Bible Study series: Luke 3:15-18. John clarifies who is the Messiah. It is not he.
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In the next link to the original chapter, I comment more and offer the Greek text. At the bottom you will find a “Summary and Conclusion” section geared toward discipleship. Check it out!
In this post, links are provided for further study.
Let’s begin.
Scripture: Luke 3:15-18
15 While the people were expecting and everyone was reasoning in their hearts about John, whether he might not be the Messiah, 16 John replied, saying to all of them, “I baptize you with water. But someone more powerful than I is coming, whose sandal straps I am not big enough to loosen! He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire! 17 His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear out his threshing floor and gather together the wheat into his storehouse, but he shall burn the chaff with unquenchable fire!” 18 With many other things John was exhorting and preaching good news to people. (Luke 3:15-18)
Comments:
In his commentary on Acts, Keener produces a table to show the continuity between Luke and Acts and the fulness of the Spirit:
1.. The Spirit descends on Jesus at his baptism (Luke 3:22), and Jesus baptizes in the Spirit (Luke 3:16).
2.. Both Jesus and his followers are praying when the Spirit comes (Luke 3:21; Acts 1:14).
3.. The Spirit descends (Luke 3:22; Acts 2:33)
4.. There is a visible manifestation with the Spirit (a dove in Luke 3:22; tongues of fire in Acts 2:3).
5.. The ensuing public ministries open with sermon that introduce these for the rest of the book (Luke 4:18-27; Acts 2:14-40).
6.. Hardship and opposition follow Spirit-empowerment (Luke 4:1, 14; Acts 4:7-8).
Source: Craig Keener, Acts, New Cambridge Bible Commentary (Cambridge UP, 2020), p. 111.
15:
The people back then were expecting the Messiah. Revival is coming today. By the time you read this post, it may already be here in various spots. God sovereignly moves on tender and open hearts, like the hearts in the people who took the journey out to the Jordan River to listen to a harsh and abrupt prophet-preacher.
16:
“baptize”: it is immersion or plunging, as noted in v. 3. Jesus shall immerse the people with the Holy Spirit and fire. This happened in Acts 2:1-4. It can also happen to us. Please note that Jesus is the baptizer in the Spirit (see Matt. 3:11 and John 1:34). He sends his Spirit to overflowing in us. He causes us to be born again and to be empowered for ministry and a consecrated life.
“Spirit”: He is the third person of the Trinity. After Pentecost, he is sent into the hearts of everyone who repents and confesses Jesus was Lord. He causes these repentant people to be born again. They can also have a subsequent infilling of the Spirit (Acts 2:4, 4:8, 31; Eph. 5:17).
“fire”: it means that God purges his people and puts his word in them, so they have to share it. Here is Jeremiah’s testimonial: “But if I say, ‘I will not mention his word or speak anymore of his name,’ his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot” (Jer. 29:9). Also see Is. 4:4, Zech. 13:9, and Mal. 3:2-4 for more images of burning and purging.
Holy Spirit and fire may be a concept that goes together as a unit, so it’s the Holy Spirit-fire or the Holy-Spirit-and-fire. The Spirit baptism / immersion purifies like a fire.
Here are some of my posts on a more formal doctrine of the Spirit (systematic theology):
The Spirit’s Deity and Divine Attributes
The Spirit in the Life of Christ
Here is Jesus baptizing disciples with the Spirit and fire:
1 And when the Feast of Pentecost had fully come, all of them were together in that one place. 2 And suddenly from heaven there was a sound like the rush of an extra-strong wind. The whole house was filled where they were sitting, 3 and tongues as fire were seen by them, were distributed among them, and settled on each one of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other languages, as the Spirit gave them inspiration to speak and declare. (Acts 2:1-4, my tentative translation)
Baptized in the Spirit: What Does It Mean?
These OT passages speak of an eschatological outpouring of the Spirit:
until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high,
and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field,
and the fruitful field is deemed a forest. (Is. 32:15, ESV)
For I will pour water on the thirsty land,
and streams on the dry ground;
I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring,
and my blessing on your descendants. (Is. 44:3, ESV)
26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. (Ezek. 36:26-27, ESV)
And I will not hide my face anymore from them, when I pour out my Spirit upon the house of Israel, declares the Lord God. (Ezek. 39:29, ESV)
“And it shall come to pass afterward,
that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh;
your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
your old men shall dream dreams,
and your young men shall see visions.
29 Even on the male and female servants
in those days I will pour out my Spirit. (Joel 2:28-29, ESV)
In the previous three passages, the promise was given to Israel. In Joel’s prophecy, the Spirit is poured out in all flesh or all of humanity. Each of those above passages speak of obeying the law of God and living righteously. Now this obedience comes from the inside out and by the power of the indwelling Spirit. Don’t let any teacher tell you that you don’t have to worry about living righteously. You absolutely do. So does right believing lead to right living? Partly, but not entirely, because anyone who believes right could also live wrong. True right living is done by the overflow and outflow of the Spirit in conformity to Scripture.
The Spirit in the Old Testament
“big enough”: it is the adjective and it can mean, depending on the context, “sufficient, adequate, large enough … fit, appropriate, competent, able, worthy.” I could have translated it as “not qualified” or “not sufficient enough,” but “big enough” has a modern feel to it. You can go with the other ones, if you want to.
17:
The grain has been gathered from the fields. Jesus is about to toss it up in the air. The chaff is lighter and will be blown away, while the wheat grains are heavier and will fall straight down. Yet the chaff will accumulate off to the side, and it has to be cleaned up from the threshing floor. It can be used for fuel in the fire. The wheat is the righteous, while the chaff is the wicked. This is a strong image with forceful, sobering words.
“Unquenchable fire” is often used in Scripture to describe, not eternal fire in the afterlife, but temporal judgment on wicked nations (e.g. Jer. 4:4; 7:20; 17:27; 21:12; Ezek. 20:47, 48; see Is. 1:31; Amos 5:6). So “unquenchable” does not mean eternal, but that no human can extinguish it
“unquenchable”: it is an adjective that can also be translated as “inextinguishable.” The metaphorical fire says humans can’t put it out. Only God can.
Note that it is his threshing floor and his wheat. The chaff is not his. The metaphor of throwing away chaff or stubble is found in the OT, particularly when the OT was produced over the centuries in an agrarian society: Ps. 1:4; 35:5; Is. 41:15-16; and so on. The stubble is burned up: Mal. 4:1).
“fire”: other verses speak of outer darkness (Matt. 8:12; 22:13; 25:30; 2 Peter 2:17). So some ask: how can the fire, which produces light, coexist with farthest or outer darkness? They cannot. Therefore, some interpreters conclude that punishment in the afterlife takes on different dimensions: fire in one place, and darkness in another.
If you want to take the images of darkness and fire literally, you may certainly do so. It’s up to you. It should be noted that Jesus says nothing about the fire lasting for eternity here.
Personally, I believe that the topic of punishment in the afterlife is secondary or nonessential, so I like this saying:
“in essentials, unity; in nonessentials, liberty; in all things, charity (love).”
18:
“exhorting”: The verb means “to strongly and strenuously urge with words.” He preached hard.
“preaching good news”: So with John’s hard message, he also preached good news. The Messiah was about to appear. But it also seems the good news included repentance and acts that demonstrate repentance.
GrowApp for Luke 3:15-18
1. What wheat has God grown in you, and what chaff has he burned off of you?
2. Has someone ever had to exhort you (urge you with strong words)? How did you respond?
RELATED
11. Eyewitness Testimony in Luke’s Gospel
3. Church Fathers and Luke’s Gospel
2. Archaeology and the Synoptic Gospels
1. The Historical Reliability of the Gospels: Introduction to Series
SOURCES
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