And it came to pass, all the people having been baptised, and Jesus having been baptised and praying, that the heaven was opened,
Luke's account of Jesus at the Jordan River is short, but it adds a detail no other Gospel has: at His baptism, He was praying. Why would a sinless man join a line of people confessing sin, and why did heaven open while He prayed?
Jesus went to the water with the crowd, not apart from it. He stood with the faithful few in Israel, not with the religious leaders.
Did the Lord take His place with the Pharisees and Scribes who were not baptized? Clearly not. When does He associate Himself with Israel? In the first stirring of faith's answer to God's testimony: when the people went to be baptized, Jesus went too... It was the excellent, the godly remnant — with whom Christ identified Himself in their godliness. He was fulfilling righteousness.
The same writer draws out the kind of love that step shows.
He does not love from a distance. He does not love only by granting pardon. He comes by grace into the very place where the sin of His people had brought them. He comes in keeping with the sense of that sin which their God had worked in them by His converting, life-giving power. He leads His people there by grace, but He accompanies them when they go.
He had no sin of His own to confess. Commentators tie His baptism to the cross.
Verse 21 does not mean that John baptized no one after baptizing the Lord. It stresses that there is an important connection between their baptism and His. In being baptized the Lord was in effect pledging to take on Himself the responsibility for the sins of repentant Israelites. He would fulfill that pledge in His own death on the cross, which His baptism pictures. So the Lord was devoting Himself fully to the will of God. Only Luke mentions that He was praying at this time. God answered Him by the great miracle of opening the heavens.
One writer makes that single word the key to Luke's whole picture of Christ. He also names what is wrong with the rest of us.
But now a man, a blessed man, appears, "and praying." We are not told this elsewhere, and why here? Because Luke presents man in his perfection — the dependent man. Dependence is the essence of a perfect man... The root of sin in us is self-will, independence. Here my heart has rest! A dependent man in the midst of sorrow, but perfectly with God in all.
Prayer here was not a one-off. It runs through the whole Gospel, and it sets Jesus apart from the rest of us.
Seven times in Luke's Gospel we find the Lord in prayer. This shows the complete reliance on God of the perfect Man... The prayers of Jesus express His unbroken confidence and dependence on God. They show the contrast between Him and the natural man, who is proud of his self-confidence and boasts in his self-reliance.
Another writer names the great moments where Luke shows the same mark.
In the Gospel of Luke, at all the great events of the Lord's life — at His baptism at the Jordan, at the transfiguration, in His agony in Gethsemane, and when He chose His apostles — the Spirit of God puts clear emphasis on one fact: prayer was what marked Him in them all. He was the perfect Man cast upon God in absolute dependence.
One writer counts how often heaven opens in the New Testament, and gives the reason for this one.
After John baptizes Him, He comes up out of the water and the heavens are opened. There are four occasions where you find them opened in the New Testament. They are opened here for God to look down to earth to see a Man in whom He could completely delight.
Verse 20 has already put John the Baptist in prison, yet verse 21 has him baptizing. One writer explains why.
This chapter shows that the order in Luke's Gospel is not by date but by moral theme. The event of verses 21-22 took place before that of verses 19 and 20, yet Luke records it after. John was certainly not in prison at the time when he baptized the Lord.
- Company. He did not join the leaders who stayed away. He joined the people who owned their sin, and made their place His own.
- Pledge. He had no sin to confess. His baptism was a pledge to the death in which He would carry the sins of others.
- Dependence. Only Luke records that He prayed. Dependence is what makes a man perfect; self-will is what ruins the rest of us.
- Pattern. Prayer marks Him seven times in this Gospel, at every great turning point of His life.
- Answer. Heaven opened while He was praying, so that God could look down and see a Man in whom He completely delighted.
and the Holy Spirit descended in a bodily form as a dove upon him; and a voice came out of heaven, *Thou* art my beloved Son, in thee I have found my delight.
At His baptism Jesus was praying, and heaven answered. The Spirit came down in visible form and the Father spoke — which raises three questions: why a dove, why the Spirit on One who had no sin, and why the words are spoken to Him rather than about Him.
Only Luke notes that Jesus was praying here. One writer links that detail to what this Gospel is about:
We are not even told here that it was John who baptized Him. We are told that He was praying when He was baptized — something not mentioned anywhere else. This Gospel clearly stresses the perfection of our Lord's humanity. Grace for man is placed in One who is the perfect Man, and the very first mark of perfection in man is dependence upon God. Prayer expresses that dependence. In this Gospel we will notice how often it records that Jesus prayed. This is the first time.
Why a dove? One writer looks back to the ark in Genesis for the answer:
He receives the Holy Spirit on the ground of His own personal perfection. In this scene, the Holy Spirit is like the dove sent out from the ark. At last it has a spot where it can find a place to rest — to stay. The dove, you remember, went out from the ark once and again, but came back, because she "found no place to set her foot." At last she found a resting place, and she "did not return to him anymore" (Gen. 8:9, 12). The heavenly Dove, after 4,000 years of searching in vain for a sinless resting place in man, has found One to rest on. It rests on the Person of this sinless Holy Man, who is the delight of the Father's heart.
The shape chosen also says something about the One it rested on — and, by contrast, about us:
Does this not show us, in a very striking way, the blessed, gentle, gracious character of Him who was perfect goodness and grace? The gentleness, kindness and tenderness of our Lord Jesus Christ are surely shown in the form the blessed Spirit took. How sharply that stands out against our own ungracious, rough, coarse, hard and severe spirit and speech.
Why could the Spirit rest on Jesus before the cross, when we are sealed only after it? One writer answers that He needed no sacrifice for Himself:
Who was the first person said to be sealed with the Spirit? Our blessed Lord Himself... "On Him God the Father has set His seal." He was sealed as Son of man. He was sealed as Son of man on earth, before redemption, with no blood shed — because He knew no sin, and no deceit was found in His mouth. He was completely sinless. The Holy Spirit could stay on Him entirely apart from blood, because He was the Holy One — the Saviour. He needed no work — no blood — no redemption; but yet He died... That we might be sealed.
Luke's account also shows who the words were for:
Only in this Gospel is a bodily shape mentioned. Many people saw this marvelous event. It was to make plain, beyond all doubt, the Father's pure delight in this blessed Man and His approval of Him — a Man who was more than Man, the beloved Son of the Father. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all engaged in this wonderful event... Notice too that Luke shows the Father speaking to the Son Himself, in the closeness of a living relationship, and expressing His delight in Him.
One writer reads "beloved" here as a title, not just a description:
"My beloved Son." More exactly, "my Son, the Beloved" — treating "the Beloved" as a Divine name.
What happened to Jesus here sets the pattern for those who believe in Him:
Never before had there been someone on earth to whom the heavens could be opened... now they were. Further, this blessed Man was sealed and anointed with the Holy Spirit and with power. Third, the Father owns Him, a man, as His beloved Son. Now this is all our place, and He is here its type and pattern. Heaven is open to us, the curtain torn from top to bottom, the way into the Most Holy Place open. We are sealed and anointed with the Holy Spirit, and the Father owns us as sons, loved even as Jesus is loved. The difference is that we have it through redemption and faith in Him, while He was in it in His own person.
- Dependence — only Luke tells us Jesus was praying. Dependence on God is the first mark of a perfect Man, and prayer expresses it.
- Rest — the dove that once found no landing place in a ruined world settles at last on One who was sinless, and stays.
- Character — the Spirit's form matched the One He rested on: gentleness and grace. It shows up the hardness in us.
- Seal — Jesus was sealed as Man before the cross, because He needed no redemption. He died so that we could be sealed too.
- Pattern — the open heaven, the Spirit, and the Father's welcome were His in His own right. They are ours through redemption and faith in Him.