Luke 3:22–23

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

"My beloved Son." More exactly, "my Son, the Beloved" — treating "the Beloved" as a Divine name.

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.

"Thirty years old." He is still presented here as the Man. Jesus did nothing till thirty. What patience there is in divine obedience! At twelve He was conscious of His power, His Person, and His mission, and He said so openly. But here He acts in the order of divine direction in the land.

When we look at the Divine Servant, we find that He spent nearly ten times as long in private as He spent in public. He was perfect in understanding and in will. Yet He spent nearly thirty years hidden away in a carpenter's house at Nazareth before He appeared in public.

The count of the Levites was not for military service, but for service to God. They were not to serve in the sanctuary until they were thirty to fifty, yet they were trained with that service in view. This reminds us that the Lord Jesus Himself did not begin His public service until He was about thirty. His earlier years were an important preparation for it.

The true way of taking Luke 3:23 is: "And Jesus Himself, when He began, was about thirty years old (being, as was supposed, son of Joseph); of Eli, of Matthat, of Levi," and so on. Mary was, as even the Talmud admits, daughter of Eli in descent from Nathan. Most have gone wrong by treating the mention of Joseph as the starting point of the line. It is plainly a parenthesis. The line itself begins with Eli, Mary's father.

Joseph was the son of Jacob, in the line of Solomon. Mary was the daughter of Heli, in the line of Nathan. Our Lord had to be born this way to be, beyond question, the heir of David and a true man. Had He really been Joseph's son, which He was not, the whole truth of His person would have been denied. Had He been Mary's son only, which He was not, He would have been true man but not true Messiah. So He must be Joseph's son legally, Mary's son truly, and God's Son supremely. Only so could He satisfy the word of God and carry out God's purposes.

In Matthew we have the descent of Christ from Abraham and David down to Joseph, the man supposed to be His father. This proves His legal right to the throne of David. In Luke we have His ascent through His mother up to Adam, "the son of God." This shows His natural right to the throne, and His manhood. Luke's Gospel presents Christ as the blessed Man down here, doing God's will and blessing man.

The stream flows back even as far as Adam. Luke is the gospel of the Son of Man; it is the humanity of Christ that stands out in Luke... The blessed One has come to minister among men. He is not building on the names of those who went before Him. He shows them as people His grace serves, and to whom He is bringing back the blessings they have lost. Adam closes the genealogy instead of opening it, and he is called "the son of God." Christ's work has restored him, as if the fall had never happened — that, and more.