This is he of whom I said, 'After me comes a man who is preferred before me, for he was before me.'

 (iii) His life is purified. Christ's baptism with the Spirit was to be a baptism of fire ( Matthew 3:11; Luke 3:16). The dross of evil things, the alloy of the lower things, the base admixture is burned away until a man is clean and pure. 