Two Baptisms, One Threshing Floor Text: Matthew 3:11-12
Introduction: The Great Divide
John the Baptist was a hinge in history. He was the last of the Old Testament prophets, standing with his leather belt and camel's hair coat on the threshold of the New Covenant. His message was not complicated, and it was not designed to soothe. It was a message of urgent, stark division. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And with the coming of the King comes a great sorting. Things that have been mixed together are about to be separated, permanently. Things that have appeared similar are about to be revealed for what they truly are.
We live in an age that despises distinctions. Our culture wants to blur every line God has drawn. They want to call evil good and good evil. They want to erase the line between man and woman, between the sacred and the profane, between truth and lies. But the ministry of Jesus Christ, heralded here by John, is a ministry of radical separation. He is the great divider. He did not come to bring peace in the sentimental sense, but a sword. He came to divide father from son, mother from daughter. And here, John the Baptist tells us that the coming of Christ will force a fundamental division upon the world, a division as basic as that between wheat and chaff.
John's preaching was a preparation. His baptism was a sign, a pointer. But he knew his place. He was the best man, not the groom. He was the opening act, not the headliner. And he tells the crowds who were flocking to him that the one coming after him is of an entirely different order. John's work was with water. Christ's work is with the Holy Spirit and with fire. This is not an upgrade; it is a different category of reality altogether. And this baptism with Spirit and fire results in a great sifting, a great harvest, and a great bonfire. This is not a message for first century Judea only. This is a description of the ministry of Christ in every age, including our own. He is still sorting, still sifting, still gathering, and still burning.
The Text
"As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire."
(Matthew 3:11-12 LSB)
Water and Fire (v. 11)
We begin with John's great contrast in verse 11:
"As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire." (Matthew 3:11)
John begins by defining the limits of his own ministry. "I baptize you with water." His baptism was an external sign. It was a powerful and necessary sign, a ritual washing that pointed to the need for internal cleansing. It was a baptism "for repentance," meaning it was for those who were turning away from their sins and preparing for the arrival of the King. But John knew that water can only make you wet. It cannot change the heart. His baptism was a signpost pointing down the road to the one who could do what the water only symbolized.
Then he speaks of the Christ. First, His station: "He who is coming after me is mightier than I." This is cosmic understatement. John was the greatest man born of women, and yet he says he is unworthy to perform the task of the lowest household slave for the Messiah, to untie his sandals. John understood the infinite distance between the creature and the Creator, between the forerunner and the King.
Second, His work: "He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire." This is one baptism with a dual effect. It is not that some people get the Spirit and others get the fire. No, the coming of Christ plunges the whole world, the whole covenant community, into a new reality. Just as dunking something in water affects the whole object, the ministry of Christ immerses the world in the presence of the Holy Spirit and the reality of divine judgment. For those who repent and believe, this baptism is life. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of regeneration, of new life, of power, of adoption. The fire is a purifying fire, burning away the dross of sin, refining us like gold. This is the fire of Pentecost, the tongues of fire that rested on the disciples, empowering them for witness.
But for those who refuse to repent, for those who stand in opposition to the King, this same baptism is a baptism of judgment. The Holy Spirit is a Spirit of conviction and judgment to the world. And the fire is not a cleansing fire, but a consuming fire. God is a consuming fire. The same presence of God that is a comfort and joy to the believer is a terror and a torment to the unrepentant. The same sun that melts the wax hardens the clay. The coming of Christ forces a reaction. You are either softened by His grace or hardened in your rebellion, but you are not left unchanged. His presence sorts everyone into one of two camps.
The Great Harvest (v. 12)
Verse 12 explains the result of this baptism of Spirit and fire using a common agricultural metaphor.
"His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." (Matthew 3:12 LSB)
This is a picture of judgment, but we must be precise about what kind of judgment. This is not talking exclusively about the final judgment at the end of time, though it certainly points to it. In the immediate context, John is speaking about the judgment that was about to befall first-century Israel. The "threshing floor" is the covenant community of Israel. For centuries, true believers (the wheat) and hypocrites or apostates (the chaff) had grown up together in the same field, under the same covenant administration.
But now, the Messiah has come. "His winnowing fork is in His hand." A winnowing fork was a tool used to toss the threshed grain into the air. The heavy kernels of wheat would fall straight back to the floor, while the wind would blow the light, worthless chaff away. Christ's earthly ministry was this winnowing fork. His preaching, His miracles, His claims to divinity, and ultimately His cross and resurrection, was the great act of tossing the nation of Israel into the air. It forced a separation.
Those who believed, the wheat, were gathered. They fell at His feet. He gathered them into His "barn," which is the Church, the new covenant community. This gathering happened at Pentecost and continued as the gospel went out from Jerusalem. But the chaff, those who rejected their King, the scribes and Pharisees and the nation that followed them, were blown aside. They were light, empty, fruitless. They had the outward appearance of religion but none of the substance.
And what happens to this chaff? He "will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." This was fulfilled historically and dreadfully in the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. That was a fiery judgment, a divine burning of the refuse of the old covenant system. The Roman armies were God's instrument to burn up the chaff. That fire was "unquenchable" in the sense that no one could stop it until its work was done. It was a complete and total judgment on that generation.
Wheat and Chaff Still
But the principle remains. Christ is still at work on His threshing floor. The threshing floor is now the visible church. And in the visible church, there is always a mixture of wheat and chaff. There are those who have true, living faith, and there are those who are merely professing. There are those who are solid, weighty, and fruitful, and there are those who are light, empty, and blown about by every wind of doctrine.
Christ continues to winnow. He uses trials, persecutions, and hardships to toss us in the air. He uses the preaching of His hard truths to sift us. He uses cultural pressure to separate the true from the false. When it becomes costly to be a Christian, you find out who the real wheat is very quickly. The chaff gets blown away to where it is more comfortable.
The wheat are those described in Psalm 1. They are like a tree planted by streams of water, yielding fruit in its season. Their delight is in the law of the Lord. But the wicked, the chaff, are not so. They are like the chaff that the wind drives away. They have no root, no substance, no stability. They may look like part of the harvest for a time, but when the wind of judgment blows, they are gone.
This is a solemn warning. It is not enough to be on the threshing floor. It is not enough to be in the church, to be baptized, to say the right things. The question is, are you wheat or are you chaff? Do you have the weight of true faith, true repentance, true love for Christ? Or are you light, empty, and just going along for the ride? Because the winnowing fork is in His hand. And the fire is unquenchable.
The good news is that the one who holds the fork is the same one who went to the cross. He is a merciful judge. He is not looking for a reason to condemn, but He is looking for true faith. And for all who are wheat, for all who are His, the end of the story is not the tossing, but the gathering. "He will gather His wheat into the barn." This is the ultimate security of the believer. We will be gathered safely into the Father's house, protected from the coming fire. The judgment that separates the chaff is the very same action that secures the wheat. Therefore, do not fear the winnowing. If you are His, it is only blowing away that which is not of Him, and preparing you to be gathered safely home.