Luke 12:50

CHRISTS BAPTISM OF SUFFERING

‘I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished.’

Luke 12:50

I. The whole structure of this sentence is in exact keeping with the common notion of baptism, seeing that a condition of greater freedom is evidently looked forward to by Christ as certain to result from those waves of fire through which He had to pass. He laboured under a species of bondage prior to His agony and death; and the consequence of the agony and death would, he knew, be deliverance from this bondage. There is, therefore, peculiar fitness in His describing that agony and death as a baptism with which He should be baptized.

II. ‘How am I straitened till it be accomplished!’

(a) It was one consequence of our Saviour’s sufferings and death that the gift of the Holy Spirit should be poured forth on His disciples. Until, therefore, the baptism was accomplished, there could be little or none of that preparation of heart on the part of His followers which was indispensable to the reception of the spiritual magnificence and majesty of the Gospel.

(b) Although the Spirit was given without measure to the Saviour, He was nevertheless hemmed round by spiritual adversaries, and He had continually before Him a task overwhelming in its difficulties. Is not the contrast of the state which preceded, aed that which succeeded, the baptism of agony sufficient in itself to account for expressions even more sternly descriptive of bondage than that of our text?

(c) Christ had not yet won the headship over all things, and, therefore, He was straitened by being circumscribed in Himself, in place of expanding into myriads.

These, with like reason, serve to explain, in a degree, the expression of our text; though we frankly confess that so awful and inscrutable is everything connected with the anguish of the Mediator, that we can only be said to catch glimmerings of a fullness which would overwhelm us, we may suppose, with amazement and dread.

—Rev. Canon Melvill.

Illustration

‘This baptism is plainly not that of water, nor that of the Holy Ghost, but the baptism of suffering. It is the same baptism of which our Lord said to James and John, “Ye shall be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with.” The expression is one of those which shows the wisdom of our translators of the Bible in adhering to the word “baptism,” and not rendering it either “immersion” or “sprinkling.” The effect of either of these words in the present verse, instead of “baptism,” needs only to be tried. Few would like to substitute for our present translation, “I have an immersion to be immersed with”; or, “I have a sprinkling to be sprinkled with.”

‘The Greek word translated “straitened,” is the same that is rendered in Acts 18:5, “pressed”; and in 2 Corinthians 5:14, “constrains.” It is supposed by some that the feeling our Lord meant to express, was that of pain and distress in the prospect of His coming sufferings and crucifixion. This is the opinion of Stier. It seems, however, highly improbable. It is supposed by others that the expression is like John 12:27 and Luke 22:42, and is meant to imply the conflict between our Lord’s human will, which naturally shrank from suffering, and His Divine will, which was set on accomplishing the work He came to do. This opinion is supported by many. Yet it does not seem quite to harmonise with the context, and is not altogether satisfactory. The most probable view appears to be that the expression, “I am straitened,” was intended to show us the burning desire by which our Lord was constrained to accomplish the work of our redemption. It is like the saying, “With desire I have desired to eat the passover with you.” Theophylact and Euthymius both support this view.’