Daily Bible Reading 12th April 2026 // Luke 3:7-18
7 He said therefore to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. 9 Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
10 And the crowds asked him, “What then shall we do?” 11 And he answered them, “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.” 12 Tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, “Teacher, what shall we do?” 13 And he said to them, “Collect no more than you are authorized to do.” 14 Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.”
15 As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Christ, 16 John answered them all, saying, “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. 17 His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
18 So with many other exhortations he preached good news to the people.
The first thing that must be said is that there is a certain ambiguity, a certain paradox, inherent in the situation, and one that is in the nature of the case inevitable. What we mean is this: on the one hand, it is clear that John was speaking of some future operation of the Spirit when he spoke of the baptism of fire, just as Jesus Himself, later, spoke of it as something in the future. On the other hand the Spirit of God was undoubtedly at work in the world in the Old Testament dispensation, in spiritual awakenings, in the revival of the Baptist itself, and in the ministry of Jesus - and of His disciples - before Pentecost. Also, on the one hand, Jesus spoke of His Church as something only then beginning in His ministry, and at Pentecost - 'I will build My Church' - and on the other hand it is clear and certain that He was also building His Church in the Old Testament dispensation, operating in history before His Incarnation (cf Paul's teaching in 1 Corinthians 10). A belief in the doctrine of the Trinity commits us to this view. It is this kind of ambiguity that enables us to say that John's ministry was both a work of the Spirit of God in its own right, and also a preparatory movement; it is this also which enables our Westminster Confession to say on the one hand that the whole Old Testament dispensation was preparatory, and on the other hand to insist very properly that the Old Testament types, sacrifices, ordinances, etc., 'were for that time sufficient and efficacious, through the operation of the Spirit, to instruct and build up the elect in faith in the promised Messiah, by whom they had full remission of sins, and eternal salvation' (Westminster Confession 7.V). Unless we understand that this ambiguity belongs to the very nature of the gospel, and to the fact that Christ came at a particular and specific point in history, once for all, and that the events associated with His coming stand on the border line between two dispensations, the old and the new, we shall remain very confused about many things, and particularly about the teaching of the New Testament about the Holy Spirit.