Bible Commentaries

Matthew 3:11-12. John defines his relation to the Messiah (Mark 1:7-8; Luke 3:15-17). This prophetic word would come late in the day when the Baptist’s fame was at its height, and men began to think it possible he might be the Christ (Luke 3:15). His answer to inquiries plainly expressed or hinted was unhesitating. No, not the Christ, there is a Coming One. He will be here soon. I have my place, important in its own way, but quite secondary and subordinate. John frankly accepts the position of herald and forerunner, assigned to him in Matthew 3:3 by the citation of the prophetic oracle as descriptive of his ministry.—ἐγὼ μὲν, etc. ἐγὼ emphatic, but with the emphasis of subordination. My function is to baptise with water, symbolic of repentance.—ὁ δὲ ό. μ. ἐρχόμενος. He who is just coming (present participle). How did John know the Messiah was just coming? It was an inference from his judgment on the moral condition of the time. Messiah was needed; His work was ready for Him; the nation was ripe for judgment. Judgment observe, for that was the function uppermost in his mind in connection with the Messianic advent. These two verses give us John’s idea of the Christ, based not on personal knowledge, but on religious preconceptions. It differs widely from the reality. John can have known little of Jesus on the outer side, but he knew less of His spirit. We cannot understand his words unless we grasp this fact. Note the attributes he ascribes to the Coming One. The main one is strength—ἰσχυρότερος fully unfolded in the sequel. Along with strength goes dignity—οὗ οὐκ εἰμὶ, etc. He is so great, august a personage, I am not fit to be His slave, carrying to and from Him, for and after use, His sandals (a slave’s office in Judaea, Greece and Rome). An Oriental magnificent exaggeration.—αὐτὸς ὑμᾶς βαπτίσει: returns to the Power of Messiah, as revealed in His work, which is described as a baptism, the better to bring out the contrast between Him and His humble forerunner.—ἐν πνεύματι ἁγίῳ καὶ πυρί. Notable here are the words, ἐν πνεύματι ἁγίῳ. They must be interpreted in harmony with John’s standpoint, not from what Jesus proved to be, or in the light of St. Paul’s teaching on the Holy Spirit as the immanent source of sanctification. The whole baptism of the Messiah, as John conceives it, is a baptism of judgment. It has been generally supposed that the Holy Spirit here represents the grace of Christ, and the fire His judicial function; not a few holding that even the fire is gracious as purifying. I think that the grace of the Christ is not here at all. The πνεῦμα ἅγιον is a stormy wind of judgment; holy, as sweeping away all that is light and worthless in the nation (which, after the O. T. manner, is conceived of as the subject of Messiah’s action, rather than the individual). The fire destroys what the wind leaves. John, with his wild prophetic imagination, thinks of three elements as representing the functions of himself and of Messiah: water, wind, fire. He baptises with water, in the running stream of Jordan, to emblem the only way of escape, amendment. Messiah will baptise with wind and fire, sweeping away and consuming the impenitent, leaving behind only the righteous. Possibly John had in mind the prophetic word, “our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away,” Isaiah 64:6; or, as Furrer, who I find also takes πνεῦμα in the sense of “wind,” suggests, the “wind of God,” spoken of in Isaiah 40:7 : the strong east wind which blights the grass (Zeitschrift für Missionskunde und Religionswissenschaft, 1890). Carr, Cambridge G. T., inclines to the same view, and refers to Isaiah 41:16 : “Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away”. Vide also Isaiah 4:4.

Matthew 3:12. This ver. follows up Matthew 3:11, and explains the judicial action emblemed by wind and fire.—οὗ τὸ πτύον ἐ. τ. χ. αὐτοῦ. The construction is variously understood. Grotius takes it as a Hebraism for ἐν οὗ χειρὶ τὸ πτύον. Fritzsche takes ἐν τ. χειρὶ αὐτοῦ as epexegetical, and renders: “whose will be the fan, viz., in His hand”. Meyer and Weiss take οὗ as assigning a reason: “He (αὐτὸς of Matthew 3:11) whose fan is in hand and who is therefore able to perform the part assigned to Him”. Then follows an explanation of the modus operandi.—διακαθαριεῖ from διακαθαρίζω, late for classic διακαθαίρω. The idea is: He with His fan will throw up the wheat, mixed with the chaff, that the wind may blow the chaff away; He will then collect the straw, ἄχυρον (in Greek writers usually plural τὰ ἄχυρα, vide Grimm), and burn it with fire, and collect the wheat lying on the threshing floor and store it in His granary. So shall He thoroughly (δια intensifying) cleanse His floor. And the sweeping wind and the consuming fire are the emblems and measure of His power; stronger than mine, as the tempest and the devastating flames are mightier than the stream which I use as my element.—ἅλων, a place in a field made firm by a roller, or on a rocky hill top exposed to the breeze.—ἀποθήκη means generally any kind of store, and specially a grain store, often underground. Bleek takes the epithet ἀσβέστῳ applied to the fire as signifying: inextinguishable till all the refuse be consumed. It is usually understood absolutely.

Matthew 3:13-17. Jesus appears, His baptism and its accompaniments (Mark 1:9-11; Luke 3:21-22).

Matthew 3:13. Τότε παρα. ο Ἰ.… Γαλιλαίας: then, after John had described the Messiah, appears on the scene (παραγίνεται, the historical present again, as in Matthew 3:1, with dramatic effect) from Galilee, where He has lived since childhood, Jesus, the real Christ; how widely different from the Christ conceived by the Baptist we know from the whole evangelic history. But shutting off knowledge gathered from other sources, we may obtain significant hints concerning the stranger from Galilee from the present narrative. He comes ἐπὶ τὸν Ι. πρὸς τὸν Ἰωαν., τοῦ βαπτισθῆναι ὑπʼ αὐτοῦ. These words at once suggest a contrast between Jesus and the Pharisees and Sadducees. They came to the baptism as a phenomenon to be critically observed. Jesus comes to the Jordan (ἐπὶ), towards the Baptist (πρὸς) to enter into personal friendly relations with him (vide John 1:1, πρὸς τὸν θεόν), in order to be baptised by him (genitive of the infinitive expressing purpose). Jesus comes thoroughly in sympathy with John’s movement, sharing his passion for righteousness, fully appreciating the symbolic significance of his baptism, and not only willing, but eager to be baptised; the Jordan in His mind from the day He leaves home. A very different person this from the leaders of Israel, Pharisaic or Sadducaic. But the sequel suggests a contrast also between Him and John himself.

Matthew 3:14-15. John refuses. It is instructive to compare the three synoptical evangelists in their respective narratives of the baptism of Jesus. Mark (Mark 1:9) simply states the fact. Matthew reports perplexities created in the mind of John by the desire of Jesus to be baptised, and presumably in the minds of Christians for whom he wrote. Luke (Luke 3:21) passes lightly over the event in a participial clause, as if consoious that he was on delicate ground. The three narratives exhibit successive phases of opinion on the subject, a fact not without bearing on the dates and relations of the three Gospels. Matthew represents the intermediate phase. His account is intrinsically credible.

Matthew 3:14. διεκώλυεν: imperfect, pointing to a persistent (note the διὰ) but unsuccessful attempt to prevent. His reason was a feeling that if either was to be baptised the relation ought to be inverted. To understand this feeling it is not necessary to import a fully developed Messianic theology into it, imputing to the Baptist all that we believe concerning Jesus as the Christ and the sinless one. It is enough to suppose that the visitor from Galilee had made a profound moral impression on him by His aspect and conversation, and awakened thoughts, hopes, incipient convictions as to who He might be. Nor ought we to take too seriously the Baptist’s statement: “I have need to be baptised of Thee”. Hitherto he had had no thought of being baptised himself. He was the baptiser, not one feeling need to be baptised; the censor of sinners, not the sympathetic fellow-sinner. And just here lies the contrast between John and Jesus, and between the Christ of John’s imagination and the Christ of reality. John was severe; Jesus was sympathetic. John was the baptiser of sinners; Jesus wished to be baptised, as if a sinner Himself, a brother of the sinful. In the light of this contrast we are to understand the baptism of Jesus. Many explanations of it have been given (for these, vide Meyer), mostly theological. One of the most feasible is that of Weiss (Matt.-Evan.), that in accordance with the symbolic significance of the rite as denoting death to an old life and rising to a new, Jesus came to be baptised in the sense of dying to the old natural relations to parents, neighbours, and earthly calling, and devoting Himself henceforth to His public Messianic vocation. The true solution is to be found in the ethical sphere, in the sympathetic spirit of Jesus which made Him maintain an attitude of solidarity with the sinful rather than assume the position of critic and judge. It was impossible for such an one, on the ground of being the Messiah, or even on the ground of sinlessness, to treat John’s baptism as a thing with which He had no concern. Love, not a sense of dignity or of moral faultlessness, must guide His action. Can we conceive sinlessness being so conscious of itself, and adopting as its policy aloofness from sinners? Christ’s baptism might create misunderstanding, just as His associating with publicans and sinners did. He was content to be misunderstood.

Matthew 3:15. The reasoning with which Jesus replies to John’s scruples is characteristic. His answer is gentle, respectful, dignified, simple, yet deep.—Ἄφες ἄρτι—deferential, half-yielding, yet strong in its very gentleness. Does ἄρτι imply a tacit acceptance of the high position assigned to Him by John (Weiss-Meyer)? We may read that into it, but I doubt if the suggestion does justice to the feeling of Jesus.—οὕτω γὰρ πρέπον: a mild word when a stronger might have been used, because it refers to John as well as Jesus: fitting, becoming, congruous; vide Hebrews 2:10, where the same word is used in reference to the relation of God to Christ’s sufferings. “It became Him.”—πᾶσαν δικαιοσύνην: this means more than meets the ear, more than could be explained to a man like John. The Baptist had a passion for righteousness, yet his conception of righteousness was narrow, severe, legal. Their ideas of righteousness separated the two men by a wide gulf which is covered over by this general, almost evasive, phrase: all righteousness or every form of it. The special form meant is not the mere compliance with the ordinance of baptism as administered by an accredited servant of God, but something far deeper, which the new era will unfold. John did not understand that love is the fulfilling of the law. But he saw that under the mild words of Jesus a very earnest purpose was hid. So at length he yielded—τότε ἀφίησιν αὐτόν.

Matthew 3:16-17. The preternatural accompaniments. These have been variously viewed as meant for the people, for the Baptist, and for Jesus. In my judgment they concern Jesus principally and in the first place, and are so viewed by the evangelist. And as we are now making the acquaintance of Jesus for the first time, and desiring to know the spirit, manner, and vocation of Him whose mysterious birth has occupied our attention, we may confine our comments to this aspect. Applying the principle that to all objective supernatural experiences there are subjective psychological experiences corresponding, we can learn from the dove-like vision and the voice from heaven the thoughts which had been passing through the mind of Jesus at this critical period. These thoughts it most concerns us to know; yet it is just these thoughts that both believers and naturalistic unbelievers are in danger of overlooking; the one through regarding the objective occurrences as alone important, the other because, denying the objective element in the experience, they rush to the conclusion that there was no experience at all. Whereas the truth is that, whatever is to be said as to the objective element, the subjective at all events is real: the thoughts reflected and symbolised in the vision and the voice.

Matthew 3:16. εὐθὺς may be connected with βαπτισθεὶς, with ἀνέβη, or with ἠνεῴχθησαν in the following clause by a hyperbaton (Grotius). It is commonly and correctly taken along with ἀνέβη. But why say straightway ascended? Euthy. gives an answer which may be quoted for its quaintness: “They say that John had the people under water up to the neck till they had confessed their sins, and that Jesus having none to confess tarried not in the river”. Fritzsche laughs at the good monk, but Schanz substantially adopts his view. There might be worse explanations.—καὶ ἰδοὺ ἠνεῴχθησαν, etc. When Jesus ascended out of the water the heavens opened and He (Jesus) saw the spirit of God descending as a dove coming upon Him. According to many interpreters, including many of the Fathers, the occurrence was of the nature of a vision, the appearance of a dove coming out of the heavens. ὁ εὐαγγελιστὴς οὐκ εἶπεν ὅτι ἐν φύσει περιστερᾶς, ἀλλʼ ἐν εἴδει περιστερᾶς—Chrys. Dove-like: what was the point of comparison? Swift movement, according to some; soft gentle movement as it sinks down on its place of rest, according to others. The Fathers insisted on the qualities of the dove. Euthy. sums up these thus: φιλάνθρωπον γάρ ἐστι καὶ ἀνεξίκακον· ἀποστερούμενον γὰρ τῶν νεοσσῶν ὑπομένει, καὶ οὐδὲν ἧττον τοὺς ἀποστεροῦντας προσίεται. Καὶ καθαρώτατόν ἐστι, καὶ τῇ εὐωδίᾳ χαίρει. Whether the dove possesses all these qualities—philanthropy, patient endurance of wrong, letting approach it those who have robbed it of its young, purity, delight in sweet smells—I know not; but I appreciate the insight into the spirit of Christ which specifying such particulars in the emblematic significance of the dove implies. What is the O. T. basis of the symbol? Probably Genesis 8:9-10. Grotius hints at this without altogether adopting the view. Thus we obtain a contrast between John’s conception of the spirit and that of Jesus as reflected in the vision. For John the emblem of the spirit was the stormy wind of judgment; for Jesus the dove with the olive leaf after the judgment by water was past.

Matthew 3:17. οὗτός ἐστιν: “this is,” as if addressed to the Baptist; in Mark 1:9, σὺ εἶ, as if addressed to Jesus.—ἐν ᾧ εὐδοκ.: a Hebraism,: הָפֵץ בְּ.—εὐδόκησα, aorist, either to express habitual satisfaction, after the manner of the Gnomic Aorist (vide Hermann’s Viger, p. 169), or to denote the inner event = my good pleasure decided itself once for all for Him. So Schanz; cf. Winer, § 40, 5, on the use of the aorist. εὐδοκεῖν, according to Sturz, De Dialecto Macedonica et Alexandrina, is not Attic but Hellenistic. The voice recalls and in some measure echoes Isaiah 42:1, “Behold My servant, I uphold Him; My chosen one, My soul delights in Him. I have put My spirit upon Him.” The title “Son” recalls Psalm 2:7. Taking the vision, the voice, and the baptism together as interpreting the consciousness of Jesus before and at this time, the following inferences are suggested. (1) The mind of Jesus had been exercised in thought upon the Messianic vocation in relation to His own future. (2) The chief Messianic charism appeared to Him to be sympathy, love. (3) His religious attitude towards God was that of a Son towards a Father. (4) It was through the sense of sonship and the intense love to men that was in His heart that He discovered His Messianic vocation. (5) Prophetic texts gave direction to and supplied means of expression for His religious meditations. His mind, like that of John, was full of prophetic utterances, but a different class of oracles had attractions for Him. The spirit of John revelled in images of awe and terror. The gentler spirit of Jesus delighted in words depicting the ideal servant of God as clothed with meekness, patience, wisdom, and love.

CHAPTER 4.

THE TEMPTATION, AND THE BEGINNING OF THE GALILEAN MINISTRY.

It is in every way credible that the baptism of Jesus with its connected incidents should be followed by a season of moral trial, or, to express it more generally, by a period of retirement for earnest thought on the future career so solemnly inaugurated. Retirement for prayer and meditation was a habit with Jesus, and it was never more likely to be put in practice than now. He had left home under a powerful impulse with the Jordan and baptism in view. The baptism was a decisive act. Whatever more it might mean, it meant farewell to the past life of obscurity and consecration to a new, high, unique vocation. It remained now to realise by reflection what this calling, to which He had been set apart by John and by heavenly omens, involved in idea, execution, and experience. It was a large, deep, difficult subject of study. Under powerful spiritual constraints Jesus had taken a great leap in the dark, if one may dare to say so. What wonder if, in the season of reflection, temptations arose to doubt, shrinking, regret, strong inclination to look back and return to Nazareth?

In this experience Jesus was alone inwardly as well as outwardly. No clear, adequate account could be given of it. It could only be faintly shadowed forth in symbol or in parable. One can understand how in one Gospel (Mk.) no attempt is made to describe the Temptation, but the fact is simply stated. And it is much more important to grasp the fact as a great reality in Christ’s inner experience than to maintain anxiously the literal truth of the representation in Matt. and Luke. In the fight of faith and unbelief over the supernatural element in the story all sense of the inward psychological reality may be lost, and nothing remain but an external, miraculous, theatrical transaction which utterly fails to impress the lesson that Jesus was veritably tempted as we are, severely and for a length of time, before the opening of His public career, in a representative manner anticipating the experiences of later date. All attempts to dispose summarily of the whole matter by reference to similar temptation legends in the case of other religious initiators like Buddha are to be deprecated. Nor should one readily take up with the theory that the detailed account of the Temptation in Matt. and Luke is simply a composition suggested by O. T. parallels or by reflection on the critical points in Christ’s subsequent history. (So Holtzmann in H. C.) We should rather regard it as having its ultimate source in an attempt by Jesus to convey to His disciples some faint idea of what He had gone through.

Matthew 4:1-11. The Temptation (Mark 1:12-13; Luke 4:1-13).

Matthew 4:1. Τότε, then, implying close connection with the events recorded in last chapter, especially the descent of the Spirit.—ἀνήχθη, was led up, into the higher, more solitary region of the wilderness, the haunt of wild beasts (Mark 1:13) rather than of men.—ὑπὸ τοῦ πνεύματος. The divine Spirit has to do with our darker experience as well as with our bright, joyous ones. He is with the sons of God in their conflicts with doubt not less than in their moments of noble impulse and heroic resolve. The same Spirit who brought Jesus from Nazareth to the Jordan afterward led Him to the scene of trial. The theory of desertion hinted at by Calvin and adopted by Olshausen is based on a superficial view of religious experience. God’s Spirit is never more with a man than in his spiritual struggles. Jesus was mightily impelled by the Spirit at this time (cf. Mk.’s ἐκβάλλει). And as the power exerted was not physical but moral, the fact points to intense mental preoccupation.—πειρασθῆναι, to be tempted, not necessarily covering the whole experience of those days, but noting a specially important phase: to be tempted inter alia.—πειράζω: a later form for πειράω, in classic Greek, primary meaning to attempt, to try to do a thing (vide for this use Acts 9:26; Acts 16:7; Acts 24:6); then in an ethical sense common in O. T. and N. T., to try or tempt either with good or with bad intent, associated in some texts (e.g., 2 Corinthians 13:5) with δοκιμάζω, kindred in meaning. Note the omission of τοῦ before infinitive.—ὑπὸ τ. διαβόλου: in later Jewish theology the devil is the agent in all temptation with evil design. In the earlier period the line of separation between the divine and the diabolic was not so carefully defined. In 2 Samuel 24:11 God tempts David to number the people; in 1 Chronicles 21:1 it is Satan.