Q.—The great difference between the descent of the Spirit upon Christ as a dove and upon believers as a cloven tongue of fire, struck me so forcibly that I searched the subject out and saw that He being holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners, received the Spirit (not that He was not immaculate by the Spirit from His mother's womb before) as an emblem of purity and harmlessness—a dove; whereas the believer, sinful still, received Him as a cloven tongue of fire. Was not the promise of Matt. 3:11 fulfilled at Pentecost, a baptism with the Holy Ghost and with fire? I connected with it 1 Cor. 3:13, to the effect that the believer who is led by the Spirit will not build inflammable structures; but that if he exert his own quenching influence upon the fire of the Holy Spirit, worthless building must result. Then again, 1 Cor. 3:5, “ye are the temple of God;” “The Spirit dwelleth in you.”
Thus the unquenchable fire (Matt. 3:12) to me seemed the Spirit Himself who seeks daily to burn up the chaff of flesh and self, and so to transform us more and more into the likeness of Christ. It is the purifying influence of fire, that we generally failed to admit a baptism of fire as coincident.
We speak of allowing the Spirit to work, and so exclude the works of the flesh and expel them too: is not this the purifying work of fire? The symbol seems to fit well. When (1 Cor. 3) the day shall declare our works, how much of flesh shall be burnt up by fire! all man's building undirected by the Spirit. Had the Spirit been allowed to do His work, would not these works have been burnt up at their inception instead of their author's having to suffer loss after this life's close? The “quench not the Spirit,” is it necessarily a negative command to the assembly? The accompanying commands seem to be to individuals. Can not an individual effectually quench the Spirit, or does σβέννυτε go too far for this?
If the fire of the Spirit is not for purifying purposes, why the promise in Matt. 3 and the cloven tongue of Pentecost? and is not Matt. 3:12 applicable in great measure here and now, at this present time? And is not this what He is doing continually in us as we pass along? Is it not His will that by this process we should be more and more transformed into the likeness of Christ? What means “Our God is a consuming fire?” Q.
A.— It is well to observe that the form of the Spirit's appearance is stated in our Lord's case to be “as a dove,” and in the saints “as of fire.” There was divine suitability in each; and as gentleness marked the one, so the testimony of the other was to judge and consume as fire all opposing falsehood. But this is not the complete fulfillment of Matt. 3, though a moral witness of what awaits the Lord's execution of judgment on the living at His appearing. As the O.T. often mixes the two comings of Messiah, so did John the Baptist the twofold baptism. Not till He comes again is the winnowing fan in His hand, whence He shall throughly purge His threshing-floor, and gather His wheat into His garner, but also burn the chaff with the unquenchable fire. Surely this last is in no way a moral purifying of faults of the righteous, but the judicial destruction of the wicked. Luke, who brings in the Gentiles, does the same; for His judgment will befall them too.
This is corroborated by the Gospel of Mark, who did not write especially for the Jews as Matthew, but as the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Accordingly in God's wisdom he presents John the Baptist as speaking of Christ's baptizing with the Holy Spirit (1:8), but not a word about the baptism of fire. That baptism took place at Pentecost. So in John's Gospel (1:33) we hear of Christ's baptizing with the Holy Spirit only. His judgment on the quick is here left out, but will surely be at Christ's second advent.
1 Cor. 3:12-15 has nothing to do with the baptism of fire spoken of in Matt. 3:11, 12, and in Luke 16; 17 nor does any one of them speak of its purifying influence, still less of burning up the chaff of flesh and self. For us the basis was laid in the cross where God condemned sin in the flesh, and as a sin-offering for us, and thus our sinful nature had His judgment executed on it, as well as our sins borne away. No doubt there is also a daily moral government carried on, as our Lord pointed out in the Vine (John 15), the fruit-bearing branches being cleansed (we read) by the water of the word, whilst the fruitless are left for the fire of another day; but there is no mixing up the two for this day. The transforming into Christ's image from glory to glory, even as by the Lord the Spirit, is by looking on His glory with unveiled face, after the type of Moses, as 2 Cor. 3 tells us. Heb. 12:29 refers to Deut. 4:24, in no way to the baptism of the Spirit.