Christ’s baptizing office is not all of grace. “He shall baptize you,”
says John, “with the Holy Ghost and _with fire_.” John thus, in harmony
with the Old Testament writers, from Moses to Malachi, sets forth two
distinct functions to be exercised by the coming One; the one, of grace,
the baptism of the Holy Ghost, and the other, of justice and wrath, the
baptism of fire. As this interpretation of John’s language is denied,
and the two baptisms interpreted as signifying essentially one and the
same thing, it is necessary to consider with some care the evidence on
the subject.
1. John, as the context shows, is addressing himself in terms of earnest
admonition to the Pharisees and Sadducees, and to the Jews, as infected
with their leaven. (Compare Matt. iii, 7, and Luke iii, 7.) He warns
them of the discrimination which the Lord Jesus was about to use, in the
purging of his floor. He begins with the expostulation, “O generation of
vipers, who hath warned you to flee from _the wrath to come_?” He
proceeds to indicate that the time then current was one of threatening
portent. “And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees.” The
safety of the righteous he leaves to silent implication; but emphasizes
the doom of the wicked,—“Every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit
is hewn down and cast into the fire.” He then modifies the figure, with
reference to his own baptizing office. “I indeed baptize you with
water.... But he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire;”
and lest there should be any doubt, as to his meaning, he completes the
sentence with an expository detail,—“whose fan is in his hand, and he
will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner;
but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” It is certainly
very improbable that in a Scripture so closely knit together and
consecutive, so pervaded with one spirit and intent, the baptist should
have used the word, fire, at the beginning and end, as a vivid figure of
the judicial wrath of Christ, and in the middle, change it, without
notice or explanation, into a figure of his grace; and this, too, when
the first and third clauses present every appearance of being parallel
to, and expository of the second. The supposition that the baptism of
fire, means an exercise of grace is, in fact, irreconcilable with the
purpose of John’s whole announcement, and renders the passage
contradictory to the context, and false to John’s mission and Christ’s
office and work. This is the only clause in the connection in which John
states in direct terms, to the Pharisees and Sadducees whom he is
addressing, the office of Christ, as toward them distinctively. And if,
while proclaiming in general terms, His judicial and executive
functions, consuming the evil trees and burning up the chaff, he is to
be understood as saying,—“He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and
with his gracious influences,” the only justifiable conclusion would be
that those self-righteous sectaries were the favorites of heaven, and
had no reason to fear that day that should burn as an oven.
2. It is a mistake to suppose the figure of fire to be, in the
Scriptures, arbitrary and variable in its signification. On the
contrary, while constantly resorted to, as a figure of speech, and as a
symbol, both real and ritual, it stands out with a meaning, fixed and
invariable,—a meaning which springs out of its essential nature and its
familiar phenomena and effects, and is incorporated in the language and
institutions of the Word, by express divine sanctions. The two most
conspicuous phenomena of fire are its consuming power, and the torture
which its contact inflicts upon sentient beings. Hence, with constant
reference to the final fiery day, it is everywhere employed as the
appointed symbol of the divine wrath, arrayed against sin. In this
character, it appears in such real symbols as the flaming sword of the
cherubim, at Eden’s gate,—the fire of God which was rained down upon the
cities of the plain, thus “set forth for an example, suffering the
vengeance of eternal fire” (Jude 7), and the fire in which God descended
on Mount Sinai. In the same sense was the ritual use of fire which
continually burned on the altars of the Old Testament, from the
beginning of man’s history, to the desolation of Jerusalem. Thus, as
conspicuous as were the temple, and the altar, and incorporated in the
very heart of the ritual system, was this symbol of God’s avenging
wrath, the fierceness of fire. As a figure of speech, it is constantly
used to express the inflicted wrath of God. And, in fact, it is never
employed in any sense incongruous to this. It is true, that processes
which are dependent on the use of fire are sometimes employed as symbols
of the manner in which the divine grace is exercised. Says Malachi,—“He
is like a refiner’s fire, and like fuller’s soap; and he shall sit as a
refiner and purifier of silver; and he shall purify the sons of Levi,
and purge them as gold and silver.”—Mal. iii, 2, 3. But, even here, the
fire is not the Spirit, but the inflictions which the Savior employs and
which by the Spirit he sanctifies to his people. Of this we have the
divine certificate. “I have refined thee; but not with silver; I have
chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.”—Isa. xlviii, 10. But, while
the figure is thus used, and while it is further true, that phenomena of
fire, such as light, and heat, are used as figures of particular graces,
it may with confidence be asserted that fire, itself, is never employed
to represent the Spirit or his fruits.
3. It is impossible, here to examine all of the multitude of passages in
which the figure occurs. It will be sufficient to notice those which are
most commonly appealed to in proof of such use as is here denied. On the
words of John, Dr. Addison Alexander thus remarks:—“_With fire_,—not the
fire of divine wrath, as in verse 10; but the powerful and purifying
influences of the Spirit; so described elsewhere. (See Isa. iv, 4; lxiv,
2; Jer. v, 14; Mal. iii, 2; Acts ii, 3.)[80] Other writers add Isa. vi,
6; Zech. xiii, 9; 1 Cor. iii, 13, 15. These are the most pertinent
passages referred to, in support of the exegesis given by Dr. Alexander.
How entirely perfunctory and really inapposite these references are,
appears in the fact that of the places cited by Dr. Alexander two occur
in the prophecy of Isaiah, and one in the Acts of the Apostles, on which
books the church is enriched with commentaries from the pen of that
distinguished divine; and that in those commentaries he, in every
instance, ignores and excludes the interpretation implied in his
above-cited references. Thus; Isa. iv, 4,—“the spirit of judgment and
the spirit of burning,” he explains as “the judgment and burning of the
Holy Spirit, with a twofold allusion to the purifying and destroying
energy of fire; or rather, to its purifying by destroying; purging the
whole by the destruction of a part, and thereby manifesting the divine
_justice_[81] as an active principle.” In Isa. lxiv, 2, the figure of
the ebullition of water, represents the agitation of the ungodly nations
in the presence of God’s justice, delivering and avenging Israel; and so
it is expounded by Alexander. “O that thou wouldst rend the heavens,
that thou wouldst come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy
presence; as when the melting fire burneth, the fire causeth the waters
to boil, to make thy name known to thine adversaries, that the nations
may tremble at thy presence.” In Isa. vi, 6, the cherub takes a coal of
fire from off the altar, and applies it to the lips of the prophet,
saying, “Lo! this hath touched thy lips, and thine iniquity is taken
away, and thy sin purged.” It would seem evident, that, by the coal from
off the altar, is meant the atoning merits of the Lord Jesus, of whose
sufferings the fire of the altar was the appointed symbol. Or, if the
language be interpreted of the golden altar of incense, the fire of
which was kindled from the altar of burnt offering, the meaning is the
sweet savor of Christ’s intercession grounded on the merit of his
sufferings. By no legitimate exegesis can it be made to mean, the Spirit
of God. Jer. v, 14 needs only to be recited. “Behold I will make my
words in thy mouth, fire, and this people, wood; and it shall devour
them.” The destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, and the captivity
of the land, in fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecy, sufficiently expound
this language. Remarks already made are sufficient as to the next
citation:—Zech. xiii, 9. “I will bring the third part through the fire
and will refine them, as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is
tried.” With this, the interpretation of Mal. iii, 2, is identical. The
reference to Acts ii, 3, looks to the “cloven tongues like as of fire,”
of the day of Pentecost. But, we shall presently see that not burning
but brightness,—illumination as of a lamp was the phenomenon of that
day. Says the Psalmist, “The entrance of thy word giveth light.” The day
of Pentecost was, to the nations, the entrance of God’s word,—the
beginning of the gospel; and its appropriate symbols were tongues of
light and voices of praise in many languages. As little pertinent is the
next passage: 1 Cor. iii, 13-15.—“Every man’s work shall be made
manifest, for the day shall declare it; because it [the day], shall be
revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work, of what sort
it is.... If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss; but
he himself shall be saved; yet so as by (_dia, through_) fire;”—that
is,—“so as passing through the fire, with a bare escape.” That fire here
means the judicial and punitive agencies of the last great day, in the
discovery and punishment of sin, is clear.
Footnote 80:
Alexander on Matthew.
Footnote 81:
The italics are his own.
Such are the most pertinent Scriptures to which I find reference made,
to prove that, by fire, John meant, the Holy Spirit, or his gracious
influences. That they wholly fail to establish the point, is evident;
and a further independent examination induces the conviction that no
others more pertinent are to be found.
4. A comparison of the four evangelists on the language of the baptist
strongly confirms the interpretation here maintained. Mark and John, in
giving account of the baptist’s preaching, direct attention more
particularly to the gospel aspect of his mission; as he was the herald
of the atoning Lamb of God. Neither of them, therefore, mentions his
impressive warnings to the Pharisees and Sadducees, respecting the trees
cast into the fire and the threshing floor purged by burning. And, while
they both record the testimony of John concerning Jesus, as he that
should baptize with the Holy Ghost, they are both silent as to the
baptism of fire. (Mark i, 8; John i, 33.) But Matthew and Luke enter
more into the sterner aspects of John’s office, as coming in the spirit
and power of Elias, to announce judgment as well as mercy. They both,
therefore, report his words of warning to a generation of vipers, words
which the others omit. They both tell of the axe laid to the roots of
the trees, and the threshing floor purged with fire; and both of them
interpose between these passages the announcement of the two baptisms,
“with the Holy Ghost, and _with fire_.” The omissions of Mark and John,
and the harmony of Matthew and Luke show that the baptism of fire
belonged to the judicial and avenging aspect of Christ’s mission, as
emphasized by the latter evangelists, but only lightly touched by the
others.
5. The inseparable relation of these two functions of Christ’s office as
the enthroned Son of man is certified in all the Scriptures. It is
prominent in those which had immediate relation to the coming of John,
and the purposes of his ministry. We have seen this, as to the first
announcement made of the Angel of the covenant, to Israel at Sinai. On
the one hand, he was described as the Guide and Deliverer, who should
bring them into the promised land. On the other, they were warned to
“Beware of him.... Provoke him not; for he will not pardon.”—Ex. xxiii,
20, 21. In the second Psalm, the terrors of the Son are almost
exclusively signalized, in warning to the rebellious nations. “Thou
shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like
a potter’s vessel. Be wise now therefore, O ye kings; be instructed, O
ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with
trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way
when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put
their trust in him.” Especially does Malachi emphasize Christ’s two
contrasted functions. A careful examination of the third and fourth
chapters of that prophecy, particularly the latter, will satisfy the
intelligent reader that not only do they contain John’s commission, as
the forerunner of Christ, but give the keynote and substance of his
preaching. He is there announced as the Lord’s herald, to go before the
face of the Messenger of the covenant, who is described as coming to
execute two opposite but inseparable functions. On the one hand, he is
to be the refiner and purifier of the sons of Levi; on the other, a
swift witness and avenger against the wicked. (Mal. iii, 2-5.)
Particularly did John have in his mind the fourth chapter, the first
verses of which are thus given in the admirable translation of Dr. T. V.
Moore. “For behold! the day comes! burning like a furnace! and all the
proud, and all the doers of evil are chaff! and the day that comes burns
them, saith Jehovah of hosts, who will not leave them root nor branch.
And then shall rise on you the sun of righteousness, and healing in his
wings; and ye shall go forth and leap as calves of the stall. And ye
shall trample down the ungodly; for they shall be ashes under the soles
of your feet, in the day which I make, saith Jehovah of hosts.”[82] The
“stubble” of Malachi and the “chaff” of John refer to the same thing.
The threshing floor was a spot in the field which was beaten hard and
smooth. The grain was threshed by the treading of cattle, or by dragging
over it “a sharp threshing instrument with teeth.” The process of
winnowing with the fan separated the grain into one heap, and the broken
straw or “stubble” and “chaff” into another. To clear the floor, the
latter were burned. From this custom was derived the vividness and
beauty of the prophet’s imagery. He represents the wicked as thus
separated and consumed, and the righteous, like calves let forth from
the stalls in the brightness of the morning, skipping over the fields
where the threshing floor lay, and thus treading among and trampling
under foot the ashes of the wicked. Compare Rev. vi, 10; xi, 18; xv, 3,
4. It was with a view to the portentous character of the day thus
described, that Malachi announces the commission of John to preach
repentance to Israel. “Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet, before
the coming of that great and dreadful day of the Lord.” From the
prophecy, which sets forth in such vivid colors, the tremendous issues
depending on his ministry, John derived the imagery of his own warning,
which is, in fact, a running paraphrase of Malachi.
Footnote 82:
The Prophets of the Restoration, by Rev. T. V. Moore, D. D.
“Behold,” says Malachi, “the day cometh.” “It is now immediately at
hand,” says John. “It shall burn as an oven,” says the prophet, “and all
the proud and all that do wickedly ... the day that cometh shall burn
them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root
nor branch.” John responds: “The axe is laid at the root of the trees.
Therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down
and cast into the fire.” Says Malachi, “All the proud and all that do
wickedly shall be chaff, and the day that cometh shall burn them up.”
John repeats and develops the figure. “Whose fan is in his hand, and he
will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner;
but will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
Thus thoroughly are the thought and language of John imbued with the
conceptions and imagery of the prophet, concerning “that great and
dreadful day of the Lord,” the description of which derives all its
vividness and terror from the manifest and accepted meaning of fire, as
an intense figure of God’s consuming wrath. In the presence of these
facts, the supposition is at once incredible and revolting that, into
the very midst of the prophet’s tremendous portraiture of that fiery
day, with the awe and dread of which he had so successfully striven to
fill the imaginations and the hearts of his hearers,—John should have
injected, abruptly, and without the shadow of explanation or reason, a
phrase, in which the same figure is employed in a sense wholly foreign
to that in which it is used by Malachi,—foreign to its ordinary meaning
in the Scriptures, and to the whole spirit and tenor of the connection
alike of the prophet, and of the baptist.
The words of John are, in themselves incapable of being forced into
coincidence of meaning. “He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and
with fire.” Here are two distinct affirmations connected by the
copulative, “and.” The latter, uttered through the inspiration of the
Holy Spirit, purports, upon the face of it, to be additional to the
former. And the more critically it is examined, the more thoroughly it
will be found to vindicate that character. It can not be a mere
repetition. It can not be explained as interpreting the first clause.
What then does it mean, but to announce a baptism of fire, in addition
to the baptism of the Holy Ghost?—a baptism of justice and wrath, as
well as one of renewing and grace?
Appeal is sometimes made to phraseology employed by the Lord Jesus, in
his interview with Nicodemus, as being similar in construction.—“Except
a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he can not enter into the
kingdom of God.”—John iii, 5. But the resemblance disappears, upon a
moment’s examination. With Nicodemus, our Savior first employs the
ritual figure of water, which was or should have been familiar to the
Jewish ruler. But then, to avoid the possibility of mistake on a point
so vital, he explains himself literally by naming the Holy Spirit, of
whom water was the symbol. But, in the words of the baptist, the Spirit
is first named, in literal terms, which neither needed explanation, nor
could be made clearer by it. But the second clause is a supposed
explanation of that which needs none; an explanation less intelligible
than the words to be explained,—an illustration by a figure, used in a
sense directly the reverse of its familiar meaning in the Scriptures,
the meaning in which it is used in the same immediate connection, both
before and after the clause in question,—an illustration, therefore, at
once obscure and embarrassing, shedding no ray of light upon the
subject, but involving it in darkness, and turning to weakness, not to
say, platitude, the stern energy of the baptist’s warning cry. “He shall
baptize you with the Holy Ghost, _and_ with his gracious influences.”
Whilst the interpretation in question is without precedent or authority
in the Scriptures, the arguments in its behalf are of no appreciable
force. First, it is said to be “harsh” to understand the baptism of fire
to mean Christ’s judicial administration as toward the wicked. As I must
confess myself unable to understand the meaning and force of this
argument, if argument it be, I leave it without note or comment. Another
plea assumes the form of assertion that “the idea of baptism does not
admit of any reference to punishment.”[83]
Footnote 83:
Ebrard, in Olshausen, on the place.
It may be allowed that _baptizo_ would not admit of such interpretation,
if found alone and disconnected from any modifying or explanatory word
or expression. But, that, in such connection and with such modifying
words and statements as occur in the text of John, it can not be so
interpreted, is by no means self-evident, and is supported by no
sufficient or probable argument. The fact has already been indicated
that the Hellenistic use of the word was predicated upon its employment
among the Greeks to express a condition changed by a pervasive and
controlling influence. It remains to be proved that the Jews had
entirely forgotten this, which was to them the radical meaning of the
word; so that, in their vocabulary, it could never have been used in
that sense. In fact, however, a remarkable proof remains to us that the
reverse of this is the truth. Says Isaiah, the prophet,—“My heart
panted; fearfulness affrighted me: the night of my pleasure hath he
turned into fear unto me.—Isa. xxi, 4. Alexander, with the later
Germans, understands this as a personification of Belshazzar, the king
of Babylon, on that night when the handwriting on the wall proclaimed
his judgment and doom. This, however, is unessential to the present
purpose. Whether the prophet spoke of himself or of some other man, the
fact of present interest is, that in the Septuagint Greek, the phrase,
“Fearfulness affrighted me,” is rendered, “My iniquity baptizes me.” By
this language, the Jewish translators express the agonies of remorse
seizing and controlling the speaker, and turning the pleasure of the
night into fear. Thus he was _baptized_, by sudden terrors by which he
was controlled and brought into a new state of anguish and despair. So
will the judgment of the final day seize upon the wicked and control and
bring them into a like new condition by the baptism of fire.
Moreover, the connection in which John uses the expression in question,
is such as to constitute abundant ground for the vindication of his
language, even though baptism were restricted to the sense of
purification. The purpose of Christ’s mission, as set forth by John,
was, to “thoroughly purge his floor;” by “his floor,” meaning, primarily
the people and land of Israel; but, in its ultimate intent, the world
and the universe. In order to accomplish this object, not only must the
wheat be garnered, but the chaff must be burned. And, as washing with
water is none the less a purifying, because it does not cleanse or
transform the filthiness, itself, but only removes it,—so, none the less
is the baptism of fire a baptism, because it does not cleanse, but
punishes the wicked. In so doing, it will purge the race, and cleanse
the world, which it inhabits. That the baptism with the Holy Ghost is a
real baptism, and that to it in the strictest and most peculiar sense
the word belongs, can not be denied. But in that baptism we see the
separating of the righteous and the wicked. It is as much the exclusion
of the latter as it is the reception of the former. If the one is taken,
it means, separation; it means that the other is left. Neither in
conception nor in realization, is it possible to separate these two
things, nor to eliminate the rejection and punishment of the wicked from
that function by which the righteous are called and saved. By both
alike, and by the one as much as the other, is the commission of the
great Baptizer fulfilled and his floor purged.
Not without a significant bearing upon the present question is the
language in which the Lord Jesus himself speaks of the discrimination
which he is to exercise and the judgments which he is to inflict in the
exercise of his royal authority. “I am come _to send fire_ on the earth;
and what will I if it be already kindled?... Suppose ye that I am come
to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay, but rather division.”—Luke xii,
49, 51. That fire, here, is no symbol of grace, is manifest; as it is,
also, that the theme of Malachi and John is the subject of these words
of Jesus. Nor is the fact to be forgotten that, in the Levitical system,
fire was distinctly recognized, along with water, as a purifying
element. See Num. xxxi, 10; and compare Isa. xlviii, 10, and Mal. iii,
2, 3.
From all this it is evident that the baptism of fire is the exercise by
the Lord Jesus of his judicial function, in the separation and
punishment of the wicked.
Whilst it may be admitted that no absolute conclusion concerning ritual
baptism, is to be deduced from the facts set forth in the Scriptures, as
to the manner of this baptism, yet are they not unworthy of
consideration as one element in the mass of evidence. (1.) The diluvial
purgation of the world, in the days of Noah, was by means of rain. “The
fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven
were opened; and the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty
nights.”—Gen. vii, 11, 12. (2.) Sodom and Gomorrah suffered a
destruction, typical in its intent, and “are set forth for an example
suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.”—Jude 7, and 2 Pet. ii, 6. Its
manner is thus recorded. “Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon
Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven.”—Gen. xix, 24.
(3.) The final destruction of the wicked is predicted under the same
form. “Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and a
horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup.”—Psa. xi, 6.
(4.) More than thirty times the figure of outpouring is used in the
Scriptures to indicate the infliction of God’s wrath. It is a pouring
out, of wrath, of indignation, of vengeance, of anger and fury. Thus, in
the Revelation, the seven last plagues are inflicted by the outpouring
of cups or bowls (_phialas_) of wrath from heaven upon the earth. (Rev.
xvi.) (5.) The final destruction of Gog and Magog, is described as being
by fire which “came down from God out of heaven and devoured them.”—Rev.
xx, 9.
The analogy of all these facts and expressions with those concerning the
baptism of the Spirit, as designed to indicate the exaltation of the Son
of Man, and point to his throne as the source of the indignation poured
out, is apparent. On the other hand, the fact is to be observed, that
the eternal state of those wicked is represented under the figure of
dwelling in the lake of fire,—a figure which corresponds with the
primary classic meaning of _baptizo_, in that there is no resurrection.