Chapter 3 – One God Translation

Matthew

   3 In those days John the Baptist came on the scene. He was in the Judean desert, proclaiming the Gospel: 2 “Repent, because the Kingdom of Heaven has drawn near.” [71] 3 This is the one Isaiah the prophet spoke about when he said, “A voice cries out in the desert, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make the road straight for Him.’”[72] 4 John was wearing camel-hair clothes tied with a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. 5 People were going out to him from Jerusalem, all over Judea, and all the region around the Jordan, 6 and they were being baptized[73] by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins.
   7 But when John saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming to be baptized, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Produce fruit which corresponds to repentance, 9 and do not imagine telling yourselves, ‘Abraham is our father.’ I tell you that God could make children of Abraham out of these stones. 10 Right now the axe is ready to chop down the trees. Every tree which does not produce good fruit[74] will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
   11 “As for me, I baptize you in water for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is more powerful than I am. I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you in holy spirit[75] and fire. 12 His winnowing tool is in his hand and he will clear his threshing floor. The wheat he will gather into the storehouse, but the chaff he will burn up [76] with fire which cannot be put out.” [77]
   13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan River to be baptized by John. 14 But John tried to dissuade him. “I need to be baptized by you, and you are coming to me to be baptized?” he said. 15 “Let it be done now, because it is appropriate for us to fulfill all that is right,” [78] Jesus said to him. So John agreed. 16 After he was baptized, Jesus immediately got out of the water, and heaven opened before him, and he saw God’s spirit like a dove descending and landing on him. 17 A voice out of the heavens said, “This is My Son, [79] the one I love, who pleases Me.”

Matthew

[71]

This does not mean that the Kingdom had come! The whole presentation of Matthew is that the Kingdom of God was approaching, but not yet revealed in its true Messianic sense. This is to be expected only at the future return of Jesus at his Parousia (Lk. 21:35; 2 Tim. 4:1). The Gospel of the Kingdom, the Christian Gospel, is the Gospel about the Kingdom of David to be restored by Jesus (1 Chron. 17; 2 Chron. 13:8). The Kingdom of Heaven is not remotely to do with going to heaven at death, or at any time! It is the Kingdom coming to earth when God sends it (Dan. 2:44; 7:27; Mic. 4:1-8).

[72]

Jesus as the unique agent of YHVH, the God of Israel, represents the Lord God. Jesus is of course not the Lord GOD (which would make two GODS!) but the special and unique agent (shaliach in Hebrew) of the One God of monotheism. Jesus was a unitarian in the biblical sense, agreeing with complete conviction to the creed of his Jewish, biblical heritage (Mk. 12:29ff; Jn. 17:3; Mal. 2:10; Ps. 110:1: “my lord” not “my Lord,” adoni not Adonai).

[73]

Baptism in water is fundamental to the Christian faith, and to deny it or refuse it puts one in the dangerous position of resisting Jesus and the Apostles (see Lk. 7:30). It is disobedience (see John 3:36; Heb. 5:9; 1 Tim. 6:3) and without obedience there can be no salvation.

[74]

Reminiscent of the famous Ps. 1, which depicts the two possible ways of life for all human beings. Bearing fruit in the NT is based on the seed of the Kingdom of God Gospel (Mt. 13; Mk. 4; Lk. 8). Repentance and forgiveness depend on believing and obeying the Gospel of the Kingdom (Mk. 4:11-12; Mt. 13:19; Lk. 8:12).

[75]

Not of course to the exclusion of baptism in water, which is commanded everywhere and in the Great Commission until the end of the age, the return of Jesus (28:19-20).

[76]

The concept is of a consuming and destructive fire, not a fire inflicting eternal torture. The concept of unending conscious punishment is foreign to Scripture. Jude 7 refers to the “eternal fire” which consumed Sodom and Gomorrah. It is the “fire of the age to come.”

[77]

The idea is that it will not be extinguished until it has completed its work of consuming its victims. There is no hint of an “eternal torment” here.

[78]

Baptism in water is an essential Christian teaching, based on the command and practice of Jesus and contained in the Great Commission which is the marching order for the Church until the end of the age (28:19-20; for “end of the age” see 13:39, 40, 49; 24:3). To remove water baptism from the Christian scheme is to confront Jesus head on! It is fatal disobedience to the Messiah. No salvation is possible for those who disobey (Heb. 5:9).

[79]

Jesus was of course Son of God from the moment of his begetting, coming into existence in Mary (Mt. 1:18, 20; Lk. 1:35; 1 John 5:18, not KJV: the Son was begotten from God). He did not begin to be the Son of God at baptism. Rom. 1:1-3 recognizes him in the same way as Son of God because he is of the Messianic lineage of David, and declared to be Son of God, with power, by his resurrection and ascension. Acts 13:33 applied the begetting event “You are my Son, today I have begotten you” (Ps. 2:7) to the beginning of the life of Jesus, his coming on the scene of history (mistranslated in the KJV which misleadingly adds “again”) and v. 34 refers to the resurrection, raising up again. 2 Sam. 7:14 similarly applies the promise that God will be the Father of the Messiah to the beginning of the life of the Son, and Isa. 9:6 had predicted the same event: “To us a child will be begotten [by GOD, a divine passive]; to us a Son will be given.” The typical parallelism of the two statements make both statements about the Messiah apply to the same moment. The truth of Isa. 9:6 was developed by Luke in 1:32-35. And the same begetting, beginning of the Son is described in Heb. 1. The NT speaks with a united voice on the time of the origin of the Son of God. Later Greek philosophically influenced theology turned all this into a complex nightmare, and the Son was no longer allowed to have a beginning, as every human being must, in history and time, from the womb of his/her mother.