READING IN LUKE 3
READING IN LUKE 3
At the end of chapter 2 it is said that “Jesus advanced in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and men”. Here it is not the divine side that is presented, as in John’s gospel; it is the Man Christ Jesus; He through whom the gospel of the grace of God has reached us. Before He is anointed for service the Spirit enlarges upon His personal character. As growing up into manhood He was in every way attractive to God and to men. The graces that shone in Him were inherent; there was no formative work needed. The vessel was perfect in every way before He was anointed by the Spirit. We are formed after we get the Spirit. The Lord, as Preacher, was in every way commensurate with the gospel which He preached to men. Now we cannot but be struck with the great disparity there is between the gospel and those who preach it.
Chapter 4 speaks of the gracious words which were coming out of His mouth. And, having read and sat down, the eyes of those in the synagogue were fixed upon Him. He adorned the gospel; it [p. 12] was not simply the meaning of the words, but the gracious way they were spoken. In our case a good deal of chiselling is needed in order that we should be fitted for God’s service, but in Christ nothing of this was necessary. Here perfection is seen in Christ from infancy to manhood.
That so few were attracted by the ministry of such a Person leads to another consideration, but in Christ everything was divinely calculated to interest men, and to draw them to Him. And it has to be remembered that numbers were affected by the Lord’s ministry that are not formally taken account of in Scripture. In truth the time for the full effect of the gospel had not come. Redemption had to take place. The Lord was straitened until His baptism was accomplished. Besides, the conditions under which Christ preached were different in other respects from those under which the gospel was presented after His death and the coming of the Spirit. Before His death God was still treating with man in the flesh, and the Lord’s ministry was intended to be the great test for that order of man. “If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin”, John 15: 22. But whatever the effect, the Lord’s preaching produced, it contained the essence of all that the apostles presented after the coming of the Holy Spirit. John says here Luke 3:8, that “God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham”. There was an indication that God would act sovereignly, for He was not dependent on Abraham’s seed after the flesh, but still, a testimony was being rendered to the people owned as connected with the existing order of things. In Acts 2 we see the great gathering power there was connected with the testimony of the apostles. There is nothing like this now.
Ques. Why is it?
[p. 13] Ans. The vessel in which the testimony was placed is so marred by what is of man that there is not the same power. Our day is analogous to the day in which the Lord ministered, in the sense that we are in the end of a dispensation when the great mass is marked by unbelief, and thus we are hampered. There is no light, of course, except what is in the assembly, but still, the responsible body is no longer owned as having the candlestick. It ceased in Thyatira.
John says, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight”. There was a great opportunity for the people. The Lord was coming into the existing order of things, and they were to prepare for Him. It was “the fifteenth year of the government of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judaea, and Herod tetrarch of Galilee, and Philip his brother tetrarch of Ituraea and the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas”. The Spirit sets the order that existed in the world before us. Now this wonderful Person was about to appear in the midst of this world, and there was a great opportunity for men; they were to prepare His way and make His paths straight.
Rem John addresses different members of the community; the crowds, tax-gatherers and soldiers, telling them what to do, and exhorting many other things, he announced his glad tidings, verse 18. Such was John’s testimony. It was a fitting introduction of Christ.
The great thing in John’s glad tidings was that they were properly introductory of Christ. He announced that the Lord was coming in, not to die as yet, but in the way of testimony to the existing world; that He would come into that order of things, and every one had an opportunity to set himself right in regard to Him. Such, in measure,
[p. 14] is grace. But still this is not the gospel that is announced now. Our gospel assumes that the world is judged, and that the man after the flesh is utterly corrupt; the rejection of Christ has proved all this. So that God has begun anew, announcing every blessing in a risen Man, glorified in heaven. It is no question of preparing for Him on earth, but of being conformed to His image, as justified through His death, and having a place in heaven. Such is the excess of God’s grace to man.
Following upon John’s introduction, the Lord appears; and how affecting the attitude He assumes! The people were being baptised, and He appears in their midst and is baptised too. He does not demand; He goes down into the water like others. There is nothing to deter people, but, on the contrary, in lowly grace, every movement is calculated to attract and establish confidence in the human heart.
Jesus “being baptised, and praying, the heaven was opened”. How truly He took man’s place! He had nothing to repent of, nothing to confess, but He was praying. And now heaven open, the Holy Spirit descends upon Him, and the Father’s voice is heard. He is owned as Son. The Father’s voice is directly addressed to Christ: “Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased”, verse 22. This refers to the Lord as Man under God’s eye during His thirty years of private life. He is singled out as a Man among men, the One in whom God had found His pleasure. John had introduced Him by His testimony on earth, but the Father introduces Him from heaven. This latter, however, is seen more in Matthew, where the Father says, “This is my beloved Son”. He was publicly owned of the Father, and what is affecting is that He was thus greeted as coming up out of the water where He had humbly identified Himself with other men. The apprehension of Christ as come so near to us and greeted by the [p. 15] Father should, it seems to me, dispel every atom of fear and suspicion from our hearts.
Immediately after the Father’s salutation from heaven you get the Lord’s genealogy traced. The genealogy here shows His complete identification with the race; it is traced back to Adam, who is said to be “of God”. Every member of humanity should be completely disarmed of any suspicion of fears be may have entertained as to God as in the light of the wonderful way He has approached men. The vessel of His grace is seen here as in every way one of themselves, sin apart. He is in the humblest of circumstances, both temporarily and morally; as to the latter, He is seen identified with those who were humbly owning that things were not right before God either with themselves or in the world around them. This was righteousness, and Jesus loved righteousness. In this position the Father expresses His delight in Him, owning Him as His Son.
The Spirit here is careful to note that the Lord did not spring from Joseph, saying, “Jesus ... . being, as was supposed, son of Joseph”; but still the line of Joseph is given, and it is traced back to God. The Man whom God owns as Son is seen as completely identified with the race viewed as originating in God. He is the Son of man. The Father’s voice is connected with the Lord’s baptism, and the genealogy follows. The Father’s salutation guards the truth of the Person who takes such a lowly position. It is He “who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens”, Hebrews 7: 26. The cherubim of glory are ever near where the Lord’s connection with man in the flesh is treated of in Scripture. “Of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever”, is an example of this, Romans 9: 5. The point in Luke is not simply that Christ took flesh [p. 16] and blood; the gospel presents Him as completely identified with humanity, sin apart, and touching it at every point so as to establish confidence in every human heart. He, born as an infant, is circumcised, grows up as a boy, and is in favour with God and men; and then in manhood submitting to baptism as others were doing, is, as One of whom these things are true, owned of God as His Son. How infinitely favoured are men, that such an One may be claimed, as it were, as one of themselves! What hopes the light of it should inspire in every heart into which it enters! What hopes and joys it has inspired in myriads of hearts since that day!
Another testimony here to the truth of the Lord’s Person is the form in which the Spirit came to Him — “in a bodily shape like a dove”. The dove had found at last a permanent resting place for the sole of her foot. See Genesis 8: 8 - 12. At Pentecost the Spirit came in the character of cloven tongues as of fire; pointing to what He should have to accomplish in those to whom He came; but in Jesus all is perfect; the Holy Spirit could rest in undisturbed peace in that blessed Man! .