<p>3:3 <i>And he came into all the region round about the Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins</i>- Presumably this connects with Mt. 2:23, meaning that whilst the Lord was still living in Nazareth, John began preaching. One wonders whether John maybe began his ministry up to three and a half years before the baptism of Jesus, seeing his work was typical of the three and a half year Elijah ministry preparing for the&nbsp;<i>second</i>&nbsp;coming of the Lord Jesus.&nbsp;</p><p>The two clauses in this sentence appear to be the wrong way around. We would expect to read that John came preaching baptism, and then baptized people. One way around the problem is to imagine that the second clause (&quot;preaching the baptism...&quot;) is as it were in brackets, explaining that the baptism he performed was not Christian baptism but simply a sign of repentance and request for remission of sins. But Mt. 3:11 makes it explicit that his baptism <i>preceded</i> the call for repentance. &quot;Baptize... unto repentance&quot; alludes to the Isaiah 40 passage which offered forgiveness in order to provoke repentance. John baptized in order to lead people to repentance, rather than baptizing only those who had repented and got their lives in order. Even the NET Bible's &quot;baptize... for repentance&quot; could be read the same way- baptism was for the end of provoking repentance, rather than being baptism only for the visibly repentant. This likelihood is strengthened once we realize that there is surely an allusion here to Wisdom 11:23: &quot;You overlook the sins of men, unto repentance&quot;. Repentance in any case is an internal attitude (see on Mt. 3:6), and John as he stood in the Jordan River was totally incapable of judging whether or not in practice his hearers had actually changed their lives. He baptized them because they had confessed their sins and re-thought, re-pented. Not because they had actually changed in practical, ongoing lifestyle issues. Likewise the apostles who baptized 3000 people in Acts 2 had no way of measuring repentance in practice. Mk. 1:15 records John&rsquo;s message as being: &ldquo;Repent ye and believe the Gospel&quot;. This might seem to be in the wrong order- for we have come to think that surely belief of the Gospel comes before repentance. And so it does very often- but there is another option here- that the repentance is ongoing. Life after conversion is a life of believing the basic Gospel which led us to conversion and repentance in the first place. </p><p>The Greek <i>metanoia</i> &quot;repentance&quot; was used as a legal term describing the re-thinking of a sentence. Paul uses this figure in Romans to describe how we are condemned as guilty, but the sentence is re-thought because we are in Christ. Strong's lexicon claims that the word can mean &quot;by implication, reversal of another's decision&quot;. Our re-thinking thus becomes God's re-thinking. In this we see something of the intimacy and connection between God and man achieved by human repentance. The legal metaphor continues in the word translated &quot;remission&quot;- the idea is of legal pardon or freedom from the accusation.</p><p>John the Baptist's audience responded to his preaching by being baptized &quot;with the baptism of repentance&quot; (Mk. 1:4); and yet the Lord Jesus built on this by appealing to people to repent because the Kingdom was at hand (Mk. 1:15; Mt. 3:2). Their repentance was therefore only surface level. The Lord cursed the fig tree (cp. Israel) because they had only leaves, an appearance of repentance and spiritual fruit, but actually there was not even the first sign of real fruit on that tree when it was really analysed. Earlier, Israel had appeared to have fruit, when actually, they didn't have any at all (Hos. 10:1). The man in the parable built his spiritual house, but in fact he didn't get down to the real nitty-gritty of obedience to the Lord's words; and so it miserably, pathetically fell at judgment day. The seriousness of sin becomes de-emphasized in our lives, until repentance comes to mean a vague twinge of guilt. This, again, was the problem of Old Testament Israel. &quot;They return, but not to the Most High&quot; (Hos. 7:16);&nbsp;they had the sensation of regret, of turning back- but it wasn't real repentance. A few verses earlier God had commented: &ldquo;They do <i>not</i> return to the Lord their God&rdquo; (Hos. 7:10); but they on a surface level <i>did</i> return to Him. Hosea continues his theme: &ldquo;Israel is an empty vine, he bringeth forth fruit unto himself&rdquo; (Hos. 10:1). Did they or did they not bring forth fruit? They did- but only in their own eyes. They felt they had repented, and brought forth spiritual fruit. But not in God&rsquo;s estimation. And we too can have the sensation of spirituality and even spiritual growth, but only in our own eyes. &ldquo;Though they called them to the Most High, none at all would exalt him&rdquo; (Hos. 11:7) in the way which true repentance requires. &quot;Judah hath not turned unto me with her <i>whole</i> heart, but feignedly&quot; (Jer. 3:10). They did turn back to Yahweh- but not in their heart. Israel rejoiced in the light of John&rsquo;s teaching- and he taught real, on-your-knees repentance. They thought they&rsquo;d repented. But the Lord describes John as mourning, and them not mourning in sympathy and response (Lk. 7:32). They rejoiced in the idea of repentance, but never really got down to it.</p>