The Result of His Ministry

Next we notice the result of his ministry. Many of the Jews, no doubt discontented with the existing state of things, were baptized by him in Jordan. They were not pleading righteousness, wisdom or law, but confessing sinfulness, the only "way of righteousness" for the time (Matt. 21:32).
The Pharisees and Sadducees accompany the crowd, but John, detecting their insincerity, exposes their true characters. He warns them not only that true repentance would bring forth fruit, but that hereditary privileges would not avail without it. Moreover, God who raised up Abraham to be His servant, could also raise up children to him from the very stones. It was not a question now of mere fruit-bearing, but God was about to test the root itself. Unless there was true repentance, root and branch would alike be cast into the eternal burning.
He then unfolds the purpose of the Lord's mission in contrast with his own. His was to lead the upright in heart to confess their sins. The Lord's mission was to baptize with the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:5) those who took their true place, and to burn up utterly those whose hearts remained untouched by His warnings. The land of Israel, the "floor" of Isa. 21:10, should be the scene of both blessing and judgment. There the wheat has already been gathered into the garner (Acts 2:47); there the apostates will yet be burned with fire unquenchable in the time of the great tribulation.