A. D. 26. that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. P ch. 7. 19. 9 John 1.15, 10 And now also the axe is laid unto the root of John 15. 6. the trees: Ptherefore every tree which bringeth_not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. 11 I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but He that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: He shall Acts 2.3.4. baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire: 12 whose fan is in His hand, and He will r Isai. 4. 4. & 44. 3. Mal. 3. 2. 1 Cor. 12. 13. Mal. 3. 3. boast and trust of the Jew. As a son of Abraham he counted himself entitled to the love and favour of God. "Of these stones." That is, the stones lying by the banks of the river. The meaning of this passage is, that God can raise up a spiritual seed to Abraham when and where He will. Abraham was the father of the faithful. The faithful therefore are his true children: truer than those who are only his children after the flesh. And these words are indeed fulfilled when God softens the stony heart of the unbeliever, and makes him one of the faithful. 11. "He shall baptize." Not in person, but by His ministers. "Jesus "Himself baptized not, but His disciples." Yet their act was His act; for He gave the blessing. "With the Holy Ghost, and with fire." No doubt these words were most fully and clearly fulfilled in the wonderful gift of the Day of Pentecost, as we may gather from our Lord's own words before His Ascension, "John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized "with the Holy Ghost not many days hence" (Acts i. 5.). Still they seem also to have a wider meaning, and to point to the great superiority of Christian baptism over that of John the Baptist. Christ gives the Holy Spirit to those who are baptized in His name as their Guide and Comforter; and that Holy Spirit sanctifies and purifies those who are led by Him, as with a refining fire. God Himself revealed to St. John the Baptist that upon whom he should "see the Spirit descending and remaining on Him, the same is He which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost" (St. John i. 33.). And we can hardly think that this general description of our Lord, as "He which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost," referred solely to the great gift of the Day of Pentecost. Rather that wonderful gift was the pledge and first-fruits of a continuous gift to the Church, of which Christian Baptism is the seal and confirmation. The promise, fulfilled so wonderfully on the Day of Pentecost, was, as St. Peter most plainly declares, not for those only to whom it was then given, but for their children also, and for all whom God should call. And surely in Baptism God calls us (See on St. John iii. 5.). 12. "Whose fan." This means the winnowing fan, and the "floor" 10. "The axe" &c. This verse should be compared with the parable of the Barren Fig-tree, in St. Luke xiii., with the parable of the Vine, in St. John XV., and with the history of the Figtree which withered away at our Lord's word, in St. Matt. xxi. and St. Mark xi. 12. "Whose fan" &c. This should be compared with the parables of the Tares and Wheat, and the Draw-net. in St. Matt. xiii, and with those of the Ten Virgins, and the Sheep and Goats, in St. Matt. xxv. throughly purge His floor, and gather His wheat A. D. 26. into the garner; but He will burn up the chafft Mal. 4. 1. with unquenchable fire. ch. 13. 30. 13¶Then cometh Jesus "from Galilee to Jordan A. D. 27. unto John, to be baptized of him. 14 But John forbad Him, saying, I have need to be baptized of Thee, and comest Thou to me? 15 And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffered Him. X 31st Year of our Lord's life. u ch. 2. 22. 16 And Jesus, when He was baptized, went up Igni. 11. 2. straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens & 42. 1. were opened unto Him, and He saw the Spirit 33. John 1. 32, is the threshing-floor. The image is taken from hand winnowing, and Jesus is represented as a man who will thoroughly cleanse the threshingfloor, severing every single grain of true wheat from the worthless chaff, and storing the former in his garner or barn. Though this severance will be fully and finally made at our Lord's second coming, yet it is, in truth, ever being made: for not only does Christ's all-searching eye ever discern clearly between the wheat and the chaff on His floor, but also every one of His dealings with His people, every mercy, every trial, every call, every warning, does in effect prove and show who are wheat and who are chaff (See on St. Luke xxii. 31.). 13-17. The Baptism of Jesus. 14. "John forbad Him." Knowing Him to be One holier and greater than himself. Though, as His kinsman, he was probably acquainted with Him, yet he did not know Him in His divine character and office till the sign was given him in the visible descent of the Holy Ghost (See on St. John i. 33.). Possibly the Baptist's personal acquaintance with Jesus was slight; for not only were their homes far apart, the one in the "hill "country" of Judæa (St. Luke i. 39.), and the other at Nazareth in Galilee; but also St. John appears to have led a solitary life "in the "deserts" for some time before "his shewing unto Israel" (St. Luke i. 80.). 15. "For thus it becometh us" &c. Our Lord here gives the reason why He submitted to be baptized, and that with the baptism which was "for the remission of sins." He must "fulfil all righteousness," that is, all the requirements of the law. But why? Because He made Himself "sin for us," and He needs must fulfil all that sin required :-firstly, that He might entirely put Himself in our place, and bear our sins in His own person; and, secondly, that He might set us an example of perfect obedience. 16. "He saw." It seems as though this sight was only manifested to Jesus Himself and the Baptist. Possibly none others were present. It is a great mystery that the Holy Spirit should thus descend upon the Son of God. We cannot suppose that He, who was God and Man, was lacking that Holy Spirit before. Being "conceived by the Holy Ghost" He was from His very conception sanctified and anointed with that Divine B2 A. D. 27. of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon Him: y John 12.28. * Ps. 2. 7. Isai. 42. 1. 17 and lo a voice from heaven, saying, "This is ch. 12. 18. My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. & 17. 5. Luke 9, 35. Eph. 1. 6. Col. 1. 13. 2 Pet. 1. 17. 66 Spirit. Nay, in His Divine nature He was ever one with the Holy Ghost, even as He was one with the Father. But as He humbled Himself to man's nature, and suffered Himself, as Man, to "increase in wisdom," and to wax strong in spirit," so we may believe that in His Baptism His Human Nature received a new and manifest anointing of the Divine Spirit for the work which lay before Him. By this anointing He was revealed to be the "Christ," that is the 'Anointed' (See on i. 1.). See too how our Lord, in His first sermon at Nazareth, explains of Himself the words of Isaiah, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, "because He hath anointed Me" (St. Luke iv. 18. See also on St. John iii. 34.). "Like a dove." There can be little doubt that the actual form of a dove, though possibly of light or fire, was manifest to the eyes of the Saviour and the Baptist. Some have wished to explain this simply of the movement of descent, as though it were stated that the Holy Ghost descended on Christ, as a dove might alight on the ground. This is certainly not the plain and natural meaning of the words. 17. "Lo a voice." Observe here the actual manifestation to human senses of the separate existence of the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity. The Father's voice is heard from heaven. The Son is being baptized in the river Jordan. The Holy Ghost is seen, in the form of a dove, alighting upon Jesus. The Three Divine Persons are mentioned together in other places; as in St. Paul's words, "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be "with you all" (2 Cor. xiii. 14.); and by our Lord Himself, when He says, "I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter“ (St. John xiv. 16.) :-but here They are not only mentioned together, but manifested together. "This is My beloved Son." Mark how this acknowledgement of Jesus as the Son takes place at His Baptism. He was the Son before, even from everlasting. Yet now it is proclaimed. May we not in this see a pledge of our adoption as children of God in holy Baptism? Jesus is our great Head-the Representative of our race-the Son of Man (see on viii. 20.): and, just as in the descent of the Holy Ghost upon Him, we behold a pledge of the gift of the same Divine Spirit in our Baptism; so in the voice from heaven we receive a pledge of our own adoption to be children of God in the same Sacrament. God beholds each baptized child as a member of His beloved Son, and for that beloved Son's sake He says of it, This is My child.' Our Church teaches us that God "by the baptism of His well-beloved "Son in the river Jordan, did sanctify water to the mystical washing away of sin." And surely we may suppose that our blessed Lord, in submitting to be baptized, not only would fulfil all those legal observances, which are in sinful man acts of submission to God, and means of grace and righteousness, but also would hallow and ennoble the special rite of Baptism, which He afterwards exalted to be one of the two Sacraments of His Church (See on xxviii, 19.). By the visible descent of the Holy CHAPTER IV. 1 Christ fasteth, and is tempted. 11 The angels minister unto Him. 13 He direlleth in Capernaum, 17 beginneth to preach. 18 calleth Peter, and Andrew, 21 James, and John, 23 and healeth all the diseased. THEN THEN was Jesus led up of a the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. 2 And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He was afterward an hungred.. Spirit at the time of His Baptism, He would also teach us to look for the inward and spiritual grace, and especially for the blessed gift of the Holy Spirit, in the faithful use of the outward sign and ordinance. The Christian must be born again "of water and of the Spirit" (St. John iii. 5.). Let the baptized Christian be very watchful lest he fall from his "state of salvation" and grieve or quench that Blessed Spirit, by whose power alone he is born again, and by whose power alone he can live unto God. "By the sacrament of Baptism thou "wast made a Temple of the Holy Spirit: do not by evil deeds drive "away from thyself so great an Inmate, and subject thyself again to "the service of the devil" (Leo the Great.). CHAPTER IV. 1-11. The Temptation. St. Mark i. 12, 13. St. Luke iv. 1-13. 1. "Led up of the Spirit." That is, by the Holy Spirit, which had just descended on Him in His baptism. St. Mark speaks of the Spirit dricing Jesus into the wilderness. Thus does the Son of God make Himself perfect Man, obeying, in His human nature, the command of the Divine Spirit within Him. 66 "To be tempted." No sooner is our Lord out of the water of Bap"tism than He is in the fire of temptation" (Bishop Hall.). The first great act of our Lord's public ministry is to do battle with the Tempter, and to conquer him. And this for three main reasons. 1. That He might cast down Satan's power by defeating him, thus binding him who was the "strong man armed" (See on xii. 29. & St. Luke xi. 21.). The second Adam conquers where the first falls; and in this conquest the promised Seed first bruises the serpent's head. 2. That He might teach us how to meet and to conquer our great enemy. Jesus, the Son of David, goes forth alone, as the Champion of His people, to do battle with the spiritual Goliath, who had so long defied the armies of the living God. And the weapons He takes with Him, and with which He prevails, are but as "smooth stones," picked out of the pure stream of God's Word. 3. That, as Man, He might know by experience the power of temptation, and the fierceness of Satan's attacks, and so might be able to feel with and succour those who are tempted; "for we have "not an High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our "infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin" (Heb. iv. 15.). "The devil." This word signifies the slanderer' or 'false accuser.' 2. "When He had fasted" &c. How far this miraculous fast was spent in prayer and communion with the Father and holy meditation, and how far, as the words of both St. Mark and St. Luke would lead A. D. 27. 3 And when the tempter came to Him, he said, If Thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. 4 But He answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Deut. 8.3. us to think, other temptations assaulted our Lord during the passing of this time, we cannot tell. It seems most in accordance with the three accounts to suppose that, while other temptations presented themselves during the rest of the time, the special temptations recorded did not begin till the end of the forty days. Plainly the natural sense of hunger was not felt till then. May we not gather from this fast of our Lord a lesson as to the right way to prepare ourselves to meet Temptation, and to pass in safety through this dangerous world? Christ, being sinless, needed no subduing of the flesh as a discipline for Himself. But He knew our need of it. And He shewed us that it is in self-denial and fasting and prayer and secret intercourse with God that the Christian soldier must arm himself for the battle. It is as an aid to this selfdiscipline that from very ancient times the season of Lent has been kept by the Church as a time of special fasting and penitence and prayer. 3. "When the tempter came to Him." Whether this was in bodily form, or only implies a spiritual presence, we cannot pronounce. But that the tempter came as a distinct person, with will, words, and actions, of his own, we cannot doubt. Those who try to explain away the mention of Satan, as only meaning our own inward evil, wholly pervert the plain words of Scripture, and make common cause with unbelievers. "If Thou be the Son of God." Not as though the devil doubted this, but as suggesting to Him the thought that to satisfy His hunger by turning the stones into bread would be no more than a fitting display of His Divine power. That our Lord could readily have performed this miracle, had He willed, we know by the turning of the water into wine, and the feeding of the multitudes in the wilderness. 4. "It is written." In the Book of Deuteronomy Moses uses these words concerning the manna with which God had fed His people, and which taught them to depend on God, by whose Almighty word their wants Lad been supplied. Jesus would in like manner show an example of entire dependence upon God, and of willing submission to every outward evil. We see here what is the best weapon with which to resist the tempter, even "the sword of the Spirit, which is "the word of God." In the words which Jesus quotes mark how He makes Himself one with us,-"Man shall not live by bread alone": as though He had said, 'I have taken upon Me the wants and infir'mities of Man, and as Man I hunger now, but even as Man I have 'a higher and truer life than that of the body. The soul's life, and the 5. The order of the second and third temptations is changed in St. Luke's account. St. Matthew seems to give them more as a connected history, and the answer of our Lord, "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt "thou serve," seems most appropriate as a concluding one, so that it is best to 66 take the order given in this Gospel as the true one, and to suppose that St. Luke gives the temptations as separate accounts without caring for the exact order in which they took place, which is indeed of very small importance (But see note on St. Luke iv. 8.). 64 Temple." See on xxiv. 1. |