John the Baptist, like all good Baptists, could only baptize with water. God had commanded him to baptize with water. But John's baptism simply symbolized a supernatural baptism which only Christ could provide for all who would repent of their sins and put their faith in Him.
John preached that Christ would provide a miraculous baptism for those who repent and believe in Christ. John baptized only those who repented, and so John must have also meant that Christ would miraculously baptize with the Holy Spirit only those who repented and believed in Christ. John's prophecy could only mean that Jesus' baptism with the Holy Spirit, also called by Jesus the "born again" experience, would belong exclusively to the future Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. John 3:3.
When a repentant sinner believes in Christ's sacrifice to take away his sins, then the Holy Spirit miraculously washes that believer in the blood and water that flowed from Jesus' body on the cross, recreates his soul and spirit, and that believer becomes a child of God forever. This is the baptism with the Holy Spirit. I Corinthians 6:11; Romans 8:16-17.
But John not only preached to believers, he also preached to unbelievers. Matthew 3:7. John preached that Christ would also baptize with fire. God provides this fire baptism for unbelievers. Jesus bore the sins of all mankind on the cross, and when He died, His Spirit descended into hell and left all those sins behind Him in hell. He had to have left them behind because He rose from the dead perfectly immaculate. Jesus suffered man's spiritual death and separation from God in the place of all mankind. When an unbeliever dies, he must descend into the sea, or death, or hell, as judged by Christ, to be purged by God's consuming fire. The unbeliever must personally experience this cleansing by fire that Christ has already provided for him just as the Christian must personally experience the cleansing of his sins by the baptism with the Holy Spirit. Revelation 20:13; I Corinthians 3:12-15; I Timothy 4:10; John 1:29; Numbers 16:30-39.
John further reinforces his teaching about Christ's baptism of all men when he stated in verse 12 that God "will throughly purge His floor," meaning all mankind. The wheat that God gathers can only be 100% good. The chaff that He burns can only be 100% useless. This teaching can only mean that in the end God will recover for His use all of the good that He has ever put into mankind, and He will consign only that which is totally useless and evil to the lake of fire. Revelation 21:1-5; Revelation 21:8; Revelation 22:11-12.
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