'Now, in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius
Cesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and
Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip
tetrarch of Iturea and of the region of Trachonitis,
and Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene, 2. Annas and
Caiaphas being the high priests, the word of God came
unto John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness.
3. And he came into all the country about Jordan,
preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission
of sins; 4. As it is written in the book of the words
of Esaias the prophet, saying, The voice of one crying
in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make
His paths straight. 6. Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and
the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways
shall be made smooth; 6. And all flesh shall see the
salvation of God. 7. Then said he to the multitude that
came forth to be baptized of him, O generation of
vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to
come! 8. Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of
repentance; and begin not to say within yourselves, We
have Abraham to our Father: for I say unto you, That
God is able of these stones to raise up children unto
Abraham. 9. And now also the axe is laid unto the root
of the trees: every tree therefore which bringeth not
forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
10. And the people asked him, saying, What shall we do
then? 11. He answereth and saith unto them, He that
hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none;
and he that hath meat, let him do likewise. 12. Then
came also publicans to be baptized, and said unto him,
Master, what shall we do? 13. And he said unto them,
Exact no more than that which is appointed you. 14. And
the soldiers likewise demanded of him, saying, And what
shall we do? And he said unto them, Do violence to no
man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with
your wages.'--LUKE iii. 144.
Why does Luke enumerate so carefully the civil and ecclesiastical
authorities in verses 1 and 2? Not only to fix the date, but, in
accordance with the world-wide aspect of his Gospel, to set his
narrative in relation with secular history; and, further, to focus
into one vivid beam of light the various facts which witnessed to
the sunken civil and darkened moral and religious condition of the
Jews. What more needed to be said to prove how the ancient glory had
faded, than that they were under the rule of such a delegate as
Pilate, of such an emperor as Tiberius, and that the bad brood of
Herod's descendants divided the sacred land between them, and that
the very high-priesthood was illegally administered, so that such a
pair as Annas and Caiaphas held it in some irregular fashion between
them? It was clearly high time for John to come, and for the word of
God to come to him.
The wilderness had nourished the stern, solitary spirit of the
Baptist, and there the consciousness of his mission and his message
'came to him'--a phrase which at once declares his affinity with the
old prophets. Out of the desert he burst on the nation, sudden as
lightning, and cleaving like it. Luke says nothing as to his garb or
food, but goes straight to the heart of his message, 'The baptism of
repentance unto remission of sins,' in which expression the
'remission' depends neither on 'baptism' alone, nor on 'repentance'
alone. The outward act was vain if unaccompanied by the state of
mind and will; the state of mind was proved genuine by submitting to
the act.
In verses 7 to 14 John's teaching as the preacher of repentance is
summarised. Why did he meet the crowds that streamed out to him with
such vehement rebuke? One would have expected him to welcome them,
instead of calling them 'offspring of vipers,' and seeming to be
unwilling that they should flee from the wrath to come. But Luke
tells why. They wished to be baptized, but there is no word of their
repentance. Rather, they were trusting to their descent as exempting
them from the approaching storm, so that their baptism would not
have been the baptism which John required, being devoid of
repentance. Just because they thought themselves safe as being
'children of Abraham,' they deserved John's rough name, 'ye
offspring of vipers.'
Rabbinical theology has much to say about 'the merits of the
fathers.' John, like every prophet who had ever spoken to the nation
of judgments impending, felt that the sharp edge of his words was
turned by the obstinate belief that judgments were for the Gentile,
and never would touch the Jew. Do we not see the same unbelief that
God can ever visit England with national destruction in full force
among ourselves? Not the virtues of past generations, but the
righteousness of the present one, is the guarantee of national
exaltation.
John's crowds were eager to be baptized as an additional security,
but were slow to repent. If heaven could be secured by submitting to
a rite, 'multitudes' would come for it, but the crowd thins quickly
when the administrator of the rite becomes the vehement preacher of
repentance. That is so to-day as truly as it was so by the fords of
Jordan. John demanded not only repentance, but its 'fruits,' for
there is no virtue in a repentance which does not change the life,
were such possible.
Repentance is more than sorrow for sin. Many a man has that, and yet
rushes again into the old mire. To change the mind and will is not
enough, unless the change is certified to be real by deeds
corresponding. So John preached the true nature of repentance when
he called for its fruits. And he preached the greatest motive for it
which he knew, when he pressed home on sluggish consciences the
close approach of a judgment for which everything was ready, the axe
ground to a fine edge, and lying at the root of the trees. If it lay
there, there was no time to lose; if it still lay, there was time to
repent before it was swinging round the woodman's head. We have a
higher motive for repentance in 'the goodness of God' leading to it.
But there is danger that modern Christianity should think too little
of 'the terror of the Lord,' and so should throw away one of the
strongest means of persuading men. John's advice to the various
classes of hearers illustrates the truth that the commonest field of
duty and the homeliest acts may become sacred. Not high-flying,
singular modes of life, abandoning the vulgar tasks, but the
plainest prose of jog-trot duty will follow and attest real
repentance. Every calling has its temptations--that is to say, every
one has its opportunities of serving God by resisting the Devil.