Matthew 3

Matthew 1:1-12

“Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven Is at Hand”: John the Baptist, the Coming One, and the Fire in Matthew 3:1–12

Matthew 3:1–12 introduces John the Baptist as the herald who prepares Israel for the Lord. He preaches repentance because the kingdom of heaven is near, baptizes in the Jordan those who confess their sins, confronts religious confidence that hides behind Abraham, and points to One mightier than himself. That Coming One will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. The axe is already at the root of the trees. The winnowing fork is already in the Messiah’s hand. Wheat will be gathered. Chaff will be burned with unquenchable fire. The passage is historical preaching under the inspiration of the Spirit. It also sets the meaning of “fire” that Jesus Himself will carry through His ministry: judgment that fell in history upon the nation that rejected Him, and the Gehenna fire of which He warned as the final end of the unrepentant.

The Herald and His Message

“In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!’” (Matthew 3:1–2). His first word is a command. Repentance is a change of mind that turns the will from sin toward God and shows itself in a changed life. The reason is the nearness of the kingdom. John does not say that the kingdom has already been established in the form it takes after Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection and the beginning of gospel preaching in Acts 2. He says it is at hand. The King is about to appear. Israel must meet Him prepared. Matthew identifies John with Isaiah’s prophecy: “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make His paths straight’” (Matthew 3:3; Isaiah 40:3). John is the forerunner God promised. His clothing of camel’s hair and a leather belt, and his food of locusts and wild honey (Matthew 3:4), recall Elijah (2 Kings 1:8). Jesus later says that John is the Elijah who was to come (Matthew 11:10–14; 17:10–13; Malachi 4:5–6). The Elijah figure in Malachi stands at the threshold of a day that burns like an oven (Malachi 4:1). John’s fire language is not an isolated metaphor. It belongs to the prophetic warning he was sent to deliver.

Baptism in the Jordan, Confessing Sins

“Then Jerusalem, all Judea, and all the region around the Jordan went out to him and were baptized by him in the Jordan, confessing their sins” (Matthew 3:5–6). They are baptized in the river. The scene is immersion in water, joined to confession. John’s baptism is from heaven, not from men (Matthew 21:25). It is a baptism of repentance that prepared Israel for the Messiah. It is not identical with the baptism Jesus later commanded after His resurrection: “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). Acts later records men who had received John’s baptism and were then baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus (Acts 19:1–5). John’s work looked forward. Gospel baptism, after the cross and the Great Commission, is into Christ. Both are God’s appointments in their times. Neither is empty ritual.

Fruit, Not Pedigree

When John sees many Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he says, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not think to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones” (Matthew 3:7–9). Wrath is coming. Coming to the water without a turned life is not escape. Fruit is the evidence of repentance. Descent from Abraham cannot replace obedience. Jesus will press the same point: “If you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham” (John 8:39). He will also tell some who claimed Abraham that they will see others in the kingdom while “the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness” (Matthew 8:11–12). “And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matthew 3:10). The axe is not stored for a vague future only. It is already at the root. Fruitless trees are cut down and burned. Jesus later uses the same standard: “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matthew 7:19). He curses the barren fig tree as a sign (Matthew 21:18–19). In the parable of the wicked vinedressers, the vineyard is taken from those who kill the Son and given to others (Matthew 21:33–43). John’s axe and fire are the first sound of that judgment.

The Mightier One: Water, Spirit, and Fire

“I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Matthew 3:11). John baptizes in water unto repentance. That is his assigned work. Christ is greater. John is not worthy to carry His sandals. The Coming One will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. The surrounding verses fix the meaning of fire. Verse 10 throws fruitless trees into the fire. Verse 12 burns the chaff with unquenchable fire. Fire here is not a second blessing detached from judgment. It is the Messiah’s work of discrimination: blessing for those who repent, fiery judgment for those who will not. The Holy Spirit belongs to the greater work that begins with the risen Christ’s promise: “You shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now” (Acts 1:5), fulfilled when the Spirit was poured out at Pentecost (Acts 2:1–4, 16–18). Peter then preached repentance and baptism in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, with the promise of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38). John’s contrast stands: he administers water unto repentance; the Mightier One brings the Spirit according to promise and brings fire according to judgment. The Spirit’s work does not cancel water baptism in the gospel age. Jesus still commanded immersion (Matthew 28:19). Acts still joined baptism to the preached gospel (Acts 2:38; 8:35–38; 22:16).

Unquenchable Fire: The Threshing Floor

“His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (Matthew 3:12). The Messiah already holds the fork. He will clear His floor. Wheat is gathered. Chaff is burned. There is no third pile. “Unquenchable fire” is language the prophets used of judgment that men cannot stop. Jeremiah warned that if Judah would not hear, God would kindle a fire in her gates that “shall not be quenched” (Jeremiah 17:27; see also Jeremiah 7:20). That word was fulfilled in the burning of the city. John takes up the same kind of speech and places it in the Messiah’s hand. Jesus will fill that speech out in two directions that must both be kept: national judgment in His generation, and Gehenna fire that continues to burn beyond that generation.

Fire Fulfilled in National Judgment

Jesus applied coming wrath to the nation that would reject Him. He wept over Jerusalem and said her enemies would level her because she did not know the time of her visitation (Luke 19:41–44). He said the temple would be thrown down, not one stone left upon another (Matthew 24:1–2). He said the blood of the prophets would come upon “this generation” and that Jerusalem’s house would be left desolate (Matthew 23:34–38). He said when Jerusalem was surrounded by armies, her desolation was near, and those were “days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled” (Luke 21:20–22). In a parable He described a king who sent armies and “burned up their city” after the invited guests seized and killed his servants (Matthew 22:7). That is historical fire. In A.D. 70 Jerusalem fell. The temple was destroyed. The old order that had rejected the Son was cut down. John’s axe at the root and the burning of fruitless trees are not emptied by calling this a political accident. Jesus treated it as judgment written in advance and falling on that generation. The chaff on the threshing floor included a nation that claimed Abraham and would not bear fruit worthy of repentance (Matthew 3:8–9; 21:43).

Fire Associated with Gehenna in Jesus’ Ministry

Jesus did not stop with the fall of a city. In His own teaching He joined fire to Gehenna, the final punishment of the unrepentant person. He warned that whoever says, “You fool!” shall be in danger of “hell fire” (Matthew 5:22). The word is Gehenna. He said it is better to lose an eye or a hand than that the whole body be cast into Gehenna (Matthew 5:29–30; 18:8–9). He called that “the hell fire” and “the everlasting fire” (Matthew 18:8–9). He told the Twelve to fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna (Matthew 10:28). He asked the scribes and Pharisees, “How can you escape the condemnation of hell?” (Matthew 23:33), again Gehenna, in the same discourse in which He announced desolation on Jerusalem (Matthew 23:37–38). Mark records Jesus saying that it is better to enter life maimed than to go to Gehenna, “into the fire that shall never be quenched,” where “their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:43–48). That is the same “unquenchable fire” John announced in Matthew 3:12. Luke records Jesus saying to fear Him who, after He has killed, has power to cast into Gehenna (Luke 12:5). In the account of the rich man and Lazarus, the rich man is in torment in flame and cannot cross to comfort (Luke 16:23–26). Jesus also spoke of the end of the age, when the tares are gathered and “cast into the furnace of fire,” where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 13:40–42), and of the goats who go “into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels” and “into everlasting punishment” (Matthew 25:41, 46). John’s fire, then, is not smaller than Jesus’ fire. National judgment in A.D. 70 was a real burning of the unfaithful vineyard in history. Gehenna is the fire Jesus named as the condemnation from which a man must flee, the destruction of soul and body, the unquenchable fire, the everlasting fire. The first does not cancel the second. A city can fall in time, and a soul can still be lost in Gehenna. John told hearers to flee “the wrath to come” (Matthew 3:7). Jesus showed that wrath in the ruin of Jerusalem and in the Gehenna He preached throughout His ministry.

What the Passage Requires

Matthew 3:1–12 calls for repentance because the kingdom is near. It presents baptism in water joined to confession of sins as John’s God-given preparation, distinct from later baptism in the name of Christ, yet not meaningless. It refuses salvation by ancestry. It places an axe at the root of fruitless trees. It sets Christ above John. It promises the Spirit according to the Coming One’s greater work, and fire that Jesus Himself interpreted as judgment in history and as Gehenna. The reader is not permitted to treat fire as poetry only, or as A.D. 70 only, or as a mystical experience that leaves obedience optional. John said the trees that lack good fruit are thrown into the fire (Matthew 3:10). Jesus said the same of fruitless trees (Matthew 7:19) and warned of Gehenna fire (Matthew 5:22; 10:28; 18:8–9; 23:33; Mark 9:43–48). John said the chaff would burn with unquenchable fire (Matthew 3:12). Jesus said Gehenna is the fire that is not quenched (Mark 9:43–48) and that Jerusalem’s house would be left desolate in that generation (Matthew 23:36–38; 24:1–2). Both stand in the word of God.

Conclusion

John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 3:1–2). He was the voice of Isaiah 40:3. Crowds were baptized in the Jordan, confessing their sins (Matthew 3:5–6). Religious men were told to bear fruit and not hide in Abraham (Matthew 3:7–9). The axe was already at the root (Matthew 3:10). John baptized with water unto repentance. The Mightier One would baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire (Matthew 3:11). His winnowing fork would gather wheat and burn chaff with unquenchable fire (Matthew 3:12). That fire was not an empty threat. It was fulfilled in the national judgment that fell when Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed in A.D. 70, as Jesus foretold (Matthew 23:34–38; 24:1–2; Luke 19:41–44; 21:20–22). It is also the Gehenna fire Jesus preached as the end of the unrepentant (Matthew 5:22, 29–30; 10:28; 18:8–9; 23:33; Mark 9:43–48; Luke 12:5). The forerunner prepared the way. The King who followed him still calls men to repent, to bear fruit, and to flee the wrath to come—the wrath that burned a city in history, and the Gehenna fire from which He warned every soul to escape.

Matthew 3:13-16

To Fulfill All Righteousness: The Baptism of Jesus in Matthew 3:13-17

Matthew 3:13-17 records one of the most theologically dense moments in the Gospel: the baptism of Jesus by John in the Jordan River. After describing John’s preparatory ministry of repentance, Matthew turns to the arrival of the One for whom John prepared the way. Jesus comes from Galilee specifically “to be baptized by him.” John, recognizing the disparity between his own sinfulness and Jesus’ purity, attempts to prevent the act. Jesus replies, “Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Immediately after Jesus comes up from the water, the heavens open, the Spirit of God descends like a dove, and the Father’s voice declares, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” This passage is not a mere historical footnote. It inaugurates Jesus’ public ministry, reveals the Trinity in coordinated action, and presents baptism as an act of obedient righteousness. For members of the churches of Christ, who take the New Testament pattern of conversion seriously, the account carries particular weight: the sinless Son of God submitted to baptism to fulfill all righteousness, thereby both identifying with those He came to save and modeling the obedience God requires of every believer.

Context and John’s Objection

John’s baptism was “a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins” (Mark 1:4; cf. Matthew 3:6, 11). Crowds came confessing their sins and submitting to immersion in the Jordan. When Jesus presented Himself, John’s protest was theologically sound: the greater should baptize the lesser, and the sinless One had no sins to confess. Hebrews 4:15 and 1 Peter 2:22 confirm that Jesus “committed no sin.” John’s hesitation therefore highlights a real tension: why would the Lamb of God submit to a rite designed for sinners? Jesus does not deny His own sinlessness. He offers no confession. Instead, He frames the act in terms of divine necessity and propriety: “it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” The phrase “all righteousness” (πᾶσαν δικαιοσύνην) in Matthew consistently refers to doing the will of God, living in complete conformity to the Father’s purposes (cf. Matthew 5:6, 10, 20; 6:33). Jesus’ entire life was oriented toward that end (John 4:34; 8:29). Baptism, though not required by the Mosaic Law, had been instituted by God through John as part of the preparation for the Messiah’s appearing (Isaiah 40:3; Malachi 3:1; 4:5-6). To refuse it would have been to refuse the path the Father had appointed.

Identification and Inauguration

Jesus’ baptism also expresses His identification with the people He came to redeem. Though He had no personal sin, He stood in the water with those who did. He placed Himself among the repentant, anticipating the greater identification He would make at the cross, where He would be “numbered with the transgressors” (Isaiah 53:12). The same principle that undergirds the Incarnation and the Atonement appears here in miniature: the Holy One enters the condition of the unholy in order to bring them out. The event simultaneously inaugurates Jesus’ public ministry. Immediately after He comes up from the water, three things occur: the heavens are opened, the Spirit descends and remains on Him, and the Father’s voice publicly identifies Him. These signs echo Old Testament patterns of royal and prophetic anointing (1 Samuel 16:13; Isaiah 42:1; Psalm 2:7). The Father’s declaration combines the royal language of Psalm 2 with the Servant language of Isaiah 42, presenting Jesus as both Davidic King and Suffering Servant. The Spirit’s descent equips Him for the work that follows—temptation in the wilderness, proclamation of the kingdom, and ultimately the cross. The Trinitarian character of the scene is unmistakable and theologically foundational. The Son stands in the water, the Spirit descends, and the Father speaks. Matthew presents the one God acting in three distinct persons at the very outset of Jesus’ ministry. This is not later theological speculation imposed on the text; it is the narrative’s own presentation of how God discloses Himself.

Mode and Meaning of the Act

Matthew’s wording is precise: Jesus “came up immediately from the water” (ἀνέβη εὐθὺς ἀπὸ τοῦ ὕδατος). The language, together with the parallel accounts and the meaning of βαπτίζω (“to immerse, dip, submerge”), indicates that Jesus was fully immersed. Churches of Christ have historically insisted on immersion not as a denominational preference but as fidelity to the New Testament description of the act. The same verb and the same physical picture appear in the conversion accounts of Acts and in Paul’s teaching that baptism is a burial with Christ (Romans 6:3-4; Colossians 2:12). Jesus’ baptism was not “for the remission of sins.” That purpose is why everyone else is baptized (Acts 2:38; 22:16; 1 Peter 3:21). His baptism served a different but related function: it was an act of perfect obedience that validated John’s preparatory work and set the pattern for those who would follow. After His death and resurrection, Jesus commissioned the apostles to 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). The same Jesus who submitted to baptism now commands it. The same Father who declared Himself well pleased at the Jordan now receives those who, in faith and repentance, are baptized into Christ (Galatians 3:26-27).

Implications for Discipleship

The churches of Christ have long taught that baptism is the God-appointed moment at which a penitent believer’s sins are forgiven and he or she is added to the body of Christ. This is not because water possesses inherent power, nor because baptism is a meritorious work that earns salvation. Salvation is by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8-9). Baptism is the obedient expression of that faith—the “obedience of faith” (Romans 1:5)—in which the believer is united with Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection. Jesus Himself treated baptism as part of “all righteousness.” If the sinless Son considered it fitting and necessary to submit to the ordinance appointed by the Father, how much more should those who are sinners? The Father’s declaration of pleasure is not limited to that historical moment. It points forward to every occasion when a believer, having heard the gospel, believed, repented, and confessed Christ, is immersed in water. At that point God acts: sins are washed away (Acts 22:16), the old self is buried, and a new life begins (Romans 6:4). The heavens that opened over the Jordan remain open for those who follow the same path of obedient faith. Matthew 3:13-17 therefore does more than record an event. It reveals the character of the Messiah who identifies with sinners, the nature of the God who is Father, Son, and Spirit, and the shape of the righteousness God requires. Jesus fulfilled all righteousness not only in His sinless life and atoning death, but also in this first public act of submission. Those who would be His disciples are called to the same obedience—not to earn what He has already accomplished, but to receive it in the way He Himself appointed.