Matthew 3 provides the New Testament introduction of the forerunner of Jesus Christ, John the Baptist.  While John preached in the wilderness of Judea, the Pharisees and Sadducees came out to him for the purpose of baptism in the Jordan River.  Matthew 3:7-12 read:

7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

8 Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance:

9 And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.

10 And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.

11 I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire:

12 Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

The Desire of the Pharisees and Sadducees for John’s Baptism

“To his baptism” in verse 11 may sound like a dative of direction or destination.  It isn’t.  It is the Greek preposition, epi, with the accusative noun, baptisma.  The BDAG lexicon says the following about this usage of epi:

11.  marker of purpose, goal, result, to, for, w. acc. . . . . baptism=to have themselves baptized Mt 3:7

John’s reaction to the Pharisees and Sadducees shows that he knew they were coming out for baptism by him.  How he uses the Greek word, echidna, translated “vipers,” indicates that he referred to the vipera ammodytes, the sand viper.  Because of very dry conditions, brush fires will begin and spread in the Jordan River Valley, pushing these poisonous reptiles toward the water.  This is the picture John paints of the Pharisees and Sadducees.  This elucidates their purpose.

Sand vipers slither to the Jordan River to escape brush fires.  The Pharisees and Sadducees came for the purpose of John’s baptism.  They thought it might provide another possible escape from future judgment of God.  These religious leaders were quite willing to try one more religious ritual as another fire insurance policy.  John wouldn’t baptize them.  His baptism would not deliver them.

The Preaching of Repentance

John preached repentance.  He immersed only the repentant.  The Pharisees and Sadducees were not repentant.  Their lives did not show the fruit of repentance.  Repentance was a change of heart, conversion of the soul.  It was more than token ritual so favored by false religion.

Later in verse 11, John says to the Pharisees and Sadducees, “I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance.”  “Into” translates the Greek preposition, eis, which indicates identification, such as when Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 10:2, “And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea.”  “Unto” is again the preposition eis.  The children of Israel were not placed in Moses.  Through their baptism in the Red Sea, they identified with Moses.  John’s immersion in water identified the repentance of the recipients.

John the Baptist is saying, my baptism doesn’t save you.  Baptism would not result in the salvation of the Pharisees and Sadducees.  It would just be another ritual for them.  If they repented, God would save them, and then John would immerse them.  He baptized only previously truly repentant people.

The Natural Quality of John’s Baptism

If someone thinks that baptism will deliver him from hell fire, like the sand vipers slithered to the Jordan River to deliver them from brush fires, he was wrong.  John makes that clear in the following verses.  Using other metaphors, John says that God would cast them into the fire without repentance.  John baptized, but he diminishes it before his listeners as a means of salvation.  This should give strong pause to those adding baptism as a salvation requirement.  John the Baptist himself didn’t do that.

Further, John contrasts what he does with water baptism and what Jesus does with Spirit and fire baptism.  John represents his baptism as solely natural.  It’s water.  Water doesn’t make any kind of supernatural or spiritual change.  He characterizes baptism with water as inferior to baptism with the Holy Spirit and with fire.  Those are greater than the baptism John performed.  Jesus Himself would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire.

The Supernatural Quality of Jesus’ Baptisms

Compared to John’s

The Holy Spirit and the eternal fire of Hell are both supernatural.  The two media with which Jesus baptizes are superior in quality and character to the one medium of John’s baptism.  John was just a man.  He could water baptize, but he couldn’t baptize with the third person of the Trinity like Jesus could and did.

In Jesus’ day, slaves would carry the sandals or shoes of their Master or Lord.  John was so low compared to Jesus, he says, that he was not worthy even to do that kind of slave work for Jesus.  Sure, he could baptize with water.  That was a baptism suitable for his doing.  Only Jesus could do such supernatural baptisms as the Holy Spirit and fire.

Holy Spirit baptism corresponds in John’s preaching to gathering the wheat in his garner.   The garner was heaven in John’s figure and the fire was Hell.  Anyone in John the Baptist’s audience that day he invited to repent, so that Jesus would gather them into His granary.  If they did not repent, therefore not being a good tree that could bring forth fruit, Jesus would axe them down and toss them into unquenchable fire.

Later in Matthew 3, Jesus then shows up in the wilderness, bringing an entirely different situation for John the Baptist.  When the Pharisees and Sadducees showed up, he didn’t want to baptize them.  They needed to repent and they hadn’t.  When Jesus showed up, John the Baptist didn’t want to baptize him either.  Why?  He only baptized repentant people and Jesus had nothing for which to repent.  Instead then, John asked Jesus to baptize him.

The Characterization of Jesus

If anyone should repent, next to Jesus, John was the one who needed repentance.  Jesus should baptize him and not John baptize Jesus.  John’s desire not to baptize Jesus diminished his baptism in comparison to the work of Jesus.  Through Jesus, you could receive the indwelling Holy Spirit.  John’s baptism just identified its recipients with what mattered most, their repentance.  Mere identification is lesser than the much greater transformation of a life through Christ’s redemption and indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

The Lord Jesus could and would also judge in the end with fire.  The fan, the winnowing shovel, was in His hand.  In the end judgment, He would divide the truly saved from those who are not.  That is way above John the Baptist’s pay grade.  John’s baptism was not salvific.  It was not supernatural.  John was just a man.  He wasn’t God like Jesus was.

John was baptizing.  When he compared himself with Jesus in John 3 to persuade his followers to follow Jesus instead, John argued (verse 36):

He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.

If you believed in Jesus Christ, you received everlasting life.  If you didn’t, you received the wrath of God.  Nothing John could do would provide everlasting life or the wrath of God.  Belief brought everlasting life, not baptism.

Thought Experiment

The Pharisees and Sadducees came to John for baptism.  They saw it as a fire escape, another ritual that would put more weight on the side of their own righteousness.  It might ameliorate themselves against future judgment as an impressive deed.

As a thought experiment, let’s say John welcomed their desire for baptism, praised them for it.  Their trek out to the Jordan River manifested their expression of need.  They were admitting trouble for themselves, perhaps some need for cleansing.  So John instead said, “Well done.  In light of your recognition of deprivation, let me baptize you!”

Baptizing the Pharisees and Sadducees would play right into their hands.  It would give them the wrong impression and false sense of security that baptism would save.  John sent the message that baptism did not save.  It was a symbol.  It didn’t do anything like repentance and then Jesus’ baptism with the Holy Spirit.

John’s unwillingness to baptize the Pharisees and Sadducees because they did not show fruit unto repentance teaches against any saving effect of baptism.  It is not a washing of regeneration.  It is mere outward identification.  Jesus later says it is also a righteous act of obedience.   It wouldn’t save anyone, including the Pharisees and Sadducees.  John was clear on this.