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Matthew 3:2
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John the Baptist Prepares the Way

1 In those days aJohn the Baptist came preaching bin the wilderness of Judea,  
2 and saying, “Repent, for athe kingdom of heaven is at hand!”  
3 For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah, saying:
a“The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
b‘Prepare the way of the Lord;
Make His paths straight.’ ”  
4 Now aJohn himself was clothed in camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist; and his food was blocusts and cwild honey.  
5 aThen Jerusalem, all Judea, and all the region around the Jordan went out to him  
6 aand were baptized by him in the Jordan, confessing their sins.  
7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, a“Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from bthe wrath to come?  
8 Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance,
9 and do not think to say to yourselves, a‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones.  
10 And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. aTherefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.  
Commentaries:
John Wesley's Notes
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Matthew 3:2

The kingdom of heaven, and the kingdom of God, are but two phrases for the same thing. They mean, not barely a future happy state, in heaven, but a state to be enjoyed on earth: the proper disposition for the glory of heaven, rather than the possession of it. Is at hand - As if he had said, God is about to erect that kingdom, spoken of by Daniel Daniel 2:44; Daniel 7:13-14; the kingdom of the God of heaven. It properly signifies here, the Gospel dispensation, in which subjects were to be gathered to God by his Son, and a society to be formed, which was to subsist first on earth, and afterward with God in glory. In some places of Scripture, the phrase more particularly denotes the state of it on earth: in ,others, it signifies only the state of glory: but it generally includes both. The Jews understood it of a temporal kingdom, the seat of which they supposed would be Jerusalem; and the expected sovereign of this kingdom they learned from Daniel to call the Son of man. Both John the Baptist and Christ took up that phrase, the kingdom of heaven, as they found it, and gradually taught the Jews (though greatly unwilling to learn) to understand it right. The very demand of repentance, as previous to it, showed it was a spiritual kingdom, and that no wicked man, how politic, brave, or learned soever, could possibly be a subject of it.


 
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