With the sun beating down on his head, a bronze-skinned man steps out onto the river bank. His lower half is still drenched and dripping with the Jordan River. He’s wrapped in a tunic made of camel’s hair. Hair and beard look unkempt. He seems to lack all sense of social convention. He is a portrait of a desert wanderer. The surrounding crowd on the shoreline cannot help but stare and listen to his brazen call to repent of wickedness. Having just emerged from the water, some are still soaked from head to toe.

He picks up his staff in one hand and raises the other toward the crowd. A knobby finger points like a dagger at a group of men in long clean robes: the Pharisees and Sadducees.

“Brood of vipers!” The desert man’s voice echoes off the stony river bank. All eyes are now staring at the religious leaders, who grimace with distaste.

“Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come!” the man bellows. While some are shocked, others recognize his boldness to confront sin is a clear sign of his prophetic calling of God. If John is a prophet, then he’s merely God’s mouthpiece. What he has to say truly comes from the Almighty. And yet, here he was confronting the religious aristocracy, the paragons of purity.

In one sense, these Pharisees and Sadducees carried an air of power and respectability wherever they went. The people noted their stringent piety and rigorous law-keeping. Nevertheless, the people so admired John the Baptist that these holy men looked like tongue-tied schoolchildren in his presence. They come only to observe, not to be baptized in the filthy river.

“Show fruit consistent with repentance!” John continued, eyes blazing like fire.

John’s Ministry of Baptism

Apparently, John didn’t have a public relations consultant. Why did he call these highly esteemed religious leaders a “brood of vipers”? Because they ignored the warnings of the wrath to come and led others to destruction. And, as John says, they didn’t bear fruit, showing they had not truly given their lives to the Lord.

This was John the Baptist’s entire ministry. He called people to repent of sin, return to faith in the one true God, and be baptized in the Jordan River.

John said, “I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry” (Matthew 3:11).

This One “coming” was the Lord of the cosmos Himself. John the Baptist was always pointing others to look to Christ, not himself, for hope. He humbly confesses he’s not worthy to even carry the sandals of Jesus. But it’s not just humility; it’s a right view of how supremely worthy Jesus is.

Then he says of Jesus: “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire…”

It’s important to realize that even though John says that he baptizes with water and Jesus will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire, this doesn’t mean that water baptism is no longer necessary today. At the end of Matthew, Jesus Himself gives the command: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…” (Matthew 28:19).

Though Christians don’t always agree on the purpose of baptism, Jesus seemed to present baptism as the inaugural event marking a new disciple of Christ.

Why Be Baptized?

It is important to understand that baptism does not save you. We are saved by grace alone through faith in Jesus Christ alone (Ephesians 2:8-9). Though Christians are called to good works, no good work—not even baptism—could save us from the tyranny of sin. Paul made the point that he was not sent with the primary objective of baptizing others, but of preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 1:17).

The thief on the cross had no opportunity to be baptized before he died, yet the Lord assured him of his place in Paradise with Him that very day (Luke 23:43). It is only repentance toward God and faith in Jesus Christ that reconciles us to God. Having said that, followers of Christ are commanded by God to be baptized. The Bible never treats it as an optional “extra.” Local churches are called to baptize new believers after the pattern of the New Testament (Acts 2:38-41; 10:47; 16:14-15).

Baptism pictures our need for cleansing and restoration. But it also pictures our identification with Christ. Going down into the waters, we are identifying ourselves publicly with Christ’s death and our own death to sin. Coming out of the waters portrays both Christ’s resurrection and our resurrection with Him to new life (Romans 6:3-4). As we are baptized individually and as we see others baptized, we are reminded that Christ’s sacrifice on the cross was for us personally.

And, as John says here, when we trust in Christ personally, we receive the Holy Spirit.[1]

The Winnowing Fork of Judgment

Why are repentance and baptism so important? John says of Jesus: “His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will clear His threshing floor and gather His wheat into the barn, but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire” (Matthew 3:12).

In ancient Israel, there was a practice called winnowing which allowed the farmer to separate the grain (or seeds) from the chaff, which were the husks that cover the seeds. When the farmer tossed the grain and the chaff into the air with the winnowing fork, the Middle Eastern wind would carry the lighter chaff to the side and the heavier grain would fall to the ground. He would gather the grain together to keep, and the chaff he would sweep together and toss into a fire.[2]

John is giving us a vivid picture of judgment. On the coming day of judgment, Jesus will gather the grain—those who are His own—to Himself. And the rest, He will cast into what He calls “the unquenchable fire.” This is a sobering and serious reminder that a judgment is coming, and if we don’t belong to Jesus, we are destined for eternal damnation (Matthew 10:28; Mark 9:43). John is making it clear that it is eternal by saying it is a fire that never goes out.

I want you to understand that the idea of eternal judgment was no more popular in Jesus’s day, 2,000 years ago, than it is today. While some may say that it is unloving to tell people about hell, John recognized that what would be truly unloving is not to warn people that a judgment is coming.[3]

God Himself pled with unrepentant Israel to return to Him and avoid judgment:

“As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?” (Ezekiel 33:11, ESV)

This life is infinitesimally short in light of eternity. God says in His Word that your life is nothing more than a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes (James 4:14). But eternity—that lasts forever! So where we spend eternity matters immensely.

This is why I, too, want to warn others. If Scripture is right that there is a coming judgment and that our own conscience testifies to this truth, then for me not to speak about hell would be unloving. I make a point to speak about it because I, too, am a sinner and have been rescued from judgment—Jesus has saved me. And so, I want to point to my Savior and say this offer of salvation is for all. No matter what you have done or where you have been in life, this free gift of salvation is offered to you!

Why Was Jesus Baptized?

Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. (Matthew 3:13-15)

So, if water baptism represents cleansing from sin, why in the world is Jesus coming to the Jordan River be baptized here? After all, Jesus is the sinless Son of God in human flesh. Scripture always affirms that Jesus was and is “without sin” (Heb. 4:15). So why did He submit to baptism?

I think we see a clue as to why Jesus did this way back in the prophecy found in Isaiah 53:10. There we read that the sinless sufferer was “numbered with the transgressors.” Or, it could be translated as “[He] was counted among the rebels.”

Even though Jesus was perfect and sinless, He willingly chose, out of love, to identify with sinful mankind. Beginning with His coming at Christmas, to His baptism, and all the way to the cross, Jesus was humbly and lovingly saying, “I have come to identify with the very people who have rebelled against Me.” He came to die for the very rebels who were cursing Him, mocking Him, and crucifying Him. From the cross, He said, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). In the context, He was speaking of the Jews and Romans that had Him killed. But in reality, He says that of all of us. We all have committed treason against the God who made us. We all deserve death. But Jesus was perfect. He willingly died in our place so that we could be forgiven and spared from all judgment.

In humbly consenting to water baptism, Jesus marked out a pattern for all His disciples to follow. In this way, He is not asking of us anything that He Himself did not willingly do.

And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:16-17, ESV)

Scripture teaches that the one true God is three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And here we see all Three in view. Jesus submitting to baptism, the Spirit descending upon Him to empower Him for ministry, and the Father’s voice from heaven saying: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

If Jesus had never been baptized, this moment would have been missed. Now all who have repented and trusted in the Lord Jesus are reconciled to God, made new by the Holy Spirit, and are loved in the Beloved—even as Christ is loved by the Father (John 17:26). And if that’s you, friend, you are called to be baptized.

Have thoughts on this post? Feel free to comment below!

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[1] “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:13, ESV). Also see Romans 8:9-11.

[2] Thanks to David Platt for his explanation of this process in his commentary Exalting Jesus in Matthew.

[3] See Ezekiel 33, where the Lord says that the watchman who sees the sword of judgment coming but fails to warn others will have their blood on his hands.