The Gospel of Luke: The Fading of the Forerunner

Transcript

JRNT 79
73/16/2025
The Gospel of Luke: The Fading of the Forerunner
Luke 3:15-20
Jesse Randolph

Whenever I read the passage that we’re going to be in today, I’m taken back to the days of the Protestant Reformation and specifically, the days of Martin Luther, the great German Reformer. And the story goes in how the Lutheran Church came to be known by its name and Martin Luther’s involvement with that. As most of you know, Martin Luther is most renowned for nailing his “95 Theses” to the church door at Wittenberg, Germany in 1517. And what he did there is thought of by most as really lighting the fuse of the Protestant Reformation. Luther was eventually excommunicated from the Catholic Church, for his nails. But not before he was forced to go through a series of disputations and debates with various learned Catholic scholars and clerics of his day. One of those clerics was a man named Johann Eck. And Eck and Luther went toe-to-toe in the city of Leipzig in July of 1519.

And it was there at Leipzig that for the first time in recorded history Luther’s followers were called Lutherans. According to Eck, if you were with Luther, you were a Lutheran. And therefore, not with what Eck believed to be the actual church, the true church, the church at Rome, the Roman Catholic Church. So, originally, to call someone a Lutheran was an insult. It was a term of derision. It was a slam. Well, over time, those who aligned with Luther actually took a liking to the term. And ultimately, they embraced the term. And they started calling themselves Lutherans. And basically, what that means is that Eck’s strategy of demeaning those who followed Luther’s teachings, calling them Lutherans, that ended up backfiring on Eck in a major way.

Well, one person who didn’t appreciate the term “Lutheran” was Luther! He wasn’t a big fan. In fact, when asked about the fact that his followers were now calling themselves Lutheran, Luther, in classically colorful Luther-like language, said this, “What is Luther? The teaching is not mine. Nor was I crucified for anyone . . . How did I, poor stinking bag of maggots that I am, come to the point where people call the children of Christ by my evil name? . . . I simply taught, preached, otherwise, I did nothing.”

Martin Luther had many flaws, some personal, some theological, some, frankly very wrong and sinful. But what Luther did have, in a good sense, was a little bit of John the Baptist in him. Luther was fiery and bold, and brave. And most importantly, Luther had a right estimation of himself, especially when measured against the glorious Person of the Son of God. Luther saw himself as a “stinking bag of maggots” when measured against the divine perfections of the Lord Jesus Christ. John the Baptist very similarly saw himself as unfit to tie the strap of his Savior’s sandals. Both saw their ministries as pointing to something, and ultimately someone infinitely greater, which is a lesson we all need to be reminded of today.

Turn with me in your bibles, if you would, to Luke 3. We’ll be in verses 15, not through 30, no way, 15 through 20 this morning. Luke 3:15-20, God’s Word reads, “Now while the people were in a state of expectation and all were reasoning in their hearts about John, as to whether he was the Christ, John answered, saying to them all, ‘As for me, I baptize you with water, but One is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to untie the strap of His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in His hand to thoroughly clear His threshing floor and to gather the wheat into His barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.’ So with many other exhortations he proclaimed the gospel to the people. But when Herod the tetrarch was reproved by him because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the wicked things which Herod had done, Herod also added this to them all: he locked John up in prison.”

The title of this morning’s sermon is “The Fading of the Forerunner.”
And I’ve given the sermon that title because in our passage we see this clear transition in the narrative -- where Luke goes from explaining to some degree what John the Baptist came to do in his forerunning role as the one who would precede the Prince of Peace, to now turning his attention in the remainder of this Gospel to the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. In fact, if you look ahead in the narrative, to verses 21 and 22 where we’ll be next Sunday, we’re going to learn about the baptism of Jesus. And after that, later in chapter 3 (pray for me for this sermon), we’re going to learn about the genealogy of Jesus in verses 23-38. Then chapter 4, we’ll get into the temptation of Jesus. And so on, and so on.

But from here on out, our study of Luke is going to be concentrated on the life of the Lord; leading up to the arrest of the Lord, the crucifixion of the Lord, the death of our Lord, and of course, where our hope ultimately lies, in the resurrection of our Lord. We serve and live for a victorious Savior. We have an eternal hope because of an empty tomb.

But again, for our purposes today, Luke hasn’t quite turned the page on John the Baptist. No. He’s going to give us some important transitionary details here, before he gets formally into the life of the Lord. We have five points this morning that correspond with these six verses. First, in verse 15, we’re going to see “The Fascination.” Then in the first part of verse 16 we’ll see “The Focus.” The last part of verse 16 into 17, we’ll see “The Fire.” Verse 18, we’ll see “The Faith.” In verses 19 and 20, we’ll see “The Fate.”

Let’s start with verse 15, point number 1, “The Fascination.” Look again at verse 15, and it says, “Now while the people were in a state of expectation and all were reasoning in their hearts about John, as to whether he was the Christ . . .”

Rhys Evans. John Nichols Thom. Cyrus Teed. Manuel Herrick. Ernest Norman. Sun Myung Moon. Jim Jones. David Koresh. Marshall Applewhite.
What do those names have in common? If you know your history of cults and cult leaders, you will know that every one of those people are men, who over the past 500 years, who have claimed to be the Messiah. In their case, they’ve argued that they are the reincarnation of Jesus, the now-returned Son of God. During His earthly ministry, of course, Jesus warned and predicted that men like those would arise. Our Lord said in Matthew 24:4, “See to it that no one deceives you. For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ.’ And will deceive many.” And Mark 13:21, Jesus said, “if anyone says to you, ‘Behold, here is the Christ’; or, ‘Behold, He is there’; do not believe him; for false christs and false prophets will arise, and will show signs and wonders, in order to lead astray, if possible, the elect.”

In other words, what Jesus predicted would happen after His resurrection and after His ascension to the Father, in fact, has happened in modern times -- as many “false Christs,” many made-up Messiahs have gone out into the world, faking and pretending their way into a following. And how they do so is by preying on natural human desire in the middle of the humdrum nature of ordinary life, in the midst of an otherwise hopeless and seemingly meaningless existence, a desire to be around something or someone great. And when someone comes out of the woodwork and they seem to be great and they claim to be someone great, and right in front of our eyes they seem to be doing something great -- in a world in which more and more men and women are looking inward and outward but not upward, false saviors will always be able to draw a crowd. It’s just part of our human existence.

Well, John the Babtist, as we saw last week, he had the ability to draw a crowd, he did draw a crowd. But as we’re about to see, John did the exact opposite of what false Christs and false prophets do in our day. Rather than shining a light on himself and magnifying his own sense of self-importance and greatness, he turned the spotlight on the only One who is worthy of any attention, the One who would come after Him, the Lord Himself, Jesus of Nazareth.

So back to our text, verse 15. Again, it reads, “Now while the people were in a state of expectation and all were reasoning in their hearts about John, as to whether he was the Christ . . .” Now, we have to read this in context. We have to remember this moment in history in which this scene unfolds. We have to remember that the people that are mentioned here in verse 15 would not have been familiar with those passages I just read for you out of Matthew 24 and Mark 13 about false Christs. Because Jesus had not issued those words, He had not given those warnings just yet. Nor would they have been familiar with the entire backstory that we’ve seen in the first two chapters of Luke’s Gospel about John’s forerunning role, because Luke didn’t write his Gospel until many years after this encounter out by the Jordan River.

So, these crowds would not have known, for instance, like we now know 2000 years later, that the angel Gabriel had come to Zechariah in Luke 1:17 and said to Zechariah that his son, his coming son would go before the Messiah in the spirit and power of Elijah. These crowds couldn’t have known of Zechariah’s prophecy in Luke 1:76-77 where he says to his newborn son, “And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go on before the Lord to make ready His ways.” They didn’t have that inside information. They didn’t have that intelligence as of this point. Rather, these crowds that we see here in Luke 3:15, as they’re gathering to hear John and as they’re witnessing John, what they would have had were the scriptures of what we know as the Old Testament. And they would have had whatever truth and tradition had been passed on to them by their ancestors.

So, when Luke here says in verse 15, that “the people were in a state of expectation,” what he’s saying is that the people knew that God would send them their promised Messiah. And they knew that God had ‘gone silent’ on them over these past several hundred years. So that neither their parents, or grandparents, or great-grandparents, or great-great grandparents, or great-great-great grandparents, had heard a true prophetic voice from an actual messenger of God.

But now this voice had come, and he’s “crying in the wilderness.” And this voice had come in the form of this wild-eyed desert dweller named John. And he’s warning these crowds to flee from the wrath to come. And he’s preaching this baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And he’s urging the people to bear fruit in keeping with repentance. And the natural question is, who is this guy? Who is this man?

Note the text here, verse 15, they were “reasoning in their hearts about John.” They’re “reasoning in their hearts,” specifically about “whether he was the Christ.” That word “reasoning,” by the way, is the same, exact word that we see used of Mary when she has her visit from the angel Gabriel and she’s “pondering” in her heart what sort of greeting she received from that angel. So, just as she was pondering that greeting from Gabriel, the people are pondering about who this man John was. They’re considering this matter thoughtfully. They’re debating the question in their minds. That’s the idea here. John’s message of deliverance from God’s wrath, his call to repentance, his methods, his presence, the response he brought about, has the people wonder and reasoning and speculating. His ministry moved people so mightily that they were legitimately wondering whether this man who was now baptizing people in the Jordan River was in fact that eagerly-anticipated, long-awaited Messiah.

Well, John has sensed that he had stirred up their expectations. He had a feel for what the crowds were thinking of him. He read the room, you could say. And as we’re about to see, he shut down their speculations. And instead began pointing them to the One he came to precede. He was a true forerunner in every sense. And he knew it.

That takes us to the second point this morning. First, we see “The Fascination” of the crowds in verse 15. And now, we see “The Focus.” Look at the first part of verse 16, it says, “John answered, saying to them all, ‘As for me, I baptize you with water, but One is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to untie the strap of His sandals.’” We pick it up here midsentence, back to verse 15, it was “while the people were in a state of expectation” that we see here in verse 16 that “John answered.” He answered the very people who “were reasoning in their hearts about John, as to whether he was the Christ.” And in addressing them, and answering them, he does so in this group setting. Note what it says, “John answered, saying to them all,” he’s speaking to the crowd.

And now, here comes John’s response, where he begins with these words: “As for me.” Now note that as Luke records this, John wasn’t even asked a question by the crowd. There’s no question here. So John’s words here are all based on apparently what he was picking up from the crowd, whatever was swirling around in the crowd about whether he was the Messiah. And so he’s recorded here as saying, “As for me.” He’s getting a sense of what they’re thinking and saying. And he’s here to quash those ideas.

Now, there is a parallel account in the Gospel of John that I think would be helpful for us to work through. Because there we see an actual question asked about whether John was the Messiah. In fact, turn with me over to John 1, to see an important cross-reference here. And what we’ll do to kind of set the stage here, we’ll start at the very beginning. We’ll take it from the top in John 1:1, getting to the actual cross-reference. John 1:1, we start with these profound Christological truths, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. And the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it.”

Then verse 6, John the Apostle, now shifts over to John the Babtist, saying,
“There was a man having been sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the Light, so that all might believe through him. He was not the Light, but he came to bear witness about the Light.”

Now, it’s back to Jesus in verse 9, “There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens everyone. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to what was His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

Now it’s back to John in verse 15, “John bore witness about Him and cried out, saying, ‘This was He of whom I said, “He who comes after me has been ahead of me, for He existed before me.”’”

And it’s back to Jesus in verse 16, “For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.”
And then, verse 19, we arrive at the scene in which now parallels our passage. Look at how it begins, it says:

“And this is the witness of John, when the Jews sent to him priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, ‘Who are you?’”

So in Luke’s Gospel, we have more of this murmuring that was happening behind the scenes out there in the crowds, as to whether this was the Messiah. But what John is emphasizing in his Gospel, is this direct question that was posed straight up to John, from this formal committee of Jewish religious leaders. And look at how forthright, and direct, and brief John is in his reply. Verse 20, it says, “And he confessed and did not deny, but confessed, ‘I am not the Christ.’” In other words, John wasn’t swayed or flattered by all the attention he was receiving. He wasn’t motivated by the mass of crowds that were gathering around him, to witness him and his ministry.

The narrative continues in verse 21, “And they asked him, ‘What then? Are you Elijah?’ And he said, ‘I am not.’ ‘Are you the Prophet?’ And he answered, ‘No.’” Look at how clipped and plain-spoken John’s denials are. There’s no exaggeration. There’s no attempt to highlight his own credentials or to promote his own ministry. There’s no pointing to the fact that ‘hey, my mom, Elizabeth knew Jesus’ mom, Mary.’ ‘My dad, Zechariah, had an angelic visitation just like Joseph did.’ There’s no taking the bait on the reference to Elijah as a way to boast in the fact that his ministry was in the line of this great, revered prophet of God. No, there’s none of that. Rather, as these doors swing open to magnify his own name and magnify his own ministry, these questions come flying at him. John slams each of those doors shut. And in doing so, note how he gets more and more tight-lipped along the way. “Who are you?” -- “I am not the Christ.” “Are you Elijah?” -- “I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” -- “No.”

Reading this account, reminds me of a book I’m reading right now on the 30th President of the United States, Calvin Coolidge, whose nickname was Silent Cal because of how tight-lipped he was. He was a man of few words. In fact, there’s a story I read in that biography about this presidential dinner that was hosted at the White House that Coolidge held. And one of the guests was a woman named Dorothy Parker who was a major writer and poet at the time. And as the story goes, Dorothy Parker comes up to President Coolidge at this dinner party and she tells him that she had bet a friend that she could get him to say more than five words. Coolidge replies, “You lose,” and goes back to his finger foods and walks away.

Coolidge’s reply at the dinner party, reminds me a little bit about John the Baptist and his responses here from the people about whether he was the Messiah, “No.” – “I am not.” – “I am not the Christ.”

Well, as these religious leaders were pressing him, John the Baptist unlike Calvin Coolidge did eventually have to exceed five words. The narrative continues, I’m still in John’s Gospel here, verse 22, “Therefore, they said to him, ‘Who are you, so that we may give an answer to those who sent us? What do you say about yourself?’ He said, ‘I am a voice of one crying in the wilderness, “Make straight the way of the Lord,” as Isaiah the prophet said.’ Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. And they asked him, and said to him, ‘Why then are you baptizing, if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?’ John answered them, saying, ‘I baptize with water, but among you stands One whom you do not know. This One is He who comes after me, of whom I am not worthy to untie the strap of His sandal.’”

And that last line there, in John 1:27, feeds right back into our text in Luke’s Gospel, specifically Luke 3:16. Go ahead and turn back with me to Luke 3:16. And as you’re doing so, I just want to remind everyone here, that John, as this is happening, is right in the middle of his proverbial fifteen minutes of fame. People are gathering around to see him. People are in awe of him. The messianic buzz and anticipation surrounding him is at this all-time high. This is his chance to be a showman. His chance to be a spotlight stealer. This would be his chance, to put it in modern-day terms, to monetize his relationship to the Messiah. This was his chance, as this former wilderness dweller, to trade on his newfound fame. The country boy had made it to Hollywood. The guy from the backwoods had made it to Broadway. And so naturally, what we see here is him saying, “Come, buy some of this holy water from the Jordan River.” Right? This is where he says, “Touch the fringe of my camel-haired garment and be blessed.” You know, “I’ll sign a trinket for you.” Or “I’ll take a selfie with you, so you can see how close you got to such a great man.” Right? No.

Look at his words in verse 16, “John answered saying to them all, ‘As for me, I baptize you with water, but One is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to untie the strap of His sandals.’”
John here is being completely self-effacing. If he were a different type of man, with a real twisted moral fiber, he could have taken the bait here, posed as the Messiah and gained this great following. But he didn’t. He did the opposite. Now, he did take this as an opportunity to compare himself to Christ. But humble man that he was, he did so continually in these unfavorable terms. He always painted himself in negative terms in comparison to the Christ.

He starts by explaining that his baptism, which we saw last week, was outward and physical. Remember last week, we saw that he was baptizing in water. Cleansing people in water. He says that right here in verse 16, “as for me, I baptize you with water.” This is a washing with water, a cleansing with water. It was a baptism that was one that followed true, inward heart change. Remember the words of Luke 3:3, he was “preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” But John’s baptism was preparatory. It was anticipatory. It looked ahead to the baptism that the Messiah would perform for His people. In other words, John’s baptism couldn’t and didn’t stand on its own. And John knew that. He was humble.

Then, still in verse 16, he says this, “but One is coming who is mightier than I.” He knew that he was simply the forerunner. He was the precursor. He was the Sunrise as his own father would say in Luke 1:79. He would precede the Light of the World coming into the world. And John’s words there, “One is coming who is mightier than I.” They are emphatic.
John is communicating to these crowds, “If you think I am great, just wait till you see the One who is coming. He is infinitely greater.”

Then he continues on, still in verse 16 by saying, “and I am not fit to untie the strap of His sandals.” Now for context, in these days the Jewish teachers, the rabbis, they had students that would follow them all around like little ducklings. And these students would perform all sorts of menial tasks for their teachers. And they would typically do so with no questions asked, as a way to honor the rabbi, to honor the teacher. But the removal of a teacher’s sandals, removal of anyone’s sandals -- to come in to such close contact with feet that were undoubtedly caked with dirt and sweat, feet which were undoubtedly calloused and cracked from walking all over the uneven and dusty streets of Judea, in a time when sewers were undeveloped and so those feet likely carried the stench of the human waste and garbage that was laying all over the streets -- that task was too low even for a student. It was too degrading. It was too demeaning. Instead, that job, the job of removing one’s sandals or shoes, that was reserved for the slave. That was a slave’s task. But not just any slave. Not even Jewish slaves performed that task. Rather, Gentile slaves, only Gentile slaves, the lowest of the low were permitted to take on that task. In other words, to loosen one’s sandal strap was reserved for one who was on the lowest possible rung societally.

And that’s the context of John’s words here. He’s telling those people that are now swarming him, and wondering if he’s the Messiah -- he’s saying, not only that he’s not the Messiah, that he’s not the Christ -- he’s saying, not only that he’s unwilling to usurp the Christ’s authority and that the Christ to come was mightier than him -- but in comparison to the Messiah who was now on his way, John was utterly unworthy of even performing the most degrading act in His presence.

John, in other words, had a right estimation of himself when measured against the Messiah. He viewed himself as being lower than the lowliest slave. He thought himself unworthy of being that close to Messiah. Compared to the Christ who was to come, John had that mindset of Martin Luther, who thought himself a “stinking bag of maggots.” And his example, John’s example here, is an overwhelmingly vivid picture of how innately unworthy we all are to be in Christ’s presence. Recall John’s words from our scripture reading this morning, words which not only belong on our fogged-up mirrors in the morning, but etched on our hearts. John 3:30, “He must increase, but I must decrease.”

Think about it. If John, who was so close in time and relation and space to Jesus -- so close, in fact, that many were assuming him to be the Messiah -- if John, though people were perceiving him that way, understood that there was this infinitely-wide gulf between him and the Christ to come -- if John, of whom Jesus Himself said in Matthew 11:11 was the greatest born among women -- if he viewed himself as being inherently unfit to perform the most degrading task for so great a Savior. . . How much more growth in Christ do we have to do to adjust our perspectives -- to understand that it’s sheerly by the grace of God that we have the honor of knowing Him and the privilege in serving Him? John knew his place. He was aware that he was in the lowest place, that place of humility, which really is always the safest place.

We’ve seen “The Fascination,” that was point one, the fascination of whether John was the Messiah. We’ve seen “The Focus,” as John turned the focus of the crowds to the Christ to come. Now, we get to our third point, which is “The Fire,” the end of verse 16, all the way through verse 17. This is still John speaking here, as he’s addressing the crowds. He says,
“’He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in His hand to thoroughly clear His threshing floor and to gather the wheat into His barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.’”

Now earlier in verse 16, John said that his was a baptism of water. He says, “I baptize you with water.” John was placing people into water, they were being cleansed in water. Which again, symbolically pointed to the fact of forgiveness of sin for those who truly had repented. And we saw last week, I took you over to Acts 19, that John’s baptism really was different, is different than Jesus’ baptism. In that John’s baptism was preparatory, anticipatory. By immersing in water those who came to see him, John was providing for those who went down into the water, a taste of what was to come, when the Messiah came, and truly baptized them, spiritually.

Jesus’ baptism though, we see here, end of verse 16, the Messiah’s baptism had two parts to it. It says, “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” So, when the Messiah came, He would have this two-fold ministry. He would baptize with the Holy Spirit and He would baptize with fire. We need to take a few moments to explore both of those.

Starting with the baptism of the Holy Spirit. What does the baptism of the Holy Spirit refer to? Well, from John’s vantage point as he speaks prophetically about an event that was still yet future for him, this points to the Day of Pentecost. That’s that day where the first followers of Jesus Christ were baptized into the body of Christ, as the Spirit descended, as they were all gathered. That’s Acts 2. In fact, you can turn with me to Acts 2, so we can just get that before our eyes. As you’ve heard me say, Acts 2 is Luke’s sequel to the Gospel of Luke. And here in Acts 2 we have really the birth of the Church. Acts 2:1, it says, “And when the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues like fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance.”

So again, this was when the Holy Spirit descended and filled these early Christ followers. And this is when what we know as the universal church was birthed. And from this point on, Acts 2 on, whenever a person has repented and believed upon the name of Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord -- no matter what century they lived in, no matter what language they spoke, no matter what continent they lived on -- the moment they put their faith in Jesus Christ, they received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And they were placed into the church, the universal church of Jesus Christ.

There’s more on this over in 1 Corinthians 12. In fact, turn with me, please, to 1 Corinthians 12 where we get more of an explanation of how this works.
1 Corinthians 12, the very beginning part of the chapter, is this discussion of the distribution of spiritual gifts within the church. And then we get to verse 11 of 1 Corinthians 12 which is more of a summary statement. And it says, “But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills. For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ. For also by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.”

So, the takeaway phrase there is at the beginning of verse 13, “we were all baptized into one body”, meaning the body of Christ, meaning the universal church. What this means, practically speaking for today. Is that if you are a follower of Jesus Christ here this morning, if you’ve put your faith in Jesus Christ, specifically in His death and resurrection, you have already been baptized. You have been Spirit-baptized. When you trusted in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, the Holy Spirit baptized you. He immersed you in that very moment into the body of Christ. So, the baptism of the Spirit, in other words, it isn’t reserved for those who have been baptized in water. Baptism in water is an act of obedience, signifying what has already happened on the inside. Baptism of the Spirit isn’t reserved for those who have never been late to church. Baptism of the Spirit isn’t reserved for those who have never fallen asleep during bedtime prayers. No.

The moment you put your faith in Christ (assuming you have done so), the Spirit immediately quickened you. The Spirit immediately brought you to life. You were “born of water and Spirit,” as Jesus says to Nicodemus in John 3:5. The Spirit at that moment entered you and made your body His temple, 1 Corinthians 6:19, “your body is a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit who is in you.” At that very moment, the Spirit sealed you, Ephesians 1:13, “having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise.” At that moment the Spirit began to sanctify you, He began a “good work in you,” Philippians 1:6, which He will progressively perfect “until the day of Christ Jesus.” And the Spirit now intercedes for you. Romans 8:26, “for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” And all of this is a function of having been baptized by the Spirit and having been placed into Christ.

And getting back to our text, Luke 3, and what John the Babtist was alluding to here in Luke 3:16, when he said that the One who was to come “will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” That’s the baptism of the Spirit that we just worked through. Being placed into Christ.

But as I mentioned just a few moments ago, John here is not speaking of a singular baptism that Christ would bring. He speaks of a dual baptism. The Messiah would come with this twofold purpose, which was not only to baptize with the Holy Spirit but to baptize with fire. The Messiah for whom John was paving the way would come baptizing with, there’s the last word of verse 16, “fire.” What in the world does that mean?

Well, as you can imagine, there have been many different theories offered over the years, about what this baptism of fire is. Some look at it like a forward-looking reference to the tongues of fire that descended at Pentecost in Acts 2:3 which we just looked at. Others have taken this baptism of fire to be referring to the Spirit’s purifying work, His refining work in followers of Christ lives. That’d be like 1 Peter 1:7, that we are “tested by fire” in the midst of our trials. Others, usually those that are more of a Pentecostal persuasion, will interpret this passage to blend the Holy Spirit and fire as though it’s one baptism, so you’re baptized with the “fire of the Spirit.” I don’t accept that interpretation, I’ll save that for another day.

Now, I do understand why these different interpreters come to those conclusions. But I take John’s words here about the baptism of fire that the Messiah would bring as referring to the fiery judgment that He will bring to those who ultimately reject Him. That’s the baptism of fire referred to here.
There are couple of reasons I land there.

First, we have to remember these continual connections in the scripture, specifically the Old Testament scripture which John would have had in mind, between fire and judgment. In Exodus 24:17, God, Yahweh, is described as a “consuming fire.” And in His judgment and His wrath, in Isaiah 66:14, God is described as consuming in His fiery wrath His adversaries, “For behold, Yahweh will come in fire and His chariots like the whirlwind, to return His anger with wrath, and His rebuke with flames of fire. For Yahweh will execute judgment by fire and by His sword on all flesh, and those slain by Yahweh will be many.” In the book of Daniel, God the Father, the Ancient of Days, is described in these fiery terms in Daniel 7:9, it says,
“I kept looking until thrones were set up, and the Ancient of Days was seated; His clothing was like white snow and the hair of His head like pure wool. His throne was ablaze with fire, its wheels were a burning fire. A river of fire was flowing and coming out from before Him; thousands upon thousands were attending Him, and myriads upon myriads were standing before Him; the court sat, and the books were opened.” “The books were opened” is judgment language and note that this judgment is poured out through a “river of fire.” I’ll give you one last one, there are many many more. Malachi 4:1 says, “’For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace; and all the arrogant and every worker of wickedness will be chaff; and the day that is coming will set them aflame,’ says Yahweh of hosts, ‘so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.’”

One passage after passage, fire is linked with the judgment throughout the Old Testament. Which John really would have been aware of, as he spoke of the One who is coming, the Messiah, and that His baptism would be with fire. So, that’s the Old Testament background.

But even in the context of our passage itself here in Luke 3, there are signals here and signs here that this baptism of fire was about judgment. One of the clues that we have is that John here is speaking to a mixed crowd in this context. There were both believers, it would seem, and non-believers in this group. Those who had repented and those who had not. Remember, he’s in one setting here addressing a brood of vipers. That would be the unrepentant. But he’s also got a group who apparently answered his call to repent and were asking the question, “What should we do?” So, what this means is that John is addressing this crowd at large. And he’s speaking of the Messiah to come. And he realizes he’s got both groups here, and so he speaks of this dual baptism. That the One who would come, the Messiah who would come, would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. He was speaking to these distinct groups and the distinct baptisms that Jesus would bring to these two groups. To the believing faithful, Jesus would bring baptism of the Holy Spirit, a baptism of regeneration. But to the unrepentant, the unregenerate, they would undergo a baptism of fire, which is a baptism of judgment.

Then then there’s this, and this one is what really seals the deal. We can’t read verse 16 here without taking into account how the thought is completed in verse 17, where John makes it evident that this baptism of fire that the Messiah would bring would be this baptism of judgment. Look at verse 17 again, this is still John, speaking of the Christ to come. He says,
“His winnowing fork is in His hand to thoroughly clear His threshing floor and to gather the wheat into His barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

This is a vivid illustration, a clear picture, and one that really tells us so much. John has painted this ancient agrarian scene for us. And the coming Messiah is pictured as this winnower of grain, specifically wheat. And He’s pictured as standing on this threshing floor where this winnowing process, this sifting process, would take place. The threshing floor would be that hard, level surface on this elevated location that allowed the breezes of the Mediterranean to blow through. And when the grain had all been harvested, they would pour it all out on the threshing floor. And the whole process of separating, winnowing, had to take place.

And that’s where John’s image here comes in. He’s picturing the Messiah coming and he’s picturing the Messiah wielding this instrument, a winnowing fork in His hand. And with that fork, He’s going to toss the grain into the wind, to separate the heavy kernels of grain from the light chaff. And as He would throw these forkfuls of grain into the air, the heavier grain, those choice kernels, would land back down on the threshing floor. And that would then be stored and gathered in barns. But the lightweight chaff, the husks, those would be blown out to the edges of the floor, where they would later be gathered and burned. There’s really no mystery to the meaning of this illustration. What John is describing as he’s portraying the coming Messiah in verse 1 7, by using this illustration of winnowing fork, and a threshing floor, wheat, and chaff, was the Savior’s process of separating those who would embrace Him and those who would reject Him.

If you’ve been raised, bringing it back to today, in a religious tradition that is steeped in universalism, you know, the whole notion that all roads lead to heaven -- the only important thing is that you have a sincere belief in something, it’s just as important that you be sincere. If you’ve been raised in a church where the pastor or priest or minister refused to look you in the eye and tell you the actual truth. If you find yourself struggling with the idea of Jesus being the only way to God, and the message of His death and resurrection being the only way of salvation. I want you to reflect deeply on what is being said here on the black and white pages of scripture.

Through this visual of this winnower’s fork on a threshing floor separating wheat and chaff, the one from the other -- the message is crystal clear. And it’s this, that Jesus is not only the Savior of the world, He is the Judge of all the earth. And as it is true of any judge, any human judge -- Jesus as Judge necessarily makes distinctions between people. And Jesus as Judge is preparing one group of souls to be gathered into His barn, the wheat, the redeemed, the saved. But He’s also gathering another group that will be cast aside and burned, the chaff, those who reject Him, the unregenerate, the unsaved. Look at these final words of verse 17, it says, “He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

Some have tried to argue that with those words, “burn up,” that what this means is that the agonies of hell will eventually come to an end for the unsaved. That the flame will eventually flicker out, like one of those three-hour fire logs and the torment of the damned will eventually come to an end. But friends, that’s simply not the case. Look at the entire passage, look how it concludes, “He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
Those who reject the One that John was preparing the way for, those who reject Jesus Christ, they will experience “unquenchable fire,” they will be consigned to everlasting flames. They won’t be annihilated. The suffering won’t end. Rather, for them the flames will lick on and on and on and on, as they burn eternally, facing eternal punishment for their wicked sins against an eternally holy God. Friends, I know that’s not a popular message, but that’s the truth. And I would beg you, if you do not know Jesus Christ this morning as Savior and Lord, that you hear these words, not just from me, not from me, but from what I’ve just read for you. About that dividing line for all humanity. Those who have trusted in Christ and will be gathered into His barns, and those who reject Him and will one day face burning like that.

Back to our text. John the Baptist here is communicating in verses 16-17, that when the Messiah came, all would be laid bare, all would be dealt with. Literally everyone who has ever lived will ultimately be baptized by the Christ who was soon to come in this narrative -- one way or the other. They’ll either be baptized with the Spirit unto life and barned with the grain or they’ll be baptized with the fire of judgment, burned with the chaff, in those unquenchable flames of hell.

So, John here wasn’t just dunking people. John certainly wasn’t preaching easygoing religiosity. He wasn’t giving a few tips on how to undergo a significant moral transformation. He was preaching a message of life and death. He was preaching a message, in seed form, that Jesus Himself would come to preach. Consider these words from our Lord, in John 5:24, he says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.”

That is good news, that is really good news, passing from death to life. And that’s what John continued to proclaim, as we see in verse 18, where Luke tells us, “So with many other exhortations he proclaimed the gospel to the people.” If you’re taking notes, that’s our fourth point this morning, “The Faith.” Here we see the faith John was urging others to have as he proclaimed the good news, the gospel, to those who came to hear him.

Now, note here, it does say that he made “other exhortations.” So, there’s something else he was saying to them that we don’t have. That’s okay, we remember from the very beginning of Luke’s Gospel that Luke gathered his information from “eyewitnesses and servants of the word” who “handed [these accounts] down to us.” So, there are things that Luke took down that didn’t make it into his Gospel account as the Spirit moved him. What Luke is zeroing in on here though, in verse 18, is that John preached the good news, “he proclaimed the gospel to the people.”

Now, we think of the Gospel in our post-cross context, right? We think of Jesus dying and Jesus rising. We think of resurrection Sunday. That hadn’t happened by John’s day. So, in what sense was he preaching the gospel? Well, it would have been a very simple message, a very primitive gospel message for John. His essentially would be a get-in-the-barn-or-get-burned message. One that linked up to his “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” idea in Luke 3:3.

So, his gospel message, John’s gospel message would be like ours, in a sense that it would start with the bad news, that judgment is imminent, on the heads of unrepentant sinners. And that this Messiah who was coming would bring this baptism of fire and judgment upon those who didn’t repent. But then he would naturally transition to the good news, which was that Messiah was on His way. That this coming way of salvation had arrived. And that forgiveness of sins would be offered to those who received the baptism of this Spirit when they came to Him in repentance and faith. So, it was a two-fold gospel presentation, starting with the bleakness of the bad, and then moving on to the good news. The same Savior that would cast unredeemed souls into an eternally burning lake of fire, is the same Savior who offers salvation to sinners who would humble themselves, and come to the end of themselves, in repentance and faith, as they understand Acts 4:12, “there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.”

With that, Luke is just about ready to turn the spotlight from John to Jesus. Not before he gives us a few more details though, here in verses 19-20, about John the Baptist’s fate. That’s our fifth point this morning, “The Fate.”
As in John’s fate, verse 19, “But when Herod the tetrarch was reproved by him because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the wicked things which Herod had done, Herod also added this to them all: he locked John up in prison.”

Last week, we learned about these three tetrarchs – these three Jewish rulers in the region of Judea. One of whom was Herod, the tetrarch of Galilee. And we learned last week that he was also known as Herod Antipas. And while Herod did a good job of keeping his Roman overlords happy, he did not have the smile of God on his life or his ministry because he was a wicked man. As the story goes. Antipas traveled to Rome, and on his journey to visit his half-brother, Herod Philip. Herod Antipas fell in love with Philip’s wife, Herodias. And not only was Herodias Philip’s wife and Antipas’s sister-in-law, but through common blood relations, Herodias was Herod Antipas’s niece. So, they kept it all in the family back then. Well, after this encounter, Herodias agreed to marry Herod Antipas, but on the condition that he divorce the woman he was married to. Herod Antipas agreed to those terms. He married Herodias, his sister-in-law/niece. And in the process, he destroyed two marriages, all while violating the Mosaic Law. Leviticus 20:21 says, “If there is a man who takes his brother’s wife, it is an impure act.”

Well, John, John the Baptist, preacher of righteousness that he was, and in the spirit of Elijah who had a reputation for calling out powerful people like Ahab and Jezebel, he called Herod out. Look at verse 19 here, it says, “Herod the tetrarch was reproved by him,” meaning John the Baptist, “because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the wicked things which Herod had done.” Now note, we’re not told what wicked things beyond that that Herod had done. Luke doesn’t even bother to mention them here, he’s just pointing out that Herod was a wicked man. But the point really is this, Herod is this example of the chaff mentioned in verse 17. He was evil and he did evil.

John the Baptist was this prophetic herald, this Messianic forerunner, and he called out Herod’s evil. And John, no wallflower, no ear-tickler, instead a truth teller, paid the price for his preaching. Herod had John shut up in prison, verse 20: “Herod also added this to them all,” meaning to all the other wicked deeds that Herod did, and “he locked John up in prison.”
We know, as we read on through the other Gospel accounts, namely Matthew 14 and Mark 6, that it wasn’t just that John was imprisoned, he also lost his head. He was eventually beheaded, his head presented to Herod and Herodias and her daughter on a platter. We’ll get to that account later, when we get deeper into the Luke account of that.

But I want to note, real quickly here, that for those of you who know your bible chronology, and know you’ve read all four Gospels in parallel, and you know how things fit like the puzzle pieces -- I do want to acknowledge here that Luke is going out of chronological order here. John the Baptist, we know, didn’t lose his life for at least another year to a year and a half after the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. So, why is Luke putting this story here, of John’s arrest here? Well, I think he has a logical purpose. He has a literary purpose of mentioning the imprisonment of John. He’s signaling to Theophilus and he’s signaling to us, as we read this Gospel, that he’s moving on. He’s moving on to now the account of Christ’s life, Christ’s ministry, starting with Christ’s baptism. He’s ready to get to the main attraction of the story, the ministry of Jesus Christ.

So with this part of the story now concluding, we like Luke are ready to move on. We’re ready to move on what Luke’s Gospel records about the life of Christ. Over the past couple of Sundays we’ve looked at “the baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” that John was providing. We’ve just looked at the dual baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire that Jesus would bring. Next week, we’re going to look at the baptism that Jesus Himself would undergo as He began His ministry here on earth. And we’re going to look at all sorts of details about what Jesus’ baptism meant, and what it signified. There is a lot there. I’m looking forward to it.

Let’s pray. Our Lord God, we thank You for this chance this morning to study Your Word. We thank You, again, for the humble example of the forerunner of the Messiah, John the Baptist. We thank You for his countenance. Being one of decreasing as Christ increased. We thank You for his bravery and his boldness in refuting those who would demean the name of You, Lord. We thank You for his example for us, as we seek to measure ourselves up to the perfect and holy example of Christ and realize we could never get there. But with the Spirit’s help, we desire to grow in grace and grow in Christ’s likeness. So, may we take this message with anticipation of where the narrative goes now, getting into the life of Christ. And may we take the example of John the Baptist, as one to model and follow our own lives after, as we seek to see Jesus Christ exalted in all we say, think, or do. It’s in His name we pray. Amen