In the third chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, John the Baptist is introduced as a fully matured man preaching amongst the people. It is as if he abruptly fell from the sky and onto the scene to embark on a mission. Although one can gather information about his family, pre-birth and birth from the book of Luke, Matthew gives us none of those details. There is no genealogy. There is no account of his birth or mother’s pregnancy. There is no record of his upbringing. There is only John the Baptist, the passionate, the undisguised. Until then, there had not been a prophet for more than four hundred years. The church was waiting in silence for “a voice of one crying in the wilderness.”
Matthew focuses on the aspect of John’s life that would help him build his case for his gospel by addressing two questions: Who is the King? And where is His kingdom? The book of Matthew, primarily aimed at the Jewish audience, finds John in the wilderness proclaiming that Jesus is king/Messiah and that the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
“In those days John the Baptist came preaching…” Matthew’s gospel jumps quickly into Jesus’ public ministry from his early childhood, but first there had to be a forerunner with his own ministry. When a King would come to town, there were would typically be a forerunner to make preparations for his coming and he would even go so far as to having roads built and straightened to prepare the way for the king – this was John’s mission. John’s life was to be lived for the glory of another – just like our lives are. The theme verse for John’s life is also very powerful – John 3:30, “He must increase, but I must decrease.”
It’s important to see here that the text says, “John the Baptist came preaching” rather than “John the Baptist came baptizing” or “teaching” or “prophesying.” Not that those elements of the faith are not important, but rather they are secondary to those who are perishing. All throughout the Bible, we see that God uses the instrument of preaching to channel His truth to a world of sinners. The purpose is to convict a person of the sin of the heart and to show that it is in desperate need of a Savior. This is the message of John the Baptist: repentance and redemption – “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Matthew 3:2
Where was John the Baptist preaching? At the end of verse 1, Matthew tells us that he was “preaching in the wilderness of Judea.” The wilderness was important because it was the beginning of the fulfillment of Isaiah 40:3, “A voice cries: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” What great imagery! God had done many great things already in the OT in the wilderness: the law of Moses was given there; David’s famous 63rd Psalm, which talks about the pleasurable fellowship he had with the Lord was written there as well. One commentary said, “…no place is so remote as to shut us out from the visits of divine grace; the sweetest intercourse the saints have with Heaven, is when they are withdrawn furthest from the noise of this world.”
The wilderness is also significant because of John’s background. John’s father, Zechariah, and his mother, Elizabeth, were righteous before God and blameless in all His commandments and ordinances. (An interesting side note: Zechariah means “God remembers”; Elizabeth means “oath of God”; and John, who was named by an angel of the Lord in Luke 1:13, means “grace”; if you put them all together, it reads, “God remembers his oath: grace.”) Zechariah was of the priesthood; therefore, John the Baptist was a priest of the order of Aaron as well, yet we never see him officiating in a temple. Nor do we see him show up in religious robes. Rather he lived in the wilderness and dressed as a countryman. Matthew 3:4 says, “Now John wore a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist and his food was locusts and wild honey.” Yes, a lot of commentaries say that is to provoke imagery of an OT prophet, but I also see it as John counting all of his “rights”, his inheritance as loss in comparison as to what the Lord had in store for him. By no means was John going to waste his life by the clothes he wore or the food he ate. He would not promote any distraction from his message intent on glorifying God. I believe this verse alone can be a message in of itself. How we need to safeguard against the idols of clothing and appearance and the approval of man. John Piper writes in his book, Don’t Waste Your Life, “What a tragedy to see so many…obsessed with what they wear and how they look. Even Christian youth seem powerless to ask greater questions…like: Will these clothes help me magnify Christ? Will they point people to him as the manifest Treasure of my life?” This seemed to be true of John. The verse is in there because people observed not only the message of John the Baptist but also the way he dressed and acted. Application was the heart of his preaching.
To whom was John preaching? In the following verses we see two groups: people from “Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan,” which we will call the “unrighteous” and the “Pharisees and Sadducees,” which we will call the “self-righteous.” (Not that any of the “unrighteous” could have not belonged to the “self-righteous” as well, but this seems to be the way Scripture divided the two. Both groups are sinners in the eyes of God and will not inherit the kingdom of heaven. The only type of righteousness that saves is imputed righteousness – just like with Abraham in Genesis 15:6)
Was he preaching the same message? Well, the answer is both, yes and no. After the unrighteous group heard John preach, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” verse 5 and 6 tells us that they were “going out to him, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.” Luke’s account tells us that the crowds asked, “What then shall we do?” which can be seen as an indication of a longing for change. One commentary says, “The Jews had been taught to justify themselves; but John teaches them to accuse themselves, and not to rest, as they used to do, in the general confession of sin made for all Israel, once a year, upon the day of atonement; but to make a particular acknowledgment, every one, of the plague of his own heart.” So, we see God moving people to Himself. People are coming to know the Lord! God is setting up Christ’s kingdom through the God-centeredness preaching of John the Baptist.
But, how does John differ in his message to the self righteous Pharisees and Sadducees who don’t see a need for this sort of repentance? Verse 7 says, “But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, ‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.’” What a vicious attack on the Pharisees and Sadducees’ idol; the false savior of identity through ancestry. This is exactly what made John’s message so radical – Jews believed they had no need of repentance because they were Jewish! John felt that he had to deal more specifically with the ones who also deemed themselves to be preachers/teachers of God’s scriptures. Rather than preaching before them, he preached directly to them. He addresses them as “vipers,” rather than the customary title of “rabbi.” This sort of imagery would have hopefully taken them back to the fall in Genesis 3, where there were not one but two seeds: one of the great snake, Satan, and one of the woman, from which our redeemer Jesus would come. Obviously, John was telling them that they were of their father, the Devil (1 John 5:19 – they are under the control of the evil). He was addressing the motive of their hearts in hopes of showing them how they desire to do evil, which makes them hostile towards God.
John then warns them of the wrath to come if their hardened hearts do not repent. For the Pharisees, it was the sin of the display of religion and for the Sadducee it was their arguments against religion. Here, we see God’s mercy because not one of them can say that they weren’t warned of the future wrath. God himself is warning them through John’s preaching. John goes on to say that it isn’t enough for them to profess that they know God. They aren’t running towards God yet. They are saying that they are but their feet are not moving. He instructs them to “bear fruit in keeping with repentance.” He wants to see the proof of the assurance of their salvation. He wants for them true repentance, in which they forsake all sin and cleave to that which is good, namely Jesus.
John continues to identify this idol of identity through ancestry by addressing the covenant of Abraham. He cautions them of their hearts inward reply, “We have Abraham as our father.” It’s as if he is saying, “Don’t believe the lie. Salvation has always been by faith, not by lineage. Repent. Confess your sins. Be baptized.” The Pharisees and Sadducees did not see themselves as unsaved, or for the need to be baptized. To them, baptism was used for ceremonial cleansings or a Gentile entering into the Jewish faith. In their minds, they were already spiritually clean and partakers in salvation.
Genealogies are of great importance for a Jew, even to the writer Matthew. So much so, that he starts of his book with one to show the Kingly lineage of Jesus Christ. It is a lineage to the Savior, rather than the lineage itself as a savior. The first verse of the book of Matthew says, “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” This would be significant for a Jewish audience. This would show a person’s heritage, inheritance, legitimacy, and rights. All throughout Jesus’ genealogy, we see Gentiles, cursed kings, adulterers, murderers, and idolaters, yet Jesus’ descent is never questioned. There is undeniable proof that Jesus is son of Abraham, and the son of David. Again, this is a good thing but all good things can become idols, which John is pointing out. He continues to insult the Pharisees/Sadducees idolatry by saying “for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.” They have faith in the blood in their veins that had been passed down from Abraham rather than the blood of the Messiah. John is trying to show them that the genealogy, which is of the utmost importance in the beginning of this book, is of no worth to them in the end. “Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” The OT clearly taught in Genesis 15:6 that Abraham, by hearing with faith, believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. The roots of his family do not bless a man; but the one who is of faith is blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith, in Christ Jesus.
Matthew’s account of John the Baptist is what truly kicks off the gospel of Jesus Christ. His ministry set the tone and prepared the hearts of the people for what was to come: Jesus and his mission to glorify God through the salvation of sinners. We see a preview of compassion, boldness, and good news spread by John the Baptist that is completely lived out in the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. There will always be idols to deal with if we are communicating to other human beings; in this text we see the Pharisees/Sadducees answering the two questions posed at the beginning differently from the author: Who is the King? Their functional savior is their identity through ancestry. Where is His kingdom? Their hearts answer, “in Abraham.” But, there is hope because Jesus is King and His kingdom is at hand.
Application – how can we be guilty of the same sin as the Jewish leadership? Do some people believe going to church, having Christian parents/spouse/being American makes them saved? Does our culture have a misunderstanding of salvation? Do we have the same righteous anger, which John had when dealing with the self-righteous and the same compassion with the unrighteous?
