Luke 3

Chapter 3. The Baptism of JesusFor this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. (Hebrews 2:17)In no respect was the perfect humanity of Jesus Christ, and His entire identification with our fallen race, more strikingly manifested than in His submission to the ordinance of baptism at the hands of John. That ordinance was an explicit confession on the part of those receiving it of their utter sinfulness, and their need of the divine forgiveness. And the act was a striking symbol of death and resurrection on the part of the subjects of baptism. It was an actual confession that they were so utterly guilty and lost that there was no hope of self-improvement, and they must therefore yield to the judgment of God and die, so far as every personal merit was concerned, and then be brought back to an entirely new life through the sovereign mercy and grace of God. Significance of Christ’s Baptism The impropriety of Christ submitting to such baptism, in view of His personal innocence and utter freedom from all taint of sin, was so obvious to John the Baptist that he at first refused to allow the Lord to be baptized by him, and only consented because of Christ’s insistence. Why then did our Lord insist on receiving a rite which was so explicit a confession of sin? The answer is very solemn and glorious. It was because He identified Himself with sinful men, and in symbol went down with them to the death which they deserved as He was afterwards to suffer that death in actual reality. No wonder that when He came forth from the waters of baptism the great forerunner pointed to Him on the banks of the Jordan and cried, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). His baptism had been a rehearsal of the cross and a type of the great atonement which He was afterwards to accomplish on Calvary. Significance of Our Baptism This is the deepest significance of the ordinance of baptism for us, His disciples today. As He went down with us to death and took away our curse and sin, so we go down with Him by baptism into death, and become partakers of His atonement and redemption. Baptism is therefore not a symbol of cleansing, but of crucifixion; not of self-improvement, but of self-effacement and resurrection life in Him, our risen Head: Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?… just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. (Romans 6:3-4) Luke gives a fine touch to the human picture of our Lord’s baptism by a single phrase in the 21st verse of the third chapter: “When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened.” It was when all the people were baptized that He went into the Jordan’s flood unostentatiously just like anybody else. Probably to the ordinary observer there was nothing to distinguish Him from the crowds of sinful men that pressed into the waters, and but for the special sign which had been given to John, even he would not have recognized Him, for speaking of it himself he says, “I myself did not know him” (John 1:31). There was no parade of His importance. There was no halo around His brow. There was no proclamation of His divine condescension, but standing on the level of our lost humanity, going down with us into the common grave, which typified our just doom, “he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people” (Hebrews 2:17). There is also another touch of humanness in Luke’s narrative. It is found in the words “and as he was praying” (Luke 3:21). As He went down to His baptism, He was in the attitude of a dependent man, having no strength of His own, and looking up to God for grace and blessing. There is nothing more comforting than the uniform attitude of the Lord Jesus Christ to that heavenly grace upon which we are so dependent through the open gates of prayer. He, who might have commanded all the resources of the skies, took the lowly position of a suppliant at the throne of grace, and still bends with us as we also come coupling His personality with our own as we say, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name” (Matthew 6:9). The Baptism of the Spirit But the scene which followed gives a grander climax to this picture of the human Christ: “Heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased’” (Luke 3:21-22). The baptism of Jesus Christ with the Holy Spirit marks an epoch in His earthly life. From this moment all His public ministry began and all His work was accomplished in dependence upon the Holy Spirit. He did not claim to work miracles through His essential deity, but acknowledged, “But if I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Matthew 12:28). He did not meet the tempter in the wilderness in His own inherent strength, but “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil” (Matthew 4:1). And He went back from the conflict “in the power of the Spirit” (Luke 4:14). He did not stand before the people as a great Teacher through His wisdom, but He stood up in the synagogue at Nazareth and declared, The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. (Luke 4:18-19) The Apostle John, in quoting His own words, says, “I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me” (John 8:28). The Real Humanity of Christ Is it not true that we have been accustomed to think of the Lord Jesus as having some special and individual advantage of us through His divine nature and perhaps to say, “Christ could do that because He was the Son of God, but I cannot be expected to do such things”? Have we not failed to realize that while Christ was indeed the Son of God, and can never cease to be, yet when He came down as the Son of Man to represent our race and to work out our salvation, He suspended the prerogatives and resources of His deity, and took the place of a dependent man, drawing all His strength from God through faith and prayer even as we must do? How near this brings Him to us, and how truly He could say, “But if I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Matthew 12:28). That is to say, the same Spirit that dwelt in Him is now given to us, and through Him we may share the same enduement of power from on high. The Holy Spirit and Jesus In receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit, Jesus was our Forerunner. Let us bear in mind that up to this time He had not been without the Holy Spirit. He was born of the Spirit, for had not the angel said to Mary, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35). In like manner we are also born of the Spirit from the moment of our conversion, and become the children of God. But that day on the banks of the Jordan something more than this came to our Lord. The Holy Spirit as a person actually moved from the heavens and came down to earth, and henceforth resided as a distinct Person in union with the Son of Man. From this time forward there were two persons united in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit and the Lord Jesus, and all He said and did was in the power of the Spirit. This is just what happens to the consecrated believer when he receives the baptism with the Holy Spirit. He has been a child of God before. Born of the Spirit he has had the Spirit with him. But now the Holy Spirit comes to be in him, so united to him that all his life henceforth is accomplished in constant dependence upon and fellowship with that divine Presence. It is as when the bride loses her personality, in a sense, in dependence upon her husband. Down that aisle they walk alone, but from that marriage altar they return no longer alone, but united. Henceforth her name is lost in his. Her support is derived from him, or ought to be, and her will is yielded to him. Something infinitely greater than this comes to pass when our life passes out of the human into the divine, and we can truly say, Once it was my working, His it hence shall be; Once I tried to use Him, Now He uses me. If the Lord Jesus did not presume to begin His public ministry or perform a single service as our Teacher and Example until He received the Holy Spirit, what right have we to go forth in our self-sufficiency and attempt to minister at the altar of Christian service until we be endued with power from on high? His Human Pedigree In striking testimony to the perfect humanness of all this scene is the fact that Luke introduces the genealogy of the Lord Jesus at this very point. This genealogy, unlike that in Matthew, is traced back, not to Abraham, but to Adam. “The son of Adam, the son of God” (Luke 3:38), is the sublime climax of this long list of names which links the blessed Jesus with our fallen race. His pedigree therefore is not that of a Jew, but of a man; not the descendant of Abraham, but the son of Adam. Well may the apostle say, “Verily he took not on him the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham” (Hebrews 2:16). The genealogical line given us by Luke differs in all its important links from that of Matthew, and we must accept the explanation and hypothesis that it is given in the line of Mary, while Matthew’s is traced in the line of Joseph. All that is necessary to make this plain is simply to interpret, as was customary among the Hebrews, the word “son” in Luke 1:23 as “son-in-law.” How may we follow our blessed Forerunner in thus receiving the baptism of the Spirit? The Baptism of the Spirit a Death

1. Like Him let us yield ourselves to death. This just stands for that act of definite surrender and consecration in which every marked spiritual crisis must begin. It comes to each one of us differently, but it accomplishes the same result in each case. It searches our hearts to their inmost depths. It brings to light each hidden sin and cherished idol, and especially all the depths of our self-sufficiency and self-will, and it lays us broken, helpless and wholly yielded at the feet of sovereign grace. The deeper the death, the higher will be the life to which it leads. The more complete the surrender and the separation, the more glorious will be the blessing. Let us not be afraid to be thoroughly honest and inexorably true to the life the Spirit brings. Let us give up self as well as sin, and say as utterly as the great apostle could say, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). Usually we will find that there is some special form of self and sin to which the heart is clinging, some hidden idol in which all the roots and tendrils of the carnal heart have concentrated their strength. It is generally the last thing we are willing to see and let go. And therefore consecration often hinges upon one special decision or surrender. But it is more than a negative surrender. It is a positive accepting of and entering into all the will of God for us. It is an infinite privilege to be permitted to make such a consecration and to receive such a blessing. The consecration of Jesus Christ that day was not merely a surrender to death, but an acceptance of all His Father’s will. Let us therefore come not merely to give up everything, but to receive infinitely more. When we kneel at the altar of sacrifice there is Another who kneels with us, and just as fully as we give ourselves to Him He gives Himself to us, and His own glorious promise is, “For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified” (John 17:19). Necessity of Faith
2. Therefore faith is as essential as consecration in receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit. We must believe that God accepts us just as surely as we have surrendered ourselves to Him. We must take as well as give. We must be fully assured that the Father receives us in His beloved Son, and says of us as truly as of Him, “With you I am well pleased” (Luke 3:22). We must recognize the Holy Spirit as actually coming to us, and henceforth taking up His abode within us; and we must begin to treat Him as if He were our indwelling Guest, and our ever-abiding Comforter and Guide. We must think of God as no longer in some distant heaven, but actually within us, and the throne of grace as in our very hearts where we may pray with confidence and dwell in communion in the “Most Holy Place” (Hebrews 9:3). We must go forth expecting His presence, His power, His response to our every cry, and His all-sufficiency for our every need. Thus walking in the Spirit, we too will find that our life has been translated and transfigured from the earthly to the heavenly, from the human to the divine, from our endeavor to God’s best. Oh, what a privilege, what an honor, what a boundless possibility all this opens up to us weak and worthless children of Adam’s fallen race! Truly since that morning on Jordan’s strand, the heaven is open and the kingdom of God has come near to us! Let us recognize it. Let us receive it, and let us hear the voice of ancient prophecy inviting us, “Come, O house of Jacob, let us walk in the light of the Lord” (Isaiah 2:5).