garded the prophecy of Malachi as a necessary expansion and completion of that of Isaiah, and that they had the former continually in their minds. The word "repent" is sufficient of itself to indicate this. Elias the prophet is expressly described by Malachi (iv. 6), as producing repentance. And the account of John the Baptist's mode of life (in ver. 4), leads to the same conclusion; " and the same John," we read, "had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins, and his meat was locusts and wild honey." The design of John, viz., by means of an outward resemblance to Elias, to call attention to the inward one, is very conspicuous here. In 2 Kings i. 8 (Septuagint), Elias is said to have been ἀνὴρ δασύς, καὶ ζώνην δερματίνην περιεζωσμένος τὴν ὀσφὺν αὐτοῦ. δασύς does not refer to his person, but to his clothing, to the rough garment of camel's hair.—On ver. 7, Lightfoot has observed, "there is an allusion here to the closing words of the Old Testament, 'lest I come and smite the land with the curse,' and the disastrous fate of the nation is represented as already impending over it." We must also add the reference to the coming day predicted in Mal. iv. 1; compare the κοπάσαι ὀργὴν πρὸ θυμοῦ of the Book of Wisdom (chap. xlviii. 10). John declares that the great day of decision and separation, foretold by the prophets, has now arrived. Happy is he who listens to him, the risen Elias, and is led to repentance, the only means of escaping the coming wrath.In ver. 8, "Bring forth, therefore, fruits meat for repentance," there is an allusion to Mal. iv. 1, "which shall leave them neither root nor branch." Compare ver. 10, " and now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees (Bengel, 'the axe is not directed against the branches alone'); therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit, is hewn down and cast into the fire." The bad trees must become good through repentance, and consequently bring forth good fruit; otherwise, according to God's own threat through the mouth of his prophet, neither root nor branch will be left. In ver. 11, "I indeed baptize you with water into repentance (cf. Mal. iv. 6), but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear," the allusion to Mal. iii. 1 is unmistakeable. John is merely the human messenger of the Lord, sent to secure the peтávoia embodied in baptism, that is, to prepare the way. After him, the heavenly

messenger, the angel of the covenant, the Lord himself, comes to his temple. This allusion is the more important on account of its affording an insight into the opinion, which John himself entertained of Christ. He was not in his estimation, as in that of the mass of the people, a man endowed with extraordinary gifts, but the revelation of the glory of God, predicted by Isaiah, the Lord whose way he was to prepare, the angel of the covenant, and the Lord, foretold by Malachi. And lastly, in ver. 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," there is a reference to Mal. iv. 1, "behold the day cometh burning as an oven, and all the proud and all the wicked become stubble, and the coming day burneth them." Thus the prophecy of Malachi is, throughout, the text upon which John comments, in precisely the same manner in which Malachi himself comments upon Isaiah. The close connexion between prophecy and fulfilment is pointed out by the Evangelist in the particle yàp in ver. 3, upon which Bengel observes, "the reason why John necessarily appeared at that time in the manner described in ver. 1 and 2, was because it was so foretold.

We will now cite a few examples, which show the importance of a clear perception of the connexion referred to, in its bearing upon the present section. The reason for the sojourn of John in the desert is thus explained by Olshausen: "But the real character of this witness to the truth is to be seen in the fact, that John preached in the desert and not in cities. It was an essential characteristic of John, that he avoided men, and preached to those who sought him out, whereas the Redeemer sought the men to whom he preached." The inappropriateness of this explanation is at once apparent, if we bear in mind the connexion with the prophecy. In Isaiah the desert is the symbol of that state of natural and spiritual destitution, in which the nation was, at the time referred to, and in which it had formerly been after the exodus from Egypt. By appearing in a desert, then, John proclaimed in deeds, what he afterwards expressly declared in words, that the nation was a spiritual desert, and that he was the messenger sent by the Lord to prepare the way before him, in other words, the preacher of repentance. (Complete conformity with the prophecy would have required that he

should appear in the desert, viz. the Arabian, but this would have operated prejudicially to his design, and therefore, just as in the case of the temptation of Christ, only the essential features were exhibited in an outward form). According to the reception given to his preaching, the bodies of some were to fall in the desert, whilst others would be conducted into the promised land by the Lord, who was coming after him to punish and to bless.

Different opinions have been entertained as to the meaning of the outward mode of life adopted by John. The majority regard him as an ascetic. Grotius, for example, says (or chap. iii. 4): "habitus haud dubie severior, victus parsimoniae congru

ens."

The correct explanation can only be obtained, by seeking for the reason why a similar outward mode of life was adopted by Elijah; for John copied it from him, not indeed as something purely external,-this would have been puerile and very unworthy, but as something highly significant, the symbol of an inward relation between himself and Elijah. Now there can be no doubt that in the case of Elijah this mode of life was a "sermo propheticus realis." The preacher of repentance comes forward as repentance personified. In his own conduct he shows the people what their conduct ought to be. Take as a single example 1 Kings xxi. 27, where Ahab imitates the marks of repentance which the prophet had set before him. "And it came to pass, when Ahab heard those words, that he rent his clothes, and put a garment of hair upon his flesh, and fasted." The words "and fasted" also serve to show in what light we are to regard the fact that "his meat was locusts and wild honey." Fasting in connexion with the wearing of a garment of hair were the ordinary signs of repentance under the Old Testament. John's eating was a kind of continuous fast, and the Saviour himself describes it as being so, when he calls it in Matt. xi. 18, “neither eating nor drinking," an uninterrupted. would have fasted altogether, if this had not been an impossibility. Regarded in this light,' the mode of life adopted by John is most intimately connected with his sojourn in the desert. The

He

1 This was the view entertained by Bengel," even the dress and food of John preached in accordance with his teaching and office. This minister of repentance led the same life as penitents themselves should always lead."

two together serve to represent the condition of the people as a deeply degraded one, repentance as indispensably necessary, as the work of the age, and punishment as close at hand. The latter also shows the essential unity of the time of John and that of Elijah. In Elijah's days there was the same degradation; compare, for example, 1 Kings xix. 10, "I have striven for the Lord, the God of Hosts; for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant." There was also the same call on the part of the prophet to lead them to repentance; compare 1 Kings xviii. 37, where, in perfect accordance with Mal. iv. 6, Elijah says to God, "and thou hast turned their heart back again." Punishment was also just as close at hand; the mission of Elijah, of which that of Elisha and his disciples is to be regarded as a continuation, was the last grand attempt on the part of God to rescue Israel, which, after this attempt had failed upon the whole, moved forward without interruption towards destruction, the which certainly awaited it.

חרם

If we look back from the fulfilment to the prophecy, we see at once the incorrectness of the view entertained by many, and lately adopted by Olshausen, with regard to the office held by John. "The peтávoia," he observes, "was something purely negative, which required a positive side to make it complete, namely the Spirit, which was brought by Christ, and which men received by faith." Repentance answers to the "turning of the hearts of the fathers to the children and of the children to the fathers," of which Malachi speaks. But this is something more than purely negative. It presupposes an inward renovation, a change in the character of the entire life. This is apparent from the fact that the mission of Elias is followed immediately by the appearance of the angel of the covenant with a blessing and a curse. If the repentance of John had been something merely negative, he would have been inferior to all the prophets of the Old Testament, and in this case the prophecy of Malachi could not be regarded as fulfilled in him. Even Josephus judged differently from this, when he said that the baptism of John, the embodiment of the repentance which he preached, served ἐφ ̓ ἁγνείᾳ τοῦ σώματος, ἅτε δὴ καὶ τῆς ψυχῆς προκεκαOapμévns. How could repentance be conceived of as something purely negative? This would deprive it of the character of

repentance altogether. Repentance and faith must necessarily be the same thing from different points of view, "thou shalt cease from thy doings" (repentance), "that God may have his work in thee" (faith). The faith is exactly proportioned to the repentance. The difference between the baptism of John and that of Christ, was not that in the former there was repentance and not faith, but that though it contained them both it was in a very inferior degree. They are both the work of the Spirit, and the contrast, which is represented as absolute in the words of John (ver. 11), so far as the form is concerned, is really only relative. Otherwise the work of John would have been merely a mockery and delusion. But if this were the case, the idea which was symbolically represented in his person could not have been so perfectly realised in Christ, that in this respect there should have been nothing more than a difference of degree in the work which he performed (the work of Christ, as the Lord and the angel of the covenant, was of a different kind); compare the remarks of Mal. iii. 1. Moreover, the disputed opinion with regard to the office of John is quite as much at variance with the words of the evangelist, as with those of the prophet. According to Matt. iii. 6, those who repented were baptized in Jordan, "confessing their sins. That we have not to imagine the sins confessed as reserved for forgiveness at some future time, but that on the contrary forgiveness was associated in this instance, as in every other, with confession (compare Ps. xxxii. 5)—of course in proportion to the confession made-is evident from the parallel passages in Luke (iii. 3) and Mark (i. 4), in which the baptism of John is represented as "the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins." It is true that Olshausen follows Tertullian (see Grotius on Mark),—who explained eis äpeow as meaning, "for the remission at some future time," and who so completely shared the whole view with regard to the office of John that he understood by peтávoia not a change of life, but merely certain external rites,-and says, "the preaching of John was not intended to secure remission, but to prepare the way for the remission to be effected by Christ." But Bengel overthrows this explanation by appealing to Acts ii. 38, where Peter says, "repent and be baptized every one of you,

for the remission of sins." If the remission of sins is repre