I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
John Calvin
Christ is ... so far superior in power and rank, that, with respect to him, John must occupy a private station. Hence we infer, that his intention was not at all to distinguish between his own baptism, and that which Christ taught his disciples, and which he intended should remain in perpetual obligation in his Church. He does not contrast one visible sign with another visible sign, but compares the characters of master and servant with each other, and shows what is due to the master, and what is due to the servant. ... the comparison, which they imagine to have been made, would involve great absurdities. It would follow ... that the Holy Spirit is given, in the present day, by ministers ... John’s baptism was a dead sign, and ... we have not the same baptism with Christ ....
Christ is ... so far superior in power and rank, that, with respect to him, John must occupy a private station. Hence we infer, that his intention was not at all to distinguish between his own baptism, and that which Christ taught his disciples, and which he intended should remain in perpetual obligation in his Church. He does not contrast one visible sign with another visible sign, but compares the characters of master and servant with each other, and shows what is due to the master, and what is due to the servant. ... the comparison, which they imagine to have been made, would involve great absurdities. It would follow ... that the Holy Spirit is given, in the present day, by ministers ... John’s baptism was a dead sign, and ... we have not the same baptism with Christ ....
We must therefore hold ... that John merely distinguishes ... between himself and the other ministers of baptism, on the one hand, and the power of Christ, on the other, and maintains the superiority of the master over the servants. And hence we deduce the general doctrine, as to what is done in baptism by men, and what is accomplished in it by the Son of God. To men has been committed nothing more than the administration of an outward and visible sign: the reality dwells with Christ alone. ... where a comparison is made between our Lord and the minister, the former must have all the honour, and the latter must be reduced to nothing.
He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire It is asked, why did not John equally say, that it is Christ alone who washes souls with his blood? The reason is, that this very washing is performed by the power of the Spirit, and John reckoned it enough to express the whole effect of baptism by the single word Spirit. The meaning is clear, that Christ alone bestows all the grace which is figuratively represented by outward baptism, because it is he who "sprinkles the conscience" with his blood. It is he also who mortifies the old man, and bestows the Spirit of regeneration. The word fire is added as an epithet, and is applied to the Spirit, because he takes away our pollutions, as fire purifies gold. In the same manner, he is metaphorically called water in another passage (John 3:5).
David Brown
To take this as a distinct baptism from that of the Spirit - a baptism of the impenitent with hell-fire - is exceedingly unnatural. Yet this was the view of Origen ... and (others) ... Nor is it much better to refer it to the fire of the great day ... Clearly, as we think, it is but the fiery character of the Spirit's operations upon the soul-searching, consuming, refining, sublimating - as nearly all good interpreters understand the words. And thus, in two successive clauses, the two most familiar emblems - water and fire - are employed to set forth the same purifying operations of the Holy Ghost upon the soul.
David Brown
To take this as a distinct baptism from that of the Spirit - a baptism of the impenitent with hell-fire - is exceedingly unnatural. Yet this was the view of Origen ... and (others) ... Nor is it much better to refer it to the fire of the great day ... Clearly, as we think, it is but the fiery character of the Spirit's operations upon the soul-searching, consuming, refining, sublimating - as nearly all good interpreters understand the words. And thus, in two successive clauses, the two most familiar emblems - water and fire - are employed to set forth the same purifying operations of the Holy Ghost upon the soul.
