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-- JOHN'S MESSAGE TO THE WICKED
Luke
3:2-6 . . The word of God came to John
the son of Zacharias in the wilderness. And he went into all the region
around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of
repentance for the remission of sins,
as it is written in the book of the words of
Isaiah the prophet,
saying:
"The voice of one crying in the wilderness: "Prepare the way
of the LORD; Make His paths straight. Every valley
shall be filled, And every mountain and hill brought low; The crooked
places shall be made straight And the rough ways smooth; And all
flesh shall see the salvation of God."
Luke 3:15-17 Now as the people were in expectation, and all reasoned in their hearts about John, whether he was the Christ or not, John answered, saying to all, "I indeed baptize you with water; but One mightier than I is coming, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather the wheat into His barn; but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire."
The two halves of the gospel are, of course, closely related -- with the salvation, the first part, being the pre-requisite for entry into the Kingdom of God and eternal life, the second part.
Salvation, however, requires repentance for the remission of sins, as John now begins to preach -- taking his message from a prophecy of Isaiah (chapter 40:3-5), from a section describing the mortality of man (verses 6-8), the futility of the world powers (verses 15-17), and the coming forcible intervention of God in human affairs (verses 9-10).
Repentance is not rocket science, but, as John explains in the next few verses, a change of heart and a change in the way we think and treat other people. All people, no matter how powerful, proud and successful, are mortal flesh -- inevitably subject to decrepitude, death and decay and desperately in need of the salvation of God.
The practice of baptism, immersion or washing in water, was not a new thing introduced by John -- but had long been practiced by the Israelites with individuals converting to Judaism.
The metaphorical parallel between physical and moral uncleanness has probably been recognized since the earliest times -- with dirt and germs and the diseases they carry clearly representing sin and evil, with washing with water, as depicted in baptism, as the key means of their literal and figurative removal.
Water does of course typify the Holy Spirit of God, the source of true cleansing in the hearts and minds of men.
Taking his message again from the prophet Malachi (Malachi 4:1), involving an ancient farming metaphor with a fairly obvious implication, John then reminds the wicked that chaff, like useless rubbish and toxic materials, was destroyed by burning with fire. These events will be fulfilled in due time.
Christianity, incidentally, is not a religion of "works" -- and nobody becomes "qualified" for eternal life, as some world religions teach, if by the time of death their good works manage to outweigh their bad ones.