BEING LESSONS FROM THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW.

(Continued.)

CHAPTER III.

To bear one's shoes was the office of the meanest slave,- a strong testimony from one to whom all the nation seemed looking up at this time; but what John announces Him as to do speaks more strongly yet:Who must He be who baptizes with the Holy Ghost ? No doubt the Jews were far from having any proper intelligence with regard to the Holy Ghost; yet they knew that it was a divine influence that was here spoken of. We ought to have clear knowledge; and yet of few things perhaps in Christianity has there been more misunderstanding than of the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Indeed, the very thing with which John contrasts it here, the baptism of water, has been and is by many, nay, by the mass of professing Christians, confounded with it; and, as a necessary consequence, it has been degraded to mere unreality, subjected to man's will, made to inflate the pride of a pretentious ecclesiasticism, and to deceive the credulous victims of superstition to their ruin. While, on the other hand, many who have truer knowledge of spiritual things yet reduce the baptism of the Spirit to a temporary, often repeated influence, whose significance is in reverse proportion to its ready repetition.

It is evident that our Lord is but applying the words here when He says, after His resurrection, "John truly baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence." (Acts 1:5.) Here is the same contrast of water with Spirit, yet the same term "baptism" applied to each; while the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, when these words were fulfilled, did not connect itself with water, nor were those to whom they were spoken baptized with water at that time at all. It is certain, also, that these disciples were born again before Pentecost, and so that baptism was not their new birth. Scripture, if we pay the slightest heed to it, easily delivers us thus from these strange mistakes.

On the other hand, as clearly, at Pentecost the Christian Church began, and this is "the church, which is His [Christ's] body" (Eph. 1:22, 23); while in exact agreement with this we are told (i Cor. 12:13) that "by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body." Thus the baptism of the Spirit is not that by which men are new-born, but that by which those new-born already become members of the body of Christ. It is not the beginning of the Spirit's work in souls, but a further, and yet an initial, work.

It does not follow, however, from the way in which Christianity has fulfilled this prophecy of John, that he knew anything of the Church as the body of Christ. It is certain that this was a revelation of later date, and necessarily hid from him (Eph. 3:3-6). It is certain, because Scripture declares it (i Pet. 1:10-12), that prophets might be led of the Spirit to utter what was quite beyond their own intelligence. But more than this, it does not follow, because Christianity has fulfilled this in a certain way, that there could not be another fulfillment of it, Israelitish and not Christian, in those clays to which the Baptist seems to point on, when Israel will be finally purged, according to the Lord's own prophecy, so well known to us. I can at least see no reason why the outpouring of the Spirit upon Israel and the nations in millennial days, of which Joel and others plainly speak, should not be called a baptism, as initiating for them that state of blessing which will then be theirs. Such double accomplishments of prophecy are by no means rare, little as it may be possible for some to find them. But we must not dwell upon this now.

It agrees, however, with this thought, that John puts alongside of this baptism of the Spirit the baptism of fire; which finds its explanation in what follows directly:"He shall burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." Many would point us rather to the "cloven tongues like as of fire" on the day of Pentecost,- a natural thought enough, if Christianity were the complete fulfillment of what is here, and such an idea has become completely attached to the expression, "a baptism of fire." But the tongues of fire convey a different idea, that of a word that shall act upon others, while that of baptism is of something that affects the subjects of it themselves. These things may have easy enough connection, but they are not the same. Moreover, the going forth of the gospel among men of divers tongues is not at all in the line of the Baptist's message here, which is an exhortation to Israel, in view of the coming Kingdom, and their unpreparedness for it. There would be alternate consequences, according as they repented and received, or else rejected, the coming King:they would either be separated to God by the action of the Spirit of God, or separated from God, to His wrath, if they rejected Him.

He had just before been speaking of the burning of the fruitless tree. He goes on now to speak of the coming of the King under the figure of one who winnows wheat in his threshing-floor. He fans away the chaff to get the wheat, which is what alone he values:and this is exactly what is necessary for the blessing of Israel, who are to be blessed upon earth. For this the wicked must be severed from among the just, as we find in a parable of the Kingdom afterward (13:49) ; the earth must be freed from the destroyers of it. The saints of the present time are, on the other hand, taken to heaven ; and for their blessing no such judgment of the earth is needed.

Thus His "fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly purge His floor, and gather the wheat into the garner; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire."

We see that the Baptist goes on to a judgment which is future yet, and says nothing about the present delay of it in the Lord's long suffering. This is quite in the manner of Old Testament prophecy, as in that of Isaiah which the Savior quoted and appealed to in the synagogue at Nazareth. Here He quotes, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me," and as far as "to preach the acceptable year of the Lord," and there He stops, though the sentence, goes on without a break to "the day of judgment of our God" (Luke 4:19; Isa. 61:i, 2), just as in John's words also, in connection with the restoration and blessing of Israel, which is then described in glowing terms.

We shall find this as a principle all the way through the Old Testament. Christianity, with all belonging to it, is a mystery hid in God ; abundantly spoken of in types and figures throughout, but of course needing the light of the New Testament for its discovery. Even John is not given to see behind the veil, although being brought face to face with Christ, he is "much more than a prophet" of the Old Testament.

But John is not at his highest in any of these so-called "synoptic" gospels. It is John the Evangelist who records for us his fullest utterances. In Matthew the herald of the Kingdom has already nearly completed his testimony, and is about to pass away. But before he does so, he is privileged to baptize the One whose coming he anticipates and welcomes with such fullness of delight; and we are now to stand with him in the presence of the KING.

The third subdivision begins with the 13th verse, and is but five verses long ; but how much would it take to give aright its meaning! We have in it the manifestation and anointing of the King:the Savior coming forth from His private into His public life to take up the wondrous work for which He came. Although not historically so, yet in its significance here, the mission of the Baptist ends where Christ's begins.

"Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan, unto John, to be baptized of him." There is definite purpose and meaning in this baptism, then; and yet from what we have seen of its character as John pro-proclaims it, it is the last thing that we should have imagined possible, for the Lord to be baptized of John. He himself is startled, and refuses it:"but John forbad him, saying, I have need to be baptized of Thee, and comest thou to me?" In fact, there has been the widest misunderstanding of this act among Christians ever since ; and we need to look at it earnestly and reverently in order (if it may be) to find the track where so many have gone astray. We shall not need, however, to discuss the conflicting views that have been taken. It will be more profitable, and indeed the only thing that will avail us, to see what Scripture itself may give us with regard to it. There is, it is true, no direct explanation:the Lord's words, in reply to John, "Suffer it to be so now; for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness," require themselves to be set in the light of related facts, before, as it seems, we shall be able to apprehend them. Let us start with some of the plainest facts, and see what light they may throw upon the matter.

It is clear that, as already said, this baptism of Christ by John lies at the entrance of His active ministry. In the three gospels in which it is narrated, it stands in this place; and in the fourth, when this ministry begins, we see that it has already taken place. Before this, with the exception of the notices of His birth, and the one incident of His youth which Luke recalls, the silence of the gospels with regard to His life up to this time when He is now thirty years of age, is absolute and profound. So strange, too, it seems, that, as is well known, the gap has been sought to be filled up by apocryphal statements, in which miraculous deeds, as unlike the soberness of Scripture as possible, and as far removed from the character of the "signs" which bore testimony to His divine nature, fill the pages with transparent falsehood. We have the denial of the whole where the turning the water into wine at Cana of Galilee is stated to be "the beginning of miracles" which showed forth His glory (John 2:ii).And the silence of Scripture otherwise as to all these years of His life, by its very strangeness, shows the more evident design.

When He comes forth, it is to be proclaimed by John "the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1:29); and in that view of Him we shall find the interpretation of this mysterious silence. The passover lamb was to be taken on the tenth day of the first month, and "kept up" to the fourteenth day before being sacrificed. Yet it is evident that the passover it is that governs the change of the whole year in this respect. Why, then, these unnoticed ten days ?

Notice that they have their mark according to the symbolic language which these types speak throughout, in the number "ten," which is the number of responsibility, as derived from those ten commandments which are its perfect measure, according to the law. The lamb was, as we know, to be without blemish,- in the true lamb, of course, a spiritual state. Now putting these two things together, how plain that they have connected meaning, and that the ten days of silence yet of responsibility answer in fact to the thirty years of silence before the Lord could come forward and be approved as the unblemished Lamb! That He did find then the witness of the Father's approbation and delight, we know. The typical " four days " of public testimony – the meaning again given by the numeral – were still to come before the actual sacrifice should take place; He is immediately led up of the Spirit in the wilderness for the express purpose of being '' tempted by the devil"; His life afterwards, how different was it from the quiet Nazareth-life in which He had already grown up and lived before the eye of God! This was the fulfillment of His individual responsibility, having its divine necessity in order that He should be able to give Himself for others, yet on that very account private, not public. Only God could be competent witness to its perfection, and accordingly it is His witness that is given:at the end of these thirty years it is that the Father's voice utters openly its joyful approbation, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."

(To be continued.)