Luke 3:15 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

And as the people were in expectation,— John had now acquired an extraordinary reputation by the austerity of his life, the subject of his sermons, the fervencyofhisexhortations,and the freedom, impartiality, and courage with which he rebuked his hearers: yet his fame received no small addition from the various rumours current in the country at that time; for the vision which his father Zacharias had seen in the temple, the coming of the Eastern philosophers to Jerusalem, the prophesies of Simeon, the discourses of Anna, the perplexities of Jerusalem, and Herod's cruelty, though they had happened full thirty years before this, must still have been fresh in the memories of the people, who, no doubt, applied them all to John. Their expectations therefore being raised to a very high pitch, they began to think he might be the Christ, and were ready to acknowledge him as such: so that had he aspired after grandeur, he might, at least for a while, have possessed honours greater than any of the sons of men could justly claim. But the Baptist was too strictly virtuous and holy, to assume what he had no title to;and therefore he declared plainly, that he was not the Messiah, but the lowest of his servants; one sent to prepare the way before him. See the next verse.