Luke 3:1-22--John the Baptist Prepares the Way

Luke 3:1-22
English Standard Version

John the Baptist Prepares the Way
3 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, 2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 And he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 4 As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet,

“The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
    make his paths straight.
5 Every valley shall be filled,
    and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall become straight,
    and the rough places shall become level ways,
6 and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”

7 He said therefore to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. And do not begin 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. 9 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.”

10 And the crowds asked him, “What then shall we do?” 11 And he answered them, “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.” 12 Tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, “Teacher, what shall we do?” 13 And he said to them, “Collect no more than you are authorized to do.” 14 Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.”

15 As the people were in expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Christ, 16 John answered them all, saying, “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17 His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

18 So with many other exhortations he preached good news to the people. 19 But Herod the tetrarch, who had been reproved by him for Herodias, his brother's wife, and for all the evil things that Herod had done, 20 added this to them all, that he locked up John in prison.

​21 Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heavens were opened, 22 and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

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Luke wants to bring us back to the person and ministry of John the Baptist before this time of "introduction" in his biography is over.  We now see John (who we call John the Baptist) in his ministry around the Jordan River.  Luke tells us exactly when and where we're talking about as only Luke the historian can.  There is no doubt that Luke was talking about a real person in history in a real place, dealing with real politics here at the local, regional, state, national, and maybe even international levels as his message was not all that pleasant for the religious leaders and rulers of the Jews that were in Jerusalem (the Pharisees and Sadducees that made up the Sanhedrin as well as the scribes and teachers of the Law), now was John in favor with Rome or any of their puppet governors of the "king" they put in place over the region.  Telling people they are sinners and need to repent because they are at enmity with God is not a message that will win you any brownie points.

Luke then returns to the words of Isaiah the prophet to remind us of John's job description.  He would come like one in the spirit of Elijah, a "fire and brimstone" prophet of the Old Testament that was probably the most well-known of the Old Testament prophets.  Elijah was called to challenge the idolatry of the people and the kings and to challenge the false religion that had replaced the priesthood and corrupted the temple, and he was to warn the people of their coming judgment and exile because they had broken covenant with the LORD.  John sounded like he had much the same message if people didn't listen closely, but with the message to repent, there was also a message of God's grace and salvation that was embedded there.  We'll see that again today.

We see that John's message is one of justice and what we would call "equity" because all will have equal footing before God when the judgment comes (not equal footing with God, but with each other).  We all stand condemned under the Law and in need of salvation.  None of us deserve that salvation and to all who receive it by faith, He gives the right and privilege to become and be called children of God and to be coheirs with Jesus.  That is a message of hope, but you first have to admit that you are a sinner in need of salvation, and that was especially hard for the religious leaders that maintained power by trying to convince the people that they had it all together and the people needed to listen to them and follow their instructions/commands if they wanted to have God look on them with favor (yet God was not at all pleased with the Pharisees or their perversion of His Law--He thought of them and their system much the same way that He thought of the idolatry and priests of those false gods from back in the days of Elijah).

​John then spoke to the crowds, probably full of religious leaders who had come to examine him and test him like they did with the other Rabbis that gained a following, and called them a brood of vipers (pointing out their similarities to the devil who appeared as a serpent in the Garden of Eden) and asked them who warned them of the coming judgment and told them they should repent.  He then told them that their works needed to be in keeping with what they claimed to be on the inside and inferred their hearts were as spiritually dead as the rocks, but God is good and can even make true children of Abraham out of those with hearts of stone--just look at the new covenant from the book of Ezekiel 36:26, "26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh."  This should have been good news (the gospel), but to them that would not repent and believe, it was bad news that they deserved judgment and condemnation when Messiah would come.  We'll see this as a common theme of John's message.  There is a message of good news for some, but a message of impending and sudden judgment for the many that consider themselves self-righteous and in no need of repentance.  Throughout this passage (and many times in Jesus' ministry through His teachings and parables), we'll see fire used to refer to the coming hellfire and judgment that awaits those that die in a state of rebellion against God.  John doesn't soften the blows at all, and tells them the truth as the Sprit does His work to call the Elect to repentance, but to harden the hearts of those who will not believe, yet they will be "without excuse" as they have heard the gospel and been called to repentance and rejected the truth.

Notice how the attitude of the people is works-based as they respond with "what then shall we do?" as if they need to become even more righteous than the Pharisees.  In fact, Jesus will even say it this way to them later that unless their righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees they cannot enter the kingdom of God--for only the one who is faultless can enter by His own merit, and there is only one who who is faultless by His own merit and exchanges our unrighteousness for His righteousness, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

John sees the people coming to him that the Pharisees would call "irredeemable" and "deplorable"--the "sinners" and tax collectors and even the soldiers (presumably Roman soldiers that were part of the occupying force).  John told these people that desired to repent and believe what needed to change in their lives to be consistent with the nature that God wanted to give them.  To the regular people who may not have seen themselves as rich, he called them to share what they had with those who had less--even if they only had two shirts, they could give one to someone who had none.  This is not a call for what we would call Communism or Socialism with forced redistribution of wealth, but a call for people to be good stewards of whatever God has given them--especially the most valuable thing we have, the gospel.  To the tax-collectors who were seen as traitors for being Jews that worked for the Roman government to collect taxes for Caesar, he told them to collect no more than what was required, for they often told people they owed more and pocketed the difference, and to the soldiers he told them never to extort anyone (again, something that was a major problem and part of the Roman culture).  Notice that John is not saying that these good works save them, but this is the "fruit in keeping with repentance" as they have been changed on the inside and now want to change their behavior on the outside.  The change in nature still proceeded the change in behavior and the works are coming alongside their faith to be do things that are consistent with who they claim they are.

John then encourages these people who repent to be baptized with water, but he tells them that one will come after him, the Christ, who will baptize not with water, but with fire, that is judgment, and with the Holy Spirit, that is the Spirit of God who changes us from the inside out and saves us.  It is the Spirit who takes our heart of stone and gives us a heart of flesh like we read about in the book of Ezekiel, and He is the one who keeps us in Christ Jesus until the Day of the Lord which will be salvation for all who are in Christ and judgment for all those who are outside of Christ--just like it was in the days of Noah where the Ark was safety and security from the Flood for those that the LORD had placed inside the Ark, but for everyone outside, their judgment came as a surprise and came upon them swiftly and there was no more chance for them to enter the Ark of the LORD's salvation (that is Christ) at that point.  So then the coming of the Lord will be great for some and terrible for others, so that I call it The Great and Terrible Day of the Lord.  On that day, everyone's hearts will be revealed.  The genuine will be separated from the fake and all that which is worthless from our lives will be burned up so that only that which is worthy of giving to Christ will remain.  He will sift the hearts of His people like wheat and His winnowing fork is at the ready and His axe is at the root of the dead, fruitless trees ready to chop them down and throw them into the fire.

As you might imagine, the puppet governor put in place by Rome was not very happy with this message because he was in an open relationship with his brother's wife (all of them seemed okay with it), but John often spoke out against Herod for his polytomy and adulterous relationship with Philip's wife.  Herod thought the only way to shut John up was to put him in jail, and there he kept him for a long time, though John continued to preach to him boldly while imprisoned and Herod kind of started to like John but knew he could not release him because that would mean that Herod was saying that John was right.  Eventually Herod's mistress (I will not call her his wife, for she was the wife of his brother Philip) took advantage of Herod's drunkenness at a party he was throwing and used her daughter to ask for John the Baptist's execution--Luke should cover this later as it is a pivotal point in the ministry of Jesus, but for now Luke is content to sum up most of the ministry of John in this introduction to the biography of Jesus.

Last, but not least, we see that John gets the opportunity to baptize Jesus in the Jordan River.  Not much is said about it here other than  we see that the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus in the form of a dove (a sign that was given to John on who the Christ would be) and that there was a voice from heaven saying, "This is My Son in whom I am well pleased."  We'll hear similar words at the Mount of Transfiguration.  If you'd like a more complete account of the Baptism of Jesus, check out Matthew 3:13-17, Mark 1:9-11, and John 1:29-34.  All say just about the same thing, but it is important to see that all for gospels include this (and much of the same information that we had about John's message and testimony) and that while not word-for-word identical, they are harmonious and consistent in their testimony leading us to see that these accounts are reliable, accurate, and trustworthy.