Luke 3:21-22

The Baptism of Jesus (3:21-22).

Apart from here there is nothing in any of the Gospels which explains why Jesus began His work when He did. There must have been something that prompted Him to leave the carpenter's shop and His family in order to engage in His God-given mission. And we have the explanation for it in what happened after His baptism. We have here the moment of Jesus' call to his future work, and the anointing which takes Him into His prophetic ministry (Luke 4:18; Acts 10:37). It will be noted that John's name now drops out, and even Jesus' baptism is seen as having happened in the past. The concentration here is on His receiving of the Holy Spirit, and on what the voice from heaven said, of His anointing for His work as not directly connected with His baptism. His baptism was part of the old way, in the coming of the Holy Spirit on Him begins the new way.

‘Now it came about that when all the people were baptised, Jesus also having been baptised, and praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended in a bodily form, as a dove, upon him, and a voice came out of heaven, “You are my beloved Son; in You I am well pleased.” '

Note that Luke's concentration is on what happened after the baptism of Jesus, even more so than in Matthew and Mark, rather than on the baptism itself. What is primary in his purpose is that Jesus was praying, and that the heaven opened and the Holy Spirit came down on Him in a bodily form like a dove, and that the voice from heaven then authenticated Him as the Son of God and the Servant of God Who was satisfying to Him in every way (Isaiah 42:1). The time of the Spirit which John's baptism pointed to had initially arrived.

But he does point out that Jesus was baptised, even if only as a past event. This baptism of Jesus was necessary. It indicated Jesus' full approval of what John was doing and was seen by Him as the right thing to do. As He says in Matthew 3:15. ‘Thus it becomes us to fulfil all righteousness (to do what is fully right in every way)' The emphasis that Luke places on the fact that He was baptised ‘all the people having been baptised' (in the phrase it is the intention that matters not its strict correctness. It was not forbidding that any more be baptised) confirms that His baptism was unique. He was baptised, not for His own sake, but because He summed up in Himself the whole of believing Israel. He did so because He was here as the supreme representative of Israel. It was right that believing Israel should be baptised and so, once they had been baptised, He was baptised along with them as their representative. He was identifying Himself with them. (But it would certainly have been a great blow to John's ministry if the news had got about that his godly relative had refused to be baptised by him).

This baptism of Jesus is only a difficulty to those who read John's baptism incorrectly. Those who see it as signifying a washing from sin necessarily find it difficult to understand (even though through His life He had partaken in the offering of sacrifices, for example at the Passover, and in other ritual activities, again because He was here as the King and Servant representing all Israel). But when we recognise that John's baptism symbolised rather the working of the Holy Spirit in those who were baptised, and their desire for participation in the coming outpouring of the Holy Spirit, it becomes perfectly understandable. For after His baptism the Holy Spirit did come on Him with a view to Him pouring out the Holy Spirit on men. ‘This is He Who baptises in the Holy Spirit' (John 1:33).

Yet the baptism of John was undoubtedly generally a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, and the purpose of the Holy Spirit's coming was seen as in order to cleanse, transform and renew. How then did this fit in with Jesus? Firstly we must remember that the significance of the baptism in individual cases depended on the spiritual state of the individual concerned. A certain number of those who came to John (although unquestionably a small minority) were not ‘turning to God' in the sense in which most were, for they had already turned. The Holy Spirit had already worked in their hearts even before they came. And they were already clean through the means that God had provided, and were walking righteously with God. And yet they more than all would come to be baptised by him in expectation of the coming of the Holy Spirit. They would come because they fully agreed with all that John was doing and wanted to be a part of it, and identify with it, and because they were grateful for God's saving goodness towards them, and because they wanted to participate in the future promised work of the Spirit (and no doubt had they still been alive those Spirit blessed servants of God, Zacharias and Elizabeth, Simeon and Anna would also have come). They were entering into the repentance of believing Israel, but were not at this stage repenting themselves, for they had done that previously.

But even that is not the full explanation, for with Jesus there was more, and Luke gives us his answer at the end of the Gospel when he says of Him, ‘He was numbered with the transgressors' (Luke 22:37 compare Mark 15:28). Here in His baptism He was indicating that He was taking on Himself the sins of others, He was being ‘made sin' (2 Corinthians 5:21), He was identifying Himself with believing Israel who had flocked to be baptised by John, and He was baptised on their behalf and what He then received He received on their behalf so that He might dispense it to them (Luke 3:16). In being baptised He was as much acting as representative for believing Israel (Isaiah 49:3), as He would be in His death (Isaiah 53). He was walking where they walked, and going through what they went through, so that He could act for them in things pertaining to God (see Hebrews 2:17).

Only Luke points out that He was praying. But few would doubt that all the Gospel writers knew that He was praying at the time. It is what people do when genuinely partaking in such a religious ordinance. And would be more so with Jesus than with anyone. But this mention of praying is typical of Luke. He regularly speaks of the need for people to pray (Luke 6:28; Luke 10:2; Luke 11:2; Luke 18:1; Luke 18:10; Luke 21:36; Luke 22:40; Luke 22:46), and of Jesus Himself praying (Luke 5:16; Luke 6:12; Luke 9:18; Luke 9:28 ff; Luke 11:1; Luke 22:41; Luke 22:44; Luke 23:46). The fact that Jesus so constantly prayed at crucial times in His life should bring home to us the importance of prayer, especially at crucial times in our lives, and remind us that prayer is essentially in order to enable us to serve God and bring about His purposes, as the Lord's prayer makes clear. It also brings home that having become Man, He was dependent on His Father. He did all in consultation with His Father. Just as He had previously found it necessary to be in His Father's House (Luke 2:49), so now He must be in His Father's presence. All He did He did in association with the Father (John 5:19; John 5:30; John 5:36).

‘The heaven was opened.' This is simply a phrase that signifies that the heavenly is about to affect the earthly. It does not necessarily indicate that anything was seen. It was a ‘spiritual' opening of heaven. The point being made is that heaven was about to act in earth's affairs and that what resulted came from God and not from men. Note that this happened after His baptism. After His baptism Jesus prayed, and then the Holy Spirit came. It is God's response to His identification of Himself with His people. It is not the direct consequence of His baptism. It is the consequence of what He is.

‘And the Holy Spirit descended in a bodily form, as a dove, upon Him.' Luke here makes clear that something happened that could be seen. He wanted it known that what Jesus experienced there was something real and tangible. It was not just something that he had ‘read in'. What precisely was seen the eyewitnesses found difficult to define apart from the fact that it was ‘like a dove'. This may signify something with a vaguely dove-like shape, or it may simply indicate something visible coming on Him ‘like the dove returned to the ark, signalling that God's judgment was over', without the shape being defined (Genesis 8:10). Or the one might have been the deliberate representation of the other. For Israel the dove was ever the symbol of the end of the Noahic judgment, and it became a symbol Israel used of themselves.

The dove was also a symbol of gentleness. Whereas the serpent was the symbol of shrewdness and subtlety, the dove was the symbol of not causing harm to anyone (Matthew 10:16). Thus it indicated that the Spirit that had come on Jesus was not with warlike intent, or with the aim of preparing Him for battle as it had the Judges, but that He came in gentleness with the purpose of blessing mankind. It was a vivid portrayal of the fact, as men would learn later, that the Lion of the Tribe of Judah had come as a Lamb arriving to be slain (Revelation 5:5). And this was apposite in that the dove not only symbolised gentleness, it also symbolised mourning (Isaiah 59:11; Nahum 2:7).

So we learn here that God's past time of judgment has ended and that, just as with the remnants of the human race when the dove returned to Noah, so the human race will now have a new opportunity of salvation, and that the Messiah Who has come has not come with warlike intentions, but in order to bring peace (Isaiah 6:6; Isaiah 11:1; Zechariah 9:9) and yet along with it mourning (Isaiah 53; Zechariah 12:10 to Zechariah 13:7). Luke constantly makes clear that along with the spreading of the word comes trouble and tribulation (e.g. Acts 14:22), as already depicted in what happened to John (Luke 3:19).

But why does Luke stress that the Spirit came ‘in bodily form' like a dove? It is in order to stress the true physical nature of Jesus, and the physical nature of what He was receiving. It puts paid to any suggestion that the physical body of Jesus was possessed by the spirit of the Messiah that was somehow superior to the physical, for what came on Jesus was physical. It was to Jesus as true natural, physical man that the Spirit of God came in similar true, natural and physical fashion. The point is being made that what Jesus was endued with was not ‘other earthly' and strange to human flesh, even though it came from above, but was a gift that conformed with His humanity. Through God's working the Spirit Who inspired Him did so in His humanity. As through the coming of the Spirit at birth God was made man, so in His coming at His baptism God was made prophetically inspired physical man.

But while noting this we must recognise that the significance of what happened gained its importance from the fact of what had happened. The mighty Holy Spirit of God had anointed Jesus for His task as Messiah, Servant and Prophet to Israel and the world (Acts 4:26; Acts 10:38). He was revealed as the Branch from the roots of Jesse, the Spirit anointed king (Isaiah 11:1; Acts 4:26), the Spirit anointed Servant of the Lord (Isaiah 42:1; Acts 4:27), and, as He Himself will later point out, as the Spirit anointed Prophet (Luke 4:18; Acts 10:38).

‘And a voice came out of heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved, in You I am well pleased.” ' And all this was attested by the words that came from heaven. ‘You are my Son' comes from Psalms 2:7 where the words were addressed to the future worldwide king who could ask Him for dominion over the world (Luke 2:8), (was that what Jesus was praying for, dominion over men's hearts?), who was the anointed of God (Psalms 2:2), here also described as ‘the Beloved' in order to stress His uniqueness. The point is being made that He is ‘the Only Son', the Beloved One (see Luke 20:13 where precisely the same phrase is used). ‘The beloved, in You I am well pleased' reflects Isaiah 42:1, and especially as quoted in Matthew 12:18, referring to the coming servant of YHWH. But we must recognise that Matthew may well have varied the saying, replacing ‘chosen' by ‘beloved, in order to relate it to what this voice said at His baptism.

There are no firm grounds, however, for seeing this either as an adoption, a begetting or a crowning. It is rather a confirmation from God of Who and What He is. His declaration that Jesus is His beloved Son ‘with Whom He is well pleased' demonstrates that He is already His Son in every way, as had been revealed at His birth and this is then confirmed by the following genealogy (Luke 3:38). This anointing is in fact actually revealed in Luke 4:18 (and Acts 10:38) as being for service as the great Prophet of the last days promised by Isaiah 61:1. We have no reason to read into it anything else, unless it ties in with that.

But in noting the connections with Scripture we must not lose the wonder of the words. Here was the One on Whom God looked as His only beloved Son, and as He declares His love for Him, He also declares how satisfactorily He has up to this point fulfilled His task, for His Father can say of Him, ‘in You I am well pleased'. Up to this point nothing has marred Him in the living of His perfect life according to the will of God (compare Hebrews 10:5), which will make Him fit to complete His task to be the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). This comment sufficiently emphasises that the words spoken are looking back to His  already successful career as beloved Son and Servant.

Note On The Alternative Reading, ‘You are My Son, today I have begotten you'.

The only important manuscript in which this reading is found is D and as is well known the readings in D can be somewhat erratic. It is also found in a number of old Latin versions, in Irenaeus, and Justin (both of whom tend towards D) and Origen. It hardly seems necessary to argue against this reading as it is so poorly attested, and that in so limited a part of the world. But unfortunately there are always some who become concerned about it, which is why we mention it here. It probably arose because a learned but tired scribe, on writing ‘You are my son' continued with the well known words of the Psalm without paying too much heed to the text he was copying, and did not realise what he had done, or because while copying he was carried away by his own thoughts. Alternately he may have believed in an adoptionist Christology (that Jesus was adopted as the Messiah at His baptism by the spirit of the Messiah taking on his body) and simply have altered the text.

The reason that some have tried to find arguments to sustain it is mainly due (but not only so, it is also used to boast certain theories which have not found general acceptance) to an attempt to favour an adoptionist Christology, by seeing Jesus as adopted as the Messiah at His baptism. But in view of the fact that Luke uses it of Jesus after His resurrection in Acts 13:33 as justifying His resurrection, it is clear that he did not see it as being adoptionist. There the ‘begetting' by God indicates His being acted on within His purposes, and thereby acknowledged as his Son.

Further, in view of the fact that Luke probably had Mark's text before him it seems extremely unlikely that he would have chosen an alternative text to Mark, especially in view of his usage of it in Acts 13:33. So unless some remarkable evidence turns up this poorly attested alternative reading should be seen as telling us more about the scribe than the Greek text.

End of note.