Chapter 3

Any king in the ancient world had his heralds, people out in front of him on the point in a military organisation and these heralds would precede him into cities and announce his coming so that proper preparation could be made in order to render homage to the king. Jesus Christ as the King of kings comes to the earth on two different occasions. One is historical and one is prophetical. He came the first time in order to provide eternal salvation by going to the cross. He returns the second time in order to establish a personal reign upon the earth and to consummate both the human and the angelic conflicts. On both occasions prior to His coming Jesus Christ is announced by heralds, and since the ministry of Jesus Christ is related both to the angelic and the human conflict He has both angelic and human heralds.

For the first advent of Christ the angelic heralds are found in Luke 2:1-15. The human herald of the first advent is John the Baptist — Matthew chapter 3. He wasn’t the first member of the Baptist denomination! The Baptist denomination started in England in the eighteenth century with a pastor by the name of Brown. They did not exist up until that time although the Baptists like to think they go back to Zwingly and the Pedabaptists, but the Baptists and the Pedabaptists are so entirely different that there is no possible way to bring the two together. John the Baptist was not a Baptist and, actually, the Greek simply calls him John the baptiser. Also, when John the Baptist lived there was no Church at all. The heralds of the second advent: angelic — only one, the mighty angel of Revelation chapter 10; two human heralds, the two witnesses of Revelation chapter 11 — Moses and Elijah.

The doctrine of baptisms

The word “baptise” is not an English word at all. It is a Greek word, baptizw, which means to identify. There are two kinds of identification in baptism, real identifications and ritual identifications; and, in fact, every time the word “baptism” is found in the New Testament it can be one of seven kinds of baptisms. These seven different baptisms are divided into two categories and the first category are real baptisms, and a real baptism is nothing more or less than an actual identification.

Real baptisms

1. The baptism of Moses, 1 Corinthians 10:2. It means that Moses was identified with the cloud and the people of Israel were identified with Moses. That is how they got through the Red Sea. The only people who were immersed on that occasion were the Egyptian soldiers, and they didn’t come out of it too well. The only people who were immersed in water were the people who weren’t baptised. This baptism was a dry baptism, and it says several times in Exodus and where it is repeated in the Psalms, that when the children of Israel crossed the Red Sea they crossed dry shod.

We like to think of baptisms in terms of “wet,” so immediately we have missed the point, and you can’t really understand the wet baptisms until you understand the dry baptisms. The real baptisms are the dry ones.

2. The baptism of the cross, called the baptism of the cup in Matthew 20:22. The whole point is that just as Moses was a double baptism — Moses identified with the cloud; the people identified with Moses (a double identification) — so we have the same thing on the baptism of the cup or the baptism of the cross. First of all, Christ became identified with the human race and it was the humanity of Christ that actually hung on the cross, the deity of Christ could never be confined to the cross because the deity of Christ is omnipresent. This means, of course, that Christ became identified with the human race. Then having become a member of the human race, having been born without a sin nature, and having lived a life free from personal sin, He was qualified to become identified with the sins of the sin nature. So Christ bore our sins in His own body on the tree, and this is the second identification. He also rejected the human good which comes from our area of strength and from that time on Human good is rejected as far as God is concerned. God can never accept under any circumstances energy of the flesh human good. We have divine good versus human good as the great issue in the gospel. Every one who decides for Jesus Christ, namely believing in Him, accepts what Christ did, accepts His work. And this is as simple as “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” And everyone who rejects Christ as saviour depends upon his own good deeds and the scripture tells us that salvation is “not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us” .In fact, good deeds of man [man’s righteousnesses] are as filthy rags in His sight.

This is the baptism of the cross, and again, it is a double identification: Christ identified with the human race and as a member of the human race bearing the sins of the world, and therefore solving the sin problem.

3. The baptism of the Holy Spirit. This is not an experience, it is simply one of the 40 things that happens to the believer at the moment of salvation and one of the five things the Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 12:13 gives us the mechanics: “For by one Spirit are we baptised into one body [entered into union with Christ] … “ This is the baptism of the Spirit. You cannot feel it, you cannot see it, you cannot experience it; it is something God does for us and if you could experience it you would burn up very rapidly because the humanity of Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father. This is the position of every believer and it is the most misunderstood of all baptisms.

4. The baptism of fire, the subject at the end of the third chapter of Matthew. This is an identification with fire. The baptism of the Spirit is connected with the first advent of Christ, Acts 1:5, where Jesus Christ told the disciples that “John truly baptised with water but ye shall be baptised with the Holy Spirit in a few days” — ten days actually, the Day of Pentecost, the day the Church began. Before that, in John 14:20, Jesus said: “… and ye in me, and I in you,” and that was the first prophecy of the baptism of the Spirit. The baptism of fire is connected with the second advent of Christ. When He returns to the earth He finds two kinds of people: believers and unbelievers. The unbelievers are cast off and put into fire and the believers go into the Millennial reign of Jesus Christ.

Ritual baptism

In ritual baptism you always have water and the water is literal but it always represents something else. For example we have John’s baptism in which the water represented the kingdom of God, and for the people who were converted under John’s ministry were baptised the water represented the their entrance into the kingdom.

The baptism of Jesus was just as unique as Jesus Himself is; as unique as His hypostatic union, as unique as His crucifixion. Many, many people were crucified during the course of preparing the way for pax Romana but only one person had a unique crucifixion and that is Jesus Christ. Many people were baptised under the ministry of John but the baptism of Jesus is unique. By the way, the commonly-heard saying that a person has followed the Lord in baptism is blasphemy. You can’t follow the Lord in baptism because the Lord is the God-Man, He is the unique person of the universe; and for you to say that you are following the Lord in baptism is to say that you were born of a virgin, that you are perfect, and that you are going to the cross and dying for the sins of the world. No one follows the Lord in baptism.

What does water mean for Jesus Christ? It represented the plan of God, the cross, and when Jesus was baptised He simply said the same thing that one would say in a dedication: “I am going to the cross and am going to die for the sins of the world.” That is the baptism of Jesus. Jesus was not a sinner after salvation and witnessing to the fact. He was not identified with any kingdom because He is the kingdom. So we need to remember that the baptism of Jesus Christ is unique and the water represents the cross just as the water in John’s baptism represents the kingdom.

There is a third baptism and that is the believers of the early church. The water in this case represented the body of Christ and when the person went into the water he was saying in effect: “I am identified with Christ in His death,” retroactive positional truth and/or identification with Christ on the cross. But in this baptism you have two things: the believer goes into the water and while he is in the water this is a picture of retroactive positional truth, and when he comes out of the water he is identified with air and that is a picture of current positional truth, identification with Christ currently, new creature area, 2 Corinthians 5:17 — “if any man be in union with Christ he is a new creature.”

Verses 1-6, the herald of the King.

Verse 1 — “In those days.” Between chapter two to chapter three we jump to the time when Jesus was about thirty years old. We left Him as a boy in chapter two; now He is a man. And we jump from the time of Augustus Caesar to the reign of Tiberias Caesar. We are talking about the time of about 29 AD. (The dating of this scene is given in Luke chapter three, verses one through three) — “came John the Baptist [John the baptiser]” — John has already had a wonderful ministry before this chapter begins but we are tying him in with Jesus Christ. He is the herald of the King and so we are now coming down to the end of his ministry. Matthew doesn’t begin with John’s ministry at the beginning but he begins at the end — “preaching.”

Introduction

John was descended from Aaron. Aaron was the original high priest of Israel. Remember that Reuben was the eldest son of Israel (Jacob) and Reuben as the eldest son should have had the sovereignty of the family, he should have been the king. The eldest son also had the priesthood and he should have been the priest for the family, and he should have had the double portion. But Reuben lost all of these for the primary reason which is found in one word: unstable. Generally he was a very noble person but with all of his nobility of character he was unstable and that neutralised everything — “unstable as water” is the description of Reuben. So he lost all of these: he lost the sovereignty to David’s line, the tribe of Judah; he lost the priesthood to Levi, and that means Aaron; he lost the double portion to Joseph, and Joseph had two tribes in Israel, Ephraim and Manasseh. Four tribes picked up where Reuben lost out.

John the baptiser, then, was directly descended from Aaron and because he was he was the true priest in Israel. This is very interesting in view of the fact that in the temple in Jerusalem were people who claimed to be priests. They were not priests at all, they were not from the tribe of Levi and they were not descended from Aaron. Out in the desert is John, a true priest in every sense of the word, he is descended from Aaron. His father Zacharias was a priest from the course of Abija, 1 Chronicles 24:10, while his mother, Elizabeth, was a true daughter of Aaron — Luke 1:5. John, in addition to this, was also a Nazarite. We do not know all that we pretend to know about the Nazarites but they apparently took a vow to operate under the law of supreme sacrifice. As far as we can tell this meant getting into the field of certain kinds of food they abstained from — apparently rich foods, they were minus any alcoholic beverage, and they were also minus women. The Old Testament concept of the Nazarite is just about the same with some refinements.

John was preaching. There isn’t a whole lot more about John that is revealed and there is a reason for it: it isn’t the man but the message. The word “preaching” is very important here, it is a present active participle. The present tense is linear aktionsart (aktionsart is a German word. Aktion is the abbreviation for Achtung or action; sart means kind of. Kind of action means it is habitual, it keeps on going, going, going) and it means he keeps on preaching, he doesn’t give up. We do not have any of the messages of John in detail but we have four different Biblical references to tell us generally the type of thing he covered in his messages. So the content of John’s message is fourfold: first of all, John 1:29 — he talked about Jesus Christ: “Behold the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world.” He related Jesus Christ to the Levitical offerings of Israel. This made it very clear that he knew the Levitical offerings; he understood how Jesus Christ was portrayed in the Old Testament and he related these things to the actual Person who was walking on the earth at this time. Secondly, in his message John 3:30 gives us a second concept. He makes it very clear that the more he talks about Jesus Christ the more important it is for the human race and the more he as a person is phased out. So he talked in terms of his own personality as related to Christ and he said: “He must increase but I must decrease.” The point is that through doctrine in his frontal lobe and through the declaration of it you no longer saw the personality though the personality was there. He called the religious hierarchy poisonous snakes, in effect, and in that day as in this day it was construed as an insult. So he was a very powerful person and he thought nothing of insulting the hierarchy. But even though he was a strong person in his own right his message phased him out as a personality and presented someone else. That is preaching. We have the weirdest idea of what preaching is today — shouting, entertaining, etc. Preaching is so declaring Christ that the personality is phased out. His message was a message, not only of declaring Christ, but of declaring Christ and doctrine in such a way that the doctrine became important and not the person who gave the doctrine.

Another factor in his message, which we find in verse 2 — he preached repentance. The modern preacher, when he talks about repentance, means to feel sorry for sins. Any person who starts talking about repenting of your sins is just as stupid and ignorant with regard to the Word of God as anyone could possibly be. In the first place, your sins and my sins were born by Christ on the cross so that sin is never an issue. The cross is an issue to the human race and Christ is an issue but personal sins ceased to be an issue when Christ bore them in His own body on the cross. So sin isn’t an issue at all. We need to present Christ, not tell them how horrible or good they are. Human good was also an issue and Christ rejected human good, and since He rejected human good this is the great issue in the gospel: you either depend upon divine good, His work, or you depend upon your own good, and at the last judgement sins will never be mentioned. The sins of the unbeliever will never be mentioned at the last judgement but all of his good deeds will be.

The next thing in his message is: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved” — Acts 19:4. So John not only talked about Christ but he told about how to enter into eternal relationship with Christ. The way of salvation is found in both “repent” and “believe” — two sides of the same coin. Repent is the mental attitude toward Christ when you believe; repent is the mental attitude when you believe and believe is the actual mental mechanics for, after all, believe is really perception, the only non-meritorious system of perception. So when you believed in Christ, whether you knew it or not, you repented. You couldn’t have believed without repenting because repent means to change your attitude toward Christ. And notice that the word “repent” has absolutely nothing to do with sin, nothing at all. It has to do with Christ. Take the two transitive verbs here: repent and believe. The object of repent is Christ; the object of believe is Christ. Christ is the saviour, here is John’s message: “Behold the Lamb of God.” The subject is the unbeliever: “whosoever.” The unbeliever changed his attitude toward Christ, the unbeliever believed in Christ, and that is when he became a believer.

“preaching in the wilderness of Judaea,” he didn’t preach in a church. The Greek word for “wilderness” is desert. The desert of Judaea is a rugged piece of terrain and there is one thing that characterised this desert: no one was there! Lots of snakes, locusts and animals, but no people. But when John started preaching out there, people came. This is very important. Some people who are going into the ministry may feel that they have to stay with some established organisation to be sure they can get a church. If you have a message God will provide a hearing but if you don’t have a message you’d better get in one of the organisations where they can guarantee that you will have a church because people will have to listen to you because it is a part of the rules — they call it program — and you have to bore them to death! That’s the program. A good time is had by all but no one gets a message. For the man with the message God will provide the hearers.

Verse 2 — “Saying [preaching],” — he kept on saying. This was a part of his message but, as you know, only one part. In Acts 19:4 Luke presents another aspect of the message of John, as does John in John 1:29. They are all part of the same message but John emphasises the person of Christ — Son of God; Luke in Acts emphasises how people were saved under John by believing in Christ; Matthew is talking about and emphasising the King and, therefore the people of John’s day and, as a matter of fact in the days of Jesus on the earth, were saved because they recognised Him for what He was, the King. They changed their minds about Him.

“Repent ye” — the word “repent”: there are two Greek words. There is the word metanoew, which is mental and means a complete change of mental attitude, changing the mind; the second word is metamelomai, an emotional word which means to feel sorry for something that you have done, usually something that you have done that is wrong. This word is used for Judas Iscariot and we will be studying this when we get to chapter twenty-seven — Judas felt sorry for his sins. Feeling sorry for sins never saved anyone and never will. However that isn’t what John preached, John preached: “Change your mind.”

Metanoew is our word in Matthew 3:2 and it means change of mind. It is used in the scripture for God as the subject. One of the greatest of all of the anthropopathisms in the scripture is, God repents. If repenting has anything to do with sin then God is a sinner and that is blasphemy. Cf. Genesis 6:6; Exodus 32:14; Judges 2:18; 1 Samuel 15:35; Jeremiah 15:6; Amos 7:3,6; Hebrews 7:21. In all of these passages God does the repenting, He is the subject. And God is not a sinner and God doesn’t feel sorry for sins — which He couldn’t commit and He didn’t commit. When it says that God repents it is simply an anthropopathism ascribing to God a human characteristic in order explain something God is doing in context.

We have some passages on repentance and salvation: Luke 13:3,5; 15:7,10 — the sinner who repents. The sinner is the subject, the object is Christ — 16:30,31; Acts 17:30,31; 20:21; Romans 2:4; 2 Peter 3:9.

“Repent ye” — present active imperative. This is a command; “for the kingdom of heaven.” What is the kingdom of heaven? The word occurs 32 times in the book of Matthew. Generally speaking, the word “kingdom” when it is used in Matthew refers to the kingdom which belongs to the King who is the subject of Matthew. The subject of Matthew is Jesus Christ, and the kingdom refers to the kingdom that Christ will have in eternity. In this particular case in Matthew it refers to the born again Jews. But sometimes the kingdom is held out to the unbeliever, telling him to seek it. And when the King is on earth the kingdom is on earth and therefore the kingdom of God is life, the kingdom of heaven is life. You will find believers and unbelievers mentioned in context, the true kingdom is made up of the believer but the unbeliever has the opportunity of entering that kingdom by believing in Christ, and this explains some of the passages, parables and so on, where the kingdom of heaven includes both believers and unbelievers in the context.

“is at hand” — now we switch tenses and we go to the perfect tense. The word means “it is here; it is approaching.” In the perfect tense in the Greek it is something that happens with results that continue. In the context the results are defined as continuing forever, or at least repercussions that will go on. So the fact is that Christ is now here, since He is the kingdom, and the result: there will be results which go on and on — salvation of John’s converts is one of them. The kingdom of heaven approaches in the Person of the King, He is the only saviour; therefore, entrance into the kingdom of God is based upon believing in Him.

Verse 3 — the prophecy of the herald: a quotation from Isaiah 40:3. “For this is he,” simply identifies John the baptiser, “that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias [the Greek form of Isaiah], saying, The voice of one crying in the desert.” John was willing to be a voice, and this is how, even though he was a very strong personality and a very strong person, because of the nature of his message he became simply a voice. The word “voice” emphasises the content of his message which phases out his personality.

Voice

1. It isn’t the man but the message.

2. A voice requires a brain! A voice has vocabulary and the larger the vocabulary the greater the capacity for thought. For example, you cannot think in mathematics unless you have the vocabulary. Hence the man with a message must have a frontal lobe filled with doctrine. This is the primary requirement for any messenger of God.

3. No one can teach unless he has something to teach.

“crying” — means to proclaim or to speak dogmatically.

“in the desert” — people came because John had the message to change lives. It is the message that changes lives, not the messenger.

We have noted that John was a voice and the word “voice” emphasises the content of the message rather than the personality of the individual. This brought out the principle that it isn’t the man but the message which is important. The messenger must have a mind full of doctrine in order to be effective and this is the primary requirement for a pastor and teacher. No one can teach without something to teach; hence, no one can teach without doctrine in the frontal lobe. John “cried” [proclaimed] in the desert and the people left the city, the synagogue, to hear John’s message. Why? Because John was a “voice.” It was the message which had the power to change lives, not the person himself. Again the principle: the message is indispensable but not the messenger. The proclamation of the Word is not a popularity contest, it is the study of doctrine and its communication to men.

Verse 3 — “Prepare ye the way of the Lord.” We have two categories with regard to this message. The first is salvation — “Prepare ye”; the second is a rebound command to believers. This is broken down categorically for one reason: to show that not only did John evangelise but he trained in doctrine those who responded to his message. It is not enough to evangelise. The ones who are evangelised and become believers must be oriented to the plan of God. “Prepare ye” is an aorist active imperative and this in contrast to the next imperative we find at the end of verse three: “make straight his paths.” These are the two verbs here: one is in category one — “Prepare ye”; the second is “make straight,” a present active imperative. The aorist tense refers to salvation, the point at which the individual believes in Jesus Christ. “Make straight” is a present active imperative and it means literally, “make upright.” This refers to the second area and this is rebound, 1 John 1:9, or the operation of phase two. So John not only taught them the way of salvation but he showed them at the same time how to live as a believer on this earth, and his emphasis was on the principle of rebound. In contrast to the aorist tense, a once and for all thing, the present imperative is linear aktionsart, it indicates an habitual or continuous thing, and we have to habitually rebound when ever it is necessary.

Verse 4 — the life of the herald. “And the same John had.” We go to another tense, imperfect active indicative. The imperfect meant that this kept on being true of his phase two. The imperfect tense is linear aktionsart in past time. This characterises the whole life that he had out in the desert. This brings up a principle: there was nothing in John’s personality or dress or appearance or social background or education which demanded a hearing from the people. John was a man who was a channel and through this channel went divine power and divine message. He was in his own right a great man by background. He came from the family of the priesthood, he was of the tribe of Levi and he was directly descended from Aaron through his mother, and also his father was descended from one of the courses of the Levites. He was also a strong personality and an eloquent speaker but these were not the ingredients of his success. His success came from the utilisation of divine power which means orientation to the grace of God. His clothes were very simple and no one went out to him to see what the latest fashion was. The Pharisees, by contrast, wore beautiful white robes with gold trimming.

John was now apparently operating under the law of supreme sacrifice. It was God’s will for him to operate in the desert where it is much more primitive than in the country, although he probably grew up in the city. Whatever he had enjoyed by way of luxury in the past he definitely was living out in the desert now and because he had a message the people came to him. That is the way it should be. The minister who runs around and calls on his congregation is ignorant of the Word of God. That is simply running around in order to stimulate the ego of people. If they have problems they can come to him; if they want the message they can come and hear it.

God set the pattern when He sent this man out into the desert where there are no people. Immediately there is a test: what do you want when you go to the desert? When the people come they come of one of two reasons: first, they come because they are hungry for the truth, and John has the truth, and they go into the desert because they desire to hear the truth. They are not getting the truth in the temple in Jerusalem and they are not getting the truth in the synagogues, and secondly, there was the religious crowd who went out to find out what the secret was to drawing crowds, the temple had been rather empty.

Verse 5 — the response to the herald. “Then” is an adverb that means after he did what God wanted him to do, it indicates that he was in God’s will; “went out to him” — imperfect tense, which means that as long as John preached people kept on going out to the desert; “to him” is the preposition proj plus the accusative, which means face to face with him. They not only went out into the desert but they went out so that they could come face to face with him and actually hear him preach — “those of Jerusalem, and all Judaea, and all the region round about Jordan” — city of the temple is Jerusalem, headquarters for religion and legalism. The crowds kept coming out and they were hungry for the truth. And notice that the desert not only means no people but it also means separation from religion. There are many ministers today who are born-again believers and who seek to teach the Bible, but their ministry is destroyed because they are compromising with religion, they have not separated themselves from apostasy. The idea is often to straighten everything out from within but that isn’t the way God works. God takes a man, puts him in an impossible place, gives him a message, and this tests the volition of the populace. No man can be effective in a pulpit and compromise with religion. John separated himself from religion.

Principle: When a man has a message then God will provide the hearers. No one can preach until he has this message. John was prepared and there is only one source of this message — Bible doctrine, and he knew it well. Preachers come and preachers go but the Word of God abides forever.

Verse 6 — the post-salvation experience of John’s converts. There are two experiences which come under phase two. The first is a ritual and the second will be rebound itself. Ritual here is baptism, a witness to salvation; rebound is the means of getting back into fellowship with God.

“And were baptised of him in the Jordan.” The word “baptise” means identification, and in the case of a water baptism we have a ritual identification where the water actually represents the kingdom (in the case of John’s baptism) — “I am identified with the kingdom of regenerate.” Coming out of the water is the picture of the new life which is maintained by rebound. The word “baptise” is a Greek word and it means to be identified with. The imperfect tense means that there was a constant stream of new converts being baptised — “were baptised” is in the passive voice in the Greek, and the passive voice means the converts received the action of the verb, they received baptism as a testimony to their salvation. They weren’t saved by baptism but they received baptism as a testimony; “of him” — the preposition is u(po, which means under the authority of — a preposition of authority. In other words, they recognised the authority of John as a bona fide messenger from God and therefore they submitted to one point of ritual. This gives us the additional reason for the ritual. Over in the temple there was a great deal of ritual, they were offering all kinds of sacrifices which had great significance as far as Christology was concerned. The priesthood was going through a ritual which pointed to Christ but it had lost its meaning because religion had taken over in these things. Out in the desert John has a point of ritual which is baptism, and baptism had a second principle besides witnessing for Christ. These people who found Christ as saviour in the desert, recognised the authority of John as a bona fide messenger of God and they separated themselves from the animal sacrifices, recognising that the scribes and the Pharisees and the Sadducees had lost their representation and their authority as far as God is concerned. So baptism was also a means of declaring their separation from religion. No one can be effective in the service of the Lord and be in any way under religion.

“in the Jordan” — this was an immersion. The word “baptise” means immerse in the sense of complete identification, so there is no question as to the mode of baptism which is practised when water baptism is practised; “confessing their sins,” the second of the two post-salvation experiences. This is nothing more or less than 1 John 1:9. It is not a part of salvation but a post-salvation experience. The present tense in the Greek of confessing indicates that this was a post-salvation experience and was not in any way identified with their salvation. The present tense is linear aktionsart to demonstrate to you and to me that after we are saved we are going to sin many times, and every time we sin our only hope and basis for getting back in fellowship is rebound.

In verses 7-17 we have the baptism of the King. But before we have the baptism of the King we have to condemn religion. The reason is because Jesus Christ is going to be baptised, baptism is a ritual, and we must understand the true nature of religion before we get into the ritual of our Lord’s baptism so that we will never identify the ritual with religion. Remember that religion uses as a front a lot of ritual.

Verse 7 — the identification of religious leaders. “But when he saw many of the Pharisees,” exponents of traditional Judaism, “and Sadducees,” religious rationalists, “come,” present tense, which means they came to present themselves for baptism. They thought this would give them some super power. The present active participle indicates they kept on coming and offering themselves for baptism, and he turns them down because they aren’t saved. He will not compromise with religion. The word “come” meant that they came to present themselves as candidates. They thought they might derive some benefit or some power from this ritual performed by John. In other words, they wanted ritual without reality and there is no power in ritual without reality. “O generation of vipers.” The viper is a very poisonous snake that lives out in the desert. John had seen brush fires out in the desert and had seen these snacks crawling away from the fires toward their holes. And so he says: “O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” The wrath to come is the baptism of fire which will come at a future time. When these religious leaders opened their mouths and spoke in the name of God they may as well have been striking the members of their congregation, they filled them with poison. Now they are simply running, they are not accepting. They are unbelievers and the principle here is: no decision, no conversion, no baptism.

Verse 8 — the principle of reality before ritual. “Bring forth [produce] therefore fruits [production] meet [fit] for repentance.” “Repentance” simply describes salvation in context as a change of attitude toward Christ. He will not have anything to do with them until they demonstrate they are saved. What will it take to produce production fit for repentance? They would have to declare their personal faith in Jesus Christ. That is what verse 8 actually means. They will not declare their faith in Christ, they want the ritual but they will not declare that they are believers. The principle here is that there must be reality before you can have the ritual. John would not baptise religious leaders because they were not saved.

Verse 9 — the inadequacy of physical birth. “And think not to say within yourselves” — this is what they were thinking. This is why they wouldn’t believe in Christ. Faith in Christ is the second birth. These religious leaders say that they are born Jews. As Jews they are born from the line of Abraham and therefore being the seed of Abraham they were saying that they were saved because they were Jews. But John was pointing out to them that being Jews doesn’t save them, being of the physical seed of Abraham doesn’t save them There is a spiritual seed of Abraham which is the principle of faith and regeneration, brought out in Romans 9:6-14. The thing that made Abraham a Jew was that he was born again. The thing that distinguished Isaac from his brother Ishmael was a that he was born again. The line of Israel was begun through regeneration. That is the thing that counts: regeneration. And these Pharisees think that being saved is only a matter of being born a Jew and living under the Mosaic law — “we have Abraham to our father.” In other words, John is going to tell them that there are no assets in physical birth whereby one can attain eternal salvation; “for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones,” and he points to stones around the Jordan banks, “to raise up children unto Abraham.”

This scene took place at the Jordan river where Joshua had used some of these same stones to teach Israel that salvation is a relationship with God, not a system of self-righteousness — Joshua 4:5-9 these same stones were used to demonstrate what these religious men had rejected. In Joshua chapter four we have the stones of Gilgal. These stones were on the bank of the Jordan river. Joshua said to the Jews, to one representative from each tribe, after the water had come back and there was a dry river bed: “Pick up a rock and carry it into the dry river bed.” Eventually they had a monument of twelve stones and when the water came back it covered these stones. In the instructions Joshua had said to take the stones from the bank. But then Joshua himself picked up the twelve stones, one at a time, and he carried them over to a place called Gilgal, which means circle, eternal.

Now we have two sets of stones. John the Baptist said God could raise up children of these stones, and immediately that brings to mind the whole thing that Joshua did with the stones when the Jews crossed the Jordan.

First of all, the stones for Gilgal were the stones transferred from the Jordan. The twelve stones were put in the Jordan. What is this a picture of? First of all, we are identified with Christ in His death, identified with the cross — retroactive positional truth. Then we are identified with Christ in His life — current positional truth. This is the story of the two sets of stones. The stones at Gilgal, that is, the stones that were taken out of the bed of the Jordan, were brought to Gilgal which means circle or eternity. So they are taken out of death and put into life. Then Joshua himself carried twelve different stones back into the river bed, and those stones represent retroactive positional truth. So the stones of the Jordan were a memorial to the grace of God in salvation and when John turned to these stones and said that God could raise up children unto Abraham from these stones it was a reminder to the religious crowd of the necessity for regeneration. It was a reminder to them that you have to be born again, that salvation is a relationship with God through a new birth, whereas religion is seeking to gain the approbation of God on the basis of human works. God will not accept human works. So this was a very dramatic moment and it was a great slap in the face to these people.

Verse 10 — the baptism of fire illustrated. It is illustrated and then later on declared and then defined. “And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees.” We have already seen how John the Baptist called the religious crowd, the religious leaders, a generation of vipers. He was saying that religion is lethal in its approach. It strikes and it poisons you and it kills you. He said in effect that these religious leaders are just exactly like poisonous snakes. John did his job as unto the Lord, let the chips fall where they may, and he didn’t take any orders from anyone as to how he should speak to the Pharisees. The “root of the trees” happened to be the Pharisees and he said that they are going to get the axe and everyone like them will get the axe. Again, he doesn’t pull any punches. The axe is the operation of divine judgement — “is laid” is a present passive indicative and it means to cut out completely, to destroy; “the root of the trees” refer to the religious leaders, in this case the Pharisees — “therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is cut down” — and this refers to the Pharisees who were the good-deeders of the day.

Notice that John attacks them at the point where they think they are strong — “every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit,” and the word “good” means good of intrinsic value. And that is exactly what they cannot produce because they are religious but not regenerate. They are religious leaders but they are not born again, and because they are not born again they do not have the ability to produce the kind of production that is mentioned here — “good fruit” which refers to the divine good only. So John tells them they are going to get the axe. Human good gets the axe: “it is hewn down and cast into fire,” and this is the first reference to the baptism of fire.

Verse 11 — a very interesting verse in which three baptisms are mentioned, one water and two dry ones. First of all we have a ritual baptism which we simply designate John’s baptism — “I indeed [in truth] baptise you in water.” “I baptise” is a present active indicative. Baptizw is a Greek word, not an English word. It has simply been adopted in the English language and it is most unfortunate that it has. If someone had had the courage to translate this word instead of transliterate it half of our problem would be solved. The word “baptise” is a Greek word which means to identify. When John says, “with water,” then he identifies the objects of his baptism with water, the candidates are identified with water. The present tense means that this was his habit, a habit which came from the fact that he had converts and this was their public declaration. This was the transition from maximum ritualism to minimum ritualism. Remember that in the temple at this time the priesthood, the scribes the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the high priest and all the priesthood were carrying on with ritualistic activities. In fact they had distorted these things. Ritual was a bona fide way of teaching the Lord Jesus Christ and teaching salvation in the Old Testament but by this time in the 4th cycle of discipline we have a terrible apostasy. All of this ritual has been distorted and is ritual without reality which means that people were going through the ritual of the Passover, the ritual of the firstfruits, the ritual of unleavened bread, the ritual of the Levitical sacrifices, etc., but they were not saved. Therefore it was meaningless. Ritual without reality is meaningless.

In John’s ministry his baptism was all the ritual he had. He didn’t have a temple out in the desert or a brazen altar or animal sacrifices. His was a transitory ministry, it was the end of the line for ritual. This was the beginning of something that would be developed to the maximum in the Church Age, and in this sense John is a transitional preacher. He bridges the gap between the dispensation of Israel and the dispensation of the Church and therefore the only ritual he had was the Jordan river. So he took the people down to water. There was actually no precedent for this in Old Testament practice except the brazen laver was a type of rebound, it was used by the priests only. But here John takes people to the water and he puts them into the water; he identifies them with the water and in so doing he set a precedent for an entire new order. He anticipated the Church Age; he anticipated the decline and the removal of ritual — except as we study it in the Word of God — as having any meaning in worship. Today we do not offer animal sacrifices, today we do not have any sanctuaries, today there is not any altar in any building, today we do not have the Passover and unleavened bread and the firstruits, today we do not have the ritual of the Levitical priesthood. It is removed entirely and we study it as a basis for learning more Christology and soteriology but we do not have ritual any longer as a bona fide approach to God or as a basis of representing our relationship with God.

Ritual was very wonderful in its day, especially when you remember that people could not read or write generally. The exception would be the Jews who were quite literate. So this became a wonderful means of communicating the gospel and communicating teaching with regard to Jesus Christ. But John lived in the day when the transition was beginning and he had one authorised bit of ritual in his entire ministry and that was water baptism.

John himself did the baptising and as far as we know he had no assistants. No one else did it but John himself. This might appear to be a rather difficult thing in view of the fact that while John had disciples as far as we can tell from the scripture none of them were authorised to baptise. As a matter of fact Jesus Himself did not baptise. Jesus Himself was baptised of John but He Himself did not baptise. So it would appear that John’s ministry and baptism was absolutely unique and no one else performed an act of water baptism until the time of the apostles. And, as far as we can tell, in Acts chapter two Peter and the apostles performed acts of water baptism on the day of Pentecost, the day the Church began, but until that time no water baptism was performed by anyone except John. When John died no one was baptised from that time until the apostles baptised on the day of Pentecost. This means that baptism was a special operation of John and that is why, for example, he refused to baptise the Pharisees when they came down to be baptised. He baptised only those who he was convinced had personally accepted Christ as saviour. And so he was addressing himself to believers when he said: “I make it a habit of baptising you” — present tense — habitual concept — active voice, only John did this. The reason apparently that John was authorised to do it: this was the way that God would make it possible for the herald to contact the King. There has to be a basis of contact and the herald will contact the King when the King offers Himself as a candidate for baptism. And at first the herald will refuse because he was accustomed to baptising converts. But it will be spelled out to him that the water can represent more than the kingdom of God, it can represent the plan of God.

It must be remembered that when John baptised he used water and he put the bodies in the water. The water represented the kingdom of God, the kingdom of regenerate, and these people who were saved were taken to the water and put into the water to indicate they were identified with the King and the kingdom which John was proclaiming in his message. This was their testimony. But when the King Himself comes the King is the kingdom and therefore the water will not represent the kingdom when He comes. Christ is not a sinner who has been saved, he is not a convert Himself, and so the water will represent the plan of God the Father for operation phase one. And when Jesus goes into the water His baptism is unique and no one will ever follow Him in baptism.

The point is that God used this means of doing two things: of bringing Jesus Christ in His humanity to the point of decision before He began His ministry, that He would be willing to do the Father’s will. The plan of the Father is the cross, the will of the Father for the humanity of Christ is the cross and when Jesus goes into the water to be baptised He is saying in effect: “I will go to the cross, I will die for the sins of the world, I will fulfil the plan of the Father, not my will but His be done.” All of this is involved in the baptism of Jesus but in the meantime John is baptising his converts as a testimony and as a principle. Now the principle is this: there will be a little ritual left for the Church Age but not enough ritual so that it can be distorted. So all of the ritual that is left to us is the Lord’s table and the water baptism. The reason is that the back of ritual must be broken. This doesn’t keep religion from having a full blown operation of ritual today, all of which is totally meaningless and is not the mean by which we approach God. This is the story of the book of Hebrews — Heb. 10:1, the law had a shadow of good things to come but was not the reality. We no longer deal with shadows.

The word “unto” is a very interesting preposition. It is the word e)ij in the Greek and it was in a time of transition at the time of the first century in Koine Greek. Up to this time the word e)n was used for the preposition “in,” but this word was gradually changing and was coming to mean “by” more than “in” although all Greek prepositions have four or five uses; usually two primary uses and six or seven secondary uses. Now e)ij is a preposition which gradually took over the concept of “in” so that in modern Greek e)ij means “in.” But at this time e)ij was going through its transition and it meant “because of.” It is important to understand “upon” or “because of” because this same preposition e)ij occurs in Acts 2:38 and it is used usually in front of “repentance” — “Let each one be baptised because of the remission of sins,” not “for the remission of sins.” So here we have: “I baptise you with water because of (your) repentance.” As we have previously seen the word “repentance means a complete change of mental attitude toward Christ. It is the mental attitude which immediately precedes or is coterminous with faith in Christ. Actual salvation occurs at the second that you believe in Jesus Christ. Immediately before that you repent, which means you change your mind about Christ. So first of all you have a change of mind about Christ and then as a result of that change of mind, or coterminous with it, you believe in Christ. Remember that “repent” does not mean to feel sorry for sins.

“but” — now he is talking about the One who is to come. Remember that John is a herald and the herald announces the coming of the King; “he that cometh after me” refers to the Lord Jesus Christ. “That cometh” is a present tense which is dramatic. The coming of Christ is a dramatic moment — “after me” is a technical idiom for a herald saying: “After me cometh the King.”

“is [keeps on being] mightier than I” — ablative adjective of comparison. He keeps on being mightier than I, there never will be a time when He isn’t mightier than I; “he shall baptise,” future tense. It must be understood at this point that the future tense is very important. Both the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the baptism of fire are future from this point. They have not occurred yet at all. No one ever had the baptism of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. Active voice: Jesus does the baptising in this case. The indicative mood is the reality of two more kinds of baptism, the baptism of the Spirit and the baptism of fire.

“with the Holy Spirit” — this is an instrumental case. He shall baptise through the instrumentality of the Holy Spirit. This refers to the doctrine of the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

The doctrine of the baptism of the Spirit

In the King James version we have the word “ghost” here. It is the Greek word pneuma. At other times we have the word “Holy Spirit.” The word which is translated “Spirit” is the Greek word pneuma. What is the difference between the two words? Absolutely nothing. The problem is that the Westminster crowd wanted to be different from the Oxford crowd of translators so they translated it “ghost” and the other group translated it “spirit” .There is no difference. In Attic Greek, which is Classical Greek, there is a word for “ghost” which should be translated “shades” — shades from the underworld. There is actually no word for “ghost” in the Koine Greek.

The word pneuma originally meant air — invisible. It eventually came to mean spirit or that which is invisible. Spirit simply means that which is a reality yet is invisible.

“Spirit” is used three ways in scripture: for the Holy Spirit, for the human spirit [the invisible part of man that has fellowship with God], and it is also used for angels.

1. The baptism of the Holy Spirit did not occur in the Old Testament.

2. The baptism of the Spirit was prophesied by Jesus during His earthly ministry — John 14:20; Acts 1:5.

3. The mechanics of the baptism of the Spirit are given in 1 Corinthians 12:13 — “by means of the Spirit are we [once and for all] baptised [identified] into Jesus Christ.” The baptism of the Spirit is obviously then something you do not feel. It is not an experience or an emotional activity.

4. Unification of believers is achieved by the baptism of the Spirit — Ephesians 4:5. All unification of believers is based upon the fact that we have the same Lord, we are all saved exactly the same way, and we all enter into union with Christ by the work of the baptism of the Spirit.

5. The baptism of the Spirit is the only place of equality in the human race — Galatians 3:26-28.

6. The baptism of the Spirit provides retroactive identification — Romans 6:3,4.

7. The baptism of the Spirit begins the Church Age — Matthew 16:15; Acts 1:5; 2:3; 11:15-17.

8. The baptism of the Spirit is the basis of current positional truth — Ephesians 1:3-6.

9. The baptism of the Spirit is not an experience, not ecstatics, not speaking in tongues; it can neither be felt nor experienced.

Verse 11 — “and with fire.” “With fire” is one word in the Greek, instrumental case. The baptism of the Spirit actually began the Church Age, it is the way that the Church is formed. The Church is formed by union with Christ. The moment any person believes in Christ he is entered into union with Christ during the Church Age. The Church universal is the body of Christ and the body of Christ is formed by the baptism of the Spirit. Eventually we have the Tribulation and the second advent of Christ. The Church is taken out of the world at the Rapture before the second advent and at the point of the second advent we have the next baptism, the baptism of fire. The baptism of fire is a baptism of judgement just as the baptism of the Spirit is the baptism of blessing. It points out a principle: those who believe in Christ are in a place of eternal blessing; those who reject Christ are in a place of identification with fire. Remember that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is identification with Christ, union with Christ, the place of eternal security. Both of these baptisms are connected with Jesus Christ in verse 11. Notice it says: “He shall baptise you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” The baptism of fire is an identification that takes place off from the earth. Positional truth is a baptism — baptism of the Spirit — whereby we are positionally in heaven while experientially on the earth. The baptism of fire is also removing people from the earth at the second advent, and it is removing the unbeliever.

The doctrine of the baptism of fire — the instrument for divine judgement at the second advent.

1. We have some Biblical statements with regard to the baptism of fire: Matthew 3:12; Luke 3:16,17; 2 Thessalonians 1:7-9.

2. Analogy to the baptism of fire: Matthew 24:36 — a passage which has often been taught as a passage dealing with the Rapture of the Church, the time when the Church is removed from the earth, when the Lord meets believers in the air between the earth and the third heaven. At that point the believers go out and the unbelievers stay on the earth. At the point of the second advent the believers stay on the earth and the unbelievers are removed from the earth. Matthew 24:36 refers to the baptism of fire.

3. We have parables that declare the baptism of fire: the parable of the wheat and the tares — Matt. 13:24ff; the parable of the good and the bad fish, Matt. 13:47-50; the parable of the ten virgins, Matt. 25:1-13. E.g. the wheat and the tares — wheat: believers going into the Millennium; tares: unbelievers cast out.

4. We have the Gentile baptism of fire in Matthew 25:31-46.

5. We have the Jewish baptism of fire in Ezekiel 20:32-38.

Verse 12 — amplification of the baptism of fire. “Whose” — relative pronoun referring to the Lord Jesus Christ; “fan” — a grain shovel, a special type of shovel to separate the wheat from the tares by which the harvest was tossed up into the wind which effected the separation; “and he will thoroughly purge his floor.” John 5:22 tells us that all judgement is committed to Jesus Christ and when He returns to the earth He personally has charge of this particular operation. The future tense here indicates that the baptism of fire is future. “His floor” refers to the earth which he takes charge of at the moment of His return and sets up perfect environment; “and gather his wheat into the garner.” The gathering of the wheat simply means the keeping of the believers on the earth. The wheat refers to the believers on the Tribulation who will continue in their physical bodies in the Millennial reign of Christ. The garner simply means a granary or storehouse for grain; “but,” conjunction of contrast, “he will burn the chaff.” The word for “burn” here is not the ordinary Greek word for burn — katakaiw. Kaiw means to burn, and this is the ordinary Greek word for burn. Kata is the preposition in the Greek of norm, standard, and criterion, and this word means to burn according to a norm or a standard. This is not haphazard burning; it is no accident. The norm or the standard for this burning which takes place at the second advent is attitude toward the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, and those who reject Christ are burned and they keep on burning forever, and those who believe in Christ go into the Millennium; “with unquenchable fire” — the word “fire” is dative of disadvantage, the word “unquenchable” is most interesting, it is a)sbestoj which in the Greek is just the opposite to how we use it. It is a Greek word for when you start to burn you never stop. That is what unquenchable means.

Verses 13-17, the baptism of Jesus. This is the baptism where Jesus declares that He will go to the cross and die for the sins of the world. This is the unique baptism of all water baptisms. No one ever follows Jesus in baptism. There was a water baptism before the baptism of Jesus and that was the baptism of John. It came first because it was the herald’s baptism, anticipating Christ. The baptism of Jesus is unique because Christ was unique and because it represents His unique work, the cross. The baptism of the believer in the Church Age is that which follows and indicates the peculiar position of the Church. The believer goes into water, identification with Christ in His death; the believer comes up into air, identification with Christ in His resurrection as He is seated at the right hand of the Father.

Verse 13 — the baptism of Jesus Christ, the unique application for baptism. “Then” is a Greek particle that means “next on the agenda”; “cometh Jesus,” “cometh” is a dramatic present tense, He made a dramatic appearance. Here is John giving a message and as he is saying that there was one coming after him whose sandals he was not worthy to lace, etc., He will give you real baptisms, suddenly there appears in the audience the one who knew that. “Then Cometh” means while John was talking about these things Jesus suddenly appears. Jesus made His first public appearance at the Jordan after coming from Galilee; “unto John” — He comes to John; He came forward to talk with him, and “to be baptised by him” .

“To be baptised”

1. The word “baptise” means identification.

2. We have the aorist tense which means now in this point of time. He made application then.

3. The passive voice is what shocked John. In the passive voice the subject receives the action of the verb and Jesus is coming to be baptised by John.

4. The infinitive indicates that this was the purpose of Jesus, to have His herald baptise Him.

5. Why? The baptism begins the public ministry of Jesus Christ.

In John’s baptism you have people who were lost or unsaved. These people would believe and be saved. Then to give public testimony and to demonstrate their salvation they would be baptised. It can be imagined how John feels when the King suddenly stands before him, and He is not a sinner and He has not been saved because He doesn’t need salvation. Why then would He be baptised? This is why John is going to say, No.

Verse 14 — the refusal. “But John forbad him.” The word “forbad” means to refuse permission. It is an imperfect tense which indicates that he kept on refusing. “I have need to be baptised of you, and why comest thou to me?”

Verse 15 — “Suffer now,” permit it now [in this point of time] is an aorist active imperative. The imperative mood is an order.

Why? The water does not represent the kingdom of God, the kingdom of God is here in the form of the King. The water represents the will of God. The will of God must be exercised before the kingdom of God can be a reality. By the kingdom of God is meant the eternal kingdom of regenerate. You cannot have a kingdom of born-again people, you cannot have saved members of the human race living forever and ever and ever unless you have a bona fide King, and you cannot have the King before the cross, the cross must come before the crown. So the will of God must come before the kingdom of God. The baptism of Jesus is unique because the water represents the will of God; “for thus it becometh us” — John the Baptist who will perform the ritual of baptism and Jesus who will be baptised — “becometh” means proper, it is proper for us; “to fulfil all righteousness” — “to fulfil” is aorist tense, at a point of time, right now.

“All righteousness”

1. All righteousness is fulfilled at the cross. When Christ died on the cross He rejected human righteousness — Isaiah 64:6. He fulfilled all righteousness because: in His deity He was +R; in His humanity He was +R; and therefore He was qualified to bear sins other than His own and to be judged, and by bearing our sins which were imputed to Him on the cross, and rejecting human righteousness, He fulfilled the Father’s will and/or righteousness. When we talk about divine good the standard is the cross. Why? At the cross the one who is all righteousness did all the work; salvation is the work of Christ.

2. Behind this statement of point 1 is the doctrine of redemption in which the saviour must be perfect righteousness to purchase the freedom of the human race.

3. Righteousness brought Jesus where sin brings us, the human race, to the cross for salvation.

4. The ritual of baptism was unique in the case of Jesus who in this manner declares His positive volition in going to the cross.

Verse 16 — “And Jesus, when he was baptised,” aorist passive participle, when he had received baptism; “went up,” aorist active indicative, the action of the aorist participle precedes the action of the main verb. He first of all was baptised, then He sent up. And why do we have this grammatical construction? For the simple reason that Jesus Christ died for our sins before He went to heaven. He “went up” afterwards. The aorist passive participle has Him down in the water and the aorist active indicative has Him coming out of the water. This is the order, you cannot have the crown before the cross. Jesus has said by going into the water He will go to the cross, by coming out of the water He will take the crown. In the next chapter Satan is going to offer the crown without the cross. It was a bona fide offer and it was refused. We have the same principle today. The whole system of liberal theology today wants the crown without the cross.

“and, lo, the heavens were opened,” aorist tense: they suddenly opened; passive voice: they received opening; “unto him, and he [Jesus Christ] saw” — no one else saw it. No one has ever seen the Holy Spirit. Why did Jesus see the Holy Spirit? Because Jesus is God. The gospel writers knew it because of revelation; “like a dove” is an analogy to fast movement. Also, the dove was used in Noah’s day. Why is the dove used for an analogy to the Spirit? The ark had one window through which the dove was released when the water started to go down. Why was the dove released? Because the dove is a bird which will not alight if there are any dead bodies around and it will not alight on water. It will only alight on something that is clean. When the dove comes back to announce that things are safe now it comes back with a twig in its mouth, something clean. The point is that the dove will only go on something clean, and the dove will alight upon Jesus Christ because Christ is clean, perfect. So the analogy of the dove is an indication of the fact that God the Holy Spirit has to control you and He has to have a clean vessel — the need of rebound — and as far as Jesus was concerned He is perfect, a clean vessel.

Doctrine of the sustaining ministry of the Holy Spirit

1. The Holy Spirit sustained Jesus Christ — prophesied, Isaiah 11:2,3; 42:1; 61:1,2.

2. The Holy Spirit was given without measure to the incarnate Christ — John 3:34.

3. The Holy Spirit guaranteed to sustain the humanity of Christ during His earthly ministry by the appearance at the baptism — Matthew 3:16. In other words, the Holy Spirit appeared to guarantee to Jesus Christ that He would be sustained during the next three years from the point of the baptism to the point of the cross. Ten days before Pentecost Christ breathed on the disciples the Holy Spirit because that is the only way they could be sustained for ten days.

4. The Holy Spirit empowered the humanity of Christ during His earthly ministry. Not only did He sustain Him but He gave Him power to perform miracles. Jesus did not use His deity to perform miracles, He utilised the omnipotence of the Holy Spirit — Matthew 12:18,28; Luke 4:14,15,18.

5. Jesus was guided by the Spirit — Matthew 4:1.

6. The ministry of the Holy Spirit was continued during the last three hours of the cross when Christ bore our sins. During that time the Holy Spirit departed from Him and became His judge, along with the Father.

7. The Holy Spirit participated in the resurrection of Jesus Christ — Romans 8:11; 1 Peter 3:18.

Verse 17 — the Father’s approval. “And, Lo, a voice from heaven, saying,” present active participle, dramatic present; “this [this one] is [keeps on being] my own beloved Son,” indicating the uniqueness of Christ; “in whom I am well pleased,” aorist tense, point of time right here; active voice: the Father is pleased; indicative mood: the reality of the Father’s pleasure in the humanity of Christ agreeing to go to the cross and provide eternal salvation.