Early last week I received an email from a gentleman who wanted me to deal with his Bible question on our TV program. He has sent a number of questions in the past. This one centers around something John the Baptist stated in Matthew 3:11. It reads, “I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” He wants to know what the baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire means.

Let me first deal with a serious problem we face with most people that misunderstand this text. That is, they try to answer it without looking at examples in the Bible where this is fulfilled. This we will do later on in this article. But before we get to that, we need point out what is not in this verse. It’s assumptions that lead to false teaching.

When you read the text, John was not saying that everyone was going to receive the Holy Spirit. This we will clearly see when we examine the fulfillment of this promise. To take this text and teach that everyone in the future will be baptized by Jesus with the Holy Spirit is a clear mishandling of scripture. This is why there is so much false doctrine in the world today because people do this very thing with many verses in the Bible.

Let’s now study the context. This should help in ascertaining the meaning of Matthew 3:11. If you look at verse 10 and verse 12, you will see that John was dealing with two classes of people. There are those who are faithful to the Lord and those who are not. Thus, we are dealing with those being rewarded for being righteous and those being punished for being wicked. Why would we conclude that verse 11 isn’t linked with these truths?

Fire, in scripture, is often used to deal with the consequences for being evil (Jude 7; Matt. 25:41; II Thes. 1:8; Rev. 20:15 etc.). The word baptize means to immerse, which is a fitting term to describe those who will be baptized with fire. On the other hand, the faithful obtain the “gift of the Holy Spirit” when they become Christians (Acts 2:38). This gift is the hope of salvation, which every faithful saint enjoys.

This brings us to the fulfillment of those baptized by Jesus with the Holy Spirit. We need to see the link with Christ baptizing with the Holy Spirit and with providing the gift of the Holy Spirit for all the saved. Consider the promise Jesus gave His apostles concerning the Holy Spirit (Jn. 16:13; Acts 1:8).  Look at those passages carefully. For in them Jesus said His apostles would be guided into all truth and that it would happen when they were in Jerusalem. In Acts 2:1-4, the apostles were baptized with the Holy Spirit. As they taught the life-saving message and people responded they could receive the gift of the Holy Spirit – which was that hope of eternal life.

In one sense, what John stated would apply to everyone. After all, with the baptism of the Holy Spirit, all of mankind would be able to hear the gospel in order to be saved (Rom. 1:16). Then the baptism of the fire deals with all those who reject the Lord and do not obey the gospel (II Thes. 1:8). Please keep in mind this all has to do with the scheme of redemption Christ brought to this world.

I realize there are those who say they have had a “religious experience” and say they were “Baptized with the Holy Spirit and/or with fire”, however the Bible teaches otherwise. Even though Matthew 3:11 is used to support this idea, such is not the case. Let’s be sure we handle the word of God properly and do not twist the scriptures to our own destruction (II Pet. 3:16).

Chuck