Why did Jesus wait thirty years before He started His ministry?

It is by His baptism at the hands of John, that the Lord, coming forth out of His thirty years of private life in which He had fulfilled His own personal responsibility as Man before God, devotes Himself to that work on behalf of others for which He had come. He is “baptized unto death,” of which Jordan is the well-known figure; and this implies for Him both sacrifice and priesthood. As the Lamb of sacrifice John therefore proclaims Him, while as Priest He is anointed with the Spirit; the Father’s voice proclaiming Him that which, as we have seen, marks Him as the true Priest—His beloved Son. Here then begins His ministry, which is characterized by all that grace which priesthood implies, and by those works of power which are the broad seal of His commission as the Anointed of God.

It is by His baptism at the hands of John, that the Lord, coming forth out of His thirty years of private life in which He had fulfilled His own personal responsibility as Man before God, devotes Himself to that work on behalf of others for which He had come. He is "baptized unto death," of which Jordan is the well-known figure; and this implies for Him both sacrifice and priesthood. As the Lamb of sacrifice John therefore proclaims Him, while as Priest He is anointed with the Spirit; the Father's voice proclaiming Him that which, as we have seen, marks Him as the true Priest — His beloved Son. Here then begins His ministry, which is characterized by all that grace which priesthood implies, and by those works of power which are the broad seal of His commission as the Anointed of God.

"As was supposed" (hos enomizeto) is very marked in its meaning. "Thirty years old." Still as the Man here presented. Jesus did nothing till thirty. What patience there is in divine obedience. At twelve He was conscious of His power, and Person, and mission, avowedly. But here He acts in the order of divine direction in the land. It is not a question of divinely sent impulse, as, after His ascension, in the ministry of those called by grace, as Paul, Silas, and the like. "Which was," is better left out all through.

Ques.—Is there nothing to be learned from the fact that Christ did not commence His public ministry until He was thirty years of age? And is there no significance in this other fact that He fasted forty days, and that the number forty occurs repeatedly in Scripture?

Ans.—Surely there are lessons to be learned from these facts. Thirty years was the God-appointed age for the Levites to enter upon their service (Num.4:3); it was at that age our Lord was presented to Israel and entered upon His ministry (Luke 3:23).

A man is not fully formed until about thirty, and our Saviour, though God as well as Man, never used His deity to shield Himself from youth's lessons of patience on its way to manhood. “Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered.” Such an example, prayerfully considered, would check impatience in Christian young men who may be in danger of too much haste to enter public ministry. Nothing is more dangerous to a Christian young man of manifest gift than to push himself forward in ministry before reaching his years of manhood. He is apt to be admired and petted because of his youth and precociousness, and this may mar his life even in after-years. We do not say this to discourage young men, but only to gather profit from our Lord's example.

The Levites where then numbered separately from the other tribes of Israel. Yet, not only the males 20 years old and above were numbered, but all males from one month old and over. For this was not for military service, but for service to God, and though they were not to engage in sanctuary service until age 30 through 50 (Lev.4:3), they were evidently trained in view of that service. This reminds us that the Lord Jesus Himself did not begin His public service until He was about 30 years of age (Lk.3:23), but His earlier years were an important preparation for it.

But the "fulness of time" came. God had steadfastly in view the Object which was before Him and He could not delay longer than necessity demanded. "When the fulness of the time" then "was come, God sent forth His Son," the One in whom there was necessarily, by what He was, the greatest possible nearness to Himself, yet now apparently at a distance, "come of a woman" and actually Man, but "come under the law" also, under that which to every other was bondage, which for Himself could be none. With Him there was no impossibility of working out the righteousness of the law. It could only testify to the perfection that was in Him, and thus, after His thirty years of probation, the Spirit of God comes openly upon Him, marking Him out as the Object of God's fullest delight. He was sealed, as we are not, because of His own perfection; but He entered, in that very act, upon a course of ministry to others in which redemption would be accomplished for those under the law, that now "we might receive the adoption of sons"; that is, the full place of children, as well as the reality of being such.

Now in the passover we find that the lamb was to be killed the fourteenth day of the month at even, having been kept up first four days, being taken on the tenth day. In these typical ordinances all was significant, the numbers as all else; and they will be found in full accordance with what we find as to the Lord. His life on earth divides into three parts also: thirty years in private, (the Lamb not taken;) between three and four years of public ministry, (the Lamb taken, but not slain;) and then the suffering of the cross. The ten days mark the first period as that of His own personal responsibility as man. It is for this reason we have but the very briefest notice of Him in all that time. At the close, he comes forth from His retirement to take up the work for which He had come into the world. He is baptized of John in Jordan, the river of death, to fulfill all righteousness, Himself the only One upon whom death had absolutely no claim. There the Spirit of God seals Him in testimony to His perfection as man, while the Father's voice bears public witness to Him as His beloved Son. He has thus offered Himself for the sacrifice, and the Baptist owns Him as the "Lamb of God" (John 1:29, 36.)

We pass over the intervening years between the glimpse of how His private life was spent at Nazareth and His public manifestation to Israel. This was far from being a fruitless time, we may be sure. It would answer to the ten days prior to the keeping up of the lamb from the tenth day to the fourteenth, during which its unblemished character would be manifested. How the eye and heart of God feasted upon the perfection of that Life whose inward reality was known only to Himself! They were not fruitless years, therefore, but most precious in the sight of God, and the ground upon which He pronounced at the very beginning of His ministry His satisfaction in Him.

The cakes were to be anointed with oil; and it is written 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. It was not that anything was wanting in Jesus. In the first place, as God, He could have done all things, but He had humbled Himself, and was come to obey. Hence, only when called and anointed, He presents Himself in public, although His interview with the doctors in the temple shewed His relation with the Father from the beginning.

Let us never forget this. Moses had to spend forty years at "the back side of the desert" ere he was fit to enter upon his public career. David had to feed his father's flock, ere he was called to rule the nation of Israel. He slew a lion and a bear in secret, ere he was called to slay Goliath in public. The great apostle of the Gentiles spent three years in Arabia, notwithstanding his very remarkable conversion and call. The apostles spent three years and a half in companionship with their Master, and then had to tarry until they were endued with power from on high. Thus it has been with all those who have ever been called to occupy a prominent place in the Lord's work; and even the blessed Master Himself — though surely needing no training or discipline, inasmuch as He was ever perfect — to set us an example, spent thirty years in retirement ere He came forth in public.