Thursday, April 15, 2021
John said about Jesus that He would “burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (Matthew 3.12 NKJV).
The process of harvesting wheat is complicated. It requires thorough preparation and intention. The timing is crucial too. There are specialized tools and processes that took generations to discover, perfect, teach, and learn. The part John mentions is the delivery of the grain from its husk, which is called winnowing.
Threshing and winnowing took place in antiquity usually on a high level place that was paved with smooth stones. Usually a donkey dragged a man on a threshing sledge over the grain, and that mechanical violence was what removed the grain from the chaff, its protective husk (I hope you’re picking up on the spiritual significance of all this). That was threshing.
Winnowing took place afterward, and this was the reason why threshing had to be done on a high place: because of the wind. Grain was winnowed by scooping it up, throwing it into the air, and letting the wind do the rest. The wind would carry away the chaff, and the grain would fall to the threshing floor, clean and ready to be used.
Remember when Jesus told Nicodemus about the wind and how it worked? You can’t see it, but you can see its effects. So it is with those who have been born of the spirit.
John paints Jesus in this light here in this passage. He says that Jesus will “thoroughly clean out” His threshing floor. There will be no chaff remaining, and it won’t simply be carried off to rest in peace in some random place but burned until nothing remains. This is part of what the baptism of fire means.
That which can burn will surely burn, and that which cannot be burned will surely be refined. Jesus warned us that each one’s work would pass through the fire, and to be careful how we build. That is, if we build with easily obtainable materials like wood, hay, and stubble, our work will, in the final manifestation, be nothing but ash. If we build with treasures for which we must search, if we build with things that are eternally valuable to God, our work will not only survive the fire but be purified by the testing.
Jesus came to cast fire on the earth. Are we building smartly? Are we, as I mentioned recently, about the Father’s business?