δ4
ο Lk. iii. 17. βαστάσαι: αὐτὸς ὑμᾶς βαπτίσει ἐν Πνεύματι “Ayiw καὶ πυρί.
Lk. iii. 17. : w Ch. vi. 6; οὗ τὸ “ardov ἐν τῇ χειρὶ αὐτοῦ, καὶ " διακαθαριεῖ τὴν ἅλωνα αὐτοῦ, κ αἱ 1 καὶ συνάξει τὸν σῖτον αὐτοῦ εἰς τὴν " ἀποθήκην,ὶ τὸ δὲ ἂχυρον
x Mk. ix. 43. κατακαύσει πυρὶ * ἀσβέστῳ.'
Lk. iii. 17.
1 BL have avrov after αποθηκην (W.H. marg.).
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 con- nection 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 gr this fact. Note the attributes he ascribes to the Coming One. The main one is strength—toyv-
fully unfolded in the sequel. Along with strength goes dignity—ot 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 (aslave's office in Judaea, Greece and Rome). An Oriental magnifi- cent exaggeration.—atrés ὑμᾶς βαπ- τίσει: 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.—ty πνεύµατι ἁγίφ καὶ πνρί. Notable here are the words, w πνεύματι ἁγίῳ. πα 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. he 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
L omits avrov after cirov.
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 im- penitent, leaving behind only the right- eous. Possibly John had in mind the prophetic word, “our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away,” Is. lxiv. 6; or, as Furrer, who I find also takes
vpa in the sense of “ wind,” suggests, the “wind of God,” spoken of in Is. xl. 7: the strong east wind which blights the grass (Zeitschrift fur Missionskunde und Religionswissenschaft, 1890). Carr, Cambridge G. T., inclines to the same view, and refers to Is. xli. 16: “ Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away". Vide also Is. iv. 4.
Ver. 12. This ver. follows up νετ, 11, and explains the judicial action emblemed by wind and fire.—ot τὸ πτύον ἐ. τ. χ. αὐτοῦ. The construction is variously understood. Grotius takes it as a Hebra- ism for ἓν οὗ χειρὶ τὸ πτύον. Fritzsche takes ἓν τ. χειρὶ αὐτοῦ as epexegetical, and renders: ‘whose will be the fan, vis.,in His hand", Meyer and Weiss take οὗ as assigning a reason: “He (αὐτὸς of ver. 11) Wades fan is in hand and who is therefore able to perform the part assigned to Him”. Then follows an explanation of the modus operandi,—