Matthew 3:11; Luke 3:16. Christ is speaking in these places of the wheat and the chaff-the men who receive him and those who reject him. The former class shall be abundantly endued with the teachings and consolations of the Holy Spirit, but "the chaff-he will burn with fire unquenchable." Many here understand "fire" in the widest sense of purification: the purification of Christ's people by the destruction of the ungodly from among them, and their purification from sin by the discipline to which he subjects them. "He shall sit as a refiner's fire."