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Mat_3:11. Yet it is not I who will determine the admission or the exclusion, but He who is greater than I. In Luk_3:16 there is a special reason assigned for this discourse, in keeping with the use of a more developed tradition on the part of the later redactor.
εἰς μετάνοιαν ] denotes the telic reference of the baptism (comp. Mat_28:19), which imposes an obligation to μετάνοια . To the characteristic ἐν ὕδατι εἰς μετάνοιαν stands opposed the higher characteristic ἐν πνευματι ἁγίῳ κ . πυρί , the two elements of which together antithetically correspond to that “baptism by water unto repentance;” see subsequently.
ἐν is, agreeably to the conception of βαπτίζω (immersion), not to be taken as instrumental, but as in, in the meaning of the element, in which immersion takes place. Mar_1:5; 1Co_10:2; 2Ki_5:14; Polyb. v. 47. 2 : βαπτιζόμενοι ἐν τοῖς τέλμασι ; Hom. Od. ix. 392.
ὁ δὲ ὀπίσω μου ἐρχόμενος ] that is, the Messiah. His coming as such is always brought forward with great emphasis in Mark and Luke. The present here also denotes the near and definite beginning of the future.
ἰσχυρότ . μου ἐστίν ] In what special relation he is more powerful is stated afterwards by αὐτὸς ὑμᾶς βαπτίσει , κ . τ . λ .
οὗ οὐκ εἰμί , κ . τ . λ .] In comparison with Him, I am too humble to be fitted to be one of His lowest slaves. To bear the sandals of their masters ( βαστάσαι ), that is, to bring and take them away, as well as to fasten them on or take them off (the latter in Mark and Luke), was amongst the Jews, Greeks, and Romans the business of slaves of the lowest rank. See Wetstein, Rosenmüller, Morgenl. in loc.; comp. Talmud, Kiddusch. xxii. 2.
αὐτός ] He and no other, Mat_1:21.
ὑμᾶς ] was spoken indeed to the Pharisees and Sadducees; but it is not these only who are meant, but the people of Israel in general, who were represented to the eye of the prophet in them, and in the multitude who were present.
ἐν πν . ἁγ . κ . πυρί ] in the Holy Spirit, those who have repented; in fire (by which that of Gehenna is meant), the unrepentant. Both are figuratively designated as βαπτίζειν , in so far as both are the two opposite sides of the Messianic lustration, by which the one are sprinkled with the Holy Ghost (Act_1:5), the others with hell-fire, as persons baptized are with water. It is explained as referring to the fire of everlasting punishment, after Origen and several Fathers, by Kuinoel, Schott (Opusc. II. p. 198), Fritzsche, Neander, de Wette, Paulus, Ammon, B. Crusius, Arnoldi, Hofmann, Bleek, Keim, Volkmar, Hengstenberg, Weber, vom Zorne Gottes, p. 219 f.; Gess, Christi Vers. u. Werk, I. p. 310. But, after Chrysostom and most Catholic expositors, others (Erasmus, Beza, Calvin, Clericus, Wetstein, Storr, Eichhorn, Kauffer, Olshausen, Glöckler, Kuhn, Ewald) understand it of the fire of the Holy Spirit, which inflames and purifies the spirits of men. Comp. Isa_4:4. These and other explanations, which take πυρί as not referring to the punishments of Gehenna, are refuted by John’s own decisive explanation in Mat_3:12 : τὸ δὲ ἄχυρον κατακαύσει πυρὶ ἀσβέστῳ . It is wrong, accordingly, to refer the πυρί to the fiery tongues in Acts 2. (Euth. Zigabenus, Maldonatus, Elsner, Er. Schmid, Bengel, Ebrard). The omission of καὶ πυρί is much too weakly attested to delete it, with Matthaei and Rinck, Lucubr. crit. p. 248. See Griesbach, Comm. crit. p. 25 f.