Baptism of Fire (Luke 3:16)

THE BAPTISM OF FIRE

BY DR. THOMAS.

(An unpublished article, written for the “Herald,” and found among his papers after his death.)

THIS phrase is derived from the following declaration of John, the antitypical “Elijah,” who was to introduce the appearing of “Messiah the Prince:” it is found in Matt. 3:1—“He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire! This passage has been greatly misinterpreted, owing to the inadvertent construction of the pronoun “you, ” as if "you" related only to one class of individuals, which was simultaneously baptized with Spirit and fire. Illustrative of this, they cite to us the events of Pentecost, when the apostles were “endued with powers from on high,” of which the symbol was a tongue resembling fire, cleft in twain, as indicative of the faculty they had instantaneously acquired of speaking the wonderful works of God in a plurality of languages. This interpretation, however, does not harmonise with the context in John’s speech. In the first place, he was speaking to the multitudes who crowded out to hear his proclamation, as it is written: “Then went out to him Jerusalem and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan.” Now, these were composed of, first, those who submitted to baptism; and, second, of those who “rejected the counsel of God against themselves, in refusing to be baptized of Him.—(Luke 7:29–30.) The former were “the people that heard and the publicans;” and the latter were the Pharisees, Sadducees, and lawyers. To this mixed assemblage, which constituted “the wheat” and “the chaff” of Israel, he said, that HE who was coming after him would “baptise them with the Holy Spirit and fire.”
Here, then, were TWO MEDIA: first, Spirit; and second, fire.

1873 Christadelphian: Volume 10. 2001 (electronic ed.) (193). Birmingham: Christadelphian Magazine & Publishing Association.


‎The Baptism of Fire
‎A. C.—When John the Baptist said (Luke 3:16) that Jesus would baptise Israel with fire, the meaning was he would overwhelm them in destruction. The context immediately following shows this: “He will thoroughly purge his floor and will gather the wheat into his garner, but the chaff he will burn up with fire unquenchable” (verse 17). He did this by the events which 40 years afterwards nearly wiped the Jewish nation out of existence. Malachi had foretold this: “He is like a refiner’s fire and a fuller’s soap . . . the day that cometh shall burn as an oven, and the proud and all that do wickedly shall be stubble, and the day that cometh shall burn them up that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.” Though Jesus meekly surrendered himself to violence at the hands of the priests, as the Father’s will required, the day of wrath immediately followed, as he said (Luke 21:22–33). In the execution of this wrath, he used the figurative “fan” of John’s discourse, and the figurative fire-baptisms he spoke. The baptism with the Holy Spirit preceded the baptism of fire in the effusion of that wonderful power upon all of Israel who received his word.

. Vol. 34: The Christadelphian: Volume 34. 2001 (electronic ed.) (282–283). Birmingham: Christadelphian Magazine & Publishing Association.