The Life Of Jesus Christ In Its Historical Connexion

(1.) No Ecstatic Vision. -- (2.) The Ebionitish View and its Opposite. -- (3.) Developement of the Notion of Baptism in New Testament. -- (4.) The Baptism of Christ not a Rite of Purification. -- (5.) But of Consecration to his Theocratic Reign. -- (6.) John's previous Acquaintance with Christ. -- (7.) Explanation of John, i., 31. -- (8.) The Vision and the Voice; intended exclusively for the Baptist.

Two questions present themselves here: the bearing of the baptism upon John, and its bearing upon Christ. The first can easily be gathered from what has been said already, and from the concurrent accounts of the Evangelists. It is clear that John was to be enlightened, by a sign from heaven, in regard to the person who was to be the erchomenos whom he himself had unconsciously foretold. The second, however, is not so easy to answer. The accounts do not harmonize so well with each other on this point, nor are all men agreed in their opinions of the person of Christ; and these causes have given rise to several different solutions of the question.

The point to be settled is this: Was the Divine revelation made on this occasion intended, though in different relations, for both John and Christ; not merely to give the former certainty as to the person of Messiah, but to impart a firm consciousness of Messiahship to the latter? And did Jesus, thus for the first time obtaining this full consciousness, at the same moment receive the powers essential to his Messianic mission? Did what John's eyes beheld take place really and objectively, and the fulness of the Holy Ghost descend upon Jesus to fit him for his mighty work?

(1.) No Ecstatic Vision to be supposed in the case of Christ.

If we adopt this latter view, we must look at all the phenomena connected with the baptism, not as merely subjective conceptions, but as objective supernatural facts. It is true, we may imagine a symbolical vision to have been the medium of a Divine revelation common to Christ and John; but we must certainly be permitted to doubt the application of such a mode of revelation to Christ. It may be granted that the Prophets were sometimes, in ecstatic vision, carried beyond themselves and overwhelmed by a higher power: but in these instances there is an abrupt suddenness, an opposition of the human and the Divine; a leap, so to speak, in the developement of consciousness, which we could hardly imagine in connexion with the specific and distinctive nature of the person of Christ. Nor, in fact, is there a hint at such a possibility in the Gospel narratives.

(2.) Ebionitish Views of the Miracle at the Baptism, and its Opposite.

There are two opposite stand-points which agree in ascribing to the events of the baptism the greatest importance in reference to Christ's Messiahship. The first is that of the Ebionites, who deny Christ's specific Divinity. It is, that he not only received from without, at a definite period of his life, the consciousness of his Divine mission, but also the powers necessary to its accomplishment. The other view (proceeding, however, from firm believers in the divinity of Christ) supposes that the Divine Logos, in assuming the form of humanity, submitted, by this act of self-renunciation, to all the laws of human developement; and further, that when Christ passed from the sphere of private life to that of his public ministry, he was set apart and prepared for it as the prophets were; with this single element of superiority, viz., that he was endowed with the fulness of the Holy Ghost.

As for the first view, it is not only at variance with the whole character of Christ's manifestation, but also with all his own testimonies of himself. In all these there is manifested the consciousness of his own greatness, not as something acquired, but as unoriginated, and inseparable from his being. He does not speak like one who has be come what he is by some sudden revolution. In short, this whole mode of thinking springs from an outward supernaturalism, which represents the Divine as antagonist to the human, and imposes it upon Christ from without; instead of considering his entire manifestation from the beginning as Divine and supernatural, of deriving every thing from this fundamental ground, and recognizing in it the aim of all the special revelations of the old dispensation. This is a continuation of the old Jewish view of the progress of the Theocracy: all is formed from without, instead of developing itself organically from within; the Divine is an abrupt exhibition of the supernatural. How opposite to this is the view which sees in the human, the form of manifestation under which the Divine nature has revealed itself from the beginning, and perceives, in this original and thorough interpenetration of the Divine and the human, the aim and the culmination of all miracles.

The second view above mentioned will appear the most simple and natural, if, instead of considering a Divine communication from without to have been made necessary by the self-renunciation of the Logos in assuming human form, we admit a gradual revelation (in accordance with the laws of human developement) of the Divine nature, potentially present, as the ground of the incarnate being, from the very first, and trace all that appears in the outward manifestation to the process of developement from within. In the lives of all other reformers, or founders of religions, whose call seems to have dated from a certain period of life, the birth-time, as it were, of their activity, it is impossible not to trace, in their later labours and in their own personal statements, some references to the earlier period when their call was unfelt. [101] In the discourses of Christ, however there is not the most distant approach to such an allusion.

(3.) Different Steps in the New Testament Notion of the Baptism, up to that of John the Evangelist.

In the revelations of the New Testament, and in the process of the developement of Christianity which those revelations unfold, we can distinguish various steps, or stages, of progress from the Old Testament ideas to the New. Especially is this the case in regard to the person of Christ. The conception of Christ, as anointed with the fullness of the Holy Spirit, and superior to all other prophets, is akin to Old Testament ideas, and forms the point of transition to the New, which rest upon the manifestation of Christ. But it required a completely developed Christian consciousness to recognize, in his appearance on earth, the Divine glory as inherent in him from the beginning, and progressive only so far as its outward manifestation was concerned. These two views, however, by no means exclude each other; the one is rather the complement of the other, while both, at a different stage of developement, tend to one and the same definite aim. And the latter, or highest stage of Christian consciousness, we are naturally to look for in that beloved apostle who enjoyed the closest degree of intimacy with Christ, and was, on that account, best of all able to understand profoundly both his manifestation and his discourses. From John, too; we must expect the highest Christian view of the person of Christ. [The account of the principal event of the baptism is thus given in John's Gospel: "And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him. And I knew him not; but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. And I saw and bare record that this is the Son of God." [102] ] Now the fact thus stated, if interpreted in an outward and material sense, and combined with the view of Christ which we mentioned a while ago as akin to the Jewish ideas, might easily give rise to the doctrine that Christ obtained at the baptism something which he had not possessed before.

Our conclusion is, that Christ was already sure of his Divine call to the Messiahship, and submitted himself, in the course of the Theocratic developement, to baptism, as a preparative and inaugural rite, from the hands of the man who was destined to conduct prophecy to its fulfilment, and to be the first to recognize, by light from heaven, the manifested Messiah.

(4.) The Baptism not a Rite of Purification.

The idea that Christ was baptized with a view to purification is absolutely untenable, no matter how the notion of purification may be modified. Akin to this idea, certainly, is the view held by some, [103] that he submitted to this act of self-humiliation in the same sense in which he humbled himself before God, as the One alone to be called good. [104] This view would suppose him conscious, not of actual sin, but of a dormant possibility of sin, inherent in his finite nature and his human organism, always restrained, however, by the steadfast firmness of his will, from passing into action. But if we suppose in Christ the abstract possibility to sin [105] which is inseparable from a created will, pure but not yet immutable -- such a capability as we attribute to the first man before the fall -- even this would not necessarily connect with itself a dormant, hidden sinfulness, involving in him a conscious need of purification in any sense whatever. Such a consciousness can grow only out of a sense of inherent moral defilement, by no means originally belonging to the conception of a created being, or of human nature. We cannot admit a dormant principle of sin as an essential element of the moral developement of man's original being. Sin is an act of free will, and cannot be derived from any other source, or explained in any other way. [106] There is, then, in Christ's humbling himself, in his human capacity, before God, the only Good, no trace of that sense of need and want with which the sinner, conscious of guilt, bows himself before the Holy One. The act manifested only a sense, deeply grounded in his holy, sinless nature, of absolute dependence upon the Source of all good.

(5.) The Baptism of Christ a Rite of Consecration to his Theocratic Reign.

All difficulties are cleared away by considering John's baptism as a rite of preparation and consecration, first in its application to the members of the Theocratic kingdom, and secondly to its Founder and Sovereign. The repentance and the sense of sin which were essential preliminaries to the baptism of the former, could in no way belong to Him who, at the very moment when the rite was administered, revealed himself to the Baptist as the Messiah, the deliverer from sin. But while the import of the rite thus varied with the subjects to whom it was administered, there was, at bottom, a substantial element which they shared in common. In both it marked the commencement of a new course of life; but, in the members, this new life was to be received from without through communications from on high: while in Christ it was to consist of a gradual unfolding from within; in the former it was to be receptive; in the latter productive. In a word, the baptism of the members prepared them to receive pardon and salvation; that of Christ was his consecration to the work of bestowing those precious gifts.

(6.) Had John a previous Acquaintance with Christ?

If the Baptist had an earlier acquaintance with Jesus, he could not have failed, with his susceptible feelings, to receive a deeper impression of his divinity than other men. We cannot but infer, from Luke's [107] statement (chap. i.) of the relationship [108] between the two families, that he had heard of the extraordinary circumstances attending the birth of Jesus. The Saviour "prayed" at the baptism (Luke, iii., 21). If we figure to ourselves his countenance, full of holy devotion and heavenly repose, as he stood in prayer, and its sudden association, in the mind of the Baptist, with all his recollections of the early history of Jesus, we, cannot wonder that the humble man of God -- all aware as he was that the Messiah was to be consecrated by his baptism -- should have been overwhelmed, in that hour so pregnant with mighty interests, with a sense of his own comparative unworthiness, and cried, "I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me?"

(7.) Explanation of John, i., 31.

One of two things must be true: either John baptized Christ with sole and special reference to his Messianic mission, or with the same end in view as in his ordinary administration of the rite, involving in its subjects a consciousness of sin and need of repentance. Now it is clear that he did not take upon himself to decide to what individual the Messianic baptism was to be administered, nor was he willing to rest it upon any human testimony, but waited for the promised sign from heaven; and as for Jesus' receiving the rite in the second sense at his hands, his own religious sense must have rebelled against it. Nor is this contradicted by his words recorded in John, i., 31, "And I knew him not; but that he should be made manifest to Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with water." John's refusal to baptize Christ did not necessarily involve (as we have already said) a knowledge of his Messianic. dignity; and the words just quoted refer only to that dignity. He means to say with emphasis that his conviction of Christ's Messiahship is not of human, but of Divine origin. His previous expectations, founded upon his knowledge of the circumstances of Christ's birth, were held as nothing in comparison with the Divine testimony immediately vouchsafed to him. [109]

(8.) The Vision at the Baptism, and the Voice, intended exclusively for the Baptist.

When the Baptist thus drew back in reverence and awe, Christ encouraged him, saying, "For the present, [110] suffer it; for thus it becomes us (each from his own stand-point) to fulfil all that belongs to the order of God's kingdom." While Jesus prayed and was baptized, the reverence with which John gazed upon him was heightened into prophetic inspiration; and in this state he received the revelation of the Divine Spirit in the form of a symbolical vision; the heavens opened, and he saw a dove descend and hover over the head of Christ. In this he saw a sign of the permanent abode of the Holy Spirit in Jesus; not merely as a distinction from the inspired seers of the old dispensation, but also as the necessary condition to his bestowing the Divine life upon others. It indicated that the power of the Spirit in him was not a sudden and abrupt manifestation, as it was in the prophets, who felt its inspiration at certain times and by transitory impulses; but a continuous and unbroken operation of the Holy Ghost, the infinite fulness of the Divine life in human form. The quiet flight and the resting dove betokened no rushing torrent of inspiration, no sudden seizure of the Spirit, but a uniform unfolding of the life of God, the loftiness, yet the calm repose of a nature itself Divine, the indwelling of the Spirit so that he could impart it to others and fill them completely with it, not as a prophet, but as a Creator.

The higher and essential unity of the Divine and human, [111] as original and permanent in Christ, which formed the substance symbolized by the vision, was further and more distinctly indicated to John by the voice from heaven, [112] saying, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Words that cannot possibly be applicable, in their full meaning, to any mere man, but to Him alone in whom the perfect union of God and man was exhibited, and the idea of humanity completely realized. It was this union that made it possible for a holy God to be well pleased in man. John's Gospel, it is true, makes no mention of this voice; but it will be recollected that this evangelist does not relate the baptism (John, i., 29, 33), but cites John Baptist as referring to it at some later period. The subsequent testimony of the Baptist, thus recorded ("I saw and bare record that this is the Son of God," v.34), presupposes the heavenly voice which pointed out that Sonship. At all events, the voice expressed nothing different from the import of the vision; it was the expression of the idea which the vision itself involved.

We consider, then, that the vision and the voice contained a subjective revelation of the Holy Spirit, intended exclusively for the Baptist, [113] to convince him thoroughly that He whose coming he had proclaimed, and whose way he had prepared, had really appeared. He was alone with Jesus; the latter needed no such revelation. What was granted to John was enough; he recognized, infallibly, the voice from heaven, and the revelation of the Spirit, by his inward sense; no outward sensible impression could give him more. For others the vision was not intended; it could benefit them only mediately through him, and in case they regarded him as a prophet.

After Jesus had thus, alone with John, submitted to his baptism, and received in it the sign for the commencement of his public Messianic ministry, he withdrew into solitude in order to prepare himself. by prayer and meditation, [114] for the work on which he was about to enter. This brings us to inquire more closely into Christ's subjective preparation for his public labours.