THE BAPTISM AND ANOINTING OF CHRIST
[p. 382] THE BAPTISM AND ANOINTING OF CHRIST
RSS I am exceedingly thankful this subject has been suggested to us, because I suppose there is none greater in the whole range of Scripture than the incarnation; everything hangs upon that; the Lord’s life here. His death, resurrection and ascension. I think the Lord has pleasure in directing the hearts of those that love Him to Himself in this respect.
JT The effect of His public ministry is to bring souls into all that is presented in the opening chapters. The question is raised at Nazareth: “Is not this Joseph’s son?” (Luke 4:22) This indicated the state of mind that prevailed there, but the result of His ministry is to bring in a race who are appreciative of all that is presented at the outset. They are brought to that. Up to the passage we have just read, we have the divine thought indicated. God has accepted this Man, and anointed Him, and His public ministry fully justified the divine acceptance.
RSS So that in Luke 3 you have God’s acceptance and approval of Him; He is anointed for His service, and He identifies Himself with the remnant in baptism.
JT And then, as a Minister, He justifies God; that is, He adorns the ministry. Then you have the great proposal to bring man into accord with that. The Psalmist said: “until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end”. (Psalm 73:17) He saw there the Man that God approves, and he concluded that the man outside had to go in judgment. The conditions outside are adjusted in your mind as you go within, because what you see within is what these chapters present, the Man that God approves.
RSS [p. 383] There is a great principle in that; if we know what is right, what is wrong will not trouble us much.
JT Quite so. It enables you to judge what is outside. In going inside, this is what the Psalmist found. What he found in the sanctuary of God was Christ.
WCR Is this what was alluded to in Genesis 12, “a land that I will show thee”? (Genesis 12:1)
JT Yes. There are very few people who have a right judgment of things. They may go by the judgment of others, and so far they are safe if they follow the right person, but in order to have a right judgment yourself, you must go inside, into the sanctuary of God, and there you see Christ, who is the accepted Man there. And when you come out, you can say to the man outside, ‘I see your end’. He says, “then understood I their end”. (Psalm 73:17) They are not the kind of man that is inside and these chapters really present the inside to us. But in the synagogue of Nazareth you have the outside; that is, His public ministry, in order to bring souls inside, and really that is not reached till we arrive at Stephen. There you see a man looking inside, and what he sees inside is Jesus and the glory of God with Him; that is the terminus of the ways of God in our souls; we reach that point and then we have a true judgment of everything.
RSS It greatly delivers us from the fear of man, for the worst that man can do is to send you to heaven, as they did Stephen.
JT It is a wonderful thing to go within. Two great principles appear in the instructions given to Moses on the mount. God opened up His mind to Moses as regards the order of things that He would have for His pleasure, then He gave him a, pattern. Now the pattern is for every Christian, and Luke gives us the Pattern, that is to say, Christ. Everything [p. 384] must be in accord with the Pattern, and that is the Man.
RSS In fact, God has not any pleasure in anything else. “Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased”. (Luke 3:22)
JT There must be no deviation from that Pattern.
WB-s Is it found in Philippians 2?
JT That is it; the Man that can go down. Moses himself was to a large extent according to the Pattern, because he was very lowly. Christ tabernacled among them, and came into lowly circumstances. It was a question of descending, and Moses was in measure in accord with that. He was prepared to be blotted out for the sake of the people. He did not think of himself.
AFM Is not the Lord’s baptism on the line of going down?
JT Yes, it is a downward course from the beginning, He “made himself of no reputation”. “Being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself”. (Philippians 2:8) It was humiliation to take man’s form, but He went below that and “became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross”. (Philippians 2:8) Now that is the Pattern.
EGMcA Is that why the anointing follows His baptism?
JT Yes. He went to the lowest point; He would carry out the will of God to the utmost extremity. “Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness”. (Matthew 3:15) He would not omit any point of righteousness. That is the Man to anoint.
AFM It is in the Jordan, which is a figure of death all through the Scriptures.
WB-s Does our brother’s thought in his address accord with this? The first section of Moses’ history he said was connected with baptism, and he [p. 385] goes into the desert; the second forty years of Moses’ history answered to fellowship; and the last forty to service. These principles are seen in the Lord’s history also.
JT That is very good. You must have the three phases of the position, and baptism is the first. In our case we have to be brought back to it through discipline. The wilderness experience is that which brings us to our baptism. That is what it effects. So the Jordan and the Red Sea coalesce, in that way. You are brought to the truth of your baptism. Fellowship is with the people of God, and service follows.
EIE What is the difference between the Holy Spirit descending on the day of Pentecost, and the descending upon Jesus in bodily form as a dove?
JT The Holy Spirit coming in the form of a dove was a mark of special distinction. Further, there was nothing in the coming of the Spirit on Jesus to indicate there was anything to displace there. The dove was a symbol that God was restful in that Person.
GAT It is the first time that God had a resting place on the earth.
JT It is no doubt an allusion to Noah’s dove. It found no rest for the sole of its foot. But here, on Jesus, there is a resting-place for the Spirit.
WB-s What is the idea of a bodily form?
JT “Bodily” refers to the dove, but the use of the word is significant. The Spirit came entirely upon Christ. It came without measure on Him. He came in a bodily form as a dove, not as at Pentecost in “cloven tongues”.
AFM Why are there tongues in contrast to the dove?
JT In order that testimony should reach the whole human family. At Babel God raised up barriers; He divided the race into compartments,
[p. 386] as it were, in order to preserve them for blessing. The barriers raised up by God between the nations were really a mercy, to prevent combined lawlessness. It weakened lawlessness, and God would never allow those barriers to be overthrown till He did it Himself. Satan sought to overthrow them. I think the principle of imperialism introduced into the world was an effort to set aside that merciful provision on the part of God. Imperialism signifies the unification of the nations, bringing them all under one head. God would not tolerate that. He met it, however, in Christ. He would bring the nations under one Head in, Christ; He is to rule the nations with a rod of iron, and that is what is alluded to in the gift of the Spirit in cloven tongues as of fire. The nations were to be unified in that way; they were to hear about God, “the great things of God”, not the great things of Babel, and they were to be brought into unity that way. It is a provisional unity, pending the taking up of the world, in Christ.
R.S.S. Why is it fire?
JT To consume that which is contrary. In Leviticus 23 the two wave-loaves had gone through the fire. The sheaf cut down and presented to Jehovah did not go through the fire. There was no sin in Jesus to consume, but in the two wave-loaves there was leaven, and it was recognised as there, but it was rendered impotent by the action of the fire; so that God accepted the saints at Pentecost in spite of the fact that sin was there. Although sin was there it had ceased to work, and I think the gift of the Spirit in the character stated brought that to pass.
RSS Why do we get cloven tongues?
JT “Parted”. They were not for one nation alone. The end never came to pass really, till Paul was taken up. Acts 10 sets before us, among other things, that Peter opened the door to let Paul out.
[p. 387] There were other things in it, but Peter really opened the door so that Paul might go out with the gospel to the Gentiles.
It is through his ministry that you have the “offering up”, not of a nation, but “of the nations”. I think that is how God has reached His thought in a provisional way now. He has secured the unification of the nations in principle, through the gospel and the sanctification of the Spirit Romans 15:16.
WJN Does the “rod of iron” look on to the last days?
JT Yes. But it is important to get into your mind the thought of imperialism. He is to rule the nations with a rod of iron.
WB-t Why is that brought in in the address to Thyatira?
JT Because I think it is that in Thyatira the apostasy had reached such a point that the head of the so-called church laid claim to universal supremacy. The Pope in those days assumed priority to the kings of the earth, as the Vicar of Jesus Christ. The remnant were to have that place. That is a very great thought.
WB-t “But to you I say, the rest who are in Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine, who have not known the depths of Satan, as they say, I do not cast upon you any other burden; but what ye have hold fast till I shall come. And he that overcomes, and he that keeps unto the end my works, to him will I give authority over the nations, and he shall shepherd them with an iron rod; as vessels of pottery are they broken in pieces, as I also have received from my Father”. (Revelation 2:24 - 27)
JT The different promises to overcomers allude to circumstances through which the saints were passing at any given period. The overcomer at any period would understand the promise.
AAT You think Satan’s effort at the present time is to bring about imperialism. Is it going on at the present time?
JT The elements all exist, and they are working. It only awaits the appearing of some man great enough to take it up and carry it through.
WCR Will Antichrist be that in principle?
JT Yes. The point is that Satan sought to set aside the divine provision at Babel. God came down and said, “nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do”, (Genesis 11: 6). He came down to see what they were doing, and He decreed that they should not understand one another’s speech. They were not divided up for judgment, but in order to preserve them for blessing, for Paul’s ministry, to come to detail.
JB And they were to be “acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost”. (Romans 15:16)
JT In that way you see how God has now provisionally what He will have absolutely in the future under Christ. He has the nations already. All that is in connection with the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost.
JB “Sanctified by the Holy Ghost” (Romans 15:16) would be in connection with the gift of the Spirit.
RSS So one of the gifts was that they spoke with tongues.
JT And in such wise they all understood; the different languages were represented at Jerusalem and the people heard them speak in their own tongues the wonderful works of God.
AFM I notice in Romans 15 that the apostle says: “Now the God of endurance and of encouragement give to you to be like-minded one toward another, according to Christ Jesus; that ye may with one accord, with one mouth, glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”. (Romans 15:5,6) So that the [p. 389] confusion of tongues is overcome and you get unity of speech, with one mouth glorifying God.
GAT Would you repeat what you said about Peter in Acts 10 opening up the way for Paul?
JT In order to understand Acts 10 you must read Acts 11; that is, Peter’s account of what he saw, and the impression it had upon him. Acts 10 is the Spirit’s account of it. Both are by the Spirit of course, but the account of the matter in chapter 11 is given as Peter’s; and he enlarges on the thought that a certain vessel had come down from and gone up to heaven three times and finally remained there. That was a very remarkable occurrence. It had impressed Peter’s mind with this fact that God was about to do something which would result in being taken up to heaven; and really it first came out of heaven. Luke’s gospel supports that, for Christ came out of heaven, and what goes back into heaven is morally of Him. Now that is one point. The sheet was filled with creatures of all kinds. That is what they were externally, but the voice from heaven said, “What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common”. (Acts 10:15) And what had God cleansed? Mankind. The one point emphasised there is cleansing, so that Peter need not fear; but we know from Paul’s ministry that what goes to heaven is more than cleansed, it is created anew, but the basis is laid there for it. Another thing that comes out is that Cornelius is told to send for Peter, who should tell him words whereby he and all his house should be saved; and Peter says, “as I began to speak the Holy Ghost fell on them”; (Acts 11:15) meaning that he did not have time to finish his preaching. God embraced the Gentiles as he began to speak. In chapter 10 it says, “While Peter yet spake” the Holy Ghost fell upon them; but when Peter tells it he implies that he had just begun to speak, and it does not appear that he said anything more. God outran him, as [p. 390] it were, and embraced the Gentiles, as He had embraced the prodigal. He did not wait for Peter’s sermon. Peter was content when he saw that God had embraced the Gentiles; he then commanded baptism. He said, as it were, ‘I see now that the time has come to open the door’. He says in his defence, “what was I, that I could withstand God?” (Acts 11:17) It was what God was doing.
AFM Why did he command?
JT Because he was commissioned. Paul was not commissioned to baptise, but Peter was. Therefore he commands it. I think it is very beautiful to see this. He saw what God was doing. Now he says, ‘I must use my keys’. So the door is now open for Paul to go out. Paul is brought by Barnabas, who appreciated what God was doing, to the point where he would have most liberty, to Antioch; and from Antioch he is sent out by the Spirit with Barnabas “for the work whereunto I have called them”. (Acts 13:2)
AFM The connection of these chapters you refer to is very beautiful. After Stephen’s martyrdom the Lord appears to Saul in chapter 9 and opens the door to the Gentiles in chapter 10 and then Antioch coming into view, and the prophetic gift, and the voice of the Spirit saying, “separate me, Barnabas, and Saul, for the work whereunto I have called them”. (Acts 13:2)
JT Antioch was a new basis of operations, the Spirit acting sovereignly. All, in a way, was in accord with these chapters we are considering in Luke, because they were ministering unto the Lord and fasting; the true priestly state was there.
GAT Is this the same key as in Acts 2, the keys given to Peter by the Lord in Matthew 16?
JT Yes. As the assembly was introduced in Matthew 16 there must be room made for it. The limits of Israel were too narrow for the development of what was so great, hence He gives keys to make room for it, for the development of [p. 391] the assembly.
RSS What is the connection with what we are looking at now and the portion we read in Luke?
JT Our brother raised the question as to what was the difference between the Spirit coming as a dove on Jesus and as tongues of fire at Pentecost; that brings us back to our chapter. Heaven is opened on that Man who has gone to the lowest point and is praying; that is to say, He is an entirely dependent Man. That is the Man upon whom the heavens opened. So these chapters are the holiest in that sense.
EGMcA It is important to see that the heavens open upon this Man. In Stephen’s case they opened unto him.
JT In this chapter it is for heaven to look down. In Acts it is opened for Stephen to look up. Christ is the Object in both cases.
JLJ In this chapter it is God looking down from heaven, taking account of Man on earth as suitable to Himself, so that He could now take up the human race and take it up from heaven.
JT In Acts 7 we are entitled to look in. That is where the holiest is for us. It is Jesus in heaven.
WB-t Will you say a little more about the Lord praying? It is in that act the Holy Spirit descended.
JT It is very significant that He should be in that attitude when the heavens are opened upon Him.
WB-s Why do we find the Lord praying so often in Luke?
JT I think Luke emphasises that side because his point is to bring in the order of man that God accepts. It might all go without saying that a divine Person merits divine approval from heaven, but think of a Man who had been on earth thirty years, and in all the circumstances of man here, that He should have been to God’s pleasure in every detail,
[p. 392] so that the heavens should open upon that Man; that is the point. It is what God found in that Person here, where all others broke down, that is the point. The opened heavens and the gift of the Spirit and the proclamation in this verse, turns the mind immediately back to all previous history from Adam onwards. Why is this? That is a question to ask ourselves. It is because every thought to which God had given expression is found in this Man, not one lacking; so that the anointing is that of a Man proving Himself to be the answer to God in every detail.
WB-s It was the approval of what He was personally. “Thou art my beloved Son”. (Luke 3:22)
AFM There were two things, in connection with the Lord; this one and the one in Hebrews, “anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows”. (Hebrews 1:9) This was a personal thing, without blood, as in Leviticus 8:12; then Aaron is anointed with his sons, verse 30.
JT I think the anointing above His companions, alludes to the distinctness of His own anointing. Aaron was anointed apart from his sons first in Leviticus 8. Aaron and the tabernacle were anointed. That is Christ personally in relation to God’s universe. God is able to anoint a Man without blood, and that is the greatest possible testimony to His Person; and then Aaron is anointed subsequently with his sons on the ground of death.
RSS Here at His baptism it is said, “Thou art my beloved Son”. (Luke 3:22) At the transfiguration it is “This is my beloved Son”. (Luke 9:35) It was addressed to Him personally here. It was the delight the Father had in such a One on earth, without reference to anybody else, whereas in the other case it is calling the attention of others to Him.
JT If it were simply a question of His eternal Person, His deity, this might have been done at His [p. 393] birth; that is a point of importance to notice. Although Mary is told at His birth “that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God”, (Luke 1:35) He is not formally owned from heaven by the Father at His birth, nor as a Boy; not till He has had opportunity to prove in every kind of circumstance what a man should be for God. So the anointing and the proclamation have allusion to what He was here. It goes without saying that He would be owned as a divine Person.
GWH Why is there such a period of silence as to His life, eighteen years?
JT In one way the Scriptures do testify elsewhere, in type, and in the experiences of the Psalms, to what He was from infancy to manhood, but the evangelists do not record it. All that is necessary is the three points given: He is an Infant, a Boy, and a Man. As a Man at thirty years the heaven is opened upon Him and the proclamation is made “Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased”. (Luke 3:22) That embraces the whole three periods.
EGMcA Would the act of praying show forth a characteristic of His life in contrast with Adam’s position?
JT I think so. Philippians 2 contrasts Him with Adam. Consider Him praying! That is what heaven delights in. A man goes down to the lowest point, the depths of Jordan, and He comes out, and is praying. He is a dependent Man. Heaven owns such.
RSS We have rather connected the thought of His anointing with His service which follows, and I suppose rightly, for it says in Acts 10:38, we read, “How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power; who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him”. (Acts 10:38) That would connect the anointing with His life [p. 394] subsequently.
JT Certainly. But who is anointed? A Man whom God can approve, and has approved, for thirty years. That is, the moral always precedes the official. He is not the Official till anointed. He had no official position at twelve years of age, but then the moral was there.
RSS And so He could say in the synagogue at Nazareth, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me”. (Luke 4:18)
WB-t Was He anointed as a righteous Man that perfectly pleased God?
JT The Psalms show that He thought only of Jehovah. “I have set the Lord always before me”. (Psalm 16:8) You may say the eighteen years are passed over as to detail, but they are included in the “always”.
GBM “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus”. (Philippians 2:5) That marked Him before the anointing as well as after.
JT The mind was there. So you find in the Scriptures that God does certain things, not only because of what Christ was personally, but because of what He was in His ways and works here. So in Philippians 2, “Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him”. (Philippians 2:9) Why the “wherefore”? Because He took the descending course, not simply because He was a divine Person, but because that mind was in Him.
WB-s Is David a good type of this? He is anointed by the prophet, but he is found to have lived with God before.
JT He was morally equal to it. If a man is anointed in whom the moral element is lacking, the anointing would damage him, as in the case of king Saul. He was not morally equal to it. It often happens with a man who has gift. The gift, becomes a damage to him, if he is not equal to it.
JIJ Was He tempted forty days to prove what He was?
JT It is an allusion to Israel’s position in [p. 395] the wilderness. He comes out of it victoriously; He not only escapes the power of the “strong man”, but binds him, and He does not go out of man’s place to do it.
JLJ He “returned in the power of the Spirit” (Luke 4:14) after being tempted of the devil.
JT You could not conceive of His going into the wilderness of His own will. It does not say He was led back; “He returned in the power of the Spirit”. (Luke 4:14) In Mark he is driven into the wilderness.
RSS What you are speaking of now comes in between the two portions of Scripture we read. The Lord, being baptised, has now the approval of God, and is anointed in view of His ministry; but before He enters upon the ministry He meets God’s enemy and ours and overcomes him in the wilderness, then He proceeds to spoil his goods. He goes into the world and delivers men from Satan’s power.
JT He is entitled to the spoils after binding the strong man. He returns in the power of the Spirit into Galilee and He goes to Nazareth “where he had been brought up”. (Luke 4:16) There is a beautiful touch in that. He began at Nazareth where He had been known in all His humility and obscurity. It is a beautiful example of His perfect humanity. He said “no prophet is accepted in his own country”. (Luke 4:24)
I would like to dwell for a moment before we close on the wonderful manner of His ministry. Luke tells us, that “as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read”. “And when he had opened the book, he found the place where, it was written. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised. To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the [p. 396] book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him”.
These verses are recorded so that our hearts should be drawn to the Vessel of grace before we have the unfolding of what He ministered. There is the testimony is His own town, the grace in which He stood up to read, and the gracious words that proceeded from His mouth. In that way He justifies the anointing.
RSS And so Luke is the gospel of grace.
JT Yes. How the grace is enhanced in such a Vessel as this! Often you hear a man preach and he is not equal to his preaching. There is a great disparity between his manner, and preaching, not to speak of his walk and ways; his lips are not anointed. It was not so in Jesus. The ministry was enhanced by the Vessel.