Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadWilliam Burkitt Notes and Observations - Matthew 3:12 - 3:12
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
In these words the baptists compare Christ, the promised Messiah, to an husbandman, the Jewish church to a barnfloor. The office of the husbandman is to thresh, fan, and winnow his corn, separating it from the chaff: preserving the one and consuming the other .
Learn hence, 1. That the church is Christ's floor.
2. That this floor Christ will purge and that thoroughly.
3. That the word of Christ is the fan in his hand, by and with which he will thoroughly purge his floor.
The church is compared to a floor, upon the account of that mixture which is in the church; in a floor there is straw as well as grain, chaff as well as corn, tares as well as wheat, cockle and darnel as well as good seed.
Thus in the church there is and will be a mixture of good and bad, saints and sinners, hypocrites and sincere Christians. But this floor Christ will purge; purge it, but not break it up: purge out its corruptions, but not destroy its essence and its existence:
And the fan with which he will purge his floor is his word, accompanied with the wind of discipline. The fan detects and discovers the chaff, and the wind dissipates and scatters it; and by the help of both the floor is purged. His fan is in his hand, &c.