Matthew 3:1

DIVISION II

PREPARATION FOR HIS MESSIANIC WORK; THE HERALD; BAPTISM; TEMPTATION; AND HIS PUBLIC IDENTIFICATION BY JOHN THE BAPTIST

Matthew 3:1-4:11

MATT. 3

And in those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, saying Repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. (Matthew 3:1-2)

In those days ... that is, some thirty years after the events recorded in the previous chapter. This is typical of Matthew's slight attention to chronology. Jesus was about 30 years of age when he was baptized (Luke 3:23). The date of John's ministry is also given by Luke as occurring in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar (Luke 3:1).

John the Baptist ... John is called "the baptist" because he baptized people. McGarvey identified John as the originator, under God, of the ordinance of baptism.[1] Dummelow commented on the immense popularity of John the Baptist, "The public appearance of the Baptist marked a new era. He came forward in the two-fold capacity of a prophet and forerunner of the Messiah. Since prophecy had been silent for 400 years, and all patriotic Jews were longing for the coming of the Messiah to deliver them from the Roman yoke, it is not surprising that he was welcomed with enthusiasm; and that those who ventured to doubt his mission found it expedient to dissemble (Matthew 21:26)."[2] Jesus had the highest opinion of John (Luke 7:28). The Jewish priests said he was possessed by a demon (Matthew 11:18), but this poor opinion of John was a reflection upon themselves and sprang out of the evil in which they were engrossed.

The wilderness of Judaea ... was a strip of waste land also called a desert (Luke 1:80), lying west of the Dead Sea near the mouth of the Jordan. This wilderness platform of John's preaching served to identify him as "the voice of one crying in the wilderness." That John the Baptist was most certainly the person spoken of by the prophet, Isaiah, "is evident from the fact that he alone, of all the great preachers known to history, chose a wilderness as his place of preaching."[3]

Repent ye ... John's message was one of repentance. Benjamin Franklin, pioneer Restoration preacher, proclaimed that God appointed three changes in conversion and three actions designed to effect those three changes. These are FAITH to change the heart (mind); REPENTANCE to change the will; and BAPTISM to change the status. Repentance involving a change of the will is far more than mere sorrow for sin (2 Corinthians 7:10). Repentance is an instantaneous change of the will, induced by godly sorrow, and issuing forth in a reformation of life, and marked by restitution wherever possible. See under Matthew 18:3.

The kingdom of heaven ... This is the kingdom of Daniel 2:44. John was the herald of this approaching king, Christ, in his kingdom. That this wonderful new kingdom was not to be a kingdom of this world in the ordinary and secular sense was a fact unknown to the Jews and only dimly appreciated by the Twelve themselves, especially at first. The kingdom of God and the church are one and the same institution, and this fact is more and more apparent. See under Matthew 16:13-19.

Is at hand ... With the ministry of John the Baptist, the kingdom was near but not yet established. Moffatt's translation of this place is: "The reign of heaven is near." In Mark 9:1, Christ emphatically declared that the kingdom of God would be established with power within the lifetime of the apostles, saying, "Verily, I say unto you, There are some here of them who stand by, who shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God come with power." Both Christ and Judas Iscariot were to taste of death before the kingdom began; and, therefore, the words "some of them" are most precisely accurate.

[1] J. W. McGarvey, New Testament Commentary (Delight, Arkansas: Gospel Light Publishing Co.), p. 33.

[2] J. R. Dummelow, One Volume Commentary (New York: Macmillan Company, 1937), p. 629.

[3] J. W. McGarvey, op. cit., p. 34.