skin, and having his home in the desert, stands beside Jordan proclaiming the word of the Lord. He speaks boldly against sin, and exhorts to repentance, of which his baptism is the symbol. He speaks reverently of One who is destined soon to succeed him, and then sinks into seclusion as the Savior appears.

      THE PLACE of the preaching of John the Baptist was in the wilderness of Judea--a wild, hilly, thinly-inhabited region (not a desert) lying west of the Dead Sea and the Lower Jordan. John's ministry extended as far north as Enon, near Salim, two-thirds of the way up the Jordan from the Dead Sea. The baptism of Jesus was doubtless at the fords of the Jordan, called Bethabara, five miles northeast of Jericho.

      I. THE COMING KINGDOM.1-1. In those days. Many years after the incidents of the last lesson; somewhere from twenty-five to thirty. Came John the Baptist. Came forth as a preacher and reformer. He was the subject of [200] prophecy, his birth was announced by an angel, he was of priestly family, the son of Zacharias and Elizabeth, the cousin of Mary. He was now about thirty years old. Preaching in the wilderness of Judea. A region thinly inhabited, used mostly for pasture, a rocky tract in the eastern part of Judea and west of the Jordan. One great reason why the wilderness was chosen as the scene of his preaching was that the Jordan provided the necessary facilities for his characteristic rite. He is called the Baptist from this rite, of which he was under divine direction the originator. If Jewish proselyte baptism was practiced before this, which is doubtful, it had no divine authority and was very different in nature from the baptism inaugurated by John. In proselyte baptism the person dipped himself under water, while John baptized the candidate.

      2. Repent ye. The great rite of John was baptism but the great duty commanded was repentance. The baptism was the "baptism of repentance for the remission of sins," and the theme of his preaching was "Repent" as a preparation for baptism and the kingdom. Repentance is more than a sorrow for sin; it is a determination to abandon it and live a new life. For the kingdom of heaven is at hand. It is to be noted, 1. That the kingdom to which he referred was in the future, but near. It did not begin with Abraham, or David, or even with John the Baptist. 2. It is the kingdom of heaven, not an earthly kingdom, and hence, must have a King sent from heaven. That King was not yet revealed to the public, but we have seen that one was born at Bethlehem who was to be the King. John was not the founder of the kingdom, but the herald of the coming King. Even the Savior's ministry was preparatory to the inauguration of the kingdom. He sent out his preachers to preach that it was at hand, or near. It was when be was "lifted up" on the cross and from the grave that "all power was given unto him," and the kingdom established on the earth, as the Church of God with Christ as its Head.

      3. The voice of one crying in the wilderness. John was called a voice, (1) because the whole man was a sermon; (2) because he would call no attention to himself as a person, but only to the Savior whose way he came to prepare. As Quesnel says of the true teacher and preacher, "he should, if possible, be nothing but a voice, which should be always heard and never seen." Prepare ye the way of the Lord. The messengers sent before the Eastern kings prepared the way for the chariots and armies of their monarchs. A "king's highway" [201] had to be carried through the open land of the wilderness, valleys filled up, and hills levelled (the words used are, of course, poetical in their greatness), winding by-paths straightened, for the march of the great army. Interpreted in its spiritual application, the wilderness was the world lying in evil. Make his paths straight. Roads that have not been properly prepared at the beginning. So are the ways of men when no preparation has been made for the GREAT KING. When John cried, Make his paths straight, he meant, Have done with all your crooked ways of acting. Be straightforward with yourselves. Let there be no winding and doubting. Be honest. The Lord will not enter hypocritical souls. When the "poor in spirit" were received into the kingdom of heaven, the valleys were exalted; when the soldier and publican renounced their special sins, the rough places were made plain and the crooked straight.

      II. THE KING'S MESSENGER.--4. The same John had his raiment of camel's hair. In the time of Christ it was the teaching of the scribes that Elijah was to come as the forerunner of Messiah; but our Lord taught his disciples that he had already come in the person of John the Baptist, of whom it was predicted by the angel that he should go before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah, to effect the very changes foretold by Malachi. See Matt. 17:10-13; Luke 1:17. We find, accordingly, that John conformed to his example, even in externals, as to place of residence and style of dress, not for the sake of a mere personal resemblance, but to symbolize the rigor and austerity belonging to the system of which they were both types and representatives. Camel's hair. Not the camel's skin with the hair on, but a garment made of the shaggier camel's hair, woven in a coarse fabric like our drugget. It was recognized as a garb of the prophets (Zech. 13:4), and is still worn in the East by the poor, or those who affect austerity. His dress resembled that of Elijah, and in this respect also he fulfilled the prophecy of Malachi 4:5. A leathern girdle about his loins. The "leathern girdle" may be seen around the body of the common laborer, when fully dressed, almost anywhere; whereas men of wealth take special pride in displayIng a rich sash of silk or some other costly fabric.--Hackett.

LOCUSTS.

His meat was locusts and wild honey. I have seen at Medina and Tayf locust shops, where these animals were sold by measure. In Egypt and Nubia they are only eaten by the poorest beggars. The Arabs, in preparing locusts as an article of food, [202] throw them alive Into boiling water with which a good deal of salt has been mixed. After a few minutes they are taken out and dried in the sun; the head, feet and wings are then torn off; the bodies are cleansed from the salt and perfectly dried, after which process whole sacks are filled with them by the Bedouin. They are sometimes eaten boiled in butter, and they often contribute materials for a breakfast when spread over unleavened bread, mixed with butter.--Burckhardt. Wild honey. This existed in such abundance in the trunks of trees and the crevices of the rocks that to the ancient Israelites the land was described as "flowing with milk and honey" (Exod. 3:8). In some parts of northern Arabia the bees are said to be so abundant that no sooner is a hive deposited than it is filled. Compare Samson's experience in Judges 14:5-9.--Abbott.

      5. There went out to him Jerusalem and all Judea. These expressions must be taken not as meaning every individual, but in their popular sense, as showing the wonderful impression produced by his preaching. The Jerusalemites, or people of Jerusalem, are not distinguished from the Judæans, under whom they were included, but merely rendered prominent among them as the people of the capital and holy city. All Judea, and among (or above) the rest, the people of Jerusalem.

      6. And were baptized of him in Jordan. Note that the baptism took place not at, but in the Jordan. Mark says "in the river of Jordan." The Jordan, the principal stream of Palestine, rises in the mountains of Lebanon, runs south into the sea of Galilee, leaves it and descends southward along Galilee, Samaria and Judea, to the Dead Sea. In many places the stream is fordable, and furnishes good facilities for baptizing. Confessing their sins. Baptism itself, a burial in water, a "baptism into death," a symbol of the burial of one who dies to the old life, is a confession of sins. The vast concourse is described as submitting to the rite which John administered, not as an empty and unmeaning form, but at the same time confessing their sins, the Greek verb being an intensive compound, which denotes the act of free and full confession or acknowledgment. This is prescribed as a condition of pardon.

      III. THE HOLY SPIRIT AND FIRE.--7. When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees. The two principal religious sects. The first originated in the [203] time of the Maccabees, and were a kind of Jewish Puritans, but had in the Savior's time degenerated into a set of formalists, who paid far more attention to outward forms than to inner life. The Sadducees were materialistic, skeptical, sensual, worldly. The Pharisees were religious in their way, but blind, full of spiritual pride and prejudiced; the Sadducees had little religion. Generation of vipers. No apology must be made for the denunciatory preaching of John; no more than for the thunder and smoke of Sinai, or for the fire and brimstone of Gehenna. Neither commentator nor preacher should effeminately shrink at the "mention of hell to ears polite." Doubtless John applied precisely the right epithet, and threatened precisely the true destiny to these future murderers of the Messiah he came to announce.--Whedon. The guilty, corrupted race of mankind is become a generation of vipers; not only poisoned but poisonous, hateful to God, hating one another. This magnifies the patience of God, in continuing the race of mankind upon the earth, and not destroying the nest of vipers. He did it once by water. Who hath warned you? In other words, who hath taught you, and how came you to think that while yet you remain as you are, and without an inward change of mind, you can escape the wrath to come by compliance with an outward sign alone? The last of the Old Testament prophets had also spoken of the judgment to be executed by the Messiah (Mal. 4:5, 6); but the Jews pacified themselves with the idea that this threat applied to the Gentiles, and not to themselves.--Van Oosterzee.

      8. Bring forth, therefore, fruits meet for repentance. The manner of life that would prove that a change had taken place, and that they were truly penitent. There is no repentance whatever unless there is a change of life as the result.

      9. Think not to say . . . we have Abraham to our father. One of the first things a true minister has to do is to destroy false hopes. It is thus that John did when he broke in thus rudely upon the hopes of those who heard him. They were living securely in the fact that Abraham was their father, and their reasoning was that if Abraham was their father they themselves were necessarily good, and their moral position was invincible. John takes the roof off this house of refuge, and pours the divine storm upon their heads. He throws down the walls within which they have inclosed themselves, and sends the floods of divine judgment along the courses of their foundations.--Joseph Parker. Of these stones. Pointing, perhaps, to the stones of the Jordan. In thus sinking the higher claims of Judaism, John, no doubt, indicates the coming rejection of the Jewish race. Gentiles who were not Abraham's children shall become his children by faith. (See Gal. 3:29.) [204]

      10. Now also the axe is laid unto the root. Laid there at hand for immediate use to destroy the tree, though as yet no blow had been struck; but laid there, also, that this sign of what is threatened may avert the fulfillment of the threat.--Trench. There is in these words a passing on from the notion of the possibility to that of the certainty of the wrath to come. The ax laid, not near to the unfruitful branches, but to the very roots, points to the judgment of extermination about to break forth on the impenitent.--Van Oosterzee. Every tree. A fruitless fig-tree was afterward made by our Lord the representative of the whole Jewish nation (Luke 13:6), but here each tree about to be hewn down denotes an impenitent individual receiving his sentence.--Van Oosterzee. Cast into the fire. When a tree is not fruitful, or bears useless fruit, it is fit for nothing but to be burned. Let it be noted that fire, here, is a destroying power.

      11. I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance. His baptism was only a water baptism. He could go no farther. The King could send the Holy Spirit, and give another and a mightier baptism, in addition to the outward baptism. Mightier than I. In that he can perform all that I only promise; he can establish the kingdom which I only announce; he can give the reality of that baptism which my water-rite only symbolizes; he will give the spiritual baptism, which is wrought by the Holy Ghost. Whose shoes I am not worthy to bear. The duty of a slave, or one greatly inferior in rank. In the Orient sandals are generally removed on entering a house, and left in charge of a servant, who brings them again when needed. He shall baptize with the Holy Spirit. In order to know what is meant we must refer to the fulfilment. On the day of Pentecost occurred such a baptism, the first so recognized in the New Testament. Then the spirits of the apostles were overwhelmed by the Divine Spirit so that they spoke as he gave them utterance. It was Christ who "shed forth" the baptism of that occasion. And with fire. The term fire is used in verse 10, and there means a destroying agency; it is used again in verse 12 in the same sense; it is used in verse 11, also, the intervening verse, and must be used in exactly the same sense as in the other two verses. It cannot mean a curse in verses 10 and 12, and a blessing in verse 11, without a word of explanation. It is strange, therefore, that all commentators should not agree that the baptism of fire is a baptism of trial and suffering. There were two [205] classes before John. Some would repent and be baptized finally in the Holy Spirit; there were others who would remain impenitent, and be baptized in the awful trials that would come upon Israel. The next verse explains this. John says in it there is the wheat and the chaff; one shall be gathered into the garner and the other burned.

      12. Fan is in his hand. Rather the winnowing shovel by which the wheat and chaff were tossed together into the air, so that the wind would blow the chaff away. Gather his wheat into the garner. Granary, or grain depository. The garners or granaries of the East are often excavations in the earth, in which the grain is buried, frequently for the sake of concealment, either from an enemy or an oppressive government. Sometimes, the owner being slain or driven away, the subterranean treasure is found accidentally by the plow or other means. Unquenchable fire. A reference is here made to the practice of burning the chaff under process of winnowing, lest the flying particles of chaff should be driven back into the wheat; a fire is made to burn, in whose blaze the chaff is forthwith consumed. The wheat is the righteous, the chaff is the wicked, and Christ is the winnower; the granary is heaven, the unquenchable fire is hell.--Whedon. The chaff and wheat may be intermingled, but the Lord shall part them and each shall go to his own place.

PRACTICAL AND SUGGESTIVE.

      The preacher and the teacher should be as a voice, hiding themselves behind the cross, and calling attention only to the Redeemer.

      True repentance is accompanied by confession of sin.

      The true follower of Christ must follow him in this public profession of religion. It is not true, as sometimes said, that Christ professed religion only by his life.

      The kingdom of God recognizes an eternal distinction here, and proclaims an eternal separation hereafter, between the good and the evil.

      The Emperor Sigismond, having made promises of amendment in a fit of sickness, asked the archbishop of Cologne how he might know if his repentance was sincere. He answered, "If you are as careful to perform in your health as you are forward to promise in your sickness."

      The kingdom of God demands a transformed character as a token of a true citizenship in its privileges.

      Birth, or position, or earthly privileges, are no title to citizenship in the kingdom of heaven, but a new heart and a new life. [206]

POINTS FOR TEACHERS.

      1. Observe that this lesson is about preparation for Christ. There is one who prepares the way. His first word is "Repent." Every teacher should prepare the way of the Lord in the hearts of his pupils, and one of the first words of preparation is "Repent." 2. Not only repentance, but confession, obedience and fruits are needful to prepare the Lord's way. 3. Point out the marks of the kingdom--(a) its Messenger; (b) its King already born, but not inaugurated; (c) near at hand, but future; (d) when established on the earth. 4. Note John the Baptist--his character, his dress, his preaching, the effect. 5. Note his rebuke of the Pharisees and Sadducees; his plainness with sin, an example to all preachers and teachers. 6. Observe the homage he pays to Christ, and the humble place he assigns himself. True greatness is modest. 7. Notice a picture of the world; a wilderness; a voice; a call to repentance; a solemn warning; a promise.

Source: Barton Warren Johnson. The Christian International Lesson Commentary for 1887. Des Moines, IA: