Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.
Whose [winnowing] fan is in his hand - ready for use. This is no other than the preaching of the Gospel, even now beginning, the effect of which would be to separate the solid from the spiritually worthless, as wheat, by the winnowing fan, from the chaff. (Compare the similar representation in Malachi 3:1-3.)
And he will throughly purge, [ diakathariei (G1245 )] his [threshing] floor - that is, the visible Church.
And gather his wheat - His true-hearted saints; so called for their solid worth (cf. Amos 9:9; Luke 22:31). Into the garner - "the kingdom of their Father," as this "garner" or "barn" х apotheekee (G596)] is beautifully explained by our Lord in the parable of the Wheat and the Tares (Matthew 13:30; Matthew 13:43).
But he will burn up the chaff - empty, worthless professors of religion, void of all solid religious principle and character (see Psalms 1:4).
With unquenchable fire. Singular is the strength of this apparent contradiction of figures: to be burnt up, but with a fire that is unquenchable; the one expressing the utter destruction of all that constitutes one's true life, the other the continued consciousness of existence in that awful condition.
Luke adds the following important particulars, Luke 3:18-20: Luke 3:18. "And many other things in his exhortation preached he unto the people," showing that we have here but an abstract of his teaching. Besides what we read in John 1:29; John 1:33-34; John 3:27-36; the incidental allusion to His having taught His disciples to pray (Luke 11:1) - of which not a word is said elsewhere-shows how varied His teaching was. Luke 3:19. "But Herod the tetrarch, being reproved by him for Herodias his brother Philip's wife, and for all the evils which Herod had done." In this last clause we have an important fact, here only mentioned, showing how thorough-going was the fidelity of the Baptist to his royal hearer, and how strong must have been the workings of conscience in that slave of passion when, notwithstanding such plainness, he "did many things, and heard John gladly" (Mark 6:20). Matt. 3:20 . "Added yet this above all, that he shut up John in prison." This imprisonment of John, however, did not take place for some time after this; and it is here recorded merely because the Evangelist did not intend to recur to his history until he had occasion to relate the message which he sent to Christ from his prison at Machaerus (Luke 7:18, etc.).
Remarks:
(1) If the view we have given of the import of John's ministry be correct, it has its counterpart in the divine procedure toward each individual believer. In the transition of the Church from Moses to Christ-from the Law to the Gospel-the ministry of the forerunner was expressly provided, in order to bear in upon the national conscience the sense of sin, and shut it up to the coming Deliverer. The dispensation even of the Law itself was introduced, we are told, for the same purpose-merely as a transition-stage from Adam to Christ. "The Law entered," says the apostle-`entered incidentally' or 'parenthetically' х pareiseelthen (G3922)] - "that the offence might abound" (see the note at Romans 5:20). The promulgation of the Law was no primary or essential feature of the divine plan. It "was added" х prosetethee (G4369)] (Galatians 3:19) for a subordinate purpose-the more fully to reveal the evil that had been done by Adam, and the need and glory of the remedy by Christ.
Thus, as in every age God has provided special means for making the need of salvation, and the value of His Son as a Saviour, felt on a wide scale by the obtuse conscience, so in the history of every believer it will be found that the cordial reception of Christ, as all his salvation and all his desire, has been preceded by some forerunning dispensation of mercy; in some cases lengthened and slow, in others brief and rapid-in some operating perceptibly enough, in others all unconsciously-but in every case real and necessary, as "a schoolmaster, to bring us unto Christ."
(2) The Pharisees and Sadducees were not sects, in the modern sense of that term-holding no ecclesiastical fellowship with each other-but rather schools or parties, antagonistic both in principle and feeling. The Pharisees were the zealots of outward, literal, legal Judaism-not, however, as represented in Scripture, but as interpreted, or rather perverted, by the traditions which had from age to age grown up around it, penetrated to its core, and eaten into its life. The Sadducees, occupying sceptical or rationalistic ground, were, of course, anti-traditional; but they went much further, limiting their canon of Scripture-in effect if not professedly-to the Pentateuch, and explaining away almost everything supernatural even in it. The Essenes were a sect, it would appear, in the modem sense of the term; and so, not coming across the Evangelical territory, the Gospels are silent regarding them. Their religious system appears to have been a compound of Oriental, Alexandrian, and Jewish elements, while a special ritualism in practice and asceticism in spirit kept them very much by themselves. In these religious divisions of the Jews at this time, we have but the representatives for the time being of abiding and outstanding forms of religious thought-of that traditionary formalism, that sceptical rationalism, and that separative mysticism, which, with various modifications in kind and degree, divide among themselves the unwholesome thinking and feeling of Christendom at this day. And just as then, so still, the medicine which will alone heal the Church visible, and make it "white and ruddy" with spiritual health and vigour, lies in those three notes of the Baptist's teaching - "Flee from the wrath to come;" "Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world;" "He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire!"
(3) In times of religious awakening, the most unpromising classes are sometimes found making a religious profession. But, whatever just suspicions thin may awaken, where the change is not very marked, let not the preacher repel any who even seem to be turning to the Lord, but, like the Baptist, temper his faithful warnings with encouragements and directions.
(4) How sharp is the contrast here drawn between all mere human agency in the salvation of men and that of the Master of whom John here speaks. When John, the greatest of all the prophets, says of his own agency, "I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance," he manifestly means not only that this was all he could do toward their salvation, but that it was all outside work; he could not work repentance in them, nor deposit in their hearts one grain of true grace. When, therefore, he adds, "He that cometh after me is mightier than I; He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit, and with fire," beyond doubt he means to teach not only that Christ could do what he could not, but that it was His sole prerogative to do it-as "the Mightier than he" (Mark 1:7; Luke 3:16) - imparting the inner element, of which water-baptism was but the outward sign, and giving it a glorious, fiery efficacy in the heart. No wonder that at the thought of this difference John should say, "Whose shoes' latchet I am not worthy to bear" - language very offensive if we could suppose it meant of any mere creature, however gifted and honoured of God, but most fit and proper regarding Emmanuel, "God with us."
(5) As the saving operations of the Holy Spirit are here first mentioned in the New Testament, so His precise relation to Christ in the economy of salvation is here distinctly taught-that He is Christ's Agent, carrying into effect in men all that He did for men.
(6) The vengeance here denounced against impenitence under all this spiritual culture best exhibits the guilt of it - "Every tree, therefore, which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire." "Be instructed, then, O Jerusalem, lest my soul depart from then."