Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Matthew 3:12

Whose fan [is] in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

12. fan ] An instrument by which the corn after being threshed is thrown up against the wind to clear it of chaff.

floor ] Here put for the contents of the threshing-floor, the mingled grain and chaff.

St Matthew represents the picturesque side of John’s preaching, these verses are full of imagery. How many similes are compressed into his teaching! The vipers, the stones, the trees, the slave, the threshing-floor, are all used to illustrate his discourse. St Luke throws into prominence the great teacher’s keen discrimination of character. St John has recorded a fragment of the Baptist’s deeper teaching as to the nature and mission of the Son of God.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

His fan – The word used here and rendered fan means a winnowing shovel instead. It was used for throwing the grain, after it was threshed, into the air, so that the chaff might be driven away by the wind. This mode of separating the grain from the chaff is still practiced in the East. It is not probable that the fan, as the term is now used, was known to the Orientals as an instrument for cleaning grain. See the notes at Isa 30:24.

His floor – The threshing-floor was an open space, or area, in the field, usually on an elevated part of the land, Gen 50:10. It had no covering or walls. It was a space of ground 30 or 40 paces in diameter, and made smooth by rolling it or treading it hard. A high place was selected for the purpose of keeping it dry, and for the convenience of winnowing the grain by the wind. The grain was usually trodden out by oxen. Sometimes it was beaten with flails, as with us; and sometimes with a sharp threshing instrument, made to roll over the grain and to cut the straw at the same time. See the notes at Isa 41:15.

Shall purge – Shall cleanse or purify. Shall remove the chaff, etc.

The garner – The granary, or place to deposit the wheat.

Unquenchable fire – Fire that shall not be extinguished, that will utterly consume it. By the floor, here, is represented the Jewish people. By the wheat, the righteous, or the people of God. By the chaff, the wicked. They are often represented as being driven away like chaff before the wind, Job 21:18; Psa 1:4; Isa 17:13; Hos 13:13. They are also represented as chaff which the fire consumes, Isa 5:24. This image is often used to express judgments, Isa 41:15; Thou shall thresh the mountains and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff. By the unquenchable fire is meant the eternal suffering of the wicked in hell, 2Th 1:8-9; Mar 9:48; Mat 25:41.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Mat 3:12

Whose fan.

Christ a sifter

Humanity yields its twofold crop, its wheat and chaff, and keeps its terrible capacity of mixing chaff and wheat together, making them look alike.

A sifter needed

Something, then, is watered to lift the cover, to unveil the reality, to expose the things that we do and the persons that we are. Whether we want Him or not, He comes whose fan is in His hand.

A sifter needed for the sake of the truth

Realize, too, that the sifting work must be done not only for the truths sake and for Gods sake, but for the sake of the foolish people themselves-for the welfare of the world. Otherwise the world, cheated by the delusion, would go from bad to worse, and be deluded to destruction.

Life foreshadows a sifting process

Christ prepares the way for His own great reckoning to come, by setting foreshadows of His sifting work around us where we are. Life itself moves on with the fan in its hand. So into this medley where you live there springs suddenly some new-comer. It is a providence of God. A contagious disease escapes quarantine and breaks out in the town. There is a wreck on a reef off the shore. On a Western river great waterfloods sweep away scores of houses and lives. A hundred human bodies are crushed and burned in a mass in some building. You are not hurt; but as the report strikes man after man in the neighbourhood, if you could look underneath the masks which some people from pride or policy keep over their real selves, would you not see always two sorts of men revealed? In one there is apathy, and in another there is sympathy. Here are the two sorts of men disclosed. Before, you could not have told which was which; all looked alike; but in the threshing-floor of God the winnowing has begun.

Adversity a stifting process

One family that you know, overtaken by misfortune, is paralysed or embittered, and goes down. Another, struck by the same blow, summons its interior strength, is sweet-tempered, hopeful, and courageous, and as it descends in style rises in spiritual stature. The season why prosperity seems to enlarge some persons and belittle others is not so much that it actually alters their dimensions as that it publishes what their dimensions are. It is a shaking of the fan.

Public questions sift

Now and then a sharp question of right or wrong is thrust in upon a whole community in palpable shape-a question of public justice or oppression, of fair dealing between capital and labour, of chastity in literature or decency in art, of commercial honour, temperance in drinking, political integrity. Everybody must take sides, openly in act or virtually in secret choice or feeling. This new truth has the fan in its hand. It sifts your gay society, getting souls in position for their judgment. At certain historical epochs great characters arrive. They utter one of these great truths, and stand out or fight for it. They are not judges of men, but sifters of men. Every one of them has a fan in the hand.

Character cannot permanently be concealed

There is no privacy for character in the universe. The righteousness of God has arranged it that we shall live surrounded by a system of detectives and exposures, and all the uniforms and costumes and cosmetics and masks and escapes of that public stage, society, will not baffle them. This life is the beginning, though not the end, of judgment.

Truth a dividing power

It is inwrought benignantly into the silent and steady operation of the truth. Truth itself is a dividing power.

Discrimination a law of nature

To me it establishes faith, and makes the awful doctrine of retribution reasonable, to see the law wrought into the whole fabric of Nature around us and the very constitution of man. Even in the orchards and gardens there is a visible economy of discrimination, of rejection, of judgment. Bad fruit drops off and is cast away by the same hand that gathers and garners the good. Sow chaff and grain together if you choose; the chaff rots, while the vital seeds sprout and grow and yield some thirty, some sixty, some an hundred. Why not so when we come up to the immortal wheat? (Bishop Huntingdon.)

1. Christ is the universal Judge; His fan is in His hand. He possesses authority, discrimination, and impartiality,-the three grand qualifications for this office. (M. Henry.)

Wheat-chaff.

I. In the Christian Church there is a mixture of nominal and real Christians. Parable of the Tares. Of the Wedding Garment. Judas. Ananias and Sapphira. The false are the careless or indifferent. The self-righteous or sentimental; the hollow-hearted or hypocritical. The true are penitents, believers, new creatures.

II. The Head of the Church knows the true character of all its members. Seven churches of Asia. I know thy works. Intimate and exact knowledge of His own people.

III. The Head of the Church will separate the precious from the vile. By His doctrine-providential dealings-Satanic temptations-fire of persecution.

IV. The final doom of all the mem-bets of the Church will correspond to their character. The wheat to the garner, The chaff to the fire.

1. Examine yourselves.

2. Prepare for judgment. (Anon.)

I. The Two great classes into which the world is divided. Two only. In the eyes of men many. Either believers or unbelievers. No third class.

II. When these two classes will be separated. Not yet. When Christ comes!

III. The portion of Christs people.

IV. The portion of those who are not Christs. (J. C. Ryle.)

The wheat and the chaff

By the wheat is evidently intended those whose characters are useful; by the chaff those who are worthless. Wheat is valuable because it answers the purpose of the cultivator, which is to produce food for himself and others; so those persons are useful who answer the ends for which God has placed them here. God has placed us here to glorify Him:-

1. By our exercising suitable dispositions towards Him;

2. By cultivating every virtue;

3. By our doing good to others.

From this description of the wheat we may easily infer the character of those who resemble the chaff.

1. If those are the wheat who exercise suitable dispositions towards God, those are the chaff who are without such dispositions.

2. If those are the wheat who are seeking the perfection of their nature, then those are the chaff who neglect to seek it.

3. If those are the wheat who labour for the temporal and spiritual welfare of their fellow-creatures, those are the chaff who live chiefly to please themselves.

4. If those are the wheat who glorify God by believing in Christ, then those are the chaff who remain in unbelief.

5. To which of these two classes do we belong? (B. W. Noel, M. A.)

Good and evil are really different in kind, absolutely and intrinsically, essentially and in the nature of things:

I. By the free choice of will, and the practice consequent upon such a choice, real virtue or vice can be acquired.

II. Every man is as to his moral character what his own behaviour and practice make him. By as certain and determinate a distinction as wheat and chaff are, of their real and proper natures, different from each other.

III. God in all His commandments really desires to bring men by the habitual practice of virtue to a state by which they can become capable of His eternal happiness in the enjoyment of His unchangeable favour. Therefore the good must be separated from the evil surely and thoroughly, if we would win salvation. (Samuel Clarke, D. D.)

Similarity between real Christians and hypocritical

And let me remind you how like the chaff is to the wheat, how like the mere professor is to the saint. Of what colour is the chaff? Precisely the same as that of the wheat. And what is its form? Exactly that of the wheat. And where is it found? Not blowing about the highway, but in close contact with the wheat. It is upon us that this sifting trial is to pass; and it matters not how perfect may be our resemblance to the saints, if there be a resemblance and nothing more. (P. B. Power.)

Sect distinctions obliterated in destiny

I have seen a field here, and a field there, stand thick with corn-a hedge or two has separated them. At the proper season the reapers entered; soon the earth was disburdened, and the grain was conveyed to its destined resting-place, where, blended together in the barn or the stack, it could not be known that a hedge had ever separated this corn from that. Thus it is with the Church. Here it grows, as it were, in different fields, and even, maybe, by different hedges. By and by, when the harvest is come, all Gods wheat shall be gathered into the garner, without one single mark to distinguish that once they differed in outward circumstantials of form and order. (Toplady.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 12. Whose fan is in his hand] The Romans are here termed God’s fan, as, in Mt 3:10, they were called his axe, and, in Mt 22:7, they are termed his troops or armies.

The winnowing fan of the Hindoos is square, made of split bamboo; and the corn is winnowed by waving the fan backwards with both hands-“Whose fan is in his hand.”

His floor] Does not this mean the land of Judea, which had been long, as it were, the threshing-floor of the Lord? God says, he will now, by the winnowing fan (viz. the Romans) throughly cleanse this floor – the wheat, those who believe in the Lord Jesus, he will gather into his garner, either take to heaven from the evil to come, or put in a place of safety, as he did the Christians, by sending them to Pella, in Coelosyria, previously to the destruction of Jerusalem. But he will burn up the chaff – the disobedient and rebellions Jews, who would not come unto Christ, that they might have life.

Unquenchable fire.] That cannot be extinguished by man.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Judea is at present Gods floor, the only church he hath upon the earth; but there is chaff upon this floor, as well as wheat. Now he is come who will make a separation between the chaff and the wheat; who by his preaching the gospel will distinguish between Israel and those that are of Israel, Rom 9:6; between those who, living in the true expectation of the Messias, shall receive him now he is come, and those who, by their not owning and receiving him, shall declare that they never had any true expectation of him: shall separate them into distinct heaps, raising up a gospel church, and shall at the last day make yet a stricter discrimination, and

thoroughly purge his floor, taking true believers into heaven, and burning unbelievers

with unquenchable fire, casting them into torments like unquenchable fire.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

12. Whose fanwinnowing fan.

is in his handreadyfor use. This is no other than the preaching of the Gospel, even nowbeginning, the effect of which would be to separate the solid fromthe spiritually worthless, as wheat, by the winnowing fan, from thechaff. (Compare the similar representation in Mal3:1-3).

and he will throughly purgehis floorthreshing-floor; that is, the visible Church.

and gather his wheatHistrue-hearted saints; so called for their solid worth (compare Amo 9:9;Luk 22:31).

into the garner“thekingdom of their Father,” as this “garner” or “barn”is beautifully explained by our Lord in the parable of the wheat andthe tares (Mat 13:30; Mat 13:43).

but he will burn up thechaffempty, worthless professors of religion, void of allsolid religious principle and character (see Ps1:4).

with unquenchablefireSingular is the strength of this apparent contradiction offigures:to be burnt up, but with a fire that is unquenchable; theone expressing the utter destruction of all that constitutesone’s true life, the other the continued consciousness ofexistence in that awful condition.

Luke adds thefollowing important particulars (Lu3:18-20):

Lu3:18:

Andmany other things in his exhortation preached he unto thepeopleshowing that we have here but anabstract of his teaching. Besides what we read in Joh 1:29;Joh 1:33; Joh 1:34;Joh 3:27-36, the incidentalallusion to his having taught his disciples to pray (Lu11:1) of which not a word is said elsewhereshows how variedhis teaching was.

Lu3:19:

ButHerod the tetrarch, being reproved by him for Herodias hisbrother Philip’s wife, and forall the evils which Herod haddoneIn this last clause we have animportant fact, here only mentioned, showing how thoroughgoingwas the fidelity of the Baptist to his royal hearer, and how strongmust have been the workings of conscience in that slave of passionwhen, notwithstanding such plainness, he “did many things, andheard John gladly” (Mr 6:20).

Lu3:20:

Addedyet this above all, that he shut up John in prisonThis imprisonment of John, however,did not take place for some time after this; and it is here recordedmerely because the Evangelist did not intend to recur to his historytill he had occasion to relate the message which he sent to Christfrom his prison at Machrus (Lu7:18, c.).

Mt3:13-17. BAPTISM OFCHRIST AND DESCENTOF THE SPIRIT UPONHIM IMMEDIATELYTHEREAFTER. ( = Mar 1:9-11Luk 3:21; Luk 3:22;Joh 1:31-34).

Baptism of Christ (Mt3:13-15).

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Whose fan is in his hand,…. The Jews had their hand fans, and which were like a man’s hand; their names were

; which, as Maimonides says n, were three sorts of instruments used in the floor, in form of a man’s hand; with which they cleansed the wheat and barley from the straw; and their names differ according to their form: some have many teeth, and with them they cleanse the wheat at the end of the work; and there are others that have few teeth, no more than three, and with these they purge the wheat at first, from the thick straw. By the “fan”, here is meant, either the Gospel which Christ was just ready to publish; by which he would effectually call his chosen people among the Jews, and so distinguish and separate them from others, as well as purify and cleanse them, or rather the awful judgment of God, which Christ was ready to execute, and in a short time would execute on the unbelieving and impenitent Jews: hence it is said to be “in his hand”; being put there by his Father, who “hath committed all judgment to the Son”. That this is the meaning of the “Baptist”, seems evident, since “fanning” is always, when figuratively taken, used for judgments,

Isa 41:16. By “his floor”, is meant the land of Israel, where he was born, brought up, and lived; of which the Lord says, “O my threshing, and the corn of my floor!” Isa 21:10. This, he says, “he will thoroughly purge” of all his refuse and chaff, that is, by fanning: so fanning and cleansing, or purging, are joined together, Jer 4:11 so is used for purging by fanning, in the Misnic writings o. By “his wheat”, are meant his elect among the Jews, the chosen of God and precious; so called because of their excellency, purity, usefulness, solidity, and constancy: these he “will gather into his garner”; meaning either some place of protection, where he would direct his people to for safety from that wrath, ruin, and destruction; which should fall upon the Jewish nation; or else the kingdom of heaven, into which he would bring them, by taking them out of the world from the evil to come. By “the chaff”, are meant wicked and ungodly persons, such as are destitute of the grace of God, whether professors, or profane; being empty, barren, and unfruitful; and so good for nothing but the fire, which therefore “he will burn with unquenchable fire”, of divine wrath and vengeance: an allusion to a custom among the Jews, who, when they purified the increase of their unclean fields, gathered it together in an “area” or floor, in the midst of them, and then sifted it with sieves; one sort with two sieves, another with three, that they might thoroughly purge it, and burnt the chaff and stalks p; see Isa 5:24.

n In Misn. Celim. c. 13. sect. 7. Vid. Jarchi & Bartenora in ib. & in Misn. Tibbul. Yom. c. 4. sect. 6. o Misn. Sabbat. c. 7. sect. 2. & Gittin, c. 5. sect. 9. p Misn. Oholot. c. 18. sect. 2.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

Will burn up with unquenchable fire ( ). Note perfective use of . The threshing floor, the fan, the wheat, the garner, the chaff (, chaff, straw, stubble), the fire furnish a life-like picture. The “fire” here is probably judgment by and at the coming of the Messiah just as in verse 11. The Messiah “will thoroughly cleanse” (, Attic future of – and note –). He will sweep from side to side to make it clean.

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

Fan, floor (Wyc. has corn – floor). The picture is of a farmer at his threshing – floor, the area of hard – beaten earth on which the sheaves are spread and the grain trodden out by animals. His fan, that is his winnowing – shovel or fork, is in his hand, and with it he throws up the mingled wheat and chaff against the wind in order to separate the grain. 3

Throughly cleanse [] . Throughly (retained by Rev.) obsolete form of thoroughly, is the force of the preposition dia (through). In that preposition lies the picture of the farmer beginning at one side of the floor, and working through to the other, cleansing as he goes.

The whole metaphor represents the Messiah as separating the evil from the good, according to the tests of his kingdom and Gospel, receiving the worthy into his kingdom and consigning the unworthy to destruction (compare Mt 13:30; 39 – 43; 48 – 50).

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

1) “Whose fan is in his hand,” (hou to ptuon en te cheiri autou) “Whose fan (separating instrument) is in his hand;” The “fan” was for separating the chaff from the grain. In like manner The Word of God is the Divine Instrument of God that morally, ethically, and doctrinally separates the chaff and the grain or kernel of true religion. The Word will be the standard of separation at the hour of judgement, Rev 20:12; Rom 2:16; 2Ti 4:1-2.

2) “And he will thoroughly purge his floor,” (kai diakathariei ten halona autou) “And he will thoroughly cleanse his threshing floor,” not one grain (soul) good or bad will escape the judgment of God, Ecc 12:13-14; Heb 9:26-27. The chaff will be whiffed away into a burning torment forever, where the Memorex conscience system of the unregenerate soul shall writhe in self accusing torment without rest forever, Luk 16:25; Rev 14:10-11.

3) “And gather his wheat into the garner;” (kai sunaksei ton siton autou eis ten apotheken) “And he will gather his wheat into the barn,” His place of care and preservation forever to be with the Lord, Joh 14:1-3. Note, not one grain of wheat, not one true child of God, will ever go to hell to be burned with the chaff, with unbelievers; Though some maybe saved “as if by fire”, with little or no rewards for service, 1Co 3:15.

4). “But he will burn up the chaff,” (to de achuron katakausei) “But he will consume the chaff,” the refuse. For the wicked, Christ-rejecters shall all be cast into hell, Psa 9:17; Rev 20:13-15. This especially denoted pious empty professors of religion like Pharisees and Sadducees who rejected he Savior.

5.) “With unquenchable fire.” (puri asbesto) “With fire unquenchable,” in nature or kind; It takes unquenchable fire to punish those who all their life lived in disobedience to every overture of God’s love and call to Salvation and service, Mat 25:46; Luk 3:17.

WHEN JOHN THE BAPTIST BAPTIZED JESUS

V. 13-17

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

12. Whose winnowing-fan is in his hand In the former verse, John preached concerning the grace of Christ, that the Jews might yield themselves to him to be renewed: now he discourses of judgment, that he may strike despisers with terror. As there are always many hypocrites who proudly reject the grace of Christ offered to them, it is also necessary to denounce the judgment that awaits them. For this reason John here describes Christ as a severe judge against unbelievers. And this is an order which must be observed by us in teaching, that hypocrites may know, that their rejection of Christ will not go unpunished. They will thus be roused from their lethargy, and begin to dread him as an avenger, whom they despised as the author of salvation.

I have no doubt, that John intended also to show, what Christ accomplishes by means of his Gospel. The preaching of the Gospel, then, is the winnowing-fan Before the Lord sifts us, the whole world is involved in confusion, every one flatters himself, and the good are mixed with the bad in short, it is only necessary that the chaff be blown. But when Christ comes forward with his Gospels, — when he reproves the consciences and summons them to the tribunal of God, the chaff is sifted out, (286) which formerly occupied a great part of the thrashing-floor It is true that, in the case of individuals, the Gospel effects a separation from the chaff: but in this passage, John compares the reprobate to chaff, and believers to wheat The thrashing floor accordingly denotes — not the world, (as some people imagine,) but the Church: for we must attend to the class of persons whom John addresses. The mere title filled the Jews with pride, (287) but John tells them that it is foolish in them to be proud of it, because they hold but a temporary place in the Church of God, from which they are soon to be thrown out, like chaff from the thrashing-floor. In this way, he gives a rapid glance at the corrupt state in which the Church then was: for it was covered with husks, and straws, and other rubbish, but would soon be cleansed by the strong breeze of the Gospel. But how is Christ said to separate the chaff from the wheat, when he can find nothing in men but mere chaff? The answer is easy. The elect are formed into wheat, (288) and are then separated from the chaff, and collected into the granary

He will thoroughly cleanse his thrashing-floor This work was begun by Christ, and is daily going forward: but the full accomplishment of it will not be seen till the last day. This is the reason why John draws our attention to the subject. But let us remember, that believers even now enter, by hope, into the granary of God, in which they will actually have their everlasting abode; while the reprobate experience, in their convictions of guilt, the heat of that fire, the actual burning of which they will feel at the last day.

Many persons, I am aware, have entered into ingenious debates about the eternal fire, by which the wicked will be tormented after the judgment. But we may conclude from many passages of Scripture, that it is a metaphorical expression. For, if we must believe that it is real, or what they call material fire, we must also believe that the brimstone and the fan are material, both of them being mentioned by Isaiah.

“

For Tophet is ordained of old; the pile thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it,” (Isa 30:33.)

We must explain the fire in the same manner as the worm, (Mar 9:44.) and if it is universally agreed that the worm is a metaphorical term, we must form the same opinion as to the fire. Let us lay aside the speculations, by which foolish men weary themselves to no purpose, and satisfy ourselves with believing, that these forms of speech denote, in a manner suited to our feeble capacity, a dreadful torment, which no man can now comprehend, and no language can express.

(286) “ Les pailles s’en vont avec le vent;” — “the chaff goes away with the wind.”

(287) “ Les Juifs s’arrestoyent a ce beau titre de Peuple de Dieu, et d’En-fans d’Abraham, et s’en enfioyent.” — “The Jews dwelt upon this fine title of People of God, and Children of Abraham, and were proud of it.”

(288) “ Les esleus, qui de leur nature ne sont que paille, deviennent froment par la grace de Dieu.” — “The elect, who by their nature are only chaff; become wheat by the grace of God.”

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(12) Whose fan is in his hand.The scene brought before us is that of the large hardened surface which was the threshing-floor of the East, the sheaves of corn thrown over it, the oxen treading on them, the large winnowing fan driving on them the full force of the strong current of air, leaving the wheat in the middle, while the chaff is driven to the outskirts of the field to be afterwards swept up and burnt. The metaphor was a sufficiently familiar one. (Comp. Job. 21:18; Psa. 1:4; Psa. 35:5; Isa. 17:13; Isa. 29:5; Hos. 13:3.) The new features here are (1) that the coming One, the expected Christ, is to be the agent in the process; (2) that the Old Testament imagery rests in the scattering of the chaff, and this passes on to the burning; (3) that the fire is said to be unquenched, or perhaps unquenchable. The interpretation of the parable lies on the surface. The chaff are the ungodly and evildoers. The unquenched fire is the wrath of God against evil, which is, in its very nature, eternal, and can only cease with the cessation or transformation of the evil. The word translated chaff includes, it may be noted, straw as well, all but the actual grain.

It seems right briefly to direct the readers thoughts here to what is recorded of the Baptists ministry in the other Gospels; the questions of the priests and Levites (Joh. 1:19-25); the counsels given to publicans, soldiers, and others (Luk. 3:10-14); the presence, among the crowd, of Galileans, some of whom were afterwards Apostles (Joh. 1:35-42). A curious legendary addition, found in the Apocryphal Gospel according to the Hebrews, is worth noting, as preparing the way for what follows: Behold, the mother of the Lord and his brethren said unto Him, John the Baptist baptiseth for the remission of sins; let us go that we may be baptised by him. But He said unto them, In what have I sinned that I should go and be baptised by him? unless, perhaps, even that which I have thus spoken be a sin of ignorance. This was obviously an attempt to explain the difficulty of the Sinless One seeking a baptism of repentance. It was, of course, probable enough that the household of Nazareth, cherishing, as they did, hopes of the kingdom of heaven, should be drawn with other Galileans to the Baptists preaching.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

12. Whose fan John here proceeds to describe the terribly discriminating and adjudging process which the coming king Messiah was about to perform. Similar images are contained in Mal 3:1-6, upon which and upon Malachi iv, we have repeatedly said John’s speech was founded as a prediction of his day. Fan Or winnowing shovel. Wheat was winnowed from the chaff by dropping it from an uplifted shovel, so that the chaff might be taken off by the wind. Purge Cleanse from the chaff. Floor The area of flattened and hardened ground in the field where the winnowing was done. Garner Granary or grain depository. The garners or granaries of the East are often excavations in the earth in which the grain is buried; frequently for the sake of concealment, either from an enemy or from an oppressive government. Sometimes, the owner being slain or driven away, the subterranean treasure is found accidentally by the plow, or other means. Unquenchable fire A reference is here made to the practice of burning the chaff under process of winnowing. Lest the flying particles of chaff should be driven back into the wheat, a fire is made to burn, in whose blaze the chaff is forthwith consumed. The wheat is the righteous, the chaff is the wicked, and Christ is the winnower; the granary is heaven, the unquenchable fire is hell.

This epithet unquenchable is decisive against Restorationism and against Destructionism.

Restorationism teaches that the wicked will be delivered from hell; but this supposes the word unquenchable to be an empty terror devoid of meaning. For to what amounts it that the fire is unquenchable if the sinner may be snatched from it at any moment? what cares he for the phantasm of a hell forever empty though forever burning? Moreover, what sense in supposing a hell forever preserved flaming, yet forever void. But, in fact, hell is the penal condition of the condemned sinner, and the fire the penal essence itself; hell has no existence save as a penalty for guilt. Terminate the penalty and the fire has gone out.

Destructionism is the doctrine that the sinner ceases, by the penalty, to exist. So that God still keeps an empty hell eternally burning! In other words, this term unquenchable is unmeaning, and so essentially false.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

“Whose winnowing fork (or ‘shovel’) is in his hand, and he will thoroughly cleanse his threshing-floor; and he will gather his wheat into the garner, but the chaff he will burn up with unquenchable fire.”

The ancient way of threshing grain among the relatively poor was to toss it into the prevailing wind with a winnowing fork, and then with a shovel. The good grain would then fall to the ground, and would be shovelled away and taken to the barn, and the useless chaff would be blown to one side, some to be gathered up and burned, other to be blown away on the winds and lost for ever. And this is the activity that John pictures with regard to the coming Mightier One as the Great Winnower.

Thus here the whole of Israel (and the whole world) is seen as God’s threshing floor. All are as it were gathered there, multitudes, multitudes in the Valley of Decision (Joe 3:13-14). The world is His threshing-floor. And that threshing-floor will then be thoroughly cleansed. Nothing will escape His attention. All will in the end be dealt with and that with the thoroughness of God. Those who have repented and openly admitted their sins to God, and have become fruitful, and have enjoyed the life-giving showers of the Holy Spirit, will prove to be like harvested grain. And they will be gathered into God’s Barn. But those who have proved themselves to be chaff will be blown to one side, gathered up and burned in the fire that can never be quenched (Isa 66:24; Isa 1:31; Isa 34:10; Jer 4:4; Jer 17:27; Jer 21:12; Eze 20:47-48).

That Matthew saw this process as going on in the ministry of Jesus is unquestionable. We must not interpret Matthew by Luke. What Luke would write later was unknown to Matthew (and Luke also would have the Holy Spirit active throughout the life of Jesus – Luk 4:1; Luk 4:18; Luk 11:13). We must recognise therefore that Matthew is to be seen as providing his own answers. And it is inconceivable that he would show this ‘drenching with the Holy Spirit’ as lying at the very root of what the Anointed One was coming to do and then not show in what followed how He would bring it about. To Matthew therefore Jesus’ presence and great success demonstrated that the Spirit had come in the coming of the Kingly Rule of Heaven in Jesus (Mat 12:28). He was here as the Spirit-filled Servant of Isaiah (Mat 12:18). That was why men could even now pray in expectancy for the ‘good things’ of the Messianic age (Mat 7:11) which Luke describes in terms of the Holy Spirit (Mat 11:13). And that was why his description of the ongoing future was in terms of the presence of Jesus with His people (Mat 28:20). To Matthew, Jesus as the Anointed One among His people was the absolute proof of the presence and outworking of the Holy Spirit, as He continued His work through Him, satisfying men’s thirst and welling up in men in eternal life (Joh 4:10-14).

Our problem is that by misinterpreting Luke, who in fact also makes clear the presence of the Holy Spirit from the beginning (Luke 1-2) and as continuing throughout the ministry of Jesus (Luk 4:1; Luk 4:18 and onwards, see our commentary), we overlook Matthew’s vital message, that the work of Jesus as the Drencher with the Holy Spirit began immediately that He commenced His ministry. John also makes this absolutely clear (Joh 3:1-4; Joh 4:10-14; Joh 7:38 where the drinking had begun even though the floods would come later). What would occur later in Acts 2 was the wider outreach of this Drenching reaching out to the wider world, the inauguration of the people of God as the living evidence of God’s presence in the world in the absence of the physical Jesus because of His resurrection, ascension and enthronement. It was in order that they might replace Jesus as God’s physical witness to the world on earth, by being indwelt by the Holy One Himself, Who was there manifested in wind and fire. They would now be the channels of the Holy Spirit. But Pentecost was by no means the commencement of the work of the Holy Spirit, as Luke makes clear in Mat 11:13, and as John’s Gospel makes clear in Mat 3:1-6; Mat 4:10-14), especially when he speaks of Jesus’ words about the drinking of the Holy Spirit as occurring at the time that Jesus was on earth, while in the next breath speaking of the future outpouring as following Jesus’ glorification (Joh 7:37-39). This is something that Jesus also makes clear in the Upper Room after His resurrection where He breathes on His Apostles and tells them to receive the Holy Spirit, which is there the Spirit in His function of leading them into all truth (Joh 20:22; compare Joh 16:13) as He enthrones them on their ‘thrones’ over His people, ‘the twelve tribes of Israel’ with the power to bind and loose (Joh 20:21-23, compare Mat 19:28; Luk 22:30 in context).

So Matthew pictures this drenching with Holy Spirit and fire as going on in the ministry of Jesus, as continuing in the ministry of the Apostles, and as resulting also in the destruction of Jerusalem by ‘burning’ (Mat 22:7), (which burning did not literally fully occur in Jerusalem apart from the Temple, but the parable does not say that it was speaking specifically of Jerusalem), and in the end of all things (Mat 13:30; Mat 13:42; Mat 13:50).

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

This thought is carried out still further:

v. 12. Whose fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly purge His floor, and gather His wheat into the garner; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

The picture is that of a threshing-floor in the Orient, a flat, open space paved with stones. The husbandman has driven his oxen across the floor to tread out the grain from the hulls, or his workmen have beaten it out with flails. Now comes the purging of the floor to separate the stalks and the hulls from the grain, and the winnowing of the loose matter with a fan to blow away the lighter chaff and leave the heavier kernels. God’s great threshing-floor is the earth. The test by which He decides the fate of every person in the world, by which He separates the wheat from the chaff, is the relation toward Jesus and His salvation. Those that are found secure in His redemption through faith are gathered safely into the garner of heaven. But those that are found too light, either on account of their reliance upon their own self-righteousness or because they esteem a mere external church-membership a sufficient guarantee of the joys of heaven, will find themselves subjected to the violent, inextinguishable fire, not only of the judgment, Mal 4:1, but of hell. Mat 25:41.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

Mat 3:12. Whose fan is in his hand, &c. This expression is taken from the prophetical writings. See Isa 41:16; Isa 41:29. Dr. Shaw observes, that in the eastern countries, after the grain is trodden out, they winnow it, by throwing it up against the wind with a shovel, answering the original word here, and Luk 3:17 rendered a fan, or van, too cumbersome a machine to be thought of. The text should rather run; whose shovel or fork is in his hand; for this is a portable instrument, and is agreeable to the practice recorded, Isa 30:24 where both the shovel and the van are mentioned, as the chaff which is thereby carried away before the wind, is often alluded to in Scripture. See Travels, p. 139. To understand the Baptist’s meaning right, we should observe, that in this verse he describes the authority of Christ’s ministry, as in that preceding he had described the efficacy of it. “The Messiah is infinitely mightier thanI; not only as he will bestow on you the miraculous gifts of the Spirit, will purify and enliven your souls, and kindle in your hearts pious and devout affections; but also as he has power to reward those who obey him with eternal life, and to punish such as reject him with everlasting destruction.” See Macknight. There is, in what the Baptist here declares, as Dr. Doddridge remarks, an evident allusion to the custom of burning the chaff after winnowing, that it might not be blown back again, and so be mingled with the wheat: and though it may in part refer to the calamities to come upon the Jewish nation for rejecting Christ, as Bishop Chandler, Beausobre and Lenfant, and others, have observed; yet it seems chiefly to intend the final destruction of sinners in hell; which alone is properly opposed to the gathering the wheat into the garner. Dr. Heylin understands the passage in a very different sense, as implying the total purificationof our sinful nature, through the grace of Christ; and, to keep up the metaphor he reads, He shall baptize you with holy wind and fire. Though I have no doubt that the exposition above given is the true one, yet there is something so ingenious as well as instructive in that of Dr. Heylin, that I cannot help referring my reader to it, assured that he will find great satisfaction in the perusal. See his Lectures, vol. 1: p. 24. Dr. Campbell renders the verse, His winnowing shovel is in his hand, and he will thoroughly cleanse his grain; he will gather his wheat into the granary, and consume the chaff in unquenchable fire.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Mat 3:12 . And fire , I say; for what a separation will it make!

] assigns a reason, like our: He whose [German, Er, dessen ]. See Ellendt, Lex. Soph . II. p. 371; Khner, II. p. 939. It is not, however, as Grotius, Bengel, Storr, Kuinoel think, pleonastic, but the literal translation is to be closely adhered to: whose fan is in his hand; that is, he who has his (to him peculiar, comp. Mat 3:4 ) fan in his hand ready for use. Comp LXX. Isa 9:5 . According to Fritzsche, is epexegetical: “cujus erit ventilabrum, sc. in manu ejus.” But such epexegetical remarks, which fall under the point of view of Appositio partitiva , stand, as they actually occur, in the same case with the general word, which they define more minutely ( , ). See Eph 3:5 , and remarks in loc .

] (Xen. Oec . xviii. 6; Dem. 1040. 23), in Greek writers commonly after the Attic declension, is the same as , a circular firmly-trodden place upon the field itself, where the grain is either trodden out by oxen, or thrashed out by thrashing machines drawn by oxen. Keil, Arch. II. p. 114; Robinson, III. p. 370. Similarly in Greek writers; see Hermann, Privatalterth. xv. 6, xxiv. 3. The floor is cleansed in this way, that the seed grains and the pounded straw and similar refuse are not allowed to lie upon it indiscriminately mingled together, in the state in which the threshing has left this unclean condition of the floor, but the grain and refuse are separated from each other in order to be brought to the place destined for them. In the figure, the floor, which belongs to the Messiah, is not the church (Fathers and many others), nor mankind (de Wette), nor the Jewish nation (B. Crusius), but, because the place of the Messiah’s activity must be intended (Ewald), and that, according to the national determination of the idea of the Baptist, the holy land, as the proper sphere of the work of the Messiah, not the world in general (Bleek), as would have to be assumed according to the Christian fulfilment of the idea. In accordance with this view, we must neither, with Zeger, Fischer, Kuinoel, de Wette, explain . , according to the alleged Hebrew usage (Job 39:12 ; Rth 3:2 ), as the grain upon the floor; nor, with Fritzsche, regard the cleansing as effected, removendo inde frumentum, which is an act that does not follow until the floor has been cleansed. The , to purify thoroughly, which is not preserved anywhere except in Luk 2:17 , designates the cleansing from one end to the other; in classical writers , Plat. Pol. iii. pp. 399 E, 411 D; Alciphr. iii. 26.

] place for storing up, magazine. The grain stores ( , Polyb. iii. 100. 4; , Strabo, xii. p. 862; , Pollux) were chiefly dry subterranean vaults. Jahn, Archol. I. 1, p. 376.

] not merely chaff in the narrower sense of the word ( ), but all those portions of the stalk and ear which contain no grain, which are torn in pieces by the threshing, and remain over ( ), Herod. iv. 72; Xen. Oec. xvii. 1, 6. f.; Gen 24:25 ; Exo 5:7 . These were used as fuel. Mishna tract, Schabbath ii. 1; Parah. iv. 3. Paulsen, vom Ackerbau der Morgenl. p. 150.

The sense, apart from figurative language, is: The Messiah will receive into His kingdom those who are found worthy (comp. Mat 13:30 ); but upon the unworthy He will inflict in full the everlasting punishments of Gehenna. Comp. Mal. 3:19.

] which is not quenched (Hom. Il. xvii. 89; Pind. Isthm. iii. 72; Dion. Hal. Antt. i. 76, corresponding to the thing portrayed; comp. Isa 66:24 ). Not, therefore: which is not extinguished till all is consumed (Paulus, Bleek).

REMARK.

Joh 1:26 is not to be regarded as parallel with Mat 3:12 , for, according to John, the Baptist speaks after the baptism of Jesus, and to the members of the Sanhedrim. And doubtless he had often given expression to his testimony regarding Christ, who was the point which the prophet had in view in his preaching of repentance and baptism.

That he is not yet definitely designated in Matthew as Elijah (Luk 1:17 ; Mat 11:10 ; Mat 11:14 ), is rightly regarded as an evidence of the truth of the gospel narrative, which has not anticipated the subsequently developed representation of John. To relegate, however, the announcement of the Messiah from the preaching of the Baptist into the realm of legend (Strauss) is a mockery of the entire evangelical testimony, and places it below the narrative of Josephus, which was squared according to the ideas of political prudence ( Antt . xviii. 5. 2).

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

DISCOURSE: 1284
THE ISSUE OF THE FINAL JUDGMENT

Mat 3:12. Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

THE great duty of a Christian Minister is, to set forth the Lord Jesus Christ in all his characters, and to impress on the minds of all the necessity of believing in him for the salvation of their souls. But the view which we give of the Saviour should be altogether such as is exhibited in the Holy Scriptures. If, at one time, we represent him as a propitiation for sin, saying, with the Baptist, Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world; or, at another time, exalt him as the Head of his Church, ready to baptize men with the Holy Ghost and with fire; we must not fail to proclaim him also as the Judge of quick and dead; and to declare, with the Baptist, that his fan is in his hand, and that he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner: but that he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.
This is a subject to which we cannot too often call your attention, seeing how deeply we are interested in,

I.

The discrimination which will be made at the last day

Men are here divided into two classes, under the images of wheat and chaff
[These images are just: for though all men spring from one common root, yet is there a great difference between them: some, as righteous, resembling wheat; and others, as wicked, answering rather to the chaff.
The righteous may fitly be considered as wheat: for they are solid in the whole of their experience: their repentance is deep and genuine: their faith is lively and operative: their self-dedication to God is uniform and entire. They have in themselves a real and intrinsic worth.
The wicked, on the contrary, whether they be merely nominal Christians or hypocritical professsors, may well be compared to chaff: for they are light, unsubstantial, worthless. They may, to a superficial observer, appear like solid grain: but they will not bear a scrutiny. Examine their repentance: it has no depth in it: they have never known what a broken and contrite spirit means. Examine their faith: it has nothing beyond a bare assent to certain truths: they have never fled to Christ, as the manslayer to a city of refuge: they have never been cut off from their old stock, and been grafted into Christ, as scions; and been made to live by him, as branches of the living vine: such a life of faith on the Son of God is altogether unknown to them. Examine their obedience too: it goes to externals only; whilst the heart, instead of being given to him, is set upon the things of time and sense. In a word, they may have the form of godliness; but they have not the power: they may have a name to live; but they are really dead.]
In this world, however, they lie in one promiscuous mass
[After that the corn is threshed, it lies on the floor, mixed together in one indiscriminate heap. Thus, in the house of God, persons of every character are assembled: nor is any man such a discerner of spirits, as that he can separate the evil from the good. The two are united in the same works of charity and beneficence; yea, and compose the members of the same family: they even join frequently in the same religious society; and sit down together, like Judas with the eleven, at the same supper of the Lord. This we are taught by the Lord Jesus Christ to expect, as long as we continue in the world: the tares and the wheat grow together in the field; nor is it in the power of man to separate them.]
But the Lord Jesus Christ, in the day of judgment, will discriminate infallibly between them
[The husbandman, by the simple process of winnowing the corn, makes the wished-for separation. Thus, at the last day, the Lord Jesus Christ will purge his floor; yea, already is the fan in his hand, prepared for the work: and so perfect will the operation be, that not a single grain of wheat will be found among the chaff; nor the smallest atom of chaff be left among the wheat. The least and weakest of Gods people are infallibly distinguished by him here; as it is said, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted with a sieve: yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth [Note: Amo 9:9.]. And shall not the same care be taken by the Judge of quick and dead hereafter? On the other hand, nothing that is unclean, or that defileth, shall enter into the mansions of bliss [Note: Rev 21:27.]; and therefore we are sure that no hypocrite can find admittance there. The distinction between the wheat and the chaff will be unerring and complete.]

Let us proceed to contemplate,

II.

The final issue of it to the souls of men

The wheat will be treasured up in his garner
[The husbandman regards the wheat as the object for which he has laboured, and as the recompence of all his toils; and he considers it as a treasure whereby he is enriched. It is in this light that the Lord Jesus Christ regards his faithful and obedient people. When the separation of them shall be made, and he shall behold them all assembled in one vast body, with what delight will he view them! How will he call to mind his own labours and sufferings in their behalf! and how will he be satisfied, when he sees in them the travail of his soul [Note: Isa 53:11.]. It was with a view to this, that he endured the cross, and despised the shame, when he was in this lower world: to this joy he had then respect [Note: Heb 12:2.]: and no feeling of regret will occupy his mind, when he shall see their number, their safety, their felicity. And shall not the saints themselves rejoice, when they shall find themselves thus approved of their Lord, and have no more wintry blasts to menace, or noxious blights to endanger, their security? O, blessed day! The Lord prepare us for it, and grant us all to behold that day in peace!]

But the chaff will be burned up with unquenchable fire
[The chaff, as being altogether worthless, was burned [Note: Isa 5:24.]. And what other end can the wicked hope for in that day? Can they suppose, that, after all the labour that has been bestowed upon them, and bestowed in vain, they shall meet with the same favour as the grain by which the labourers toil has been repaid? Can it be hoped that there shall be no difference put between those who have served their God, and those who serve him not? No: for them is a fire prepared; and happy would it be for them if they might be consumed by it speedily, like chaff! but, though ever burning, they will never be consumed: they themselves will be as imperishable, as the fire is unquenchable; and to all eternity will they endure the justly-merited wrath of an avenging God. Then shall be fulfilled in them the prediction of the Prophet Malachi, Behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven: and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be as stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of Hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch [Note: Mal 4:1.]. The worm, that is in their consciences, shall never die; and the fire that shall torment them shall never be quenched [Note: Mar 9:43-48.].]

See, then, Brethren,
1.

What need there is to examine the real state of your souls

[Nothing would be more easy than to ascertain this, if you would listen to the voice of conscience: but what a fearful thing will it be to dream of heaven, till you awake in hell! [Note: Unfold the idea contained in Mat 7:22-23.]]

2.

What need there is to live in a preparation for the eternal world

[Whilst you are here, your character may be changed, and your bliss secured: but in the grave there is no work, &c. As you are found in death, you will exist for ever.]

Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)

12 Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

Ver. 12. Whose fan is in his hand ] Though the devil and wicked men mightily strive to wring it out of his hand; for what, say they, need this shedding and this shoaling? this distinguishing and differencing of men into saints and sinners? Are not all the Lord’s people holy? Num 16:3 . Is there any man lives and sinneth not? but yet there is as wide a difference between sinner and sinner as is between the bosom of Abraham and the belly of hell, Luk 16:26 ; Luk 1:1-80 . The godly man projects not sin as the wicked doth; but is preoccupied by it, against his general purpose, , Gal 6:1 ; Gal 2:1-21 . He arts not the sin that he acts: he sins not sinningly; , 1Jn 3:9 . He is not transformed into sin’s image, as the wicked are,Mic 1:5Mic 1:5 . His scum rests not in him; he works that out by repentance that he committed with reluctance, Eze 24:11 ; Eze 3:1-27 . He is the better for it afterwards. His very sin (when bewailed and disclaimed) maketh him more heedful of his ways, more thankful for a Saviour, more merciful to others, more desireful after the state of perfection, &c. Whence grew that paradox of Mr. John Fox, “That his graces did him most hurt, and his sins most good.” a Whereas wicked men grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived, till at length by long trading in sin, being hardened by the deceitfulness thereof, they are utterly deprived of all (even passive) power of recovering themselves out of the devil’s snare,2Ti 2:232Ti 2:23 ; 2Ti 3:13 ; Heb 3:13 ; which is a conformity to the devil’s condition. This their covering therefore is too short. Christ’s fan is in his hand to take out the precious from the vile, Jer 15:19 ; and the ministers of Christ must separate (as the priests of old did) the clean from the unclean, drive the chaff one way and the wheat another: “for what is the chaff to the wheat, saith the Lord?”Jer 23:28Jer 23:28 . See this enjoined them, Isa 3:10-11 . Zuinglius, as in his public lectures be would very sharply rebuke sin, so ever and anon he would come in with this proviso, Probe vir, haec nihil ad te: this is nothing to thee, thou godly man. (Scultet. Annul.) He knew that he could not beat the dogs, but the children would be ready to cry, whom therefore he comforted.

And he will throughly purge his floor ] That is, his Church, called God’s threshingfloor,Isa 21:10Isa 21:10 , because usually threshed by God with the flail of affliction. That is one way whereby the Lord Christ doth purge his people, and separate between the son that he loves and the sin that he hates. This he doth also by his word and Spirit: “sanctifying them by his truth, his word is truth,”Joh 17:17Joh 17:17 ; “And such were some of you, but ye are washed, but ye are justified, but ye are sanctified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the Spirit of our God,” 1Co 6:11 . Thus Christ purgeth his floor, here initially and in part, hereafter thoroughly and in all perfection. In all which we may observe (saith a divine) this difference between Christ and the tempter. Christ hath his fan in his hand, and he fanneth us; the devil hath a sieve in his hand, and he sifteth us. b Now a fan casteth out the worst and keepeth in the best: a sieve keepeth in the worst, and casteth out the best. Right so Christ (and his trials) purgeth chaff and corruption out of us, and nourisheth and increaseth his graces in us. Contrariwise, the devil, whatever evil is in us, he confirmeth it; what faith or other good thing soever, he weakeneth it. But Christ hath prayed for his (though never so hard laid at) that their faith fail not, and giveth them in time of fanning, to fall low at his feet, as wheat, when the wicked, as light chaff, are ready to fly in his face, as murmuring at their hard measure, with those miscreants in the wilderness.

And gather his wheat into the garner ] Mali in area nobiscum esse possunt, in horreo non possunt. (Augustine.) The wicked may be with us in the floor, they shall not in the garner: for there shall in no wise enter into the City of the Lamb anything that defileth, or that worketh abomination, Rev 21:27 , . Heaven spewed out the angels in the first act of their apostasy; and albeit the devil could screw himself into Paradise, yet no unclean person shall ever enter into the kingdom of heaven. Without shall be dogs and evildoers, Rev 21:8 ; no dirty dog doth trample on that golden pavement, no dross is with that gold, no chaff with that wheat; but the spirits of “just men made perfect,” amidst a general assembly of angels, and that glorious amphitheatre,Heb 12:22Heb 12:22 . In the mean while, Dei frumentum ego sum (may every good soul say, with Ignatius), I am God’s wheat: and although the wheat be as yet but in the ear, or but in the blade, yet when the fruit is ripe, he will put in the sickle (because the harvest is come), and gather his wheat into his barn, into his garner. It doth the husbandman good at heart to see his grain come forward, though the harvest be not yet, Mar 4:28-29 . Spes alit agricolas, sed adhuc mea messis in herba est.

But will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire ] In reference to the custom of those countries, which was to cast their chaff into the fire. But this, alas, is another manner of fire than that. A metaphorical fire doubtless, and differs from material fire: 1. In respect of the violence, for it is unspeakable. 2. Of the durance, for it is unquenchable. 3. Of illumination, for though it burn violently to their vexation, yet it shines not to their comfort. 4. Of operation, for it consumes not what it burneth; they ever fry, but never die; vivere nolunt, mori nesciunt; they “seek death, but find it not,” as those Rev 9:6 . A just hand of God upon them; that they that once might have had life and would not, now would have death and cannot.

a . Capell on Temptations.

b Luk 22:31 . , Concussionem notat vehementissimam, quae manibus et genibus fit, nunc in altum efferendo, nunc ab uno latere ad alterum agitando.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

12. ] , a very common redundancy. See reff. is not ‘ whose ,’ which is implied in : it belongs (against Meyer) to , not to , and the sense is just as if it had stood, . In the Rabbinical work Midrash Tehillim, on Psa 2:1-12 , is found: ‘Advenit trituratio, stramen projiciunt in iguem, paleam in ventum, sed triticum conservant in area: sic nationes mundi erunt sicut conflagratio furni: ast Israel conservabitur solus.’ (Quoted by Lightfoot on Joh 3:17 .)

] The contents of the barn-floor . (De Wette, &c.) Thus in ref. Job, ( [23] , not [24] ) . Or perhaps owing to . ( shall cleanse from one end to the other ) the floor itself , which was an open hard-trodden space in the middle of the field. See “The Land and the Book,” p. 538 ff., where there is an illustration. “Very little use is now made of the fan , but I have seen it employed to purge the floor of the refuse dust, which the owner throws away as useless.” p. 540.

[23] The Codex Boreeli, once possessed by John Boreel, Dutch ambassador in London under James I. It was lost for many years, till found at Arnheim by Heringa, a professor at Utrecht. It is now in the public library at the latter place. Heringa wrote a dissertation on it, so copious as to serve for an edition of the codex itself. This dissertation was published by Vinke in 1843. Contains the four Gospels with many lacun, which have increased since Wetstein’s time. Tischendorf in 1841 examined the codex and compared it with Heringa’s collation. Tischendorf assigns it to the ninth century: Tregelles, to the tenth .

[24] The MS. referred to by this symbol is that commonly called the Alexandrine, or CODEX ALEXANDRINUS. It once belonged to Cyrillus Lucaris, patriarch of Alexandria and then of Constantinople, who in the year 1628 presented it to our King Charles I. It is now in the British Museum. It is on parchment in four volumes, of which three contain the Old, and one the New Testament, with the Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians. This fourth volume is exhibited open in a glass case. It will be seen by the letters in the inner margin of this edition, that the first 24 chapters of Matthew are wanting in it, its first leaf commencing , ch. Mat 25:6 : as also the leaves containing , Joh 6:50 , to , Joh 8:52 . It is generally agreed that it was written at Alexandria; it does not, however, in the Gospels , represent that commonly known as the Alexandrine text, but approaches much more nearly to the Constantinopolitan, or generally received text. The New Testament, according to its text, was edited, in uncial types cast to imitate those of the MS., by Woide, London, 1786, the Old Testament by Baber, London, 1819: and its N.T. text has now been edited in common type by Mr. B. H. Cowper, London, 1861. The date of this MS. has been variously assigned, but it is now pretty generally agreed to be the fifth century .

] Not only the chaff , but also the straw: see reff.: ‘all that is not wheat.’

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Mat 3:12 . This ver. follows up Mat 3:11 , and explains the judicial action emblemed by wind and fire. . . . . The construction is variously understood. Grotius takes it as a Hebraism for . Fritzsche takes . as epexegetical, and renders: “whose will be the fan, viz. , in His hand”. Meyer and Weiss take as assigning a reason: “He ( of Mat 3:11 ) whose fan is in hand and who is therefore able to perform the part assigned to Him”. Then follows an explanation of the modus operandi . from , late for classic . The idea is: He with His fan will throw up the wheat, mixed with the chaff, that the wind may blow the chaff away; He will then collect the straw, (in Greek writers usually plural , vide Grimm), and burn it with fire, and collect the wheat lying on the threshing floor and store it in His granary. So shall He thoroughly ( intensifying) cleanse His floor. And the sweeping wind and the consuming fire are the emblems and measure of His power; stronger than mine, as the tempest and the devastating flames are mightier than the stream which I use as my element. , a place in a field made firm by a roller, or on a rocky hill top exposed to the breeze. means generally any kind of store, and specially a grain store, often underground. Bleek takes the epithet applied to the fire as signifying: inextinguishable till all the refuse be consumed. It is usually understood absolutely.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

fan = winnowing shovel. God fans to get rid of the chaff; Satan sifts to get rid of the wheat (Luk 22:31).

thoroughly = thoroughly.

floor = threshing-floor.

gather = gather together.

burn up. Greek. katakaio = burn down, or quite up.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

12. ] , a very common redundancy. See reff. is not whose, which is implied in : it belongs (against Meyer) to , not to , and the sense is just as if it had stood, . In the Rabbinical work Midrash Tehillim, on Psa 2:1-12, is found: Advenit trituratio, stramen projiciunt in iguem, paleam in ventum, sed triticum conservant in area: sic nationes mundi erunt sicut conflagratio furni: ast Israel conservabitur solus. (Quoted by Lightfoot on Joh 3:17.)

] The contents of the barn-floor. (De Wette, &c.) Thus in ref. Job, ( [23], not [24]) . Or perhaps owing to . (shall cleanse from one end to the other) the floor itself, which was an open hard-trodden space in the middle of the field. See The Land and the Book, p. 538 ff., where there is an illustration. Very little use is now made of the fan, but I have seen it employed to purge the floor of the refuse dust, which the owner throws away as useless. p. 540.

[23] The Codex Boreeli, once possessed by John Boreel, Dutch ambassador in London under James I. It was lost for many years, till found at Arnheim by Heringa, a professor at Utrecht. It is now in the public library at the latter place. Heringa wrote a dissertation on it, so copious as to serve for an edition of the codex itself. This dissertation was published by Vinke in 1843. Contains the four Gospels with many lacun, which have increased since Wetsteins time. Tischendorf in 1841 examined the codex and compared it with Heringas collation. Tischendorf assigns it to the ninth century: Tregelles, to the tenth.

[24] The MS. referred to by this symbol is that commonly called the Alexandrine, or CODEX ALEXANDRINUS. It once belonged to Cyrillus Lucaris, patriarch of Alexandria and then of Constantinople, who in the year 1628 presented it to our King Charles I. It is now in the British Museum. It is on parchment in four volumes, of which three contain the Old, and one the New Testament, with the Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians. This fourth volume is exhibited open in a glass case. It will be seen by the letters in the inner margin of this edition, that the first 24 chapters of Matthew are wanting in it, its first leaf commencing , ch. Mat 25:6 :-as also the leaves containing , Joh 6:50,-to , Joh 8:52. It is generally agreed that it was written at Alexandria;-it does not, however, in the Gospels, represent that commonly known as the Alexandrine text, but approaches much more nearly to the Constantinopolitan, or generally received text. The New Testament, according to its text, was edited, in uncial types cast to imitate those of the MS., by Woide, London, 1786, the Old Testament by Baber, London, 1819: and its N.T. text has now been edited in common type by Mr. B. H. Cowper, London, 1861. The date of this MS. has been variously assigned, but it is now pretty generally agreed to be the fifth century.

] Not only the chaff, but also the straw: see reff.: all that is not wheat.

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Mat 3:12. , whose) This, and , His, being placed emphatically thrice, shows the power of Christ. – is a Hebraism.- , the fan) i.e. the Gospel.- , in His hand) even now. The whole of Johns harangue, and therefore the commencement of the Gospel, agrees entirely with the last clause of Old Testament prophecy, in Mal. 3:19-24, where the connection of things from Moses to the conclusion of ancient prophecy, and thence to Christs forerunner and Christ Himself, and the day of His universal judgment, is exquisitely and solemnly declared.-, His) Neither His forerunner, nor any of His apostles, had this fan in the same manner as the Lord Jesus Himself. The consolation of His ministers in then weakness is, The Lord will do it. Their wrath, though void of strength, is not vain.- , His threshing-floor) The wayfarers are in the threshing-floor, the conquerors in the garner.[129]-, His) See Heb 3:6.- , and will gather His wheat into the garner) , His, must either be omitted or construed with , garner;[130] cf. Mat 13:30, , but gather the wheat into My garner. The Same is Lord of the wheat as of the garner: the Same of the garner as of the threshing-floor. See Luk 3:17.-, chaff) The chaff is held of no[131] account.[132]-, with fire) Every one must be either baptized with fire here, or burned with fire hereafter: there is no other alternative.-, unquenchable) See therefore that your sins be first blotted out. In Job 20:26, the LXX. have , incombustible fire [i.e. fire that cannot be burnt out] shall consume the ungodly: or, rather, from the Cod. Alex., , unquenchable, unextinguishable (which word would otherwise not be found in the LXX.), so as to render , fire which can never be extinguished.

[129] One cannot well express in English the contrast implied in the very rhythm of Bengels Latin, In area sunt viatores, in horreo victores.-ED.

[130] Which Luther has rightly done.-Not. Crit.

[131] Cf. Gnomon on chap. Mat 13:49.-(I. B.)

[132] Although at times it is not unlike the wheat.-Vers. Germ.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

fan: Isa 30:24, Isa 41:16, Jer 4:11, Jer 15:7, Jer 51:2, Luk 3:17

he will thoroughly: Mat 13:41, Mat 13:49, Mat 13:50, Mal 3:2, Mal 3:3, Mal 4:1, Joh 15:2

and gather: Mat 13:30, Mat 13:43, Amo 9:9

but: Job 21:18, Psa 1:4, Psa 35:5, Isa 5:24, Isa 17:13, Hos 13:3, Mal 4:1, Luk 3:17

with: Isa 1:31, Isa 66:24, Jer 7:20, Jer 17:27, Eze 20:47, Eze 20:48, Mar 9:43-48

Reciprocal: Exo 15:7 – consumed Lev 13:57 – shalt burn Job 20:26 – a fire Job 27:19 – gathered Psa 21:9 – the fire Psa 50:3 – a fire Psa 83:13 – as the Psa 119:119 – puttest away Psa 139:3 – compassest Isa 1:25 – purge Isa 4:4 – by the spirit Isa 10:17 – for a flame Isa 21:10 – my threshing Isa 27:4 – who would Isa 28:28 – Bread Isa 30:28 – to sift Eze 15:4 – the fire Eze 20:38 – I will purge Eze 21:32 – for fuel Eze 22:15 – consume Eze 24:11 – that the filthiness Joe 2:5 – like the noise of a Mal 2:4 – that my Mat 13:42 – cast Mat 13:48 – and gathered Mat 21:41 – He will Mat 22:11 – when Mat 25:32 – he shall separate Mat 25:41 – everlasting Mar 9:44 – the fire Luk 23:31 – General Joh 1:20 – General Joh 3:28 – but Joh 10:41 – but Act 19:4 – John 1Th 2:16 – for Tit 2:14 – purify Heb 10:27 – fiery

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

FAN, FIRE AND FLOOR

Whose fan is in His hand, and He will throughly purge His floor, and gather His wheat into the garner; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

Mat 3:12

Here we have a great prophecy, a great prediction concerning Christ by His herald John the Baptist. Johns baptism was a baptism into repentance for the remission of sins; the baptism of Christ is not a baptism of water, it is a baptism of fire. Do we know what that means? The Church of Christ to-day is languishing and dying for the lack of that knowledge; it is languishing for the want of a Pentecost. Notice briefly the setting of this great promise. The image is drawn from a familiar operation of husbandrythe operation of winnowing.

I. The floor.He will throughly purge His floor. The floor is the threshing-floor. The floor was the place, ofttimes on the summit of some hill or some high tableland, where the breezes of heaven could play and perform the work required to be done. The winnowing was performed thus: the wheat was thrown up against the wind; the wind carried away the chaff, while the solid grain fell back again upon the floor. Now, says the Baptist, Christ has His threshing-floor. The field is the world, but the floor is His professing Church. The threshing-floor was on an exposed space over which the winds of heaven played. But there is another floor which indeed is in one sense exposed, but in another sense is secret. The floor that Christ wants to purge is not alone the floor of Christendom at large. There is a present purging needed, and that can only be secured by an individual purification. Therefore the floor He wants to purge is the floor of the believers heart. The secret thoughts of the heart are the difficulty. You do not expect the Christian to be guilty of gross overt acts of disobedience. Perhaps you scarcely expect him to offend grievously in words. But the thoughts, the inward thoughts, what about the thoughts of our hearts? That is the floor He wants to purge. How is it to be done?

II. The fan.The fan was a very rude instrument. It was really a scoop, a sort of hollow shovel, with which the grain was cast up against the wind. The fan itself did not do the separating work, but it brought the grain in contact with the power that did do it. There is a great lesson in that. Affliction in itself does not purify, but God uses it to bring the soul under the action of that Power which can and does purify us. But now notice how the work is done. How does Christ purge His floor? The answer is, first, personally. Whose fan is in His hand. I can trust the Hand that was pierced for me. He is too wise to err. He is too good to be unkind. Christ purges instrumentally. There is the fan of affliction and there is the fan of His Word. He will throughly purge His floor. God will do a through and through work in the soul.

III. The fire.We said the winnowing was conducted by throwing up the grain against the wind, but here, you say, there is no reference to the wind; there is reference only to the action of fire. But turn to Act 2:2-3. You read of the combination of the wind and the fire. It is the Holy Ghost who purifies. He is both wind and fire. God the Holy Ghost is the Sanctifier of His people.

Have we received this baptism? It was not for the early disciples alone. It is for us also. Pentecost is the pattern for the dispensation. To-day is still the Pentecostal day. It is the unbelief of the Church that prevents Christ from baptizing still with the Holy Ghost and with fire.

The Rev. E. W. Moore.

Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

3:12

Verse 12. The figures’ now change and are drawn from a different source. In verse 10 they were based upon the work of horticulture, while in this they are upon that of agriculture. Fan is from PTUON and is defined “a winnowing-shovel” in Thayer’s lexicon. Grain was piled down on a smooth place called the threshing floor and trampled out by oxen or beaten with a large club called a flail. Then an instrument like a broad shovel was used to scoop up the shattered grain and toss it up into the wind so the chaff could be blown to one side. The grain was stored in the garner (granary) and the chaff was burned. The process is used to illustrate the separation of the wicked from the good at the day of judgment. The good will be taken to the garner which is heaven, and the wicked will be cast into the lake of fire. The terms ordinarily used to describe the threshing process do not cover all of the phases of the work as it pertains to humanity, hence John qualified the fire by the word unquenchable which comes from the Greek word ASBESTOS and Thayer’s definition is, “unquenchable.” There will be only one judgment day and hence no continual gathering of chaff to cast into the fire. There is but one explanation, therefore, for using unquenchable fire, and that is that the wicked will not be put out of existence as literal chaff is, but will continue to exist and burn endlessly, and that will require a fire that cannot be put out.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Mat 3:12. Whose winnowing-shovel, etc. A new figure, including a reference both to the saved and the lost; the axe referred to the latter alone. The winnowing-shovel, for separating the chaff and the wheat, was ready for use, in his hand, and thus equipped, he will cleanse thoroughly (from one end to the other) his threshing floor. The threshing floor was a circular space on the farm, either beaten hard or paved, where the grain was trodden out by oxen or horses. The threshing floor of the Messiah becomes larger as the course of history moves on. The thorough cleansing of the floor itself will be completed when the end of the world comes, but the process of winnowing is included, i.e., the disciplinary and punitive leadings of God with men.

And he will gather. The punctuation of the common version should be altered. The cleansing process is spoken of first in general, then the twofold result is set forth in contrasted clauses.

His wheat, the fruits of the husbandry, the persons saved, hence His.

The garner, the storehouse; either the kingdom of heaven on earth, or heaven itself, probably both, since Christs salvation includes both words.

The chaff, the refuse, not His, when separated will be burned up. As in the case of the wheat, persons are meant, and the punishment may begin, like the blessing, in this world.

Fire unquenchable. The violent, uncontrollable blaze of a straw fire is the figurative representation of an awful reality. Once begun, the fiery judgment continues, until the unquenchable fire of Gehenna is kindled.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

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.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Mat 3:12. Whose fan is in his hand That is, the doctrine of the gospel, which is of such a nature as effectually discovers what is the real disposition of the hearts of men, and perfectly distinguishes between the hypocritical and the sincere. Perhaps, also, the Baptist might refer to the persecutions and tribulations which should attend the preaching of the gospel. Dr. Campbell renders the original expression, , winnowing shovel, mentioned Isa 30:24, an implement of husbandry, very ancient, simple, and properly manual: whereas the fan, (or van, as it is sometimes called,) is more complex, and, being contrived for raising an artificial wind, by the help of sails, can hardly be considered as proper for being carried about in the hand. In the eastern countries, says Dr. Shaw, after the grain is trodden out, they winnow it by throwing it up against the wind with a shovel. To understand the Baptists meaning aright, we should observe, that in this verse he describes the authority of Christs ministry, as in Mat 3:16 he had described its efficacy. As if he had said, The Messiah is infinitely mightier than I, not only as he will bestow on you the miraculous gifts of the Spirit, but as he has power to reward those who obey him with eternal life, and to punish such with everlasting destruction, as reject him. Macknight. He will thoroughly purge his floor His Church, at present covered with a mixture of wheat and chaff. As if he had said, Though, for the present, the good and bad, the fruitful and unfruitful, are joined together in the visible Church, yet in due time he will sever them, Mal 3:2-3; and rid his Church of all hypocrites and ungodly persons. And gather his wheat The, truly pious, into his garner Will lay them up in heaven as his peculiar treasure. But the chaff Those who have only a show of religion, without the power, and produce not the fruits of righteousness, he will burn with unquenchable fire He will treat them as men do the refuse of the floor. He will destroy them as worthless and unprofitable trash. There is, in these words, an evident allusion to the custom of burning the chaff after winnowing, that it might not, by the winds changing, be blown back again, and so be mingled with the wheat. And though this may in part refer to the calamities to come upon the Jewish nation for rejecting Christ, yet, it seems chiefly to intend the final destruction of all sinners in hell, which alone is properly opposed to the gathering the wheat into the garner. See Mat 13:40-42. And certainly this burning of the chaff with unquenchable fire, is absolutely inconsistent with all views of the restoration of the wicked, nor can it, by any easy or just interpretation, be reconciled with their annihilation, which, it is certain, no punishment of mind or body can, of itself, effect.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Verse 12

Fan; a winnowing instrument.–Garner; granary.

Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament

3:12 {6} Whose fan [is] in his hand, and he will throughly {m} purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

(6) The triumphs of the wicked will end in everlasting torment.

(m) Will clean it thoroughly, and make a full riddance.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

John metaphorically described God separating the true and the false, the repentant and the unrepentant, in a future judgment. This thorough judgment will result in the preservation of the believing Israelites and the destruction of the unbelieving (cf. Mat 25:31-46). The barn probably refers to the kingdom and the "unquenchable fire" to the endless duration and the agonizing nature of this punishment.

"’Unquenchable fire’ is not just metaphor: fearful reality underlies Messiah’s separation of grain from chaff. The ’nearness’ of the kingdom therefore calls for repentance (Mat 3:2)." [Note: Carson, "Matthew," p. 105.]

What then was the essential message of Messiah’s forerunner?

"John preached both a personal salvation, involving the remission of sins (Mar 1:4), and a national salvation, involving the establishment of the millennial kingdom with Israel delivered out of the hand of their enemies (Mat 3:2; Luk 1:71-75)." [Note: S. Lewis Johnson Jr., "The Message of John the Baptist." Bibliotheca Sacra 113:449 (January 1956):36. See also Toussaint, p. 69.]

2. Jesus’ baptism 3:13-17 (cf. Mar 1:9-11; Luk 3:21-23)

Jesus’ baptism was the occasion at which His messiahship became obvious publicly. Matthew recorded this event as he did to convince his readers further of Jesus’ messianic qualifications. Thus John’s baptism had two purposes: to prepare Israel for her Messiah (Mat 3:1-12) and to prepare the Messiah for Israel (Mat 3:13-17; cf. Joh 1:31).

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)