1. John, as the context shows, is addressing himself in terms of earnest admonition to the Pharisees and Sadducees, and to the Jews, as infected with their leaven. (Compare Matt. iii, 7, and Luke iii, 7.) He warns them of the discrimination which the Lord Jesus was about to use, in the purging of his floor. He begins with the expostulation, “O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from _the wrath to come_?” He proceeds to indicate that the time then current was one of threatening portent. “And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees.” The safety of the righteous he leaves to silent implication; but emphasizes the doom of the wicked,—“Every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.” He then modifies the figure, with reference to his own baptizing office. “I indeed baptize you with water.... But he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire;” and lest there should be any doubt, as to his meaning, he completes the sentence with an expository detail,—“whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” It is certainly very improbable that in a Scripture so closely knit together and consecutive, so pervaded with one spirit and intent, the baptist should have used the word, fire, at the beginning and end, as a vivid figure of the judicial wrath of Christ, and in the middle, change it, without notice or explanation, into a figure of his grace; and this, too, when the first and third clauses present every appearance of being parallel to, and expository of the second. The supposition that the baptism of fire, means an exercise of grace is, in fact, irreconcilable with the purpose of John’s whole announcement, and renders the passage contradictory to the context, and false to John’s mission and Christ’s office and work. This is the only clause in the connection in which John states in direct terms, to the Pharisees and Sadducees whom he is addressing, the office of Christ, as toward them distinctively. And if, while proclaiming in general terms, His judicial and executive functions, consuming the evil trees and burning up the chaff, he is to be understood as saying,—“He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with his gracious influences,” the only justifiable conclusion would be that those self-righteous sectaries were the favorites of heaven, and had no reason to fear that day that should burn as an oven.